Seeing himself lying on the ground again, Jason felt the desire to punch someone igniting within him.
It was extremely annoying to be defeated over and over for the past two months, and Jason couldn't help but clench his fists.
He had given his utmost efforts to defeat his opponent in the last battle with the mysterious puppet, but it looked like his instincts had just saved his life.
Even though the black mass out of which the black tortoise with a snake for a tail had emerged seemed harmless, Jason knew that it would have disintegrated his body in no time.
This might sound like an exaggeration, but Jason was sure that he wouldn't have retreated.
With that in mind, his body staggered once, before he raised his head to take another look at the black tortoise that left through the portal as if nothing had happened.
Thinking about it, Jason realized that he might have made a big mistake! He could have inflicted a light cut into the mysterious puppet, transferring Solaris' flame into it, before tactically retreating.
This would have saved him from exerting efforts and energy as the flames would have done their job.
Unfortunately, his mind had blanked out the moment his entire being sensed that something had gone wrong.
Because of that, he couldn't help but sigh, thinking that he should have kept his calm.
But there was use crying over spilled milk so he had to accept his failure and move on.
On the positive side, Jason felt that he had revealed his entire combat prowess in the current fight.
This meant that he had solved the task he had been given, even if he made a tiny mistake at the end of the battle.
Owing to his assumptions, he was just about to announce that he had finished his spars, and notify the artificial intelligence that he was finally done, when a jolt of realization hit him.
For a second, he just couldn't understand how he had missed noticing it earlier.
"Wait!... Did the mysterious puppet just summon a living beast? And it certainly obeyed the puppet as if it was the beast's master!"
Somehow, Jason felt that this was oddly similar to something he was familiar with, but at the same time, it was completely different.
He was not sure what to make of it, and in the end, he simply gave up.
There was still a huge difference between the soul awakening of humans on Argos and the mysterious puppet's traits.
On one hand, it looked like the mysterious puppet was much stronger owing to a true dragon's soul being bound to it. But on the other hand, the time it took to manifest the portal and allow a living being to emerge near it was extremely long.
That was the case if one were to compare it to the time it took to manifest a soulbond.
Yet, the more he thought about it, the weirder it became.
Confused about what was going on, Jason couldn't help but halt in his tracks, trying to process this information before summoning the artificial intelligence.
'Even if their abilities are not the same, they're oddly similar… Still, the mysterious puppet's abilities are stronger even if it took longer to manifest the snaketail tortoise, or whatever it is called…'
Despite believing so, Jason felt that the puppet required a fairly large amount of time to manifest the tortoise due to multiple reasons.
One such reason was that he was fighting a puppet and not a living being which the tortoise could truly be bound with.
This was truly odd, and the more Jason thought about it, the more confusing the entire scenario became.
It made him feel uncomfortable, and to prevent being dragged deeper into a jumbled tangle of thoughts, Jason couldn't help but slap his own cheeks.
His body shook once, and he had to instruct Solaris to spread its flames through his body.
He had to calm himself because it felt like he had made an accidental discovery just now.
Nevertheless, his assumption made no sense because there were too many things that didn't add up, which caused Jason to convince himself with some simple words.
"The humans on Argos must have undergone an advantageous evolution to gain their soul awakening ability…"
Shaking his head once again, he entered his soul world through his conscience and gave a fleeting glance to his soulbonds before he averted his attention back to reality.
"I'm done with the first phase of the trial, and also displayed my highest combat prowess. Please open the cultivation environment for me!"
Without directing his voice to anyone in particular, Jason announced in a loud and clear voice.
His words resounded through the entire colosseum, but nothing happened for the first few seconds.
This was more than enough for his train of thoughts to revert back to all kinds of possibilities that the fight against the mysterious puppet had planted in his mind!
Fortunately, it didn't take long for the artificial intelligence to respond as several portals manifested inside the colosseum.
They emerged behind the puppets, with each portal radiating the respective energy and presence of the puppet's cultivation paths.
This confused Jason at first, but sensing the portal behind the Celestia puppet, Jason clearly understood that all of the portals had different targets to cultivate.
As such, the portal behind the Celestia puppet released the strongest mana currents, but only a fraction of the other cultivation energies.
Meanwhile, the fiery aura puppet had a portal behind it that released the strongest primordial energy currents, while the same applied to the spiral path puppet that had a? portal behind it, releasing spirit force.
On the contrary, there were two seemingly similar, yet slightly different portals behind the Three paths puppet and the mysterious puppet.
But they were less interesting for Jason because he had already come up with a great plan.
Summoning all of his soulbonds at once, he smiled lightly as he asked them,
"How about you guys enter the portal that suits you the most? Didn't you guys want to start a competition, to begin with? All of you wanted to know who is the strongest in cultivation, and who is the most beneficial to fuse with me, and so on, right?
I noticed what you guys were scheming, and now I'm giving all of you the opportunity to show who the fastest in cultivating, and learning new techniques is!
But…are you guys willing to leave my side to cultivate and show each other who is the strongest amongst you all?"
With the way he asked the question, Jason wanted to figure out how determined his soulbonds were to become stronger.
It would be best if their determination would allow them to leave his side for half a year, but at the same time, Jason wanted to witness what would they choose between him and growing stronger. if they were to be torn apart between staying by his side to show their loyalty, or if their desire to become stronger, and more useful to him, in the long run, would overwhelm them.
This was something he was extremely interested in finding out, but what happened only a moment later caused him to feel a little bit dumbfounded.
Just as he finished speaking, his soulbonds began to move, occupying his entire body in the same arrangement as weeks before.
They didn't even have to think about what they should do because their mind was already set in stone.
Staying by Jason's side was the best option according to them, and he could only scratch the back of his head, thinking that this was quite disadvantageous.
However, it was just at this moment that he sensed something that made him change his mind entirely.
'With mine…I can sense six stigmas…if they're all activated, will that mean…?'
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