Only a few hours after Berg left the Golden-Soul shop, a few more low-ranked blacksmiths came and purchased a bunch of perfectly purified grade-1 bars.

A short while later, young hunters entered his shop, taking a look at the perfectly purified potions.

After inspecting them thoroughly, they purchased a small variety of potions before leaving, without saying much.

However, Jason felt weird when he looked at some of them because of their jittery movements.

From the young hunters' facial expressions, they seemed to look serious and like common customers, but Jason's mana eyes perceived that their mana veins and mana core were craving for something.

At least that was how he interpreted what he saw.

This was weird, but it was hardly possible to walk up to them and ask about what he saw.

**

Once it was evening, Jason closed the shop and Silas went on his own way, while he and Emily called a shuttle.

Under normal circumstances, he would manifest Artemis' wings on his back and everything would be fine.

However, after she heard that Jason had to carry Emily, Artemis rejected his request to enter the mana core so that he could manifest her wings.

This forced Jason to either run home or use the shuttle.

'Why are my soulbonds so different to everyone except me?...' He asked himself, wondering if others forced their soulbonds to behave them or if they innately listened to their master's words.

Either way, his soulbonds were not only clingy and indigent but also easily annoyed by small things and acted however they wanted to, which frustrated Jason.

Furthermore, they seemed to like holding a grudge, which he noticed after they returned from the abandoned lands.

Inside the shuttle, Jason decided to ask what Emily thought about the rumors.

Unfortunately, she didn't know what to say and the only thing she said was what she heard from the slave merchant she escaped.

Other than that, she didn't say much. Emily thought she would say something wrong, otherwise, which she wanted to prevent.

Sighing deeply at her reluctance, Jason was unsure what he would do with Emily if she were to act the same with customers, which was fortunately not the case.

When it came to customers she could explain everything well, and Jason was astonished how much she learned during a single weekend because her attitude, acting, and explanations were perfect.

'Well...It doesn't really matter if she has no opinion about it. Nevertheless, I should inform Shane and Dalia what might be going on in Terebrean.'

Not even half an hour later, the shuttle arrived in front of their house, which they entered without further ado.

Inside the house, they smelled a delicious fragrance permeating the air, telling them that someone, most likely Dalia, cooked dinner.

Walking towards the dining room they saw that everything was already prepared, while Shane was sitting in front of the dining table, waiting patiently.

Seeing them, he smiled lightly saying that Dalia was almost done with her preparations.

Only a few minutes later everything was set and they started to eat dinner while Emily explained what happened today.

Hearing that the same citizens as the day before came to siege upon the Golden-Soul shop, Shane and Dalia furrowed their brows only to see Jason eating dinner in a relaxed manner like it had nothing to do with him.

Once Emily finished with her short explanation, they couldn't help but look over to Jason, who they wanted to explain everything more clearly.

Emily's story was short and she didn't really go into the necessary details to figure out what really happened, which was different from Jason's explanations as he liked to go into details.

Seeing their confused expressions, Jason just said

"I'll explain everything later, but there might be a highly addictive cultivation drug on Terebrean, made by foreign races or something similar."

After he said so, he continued to eat, satiating his hunger which frustrated his masters.

Half an hour later, when everyone was done, he explained everything more thoroughly without letting out any important information.

The rumors were not important for either of them to conclude that something was wrong.

Suspicious was the way some citizens acted, the government worker attitude, and hunters' behavior.

Combining the facts, it was almost impossible to deny that either one of the known rumors was true or that all rumors told the truth to a certain extent.

Instead of being overly shocked, Shane and Dalia's mood just plummeted and Jason could understand them somewhat.

Everything that happened on Astrix island over the last few months was already shocking and disgusting in their opinion, but it seemed as if they were pursued by misfortune.

After looking at Emily for a short moment, Shane said

"If the addictive cultivation drug really exists, the slave market's importance is many times higher than we thought. The chance that they want to build a huge army of powerful, addicted slaves would be extremely high! This is even worse than the Drake clan's doing..."

Jason, who didn't think that far yet because he was still asking himself if his assumption with the cultivation drug was really true, couldn't help but nod his head.

After that, the dining room turned silent, and only when Dalia said something several minutes later, the weird atmosphere filling the room began to dissipate.

"Jason, Emily! Don't try to involve yourselves in the slave market or with anyone who might have something to do with the cultivation drug. That is if it really exists! Even if it doesn't exist, please don't create too much trouble! The two of you are still too weak to do anything against anyone powerful!"

Averting her attention to Emily she just said "You just formed your first soulbond and it will take a long time before you're strong enough to adjust to a Guardian-ranked beast's shared strength.

Furthermore, it's your first soulbond and your mana core is barely at the lower Expert rank."

Turning to Jason after she finished lecturing Emily, who stared at Dalia confused, Dalia seriously said

"Don't bother about any possible drugs, addictive medicines, the slave market or anything like that...alright?! Try to focus on yourself... Once you're strong enough you can change everything you don't like. At least if you feel like it! But that's not something you should be concerned about for now…"

Jason was already aware of that and just nodded his head, knowing that Dalia was concerned about him and how he might act once he figured out more.

"I don't plan on doing anything but I told Emily and my other employee Silas that they should tell me every rumor they're hearing inside the Golden-Soul shop. That shouldn't be too much, right?"

Sighing, Dalia just agreed without bothering to say anything against Jason anymore.

She could only look at Shane with a helpless expression.

However, Shane was not really helpful because his eyes gleamed brightly at Jason's words when he said with enthusiasm.

"If you told your employees to act as your ears, that means you plan on leaving the Shop to them from now on, right?! Should we continue our forging training?"

When Dalia heard this, she just slapped her own forehead out of a reflex, while Emily looked at Shane in astonishment.

'He is just like a small child...'

Jason meanwhile, smiled as he said

"I have to forge lots of perfectly purified grade-1 bars for now. Afterwards, I want to exhibit perfectly purified grade-2 bars from various ores. As such it would be perfect if we could deepen my foundation and advance to the next step. Additionally, I want to forge grade-2 weapons."

Turning towards Dalia, he also added with a smile on his lips

"I also want to learn how to mass-produce grade-1 potions before I want to concoct complexer grade-2 potions"