Jason clearly saw a red crystal protruding out of the ground, which radiated a faint light-gray color, and at the same time, fire elemental transmuted mana which astonished him a little bit.

'Why does this crystal look soo familiar?' He wondered, and approaching the red crystal radiating faint fire transmuted. mana, Jason remembered something he read and saw in many different books from Shane and Dalia.

They were mostly about the three basic lifestyle occupations but also in Beast creations and in even more theses Dalia handed him out. 

"Is that a fire elemental crystal?" Jason mumbled as he squatted down in order to touch the red crystal.

Once his left hand touched the crystal, he immediately felt a vigorous wave of fire elemental mana invading him, causing slight pain when it entered his mana veins.

Releasing his black origin flame within himself, the pain substituted before he released the crystal from his hand.

'Interesting!... If all the things with colors I see within the cave are elemental crystals, I´m within an elemental crystal cave, huh?'

He thought while smiling silly…

If Jason was really within an elemental crystal cave, his financial issue would immediately vanish as long as he excavated a decent amount of them.

Now the only question tormenting him, how he should mine them...

Taking a look inside his storage device, Jason was sure that he purchased quite a lot of things, but he couldn´t remember having bought a pickaxe.

Upon sensing a bunch of tools thrown into the corner of his storage device, Jason took them out one after another with a small ray of hope emerging within him.

'That´s a sickle, an ax…..a shovel!....a hoe? Why did I buy a hoe? Oh!! I really bought a pickaxe!!' 

Taking out a pickaxe, Jason´s smile radiated the surrounding, as Artemis jumped from his shoulder in order to give him some space, while Jason tried to move his shoulder in order to test out his current capabilities

His shoulder hurt like hell, but he wanted to extract at least this one crystal in front of him because he was curious about it.

If he could satiate his curiosity by enduring a little bit of pain, he would definitely accept it.

Furthermore, it wouldn't take long, because the crystal had only the size of his fist.

As such after two to three painful swings with his low-grade-1 pickaxe the crystal was already in his left hand, while he sealed it in order to prevent it from releasing transmuted mana into his body.

Looking at the red gleaming crystal, Jason tried to remember the advantages elemental crystals had, and the first fact that jumped into his mind, was their capability to strengthen affinities.

With pure elemental crystals, beasts and even humans could increase their affinity to a certain extent, while it was mostly used for beasts to strengthen their affinity because they would innately share it with their contractor.

The extent for elemental crystals to strengthen affinities was restricted to the amount of mana and its purity. 

If the purity within was less than the innate purity of the beast's transmuted mana which wanted to enhance its affinity, it wouldn't work, while comprehending a higher-ranked affinity by solely absorbing a purer transmuted mana was extremely difficult with some theorists even saying that it might be dangerous.

It was said that there was even the possibility to deteriorate the affinity by comprehending something innately wrong, even though the possibility was extremely low.

'Ah!!' Suddenly Jason remembered the main reason for the elemental crystals' price which was not low, to begin with.

The reason was that one could even concoct potions with them, while it was also possible to forge weapons with elemental crystals, and inscribe runes with a certain ratio of crushed elemental crystals within the inscribing mixture would allow one to use a foreign affinity to a certain extent.

Like this one could disguise runes within the ground, by using crushed earth elemental crystals or create traps with a variety of elemental runes.

But more importantly, were the concocted potions and Jason faintly remembered a certain Beast creation book, stating that some potions to evolve beasts had to be concocted with elemental transmuted mana.

Thinking about this statement, Jason tried to remember more paragraphs like this and after a short while, he could already faintly remember a few theses, paragraphs, and even potions stating the same.

'Aren't some wands also made out of elemental crystals...or was it a similar material?' Jason wondered as he remembered a special perk of some wands, allowing someone without a single affinity, to use weak affinities.

Even one of the stated perks, he remembered about the elemental crystals would be worth a fortune, while the elemental crystals in front of him had all these advantages.

Jason´s mood immediately skyrocketed and he decided to strive deeper into the elemental crystal cave, while his mana eyes observed everything in order to figure out where the supposed elemental crystals were and at the same time to see if any beast approached him.

Weirdly enough, he couldn't see any beast at all, and the further he went into the cave, the more elemental crystals he found, protruding out of the ground, ceiling, and walls.

'Is it finally my time?' Jason thought overjoyed, as he turned around to figure out if something from above entered, only for his eyes to widen in extreme shock.

"What the hell is that?" He exclaimed, which resounded throughout the cave, as he saw hundreds of beasts flooding the cavern entrance, he walked in a few hours ago.

However what wondered him was, that presumed prey and predator charged into the cavern at the same time seemingly without caring about each other´s existence at all.

'What did I enter?!' Yet, even after asking himself the same question multiple times there was no answer and Jason went deeper into the cave to further increase the distance to the beast at the entrance.

Every few painful steps he took, Jason turned around without halting his steps for a single second in order to check what happened above.

'They stopped?' he wondered, as he noticed something even weirder.

'These beasts excavate the crystals?!?' With a shocked expression, Jason saw hundreds of beasts occupying the cavern entrance and even the four different tunnels in order to dig out the elemental crystals, without going deeper into the cave.

'Why don't they come down?' He wondered as the walls around him began to shake violently, startling him, Artemis, and the beasts from above.

Noticing that the beasts from above charged out of the cave, Jason had a bad premonition, however, even after a few seconds passed, there was not a single beast that accidentally entered the depths of the cave as he did, and he finally figured out what was going on, as two of the four the tunnels above him collapsed.

'Is that an earthquake?! Why now?' Jason lamented as he remembered Shane lecturing him that he should always know his surroundings which included the landscape with its perks.

Cursing in his mind, Jason exclaimed angrily "How the hell should I know where exactly tectonic plates are situated?!"