Jason sat inside the shuttle on the way to the Beast Pagoda with excitement gleaming in his eyes.
It felt as if hours passed and time seemed to have stopped when Jason finally arrived at his destination, only 25 minutes later.
The beast pagoda was much grander than the one he was previously, and the Pagoda itself had seven layers, while two were used for hatching.
As for the other five layers, beasts of all kinds of ranks inhabited them.
While Jason was fascinated about the mana fluctuations he could feel and see all around, he walked slowly towards the large gate that was opened right after he stepped in front of it.
There was an attendant waiting for him looking extremely happy seeing Jason, which wondered him slightly.
What Jason didn't know was, that this young attendant was responsible only for the first floor in his first few years and it has been some time since there was someone making an appointment for the first layer.
The innate talent for soul-awakenings for most youths in Cyro-city was at least a soul energy of 11+ units which was enough to bind an awakened beast.
Furthermore, even if one's soul energy was less, one would rather practice the Heaven's Hell technique for a few months in order to reach the threshold to venture directly to the Beast Pagoda′s second floor or form a soulbond with a potential beast caught by beast merchants as their service was faster and more reliable than the Beast Pagoda′s
Jason walked through the opened gate and the attendant ran up to him.
"Hello, Sir. I presume Mr. Stella, right?"
The attendant greeted and asked hopefully.
Jason answered with a nod as the attendant's eyes lightened up.
"Follow me please, Mr.Stella"
The manor was large and more than 10 minutes passed until they reached the first floor with wild-ranked beasts inside.
During these 10 minutes, the attendant asked various questions that were important for a soulbond, and Jason answered them as well as he was able to.
One of the questions for example was what type of beast Jason wanted to form a soulbond with and what rank the beast should be at.
This question was what Jason was unsure about.
Right now, he had chosen a certain direction his soulbond should be, but he wasn't sure what kind of species Cyro-City′s Beast Pagoda had and if Jason was able to form a contract with it.
Right now he wanted to test the purity theory much more than anything else.
To be safe and test the theory with the Holy white baruci fruit as safe as possible, Jason wanted to form a contract with a beast that possessed a high endurance.
Unfortunately, Jason′s innate soul energy only allowed him to bind a beast below the four-star wild rank which hindered his plan to a certain degree.
But forming a contract with a one-star wild beast was also not safe as Jason wasn′t sure if such a weak beast would be able to endure the torment energy of the Holy white bacuri fruit, which would most likely cleanse his new soulbond′s body.
Even for humans eating this fruit was dangerous because it would forcibly wash out a certain mass of impurities and how could Jason know if a one-star wild beast could survive that?
He was also unsure if a three-star wild beast could survive that, as Jason was unaware of how potent the holy white bacuri fruit′s cleansing effect was.
As such he had to pick a beast with high endurance and certain survivabilities in order to get through the cleansing.
In the end, Jason′s range of beasts he could choose became less with each criterion in his mind.
He decided to restrict his selection to three-star wild beasts with his survivability and endurance.
Telling the attendant the criteria Jason needed, the attendant wasn't sure what to think of Jason, as the criterion named were somewhat familiar, causing him to be overly careful with his next words.
"I don't want to suspect any ill-intention from you, but purchasing a beast in the beast pagoda is solely intended for soulbonds and not to experiment with them"
Jason wanted to experiment with this beast but he didn't want to harm or kill it as the most important fact was, that he wanted to form a soulbond with this beast.
Killing or crippling it would decrease his combat prowess in the end, if his soul wouldn′t be damaged in the process as the worst-case scenario.
"You don't have to worry about that. I can form a soulbond contract with the beast I choose in front of your eyes if that lessens your worries"
Upon hearing his client saying this the attendant sighed in relief.
He wasn't working in the Beast Pagoda for a long time, but he had already seen many crazy people on the first floor trying to purchase wild beasts with ill-intensions.
Hearing Jason saying that he would bind the beast in front of him, caused his slowly accumulating worries to vanish into thin air as nobody would hurt one's own soul by killing or crippling the peculiar soulbond.
