It took them a while before they regained their senses and Shane began to laugh out loud.

"Hahaha You're great!! You are really good!! Hahaha," and it took him a while before he regained his composure.

Dalia was more composed and answered Jason after some time.

"The soul energy you provide will not be completely used up, rather than that you can say that you´ll still receive your normal soul amplification. If you provide your Origin Flame with 100 soul energy and your soul has a conversion ratio of 5% you receive five units back. 

As for your Origin flames rank… To be completely honest, we don´t know that.

Neither do we know where it came from… I think you can agree with us that its illogical for such a treasure is in the smithy of a Lord-ranked Goblin King without receiving support from somewhere.

Maybe they wanted to wait for something to use the Black origin flame and it could be possible that the Goblin King wanted to absorb it to break through its shackles, which is the most likely case as it already possessed a fire affinity.

We also want to know who is behind all of this because supporting a Goblin King in devastating a human island is not beneficial for us.

If foreign races were already able to infiltrate human territory without getting found out it would be bad, as such it was either someone else or we have a perilous time charging towards us.

About your Origin Flame´s rank…. We are not sure but considering the pile of impurities you exhaled during the baptism and the increase in mana core size and physique it should be at least an A-rank maybe even S-rank but I don´t know about that, because I´ve never heard about anyone possessing an S-rank Origin flame.

This might also be because we are not connected to Canir for the last few decades, but that is a different story."

Jason nodded and he wanted  to find out much more, especially about Canir and their story 

"What about Canir? Why are you hiding here?  And why are you not in touch with…"

but he was interrupted by Shane.

"Stop! Before you continue asking questions, we should tell our story to prevent unnecessary questions later on, alright?" 

He said and Jason nodded in anticipation.

"This will only be a short summary, explaining everything in detail would take too long" Shane informed before he started.

"I was born 250 years ago when the mana outbreak happened only slightly longer than 50 years, while humanity was still overwhelmed not only from the foreign intelligent races but also from all kinds of beasts invading Argos.

Fortunately for me was only that I was born in Canir and my family had a few stronger powerhouses, defending us and the surrounding villages.

Years passed and humanity began to reign supreme over Canir, while I strengthened myself by absorbing mana.

While growing up, many things changed for humanity and one important factor was the existence of the soul-awakening orbs you already know and it was only because we stole one of these orbs from a foreign race, that we could research and duplicate it.

We know that the foreign intelligent races don´t use this orb for a soul-awakening because we have never seen them using soulbonds, but these orbs are probably used for something else in their case, according to their genetic pool.

However, this is only an assumption and doesn´t have to be the truth.

After awakening my soul, my soul energy, which was considered extremely high at this time, caused many family members to back me with resources, to let me grow even faster.

Being considered a prodigy felt good and I was extremely arrogant during this time, but that was only until my Family that established a small clan, was completely destroyed by a high-grade beast tide with Lord-ranked beings leading it.

During that time, Lord-ranked humans were still a dram and without the help of other clans, my family was only able to send me away.

Without being able to rely on anyone else and the feeling of betrayal from the other close-tied families, I worked hard to improve my strength.

Not caring about anyone else, I became slightly crueler, but that was only until I met Dalia, 150 years ago. 

She brought me back to the right path and we fell in love, marrying only a few years later.

Thanks to my strength, I was accepted into her family.

Dalia with her special physique wasn't able to bear a child which caused her family to disdain her behind her back.

They wouldn't dare to do that in front of her, because her special physique was helpful to them and additional her talent in Alchemy caused everyone to see her as perfect if there was not the child problem.

Without bearing an offspring the patriarch disregarded Dalia's existence more and I think it was around 70 years ago, when I was on a mission for the government, that Dalia was abducted from the Shore-clan that was after Dalia´s special physique. "

Halting his story for a moment, Shane looked at Dalia before he averted his gaze to Jason to say "I´ll let Dalia explain about her special physique later if she wishes to tell you her secret"

"Back to my story: When I came back from my mission, I couldn't find her and the patriarch told me that she voluntarily went to the Shore clan but knowing the Shore clan, I immediately understood that something was wrong.

Arriving at the Shore manor, I found Dalia being forced to exert her special physique in exchange for her life-force, which obviously enraged me.

Briefly summarized, I annihilated the Shore Clan, took Dalia back to her clan, where we were almost immediately kicked out by the enraged patriarch, cutting ties with us.

It was not long until we were deemed as devils, rumored to be in an alliance with the foreign races, and other baseless rumors were spread.

We fled and changed our appearance to a certain degree while hiding on different Islands. 

And more than 20 years ago, we decided to live here on Astrix, where we haven´t been found, at least until now."

Shane finished and Jason looked at Shane doubtfully. `Was he really that lovingly to sacrifice everything for his wife?` He didn´t think of Shane like that and annihilating a large clan was definitely something only the cream of the crop of humanity would be able to do but there was something, Jason couldn't get the hang on.

