It was early in the morning and the first sunlight entered his new apartment when a black-haired youth holding a small owl chick woke up.
He rubbed his dreamy eyes with his empty hand when noticed something was in his other hand.
Remembering what happened the day before Jason knew that it was his soulbond Artemis.
Smiling happily, he looked at the sleeping owl.
Jason wasn't sure when she slept in but there was something particular in his room that changed overnight and this change surprised him a lot.
The mana stones that were still shining feeble yesterday were now indistinguishable from normal stones.
There was not a single trace of mana left inside them and Jason activated his eye, only to see that the radiating color of Artemis seemed to be stronger than the day before.
From the outer appearance, Jason didn't notice any difference, but its white plumage was shining brightly.
Comparing Artemis with a normal snowflake owl chick, Artemis' small size was the only noticeable thing that remained.
Jason wasn't sure how exactly evolutions or mutations worked but he trusted his eyes which told him that Artemis was a treasure.
The only thing he had to find out was how to grind the potential out of her.
He already came up with a theory in his mind.
Jason had even read some theories about evolutions from beast creators and the development of mutations so there were more than enough things to try out
But to test most theories, Jason needed more credits as they were either expensive and as if that was not enough, they seemed to be extremely dangerous, so Jason had to prepare himself.
Hunting beasts is considered as one of the top-paid jobs and becoming a Hunter would solve Jason's problems.
However, first, he had to prepare himself mentally and physically.
Considering his fighting strength right now, fighting a one-star wild beast after some martial arts practice shouldn't be that difficult, maybe even hunting two-star wild beasts might be possible.
The most important thing he had to do now was to train his body, solving his malnutrition by eating more, raising up Artemis, and practicing martial arts.
Two out of the four matters were relatively easy and could be solved without any problems.
Eating and training his body would be easy while he was still unsure about Artemis's mutation or what she would have to eat.
About martial arts practice, Jason decided to memorize the Azure feisty Ape technique and learn it, until he reached the techniques′ limit.
He wasn't sure if he could ask Greg to spar with him but after a second thought, he rejected this though as Greg was at the 2nd Adept ranked with a non-elemental soulbond that would most likely increase his physique tremendously.
Jason wouldn't be able to handle a single blow and it would be impossible to figure out the flaws in his technique while being K.Oed with a single hit.
Disregarding this thought, Jason looked at the video clips of the Azure feisty Ape technique while he waited for Artemis to wake up.
But even hours later she wouldn't wake up and Jason got worried so he shook her slightly.
Still being dreamy Artemis woke up with a bad temper and Jason was sorry for her.
Artemis understood Jason's feelings because of the connection between them but she was still tired.
Jason was confused as newborns would normally be more active and he got more worried thinking about the possible illness she could have.
Artemis transmitted one of her memories which displayed her absorbing the remaining mana inside the Mana stones and her falling asleep afterward.
Seeing this memory Jason was astonished.
It wasn't common for wild-ranked beasts to be so intelligent and to be even able to transmit memories between each other was an astonishing feat.
Sensing that everything was okay about Artemis, Jason calmed down slightly.
He could also sense that Artemis was satiated as if she ate a whole titan pig alone, reassuring him in his worries about her food.
Artemis was still sleepy but before she fell asleep a small white magic circle appeared below her, as she went inside Jason, appearing inside his soul world.
Within the soul world, Artemis fell asleep peacefully.
Jason stood up from his bed, walking around the apartment thinking about Artemis's weird behavior.
It was weird but everything was based on the mana stones and Jason had a bad premonition.
He hoped his assumption was false, otherwise, he had to face some financial problems.
'Please don't let her mutation be stimulated by mana or even worse a solely pure mana digestion...'
She wasn't even a one-star wild beast at the moment and consumed three mana stones with the stored amount of mana, three human experts could store inside them or in other words 150.000 credits.
And she hatched less than a day ago.
Jason wasn't sure how long she would sleep to digest these three small mana stones but there weren't many credits left in his bank account!
At most Jason would be able to purchase two mana stones.
He sincerely hoped that Artemis would be able to eat other things with smaller amounts of mana.
Jason would even buy higher-graded Beast meat to saturate Artemis but right now Jason was too frightened by the worst-case scenario.
Feeling depressed Jason had to think of a way to earn more money, and the most efficient way for him would be hunting.
As such, Jason decided to diligently train the Azure feisty Ape technique, before he would continue doing anything else.
He moved away some furniture to make some space for him to train.
Looking at one video at a time and repeating the same moves done by the Instructor over and over again.
Repeating the few sequences the videos provided, Jason found out that he made some mistakes because it felt different than the first sequence, where he saw the instructor with his mana flow at school.
Trying to find his flaws Jason started to record his practice.
After each sequence, he looked at the recordings only to find out that his movements were completely misplaced.
Figuring out the flaws after rewatching everything multiple times, Jason tried to fix them slowly.
In the evening when the sun went down Jason laid on the ground full of sweat and not able to move with a satisfied expression blossomed on his face.
His stomach growled and he ordered something to get delivered over his phone after he noticed that he hadn't eaten anything over the whole day.
He had completely memorized how the Azure feisty Ape technique should look and comparing his moves with his memories it was easy to pick out the flaws.
But Jason didn't know that his excellent eyesight played a huge role in finding the flaws as some of them were only marginal and difficult to spot.
Even the marginal flaws played a big role in the whole picture.
In the end, Jason learned the technique better and more efficiently than others.
The only small problem he had with the second sequence was to reconstruct the perfect mana flow but his extraordinary senses, mana control and accuracy were actually very helpful here.
Three days passed without much change and Jason was within his apartment the whole time.
Artemis was still sleeping inside the soul world but the connections between both of them was still strong, lively and it felt like it grew more attached to each other every passing day
Jason felt that Artemis was fine so he didn't worry much about her.
He focused on the Azure feisty Ape martial technique and after memorizing and practicing the first three sequences to a certain extent Jason noticed that the Instructor began to use different compatible weapons with the technique.
Only a small modifier from the normal techniques has been done but unpleasantly it was connected to a different Playlist of videos which would cost credits
But Jason was delighted as he was scared to face wild beasty with razor-sharp claws and teeth only with bare fists and the fee credits he had to pay was nothing compared to the importance Jason gave his own life.