26 Artemis awakening

Waking up early in the morning like every day, Jason washed up and changed into a new set of clothes.

It was a set routine for him but somehow today felt different.

Jason´s eye itched and his muscles ached while his whole body seemed to be stiff as a board.

It was uncomfortable and slightly painful but Jason was still smiling as he felt something happening inside his soul world.

Artemis was waking up and Jason thought his body itching was the result of her sharing some of her strength, even if it wasn't much.

Jason's mana core grew almost one-third in size while his body underwent a small transformation.

After a soulbond was formed, it took a certain amount of time for the connection to gradually strengthen.

This time was important as it allowed the master and the soulbond beast to get to know each other. And after the connection was strengthened enough, the beast would share some of its strength with the master.

The shared amount was determined by one's soul and this couldn't be changed even if the soulbond beast wanted to give its contractor more strength or mana.

While his body was sore and in pain, two things astonished Jason a lot.

Artemis had woken up after almost two weeks and she was already completely grown up.

With a wingspan of 80 centimeters and a length of 30 centimeters, the snow-white Artemis looked almost like a normal snowflake owl except for her smaller stature and the fact that she had previously digested pure mana.

But the most surprising fact was that his mana core had grown a lot in size.

According to normal standards, his mana core should have only grown a little bit, at most 5% to 10% because one-star wild beasts didn't possess much mana. But, against all odds, Jason's mana core had grown almost a third which was probably a shared amount of around ⅓ of everything.

Jason was still only at the 2nd Novice rank and was slowly inching his way towards the 3rd rank. His mana core had previously only been at the same rank but now it was larger than that and almost at par with 3rd Novice rank mana cores.

Not only had his mana core had grown considerably, but even Jason´s physique had improved by leaps and bounds.

When his body stopped aching and the pain subsided, he could feel that his physique had also increased slightly less than 1/3.

The highest increase was however in his body structure and Jason felt much lighter and more flexible.

Thinking about the increase, he was once again reminded that Artemis was an agile beast type which was the cause for his priority enhancement in speed, flexibility, and so on.

Apparently, his soul would receive around 1/3rd of a beast's strength/mana/ soul energy which was more than three times the best average of 10%, which was seen as exceptional.

Seeing the impressive amount of shared traits made Jason happy and he was glad that his soul was special even if his soul energy was weak.

Considering the fact that he could grow slowly with Artemis, his power would reach new heights once she evolved.

While thinking about his soul he was reminded about the soul-awakening and it still felt that there was some space left to grow and the previous feeling about his soul being incomplete returned to haunt him.

After waking up from her deep sleep, Artemis left the soul world and she appeared in front of Jason inside a white magic circle.

She could already fly and hooted happily to see him again. Flapping her wings she flew to reach Jason's shoulder and perched on it.

After that, she affectionately rubbed her head against Jason's cheek showering him with her love.

Jason returned her affection by gently patting her with one hand while eating breakfast with the other.

Artemis wasn't hungry and Jason felt that she was still full but to prepare himself for the worst-case scenario Jason ordered another small mana stone for 50,000 Credits.

Thus, his seemingly large fortune was reduced to 50,000 Credits.

It was 8 am when Jason walked outside with Artemis on his shoulder.

He called a shuttle, like always, and went his way to the one-star wild zone.

Before that Jason sold the carcasses of the seven beasts he had killed that had fetched him a huge fortune of 14 Credits.

Keeping the carcasses would probably be better than selling them but Jason had no use for them at the moment and their body would only rot in his spatial storage.

Without an integrated cooling system, meat and other food would only get bad inside the storage so it was better to sell it than wasting the beast's death.

Jason was very uncomfortable around crowds of people and he rushed out of the shop after he had sold the carcasses as soon as possible while avoiding eye contact with everyone.

Artemis eyed the beast corpses when Jason took them out but she was only marginal interested in them as she was satiated.

Forty minutes later, the shuttle dropped him at the outskirts. Continuing his journey Jason stepped through the dome once again.

Jason pondered if he should set up a tent for the next few days as he had to waste a lot of time driving back and forth.

After calculating the fare he paid for the shuttle each time, Jason decided to buy a tent and other necessities in the evening.

Today he was much more comfortable fighting beasts than the day before. His confidence had reached a new high as his combat prowess had improved after he had fixed some of his flaws.

He wanted to try fighting a two-star wild beast today so he looked around for two hours before he spotted a lone two-star fanged coyote.

As he sneaked up to the fanged coyote, Jason was much calmer than the day before. However, his intended kill had noticed him when he had been around 20 meters away. Not wanting to waste time, Jason quickly broke into a sprint without hesitation.

But he still didn't use his mana as he had learned that the amount of mana he possessed was too little and could only hold out for a short moment.

'Wasting mana? Not with me!' He thought as he rushed towards the coyote.

Even if his mana core had increased in size, the stored amount was still marginal compared to his peers.

Seeing Jason running up to it, the fanged coyote's eye turned bloodthirsty.

Instead of fleeing away, the coyote charged at Jason at its full speed. The beast quickly closed the distance between them as it was faster than the average human.

Pouncing on him, Jason was slightly astonished to see that his eyesight was better than the day before.

But there was no time to think about that right now as the coyote's claws were only a short distance away from Jason's chest.

Seeing the incoming attack clearly, Jason used a bit of his mana to reinforce his feet and ankles and stopped within a split second causing the claw to miss its target.

It wasn't healthy to stop abruptly in a full sprint as the ankles and feet could sustain injuries. But the mana-enhancement protected him from suffering serious injuries as he lashed out with his dagger, aiming at the beast's shoulder.

The dagger pierced easily through the coyote's shoulder, only to stop slightly at the obstacle when the blade touched the bone.

But with his grade-1 dagger, bones of a two-star wild beast were comparable to thin sticks, and the bone shattered without much resistance, killing the coyote.

Jason's hand was deep inside the dead coyote's shoulder and even if he had made up his mind about killing beasts…that was too much.

The situation was still disgusting and he had to use some force to pull out his hand while gripping the dagger firmly.

Until now Artemis had been perched on Jason's shoulder but after he killed the coyote she jumped off and used her talons to dig her claws in its chest, tearing it apart.

Her claws closed on a pebble-sized black core that radiated some mana and she yanked it out. As Jason watched in surprise, Artemis picked it up and gulped it down.

Magical beasts had mana cores while every beast below them had incomplete cores.

Wild beasts didn't even have a core so when they absorbed mana, a black pebble would slowly form inside them.

The black color came from the impurities inside the incomplete mana core and they had to be removed before a beast could enter the next rank or another beast could eat the incomplete core of its prey.

Once a wild beast reached the awakened rank or evolved, the core would slowly begin to form and it was called the awakened core.

The evolved beast would finish forming the core while unblemished beasts refined their core and finally when a beast reached the magical beast rank, a complete mana core was formed.

Humans were lucky as their mana core was present and completed from their birth and they didn't have to struggle like beasts.