Well, that was at least what the attendant thought.
If he knew that Jason wanted to test feeding the soulbond a magical fruit that would cleanse one's impurities forcibly, he would directly kick Jason out of the Beast Pagoda and blacklist him for his whole life.
There were already many people trying something like that and the results were devastating, which Jason didn′t know.
But these tests were neither seriously done or safely carried out.
The magical fruits purchased were much more potent than the one Jason owned and god knows how the scientists tested this theory with the beasts.
In Jason′s opinion, most experiments would probably feed the cleansing ingredient in the beast's growth phase or maybe they were too weak in order to withstand the potent magical fruits.
Jason had done a lot of research about the holy bacuri fruit and it was not only the worst magical cleansing fruit but his, in particular, was the weakest among the weakest that Jason found good.
With a good soulbond, it should definitely be possible for a beast with high endurance and survivability to get through the cleansing process without receiving any injuries, while he would help out in every possible way.
When he reached the wild beast floor, Jason immediately activated his mana eyes effect to scan through all kinds of beast potentials and mana purity, only to be disappointed.
If there were some treasures, Jason would rather pick such beasts instead of experimenting with his second soulbond but not a single beast had a color radiating from it, which left Jason a little bit dejected.
Now Jason was almost forced to experiment with his second soulbond but after thinking for a moment, he was still doing fine.
If the worst situation occurred, Jason would just feed his soulbond with some small parts of the fruit instead of the whole fruit which would decrease its magical effect by a large margin.
Nevertheless, this would be better than killing his soulbond, wouldn't it?
There was also the possibility that the cleansing effect was rejected by beasts, which Jason wasn't sure if it was possible.
Even so, it was definitely worth a try with a small piece of the fruit as an appetizer to test out the theory.
As long as the amount was small enough, a high endurable beast shouldn′t die.
Some time passed and Jason was slowly walking through the corridors, looking at each type of beast, leaving him disappointed
There was not a single beast that met his requirements and more than two hours passed without him finding a decent beast.
The Attendant became slightly nervous because the criteria Jason named were rather rare for wild beasts.
Searching through the beast catalog, he couldn't find a suitable beast either, when Jason suddenly asked
"Where is the beast inside this enclosure?"
Jason was about to continue his search when he saw an empty enclosure with a holographic picture showing the beast that attracted his attention.
Upon seeing the holographic picture, the attendants' eyes brightened up and his mood soared even higher than Jason′s when he quickly looked at the information about the particular beast.
"Apparently the beast is giving birth, right now."
The attendant reported and Jason′s eyes lit up.
Previously he wanted to form a soulbond with an adult three-star wild beast and tame it if necessary, but raising up a newborn would be even better as he could easily tame it, while the soul connection between them would be much stronger without any worries about disobedience.
Jason was in such a good mood that he ran up to the attendant, asking.t
"Once the offsprings are born, can I immediately form a contract with one?"
The attendant, surprised about Jason′s sudden eagerness, didn't know what to say one had to wait a few days normally before one was allowed to contract a beast.
If the beast he wanted to form a contract thought of Jason as his mother, it would be much easier to form an extremely deep connection with each other which was what everyone wanted.
Thinking for a moment, the attendant remembered, that there was no law forbidding a beast to be sold directly after it was born.
It was only seen a little bit immoral.
As such the attendant called his superior to ask for permission.
Upon seeing the attendant's expression and hearing the superior shouting at him, Jason felt a little bit apologetic.
The superior didn't care about the life of wild-ranked beasts and gummed in anger, having to answer to such an idiotic question.
Even if Jason felt sorry for the attendant, he was still happy to have his request approved.
Maybe he would be able to change his plan with a newborn beast as his second soulbond, as he could feed it the cleansing holy white baruci fruit.
If he divided it into marginal parts in addition to the innate characteristics from his future soulbond it should be possible.
But for now, it could wait, as there was something more important.
Now it was time for Jason to pick up his new partner!