56 Jiro-City

It was already late at night, but Jason was still fully awake and eager to absorb more mana.

This condition was one of the advantages one would get by absorbing large amounts of mana.

He decided to take a night shift and solidify his mana core to prevent any flaws in his foundation while waiting for Artemis to finish her digestion.

He wanted to know the exact difference in her digestion time between five five-star wild beast cores and one of the lowest awakened beast cores.

Maybe, the information would come in handy in the future.

Furthermore, Jason wanted to practice the Heaven's Hell technique as soon as his soul energy was reproduced.

He continued absorbing mana from mana stones and it was around 4 am when he was woken up by Artemis.

She had digested the awakened core is slightly more than 13 hours which was around 3 hours longer than the time she needed for five five-star wild beast cores and Jason took notes about it.

He had already bought many wild-ranked cores and would use them for Artemis, so he wasn't disgruntled after finding out that the awakened beast cores were roughly 30% better. The one who had to suffer was Artemis and not him, so he was a little bit sorry for her but that was it.

She had to eat the wild-ranked cores for the time being and he would replace them when the stock was exhausted, or the effect was almost not strong enough anymore.

The sun was already up but Jason was still absorbing mana.

He had already used up three small mana stones which roughly amounted to 150,000 Credits, which shocked him quite a bit.

Jason hadn't been aware of the fact that he would have to use so many mana stones for a breakthrough into the 5th Novice rank and to solidify the foundation…

With the 17 small mana stones he had left, Jason would probably be unable to enter the 7th Novice stage as only using mana stones was unhealthy for the body.

One would have to absorb a certain amount of naturally generated mana and not the one that was compressed into the stones and transmuted over the course of time.

Jason didn't want to absorb mana from mana stones for the remainder of the journey and he decided to read the beastarium while trying to improve his proficiency in passively gathering mana.

He was able to do it after almost a week but his reading speed was relatively slow compared to before and Jason was only able to even read at his current speed because of his extraordinary eyes.

Otherwise, he might even not read because a sloth would be much faster to him.

Every few hours Jason entered his soul world to practice the Heaven's Hell technique and practicing this technique somehow had grown on him. He could improve his soul energy because of it, even if it was painful.

By the time he had practiced the technique thrice, they had arrived at the borders of a large dome that radiated even denser and more formidable mana fluctuations.

Looking through his mana eyes, Jason noticed that its density was at least threefold the amount and he was astonished to see the walls of a large city.

Normally, one would ask why there were walls but Jiro-City was a B-grade City and was close to a few magical beast zones. The defenses of the dome couldn´t instantly kill hordes of magical beasts that attacked human shelters every once in a while.

That's why gigantic and stupendous walls were built.

Jiro city was often attacked by beast tides, but the walls were always enough to stop these tides along with the help of mankind's artillery and other weapons.

One could ask if it was even worthwhile to live in such a danger-prone city as it could always happen that the defensive measures would collapse but the answer was simple.

YES!

If one wanted to get stronger, one would have to enter more dangerous zones because of the thick mana, higher graded herbs and ores, and the possibility of finding natural-born treasures.

It was said that even inside Jiro-city the density would be much higher and almost comparable to that of a two or maybe even three-star wild zone.

Jason was already astonished about the mana density of a one-star wild zone and he was excited to visit Jiro-City even if he was slightly frustrated about the situation with the greater storm eagle.

However, there wasn't much he could do about it and he tried to relax by thinking about the fox cubs which would find their new soul buddies soon.

There were already a few people who had contacted him about the forum post only high-quality beast merchants had access to, and they were reliable sources, so the scaled wolf and more than half of the fox cubs were quasi sold.

They could freely enter the city's dome but there was an entry fee of 500 Credits payable for every single visit to the dome.

If the same fee were to be charged every time he wanted to enter the dome of the C-grade City, Jason would cry a river because he didn't have any money earlier and it was akin to daylight robbery for him.

But, the dome had to be operated and the fee was likely the main source of income for its operation, so nobody objected to the fee.

Unfortunately, Mark had to pay the entrance fee for every unbound beast which was more than 150 beasts.

500 Credits were not much but the quantity made a difference.

Once they entered the dome, the scenario changed slightly, and Jason could see that the landscape was lush and greener, a stark difference to that of a C-grade city, but it was still less wild than the zones outside the dome which was typical.

Each magic dome was made of materials that would absorb mana from its surroundings, as that was the only way to provide enough energy to it as the dome was like a glutton.

Nobody was sure of the exact amount of mana it could absorb, but it was definitely a lot.

As the truck entered through a futuristic-looking gate one could instantly see a huge difference between Jira and Artes city where they previously lived.

The streets had more lanes while even a few flying shuttles could be seen, and the skyscrapers were ridiculously high making Jason wonder as to why they didn't collapse…

There was even a huge stadium-like shopping center with 30 floors which looked magnificent.

Jason kept marveling at the cityscape and the flamboyant architecture of the city where everything looked immaculate and ridiculously expensive. Jason looked around in fascination trying hard to imagine what the poorest districts would look like.

He asked that question in a spontaneous outburst and everyone looked at him with a perplexed expression, asking themselves why he would ask something like that.

Compared to C-grade cities, the poorest districts were probably similar to below-average districts. But once a household grew too poor to sustain the expenditure of living in a B-grade city, they moved into a C or D-grade city. Most B-grade cities were used by companies, hunters, the government, above-average families, for military training, and so on to improve their mana core rank within the city and hunt outside the dome.

Human society nowadays was cruel and once one couldn't afford to live in a city, one would get passively removed with the next migration group...It was cruel, but that was a way for the society to sustain itself and motivate the citizens to work hard.

Once one would be able to reach a certain degree of strength or wealth, one would be able to move into a higher city and vice versa.

Everyone in a B-grade city had a certain standard amount of wealth, strength, or other advantages, most citizens from C-grade cities didn't have, except they wanted to live in a lower graded city due to personal reasons like was the case with the Fler's.

They were wealthy enough to live within Cyro-city but due to Greg, they had moved to a faraway C-grade city, to help Greg recover from his elementary grade trauma.

Jason wasn't sure what to think about what he heard, but even if he wanted to change something, he wouldn't be able to.