Artemis gulped down the black pebble and looked at Jason with greedy eyes.

It looked like she could eat these incomplete cores full of impurities without worries as she looked at Jason full of desire.

He knew Artemis wasn't hungry. However, she wanted to get some mana as she felt that eating more of this black pebble core would benefit her.

After understanding that these impure cores weren't harmful to her, he was relieved.

So Jason decided that Artemis would get every incomplete core from the beasts he hunted as wild beast cores weren't worth anything.

He was quite happy to find out that she would eat these pebble cores because this was most likely the solution to his financial problem.

Jason wouldn't have to feed Artemis mana cores all the time as he could hunt beasts for her.

Digesting pure mana would strengthen her whole body and maybe it could increase the limits of her race over time or force an evolution.

Normally beasts can only digest a certain amount of foreign mana and strengthen themself until they reached a certain limit but apparently Artemis loved eating these pebbles and Jason continued his hunt happily.

There was a theory about the relation of a beast's potential to the amount of mana one could absorb and how it was related to the evolution of the beast.

The theory said that higher potential equals to an acceptance of more Mana in one's body while more mana equals to a higher percentage to evolve.

But this theory was still not completely processed.

In the evening one could see the happiest youth one had ever seen as he jumped around with a bright smile with a snow-white owl circling around him.

Jason's combat prowess increased over time and he hunted another three solo two-star wild beast and another group of two two-star beasts which he killed easily with his increased amount of mana.

Fighting against two beasts was relatively difficult but Jason attacked the tendons of one beast causing it to slow down while he defeated the other beast with the help of the Glutton Artemis.

Artemis continued eating the pebbles and Jason felt his body itching all the time while Artemis grew in strength.

When the shuttle arrived Jason calmed down and Artemis vanished inside the magic circle she summoned.

The magic circle was connected to his soul world and only he himself and his soulbounds could use it.

After eating five two-star wild beast pebbles Artemis was completely filled with mana and she had to digest it so she went into the soul world in order to sleep.

Jason thought it would probably be the same as the time when Artemis absorbed all the small mana stones but this time she would have to digest less than before.

Remembering that he had bought another small mana stone he noticed that he had to keep it away from Artemis as she didn't need it right now.

Another thing Jason noticed was that Artemis was a greedy glutton as she didn't know when to stop.

He thought and felt after the third pebble core that she was full but she continued eating these cores as if they were snacks.

Jason had to restrain her otherwise it could be problematic.

Arriving at his apartment, Jason tried to fix the flaws he still had.

Afterward, he used the quantum bracelet to purchase a tent non perishable food and other necessities to camp close to the dome.

Furthermore, he bought a large mana-operated freezer which could hold a bunch of carcasses.

He could even inject incomplete mana cores to operate the freezer which was convenient.

The material of the freezer was cheap but the size of the freezer with over 300 cubic meters caused its price to reach 30.000 Credits.

Jason's funds were slowly dried up but there wasn't much he had to buy after that and he thought the freezer was a good investion.

Requesting the city AI if he could camp close to the one-star plain wild zone, it was accepted within 3 minutes.

All parcels arrived after Jason finished showering and he put the content into his spatial storage.

Then he set down with the Mana stone in his hand.

He wanted to break through and now was the time for it.

Normally he wouldn't need the Mana stone for his breakthrough but the sudden increase in his mana core size due to Artemis shared strength forced him to stabilize everything first.

Using the Mana in his surrounding and inside the Mana stone Jason enveloped himself with a thin mana layer before slowly absorbing everything.

His mana core was filled to the limit and using the Mana he pulled out of the Mana stone to invade it, the Mana core began to grow slowly while black dots inside the core began to get pushed out.

Jason´s pores opened slowly and he couldn´t notice anything in his surroundings because he was immersed in gathering and absorbing the mana around him.

Hours passed and after a deep breath, Jason's pores opened as a black mist was exhaled while his physique grew stronger, bright shining light enveloped him and his mana core stopped enlarging.

Novice rank-3!

Finally!

The last few weeks were exhausting for Jason but it was exciting compared to the straight and boring 9+ years of him gathering mana inside the eyeballs.

Previously Jason was extremely weak and he didn't have any type of strength and everything was boring for him but now it was different.

Getting stronger felt amazing and Jason felt almost addicted to the sensation of growing stronger.

Sensing the increased strength inside him Jason smiled.

After that he decided to open the Heaven's Hell technique to read through it.

Greg had sent him a copy before but only now had Jason enough time to read through it.

There were many pages and the content was complex and written in technical language even for the first Level so Jason had quite some problems reading it at first.

He had to re-read every page a few times until he understood it slightly.

It would probably take a day or two until he remembered every detail but it was necessary for Jason before he would start training his soul as it was one of the most dangerous training methods one could practice.

Even small issues could end with injuring his soul world while major issues could in the destruction of one's soul world.

But this won't happen if Jason follows the descriptions written inside the manual.

It was already late at night and Jason went into bed as he slept in after a short moment.