Taking a deep breath, he returned to the first floor.

Shane wanted to clear one floor after another in order to collect everything without losing out on single mana or elemental-crystal.

Traces of greed could be seen within his eyes but it was hardly possible to contain it with the current situation around him.

With the Ambrulite-pickaxe in his hand, he approached the first batch of elemental crystals nearby. He raised his hand and pulled back the pickaxe in order to release it with an impactful swing.

Shane's efficiency increased as he completely focused on the task at hand, while his perfect physique at the 5th Mortal stage amplified his flawed 7th Mortal physique.

To him, it felt as if his energy was inexhaustible despite mining for several hours, while his pickaxe's passive effect [Turbulent Impact] unveiled its true power.

He was not really in a dire need of funds right now but he had more than enough space which led him to collect and store everything inside his spatial ring. He also had more than enough time to mine.

His efficiency was incomparable to before because he didn't have to observe his surroundings as diligently as before. The cave was completely devoid of living beings except him and not even a single beast could be found.

Though, this didn't mean that he would take his guard down. He focused more on his mining task than anything else, leading him to gather almost 5000 crystals in 8 hours which was only possible thanks to the surrounding mana energizing him.

Never having done such a laborious task except for a few days ago, Shane felt overwhelmed by his own diligence, as he slumped on the ground while his gaze remained on his blistered hands.

Smiling, Shane decided to message the Elus-merchant from earlier in order to send him crystal packages once again.

Their contract was still valid and he didn't have to contact the merchant. But it was better to inform him in advance of sending a larger amount of crystals in the next few days, to ensure that everything would run according to his plan.

It was already afternoon but there were no sun rays in sight because he was already deeper within the elemental crystal cave to see any. Though the surrounding crystals lit up the entire cave, providing enough illumination for him to continue mining.

After sending over the crystals, Shane didn't wait to receive his first income, instead, he decided to venture deeper into the cave to do something else. He added a few of the mined mana crystals to the beast sealing card with Umbra inside.

Umbra, meanwhile, didn't even notice that more mana crystals had entered its space as it was in some sort of cultivating hibernation, where it could barely sense anything except mana.

However, the mana he sensed was much easier to control in this state, allowing him to absorb it faster which was what both he and Shane desired.

Shane didn't know anything about Umbra's effort but he predicted that his tamed beast wouldn't be lazy as Umbra had realized his uselessness early on.

Entering the deeper layers, Shane looked through his spatial ring in order to see how many cultivation resources he was left with.

Unfortunately, it was more shocking than he had initially thought because there was simply nothing left except for two [Mortal-(Extraordinary)] nutrition solutions. These solutions were useless to him at the moment as he couldn't even use them without an abundant mana supply from either mana crystals or mana stones.

He wouldn't extract the mana crystals from his beast sealing card, because Umbra needed them. He didn't have any gold coins left to purchase mana stones, preventing him from refining his physique.

But that could wait because there was something else he wanted to improve right away.

As he had already claimed everything he had wanted within the Mortal stage, like the perfect body refining technique, Shane could already increase his mana purity to 10% or higher.

If his mana purity had crossed the threshold of 10% without him completing the [Mortal-(Mythic)]-mission for the perfect body refining technique, Shane would have been disqualified from accepting the mission.

That means one would have to be at the Mortal stage in both physique and mana pool cultivation, without any trait above the threshold. It could be a 10th Mortal physique and cultivation, wherein the mana purity played a big role. Mostly, the required mana purity had to be at 9.99% in order to meet the requirements for any [Mortal-(Mythic)] mission.

In the end, the same applied to the Apprentice perfect body refining technique, which disqualified everyone with a mana purity over 30%, while Shane was unsure about the Expert perfect body refining technique.

With the [Expert-(Mythic)] perfect body refining technique, it might be possible for him to have a higher mana purity than 60% in order to meet the requirements. However, until now, he hadn't asked his uncles or aunts, how exactly it would work with a perfect body refining technique.

Naively enquiring on the forum threads could also be a double-edged sword, because more than enough trolls and jealous beings existed all over the universe.

As such, Shane would have to accomplish the expert mission for the perfect body refining technique, before increasing his mana purity above 60%. It could also increase the difficulty for him if he was allowed to reach a higher mana purity.

But it was still better to get assigned a harder mission than none at all.

While thinking about that, Shane sat down on the ground exactly at the spot where he presumed the highest mana flow would be. His [Mortal-(Platinum)] mana gathering technique roughly told him the same.

Even the purity at the spot he was seated in seemed to be essential high, causing him to smile brightly He utilized the mana gathering technique as a vortex slowly manifested inside his mana pool, creating a high suction force.

Feeling the mana particles around him, Shane turned serious as he sensed the mana particles, getting attracted towards him.

The particles flooded him, as Shane opened his pores to accept even the tiniest mana particle. While circulating them within his mana, he smoothly switched to his [Tier-1(Bronze)] mana purifying technique.

He slowly entered a trance-like state where he could only perceive the mana particles around him in addition to the processes the two cultivation techniques accomplished.

His eyes flickered vigorously when he gently tried to open his eyes, as he immediately took a glance at the time which shocked him slightly.

'So long?' He hadn't realized that roughly half a day had passed by. It was the next morning already, while he felt as if he slept for dozens of days in succession.

However, there was something he began to wonder about. He recalled the system's message that his body couldn't handle a mana gathering and purifying session in his current form, deeming it as dangerous.

'Did the system forget to alert me?' Shane assumed when he thought of the changes he had gone through from earlier to now.

'Or is it my improved physique?' He couldn't be sure, but it was the most likely theory he could name for now and he decided to take a closer look next time.

Standing up, he directed his attention to his mana purity, and seeing the number displayed next to his cultivation rank, Shane couldn't help but smile.

[Purity: 9.39%]

Within a single, yet extremely long sitting, Shane's mana purity had increased by almost 1% which caused him to feel overjoyed.

Pondering on what to do next, he opened the forum section within the system. He began searching through humanity's news when he was suddenly flooded by dozens of messages.

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