"Why do you even need me? Do you want me to get stronger than these old geezers that can even force you to flee, to let you live openly? Furthermore, I don't get what's special about Dalia´s physique, the only thing I can see is a feeble light white radiating from her...It looks pure but I can't understand that. "

Jason found the information provided by Shane somehow lacking but maybe there were things he didn't want to say and prying in their privacy was not something he initially wanted to do.

Still, Dalia´s special physique made him curious and with his mana eyes, there was not really anything special except a white light radiating from her.

This time Dalia began speaking, while she looked even more interested at Jason than before.

His eyes were extremely precious and not `commonly` seen mana eyes!

"My physique is special because of something we call purifying effect. I think you know what Beast Creators are, right? They can cause evolutions of beasts, as long as the evolution path is within their potential range.

Maybe you have also heard about the purification theory, where a beast's potential is forcefully raised by digesting magical treasures, cleansing the beast's body from impurities, which in fact is the cause that increases their potential.

High-grade treasures that can even cleanse impurities from magical or guardian-ranked beasts are extremely rare and my physique could be said to be such a treasure…"

She hesitated for a moment before she continues...not many people knew about her secret

"If I release my special physique, I can cleanse beasts and increase their potential to a certain extent 

In exchange, I´ll have to either use a vast amount of resources that are even more expensive than the regular treasure, or I can use my life force.

Using my life force, one year could be exchanged to cause a magical ranked beast to reach the potential of a guardian ranked beast.

The Shore clan forced me to cleanse multiple magical ranked beasts and if they knew how exactly my special physique works, I would either be dead right now or so weak, that I wouldn't be able to talk with you.

I´ve only once increased the potential of a Guardian beast to a Lord-ranked beast, but the demanded resources are way too large and a cleansing magical treasure might even be cheaper.

Just like that, I´m not even sure how many years of my life I would have to waste to increase a beast's potential to such an extent... "

Jason´s eyes widened and he questioned himself `Can there be such a powerful body constitution?` But her next words shocked Jason even more.

"Maybe you won't believe me but my soul-awakening was the worst for my clan. I awoke with an affinity to wood and fire, with less than 3 soul energy units.

At this time, sentient beasts with a wooden affinity like treants or dryads hadn't been found yet and with my low soul energy, the Clan gave almost all of their wealth to obtain a B-Rank Silver Origin Flame.

My special physique was probably also a reason to provide me with the Origin Flame, in order to increase my lifespan, which can then be burned up by my physique.

Years passed and I married Shane but we still haven't found a single sentient tree or something similar when Shane came back with a special treasure that should be able to cause mana-infested woods to awaken sentience.

I used it on two half sentient branches instead of one large tree because my soul energy was still extremely small and furthermore, I had two soulbond spots left to be occupied.

Without the will to fight, I wanted to receive two wooden affinity beasts. "

Saying that she summoned her two guardian-ranked dryads that looked around curiously. 

"These are the two branches and due to my physique in addition to vast amounts of resources, I increased their potential and evolved them both into dryads" 

Jason was perplexed. This special physique of Dali was extremely precious but probably also extremely dangerous.

He would never want to have such an obvious body trait because he didn't think Dalia could completely suppress her physique to prevent anyone from finding out by sensing through her. 

'Well... it's not like my mana eyes are less obvious..'

While Jason was still deep in thoughts, Shane decided to lead the conversation again. 

"To be honest with you, I followed you since your soul-awakening and I made a background check to find out if you´re suitable for us and you exceeded my expectations and probably also Dalia's. 

We don't want you to fight für us or something like that but rather than that it is more important for humanity to see a ray of hope. 

You may not be aware of your talent but alone your soul awakening is good enough to consider you as prodigious. 

It is unknown how many soulbonds you can contract and it looks like your soul energy will increase many folds in the next few months or years.

I'm confident about your combat prowess and by combining these facts I think you can help humanity to unite or at least form a defensive line on Canir. 

You may not be aware of the dangers humanity has to face in the last few dozen years but even before we had to flee from Canir, more and more beasts invaded it from temporary materialized rifts while the intelligent races approached us on Canir. 

While everyone believes that humanity is united in the federation, that is only a facade. 

You already know that the Archipelago is divided among the big clans, families, and firms while the same could be said for Canir. 

In Canir most countries are reigned by a clan and instead of fighting together against the threat we should face together, they prey on each other to obtain more lands and resources.

This is either done by scheming, crafty tricks, or even open battles, and even if a country would be annihilated due to the invasion of foreign races, I doubt that other clans would help.

They would probably either wait until everyone is weakened before they would begin their own conquest and annihilation of foreign races. 

Considering the unimaginable potential of your soul awakening we think with our support you will be able to change something and in accordance with our research about you, we think you also want to change this society and it would only help the weaker ones if everyone worked together. 

Jason looked at Shane with a complex expression, before he subconsciously blurred out

"Are you drunk?!"