It was not uncommon to see someone cultivating outside the shelter, but it was rather rare to see a black scaled snake curled up on someone's head while cultivating.
The unusual sight attracted some attention from the couples and other cultivators who walked past him.
They remained silent, as long as they were close to him, but once they distanced themselves, they began gossiping with each other.
Shane was seen as some sort of attraction by a few bored passers-by, but he himself did not notice anything in his surroundings.
He only saw the magic particles surging towards him and above his head towards Umbra.
Shane was still unsure what the [Zone] was, but apparently, every time he cleared his head to cultivate, he subconsciously activated it.
After a few hours, Umbra stopped cultivating after a long time, when hunger awoke him.
Shane, who was already accustomed to Umbra's gluttony, subconsciously took a few dishes out of his spatial ring, without losing much focus on his main task, which was to gather the mana in his surroundings.
Gathering and purifying mana one after the other was done for a long time until a notification popped up, and his mana gathering speed was forcefully slowed down.
[Host overstepped the limited amount of time to cultivate. Initiating slower mana gathering & purifying process until host's body regenerates enough to cultivate once again]
Opening his eyes, Shane looked around when he noticed that the sun was still shining and a confused expression could visibly be seen on his face.
Looking at Umbra who returned his gaze with hunger and a slight dejection, Shane noticed that his small companion grew to 21 centimeters. It almost reached the mid-2nd Wild stage, which was a terrifying growth speed owing to Umbra's high quality and Shane's boost from his Innate-Skill.
Umbra's loyalty had increased to 24% which was also good news. But everything seemed weird to Shane right now and looking at the time on the system's panel, his eyes widened.
'It's already morning??' Shane almost shouted out, and only now did he understand the notification from the system.
He had cultivated for almost 20 hours and looking at his status panel, he noticed that his mana purity had reached [0.56%] which caused a radiant smile to blossom on his face.
There were still slightly more than two days left until the nighttime inside the Soul-Onyx-Jungle would begin. If he were to give his best, he might as well reach 1%, meeting the requirement to increase his rank by one, and enhance his mana pool slightly.
But, this wouldn't be everything.
Once Shane reached 1%, enveloping himself with mana and circulating it through his lower body would be slightly enhanced compared to before.
The purer one's mana, the stronger it was and it could only be described as extremely beneficial.
Not only was mana purity required to increase one's rank and stage but everything would be better, once one had a higher mana purity.
For instance, if human A and human B fought with each other, while both were at the 3rd Apprentice rank; human A with a mana purity of 14% would have slightly weaker mana than B who had already reached a mana purity of 16%.
There were also many wealthy second-generation youths with [Tier-2 (Gold)] mana gathering and purifying techniques that were good enough for them to reach a mana purity of 60% and the 10th Expert stage.
These youths would most likely increase their purity rapidly without stopping at a puny 1% increase before they increased their rank by one.
It was more likely that they would use mana stones and seclude themselves for two weeks. They would break through consistently, a few ranks at a time, only consolidating their mana pool before working their way up.
This was definitely faster than what Shane did and if he had stayed back at the mansion, he would have most likely received the same benefits as these youths. Though, he wasn't that sure about it, as his father was somewhat different from others.
But even then, these second-generation rich brats would have a weaker combat prowess and would need an extremely long time to adjust to their newly obtained strength over a long period, while Shane could do that easily.
In the past, Shane wondered why exactly one needed a mana purity of 60% to reach the 10th rank of the Expert stage. The answer was simple and complex at the same time.
Reaching a purity of 60% was already enough for humans to enter the next stage, by compressing their mana and forming liquefied mana.
When one reached the 4th Stage, also called Master-stage by creating liquefied mana, one's mana pool would increase in size one last time by a large margin, while at the same time the physique would be enhanced.
It was only years after humans ventured into the Primordial Dimensions, that they found out that a higher mana purity before the mana liquefaction received a grander amplification in physique and mana pool enlargement.
As such, mankind strived to receive better mana gathering and purifying techniques with a higher purity limit.
But, the only mana gathering and purifying techniques that could be bought from the system, without any further requirements, was a Tier-2 technique with gold quality at 60% purity.
If one wanted to purchase platinum or diamond quality mana gathering and purifying techniques to reach a higher mana purity, one would have to meet certain requirements.
These requirements increased with the increase in the desired mana purity.
While the requirements for 61%-85% were said to be capable of meeting a certain combat prowess, not many common cultivators could either afford or meet the stated requirements from the system.
According to the system, there were only a handful of races with innate mana purity that exceeded 90% when they entered the Primordial DImensions.
Some of them were already at the Master stage due to their inheritance, high amount of mana on their planet, and innately high physique. This shattered their chances to increase their mana purity further, without regressing everything.
As such, the system increases the difficulty for all races below the Master stage to receive purifying techniques for a mana purity above 80% by a lot.
But even if that was the case, humanity received an opportunity, and disregarding it would be similar to throwing away a goldmine.
Many wealthy families collaborated with martial art masters, trying to increase their strength and wealth, in order to meet the requirements to gain access to the higher mana purity manuals.
But even after 200 years, there has never been a recorded human with a purity above 95%, while some prodigies were able to reach slightly less than 95% after years of effort.
Most individuals who achieved that were already in their late 20s and far behind their peers in strength.
But, considering that they received a higher enhancement from breaking through into the Master stage, it would only be a matter of time before they caught up, and then overtook their peers.
From the PrimWeb threads and information provided by dozens of Instructors that taught him, Shane knew that a purity of 60% would enhance one's mana pool and physique by around 50%.
It was nothing compared to someone with a mana purity of 80% who received an increase of 80%.
But from 80% upwards, the amplifications towards the physique and one's enlargement of mana pool size would be humongous.
He had only heard from one Instructor, that a mana purity of 85% would be enough to double one's physique and mana pool size.
This was shocking, but even more, was the fact that most beasts within Intermediate-Primordial Dimensions were even more terrifying and powerful.
Humans with a mana purity below 85% wouldn't even be able to survive a single attack from beasts at the same rank and stage.
A purity of 85% was somehow a threshold for humans to be barely able to fight beasts at the same rank and stage head-on, considering that they fought alone.
Fighting such beasts alone would still be extremely difficult and was not recommended, except if one's combat prowess was superior.
But then a certain question occurred to Shane.
'Why didn't they just meet the requirements to increase their mana purity further, if their combat prowess was superior to everyone else?` and this question was definitely eligible.
Thinking about these stories, Shane's determination to reach a high mana purity soared even higher than it already was. With renewed vigor, he stood up and walked towards the forest at the outskirts of the mountain range.
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