Everything around him shook violently, and there was nothing to grip in order to stay firmly, causing him to fall on the ground, where searing pain spread out from his shoulder.

Shouting out in pain, Jason cursed his decision to venture into the four-star rift more than ever.

'Why am I so uselessly stubborn?!' 

But in the end, there was no use in lamenting about his choice, because it already happened and lamenting about the past was useless.

In order to enhance his body, he ordered Scorpio to enter his mana core once again, causing him to reach the physique of an 8th Adept rank.

With this, he could endure a little bit more force as a few rocks loosened up from the ceiling, falling onto him and Artemis.

Enveloping himself in a tattered exoskeleton out of his coccyx grew a 60-centimeter long stinger, piercing straight towards the rock falling onto him.

Shattering the rock, Jason sighed in relief as dirt fell straight into his eyes, forcing him to close them.

'F**k' Cursing out, Jason used his senses to perceive stones, rocks, and loose soil falling onto him, while he unsheathed his Viridi-Starstream daggers.

Even if there were no beasts around him, large rocks and exploding elemental crystals could still harm or even kill him if he was not careful.

The presumed earthquake took still a long time and the pain in his shoulder increased further, while Jason decided to let his eyes closed in order to prevent more fine dust, dirt, or whatsoever from entering them.

His mana senses were still able to perceive everything around him clearly because he was already accustomed to it since he was young.

When he couldn't see anything at all, he relied on himself to survive in a city without much support for orphans or rather disabled children like him at all.

After his mother died, he forcefully used his 1st Novice rank mana in order to perceive his surrounding as far as possible, which was extremely taxing

Thinking about his mother, Jason felt melancholic, sad, and angry at the same time, because he neither knew who killed his mother, how she looked like, other than her photo and her voice began to slowly disappear from his memories.

Being reminded about that, his mana fluctuations became unstable and filled with anger, causing his perception to become unclear.

'Why did she have to die?!.. Cerus-family...I'll be coming soon. If you don't answe...r!!' He thought in anger, as a large rock fell on his shoulder, causing the already unbearable pain to increase further.

"ARGHH!" Jason shouted out, as he calmed down..'I can think of that later…Let's survive first' 

Telling this to himself, an eternity or rather one minute passed until the presumed earthquake stopped.

'That was a long one....?' Jason thought while cold sweat drenched his already completely wet clothes, thanks to the pain and complete focus he overcame.

Opening his eyes, he noticed Artemis next to him looking at him accusingly while her whole plumage was dirtied, which annoyed her.

Jason didn't care about his soulbond being dirty at the moment, as he took out a few potions which he emptied without wasting any time, which caused his aching shoulder to feel slightly better.

Taking out a small bowl and water, he placed it in front of Artemis saying "Drink first and then you can wash up, alright?"

Which she answered by turning away from him like she was about to say "Hmpff!"

Sighing, Jason decided to ignore her for the time being, as he looked around if something important changed in his current situation.

One of the most important issues was the question of the cave collapsed completely, locking him inside or if he could venture out once he wanted.

If he was imprisoned, it wouldn't be that much of a problem, because it would prevent other beasts from invading his current position, but there would be only one extremely terrifying issue.

Once he was completely sealed within the cave without any oxygen supply, his chances to survive would be limited.

However, this issue could be relatively easily solved, because he could either use his physique to clear a path outside thanks to the tools he had, use fireballs to make a crude path, or use a few grenades within his storage device.

As such, Jason was still rather calm, as he activated his mana eyes in order to figure out the situation above.

Fortunately, even the soil radiated faint traces of mana, allowing him to see where less mana was which showed the tunnels.

Upon observing everything carefully, Jason noticed that he could even see the paths leading everywhere which shocked him because it was as if he used an X-ray vision.

It somehow creeped him out, but he was still glad as he noticed that more than enough paths that lead to his current position were free, even though they were partially spilled by rubble.

With an intact oxygen supply, Jason decided to take a good rest, because he was already too exhausted to either eat something or look around for a more comfortable position to rest.

Leaning at the wall, he closed his dead-tired eyes and fell asleep, while Artemis cleaned her plumage not without forgetting to glare at Jason.

**

Waking up, Jason wasn't sure how many hours passed, as he cleaned himself within a basin he took out with the water he stored in his storage device.

Taking out a clean set of clothes, Jason exhausted himself by changing them, without hurting his shoulder too much, and gritting his teeth was barely helpful.

He changed into a completely new set of clothes with the exception being his mana grade-2 leather armor which was important for him to survive.

Without it, Jason felt naked and unguarded and somehow he somehow survived the whole incident the day before, thanks to it.

Checking his soul world, Scorpio seemed to have entered it once again and upon looking closer, his exoskeleton seemed to repair itself slowly, which wondered him.

'Is that an effect from the soul world or is that normal?' Either way Jason was unsure what the reason was, but it was definitely advantageous and made him happy.

His soul energy was already completely replenished and without being able to take a look at his quantum bracelet, Jason was unable to tell the time.

As such, he wanted to practice the Heaven's Hell technique in order to improve his soul energy and at the same time to keep the track of time, because his soul energy was fully replenished every five to six hours.

In the end, Jason wanted to stay longer within the cave, because it was the only safe place he found and it could even benefit him extremely, due to the high quantity of qualitative good elemental crystals.

He was not sure how vast the elemental crystal cave was but from what his mana eyes perceived, it was shocking.

To add on, Jason had to recuperate his broken shoulder which still hurt like hell.

'One step after another!' He told himself while approaching the soul world core within himself.

Practicing the Heaven's Hell technique, Jason felt his tension loosening slowly, while the familiar pain spread through his body, calming him down.

The last 24 hours were just too much for him to handle, and the calming pain released everything at once, while Artemis eyed him weird, because Jason smiled while she felt the pain searing through his body.

'Is he broken?''