Scratching the back of his head, Shane couldn't believe that Jason and Emily's comprehension allowed them to understand their whole situation much better he could.

'Am I thinking too traditional, or too much focus on our planet? How come I was unable to comprehend that?' Shane lamented inwardly which Dalia noticed.

"Don't be like this, Shane. We lived for centuries on Argos without knowing what exactly was truly going on! Emily is quick-witted and able to adjust quickly to the current situation...As for Jason...you know him!"

He understood that Dalia wanted to console him, but somehow, Shane didn't feel like it was really helpful.

In the end, he already had a hard time accepting that mankind's mana core ranks were just the construction of the foundation and that they had yet to enter the real cultivation progress.

It was painful and embarrassing to think that they had a chance against those foreign races in the first place.

With that in mind, every single death caused by those foreign races had been unnecessary and something that could have been prevented.

A single human was worth nothing to them and it was humanity's quantity and soul-awakening that made them special. But that was also only the case because of the soul-awakenings.

If mankind would have been unable to bind beasts to their soul and become stronger through this, nobody would have bothered about them and it was exactly because of this unique trait that such a devastating war was happening right now.

Shane was not sure how many humans died but he was aware of the fact that waiting a few centuries for mankind's population to recuperate, from the losses they had and would receive during this war, was nothing to them.

He felt powerless and extremely useless as he stared into Jason's golden, silver mixed eyes that were filled with the desire to do something against those foreign races.

It was a clear fact that Jason had never received something great from mankind. He had been bullied for being blind, lost his mother to one of the ancient clan's descendants, and was almost forced into an enslavement soul contract by one of the big clans.

His life had been hard, but despite that, he never stopped working hard to become stronger while his faith in humanity never ceased to exist.

Shane felt genuinely thankful to have met such a great disciple and he didn't care a tiny bit about the fact that he was not a pure human, but a halfling.

"Let's go now, if my intel is not wrong, the Shandra country has the lowest numbers of battles with foreign races. If possible I would like to forge a few things too.I just need a few weeks...no even days would already be enough if everything works out"

Shane continued to stare into Jason's eyes as he said

"In those weeks you should be able to finish the Infant-phase of your Netherworld's forte body refining technique, right? At the same time, you could learn how to control your stigma too.it's even easier to see than the aura you release...I don't know if foreign races were able to perceive the same aura I perceive right now, but it's definitely something normal humans shouldn't have under normal circumstances!"

Jason was not sure what exactly Shane wanted to forge, but a period of a few months should be more than enough to finish everything his master stated

"I need roughly one week to complete my body refining foundation...my bloodline awakening changed a few things about my physique but there shouldn't be any issues with that! About concealing my stigma and the aura..I'll give my best to fix this issue as soon as possible, otherwise, I won't be able to walk around freely, either way! And that's not what I want."

Shane smiled lightly as he manifested a spatial portal impatiently.

"In that case...should we depart now?"

Dalia had been talking to Emily when Shane was fixated on Jason, calmly exclaiming her disciple what they had to do for the next few weeks in which Shane and Jason were doing their own things. Emily just nodded her head half-heartedly, distracted by the new information Shane had shared before she averted her attention to the Lesser typhoon Roc that laid next to her.

'You have to become stronger...as fast as possible!!'

Everyone was ready to depart in a matter of a few minutes, and Jason took only a short glance inside his soul world before he jumped through the spatial portal while manifesting Artemis' wings once again.

He appeared above the surface on Astrix, and took a look around before he thought

'I should probably wait a little bit longer until I release Petri's race specific weakening curse, right?'

What Jason had noticed about the curse his soul world core harbored after he bound Petri to his soul, was that he was unable to use the race specific weakening curse if his soul world core was utilizing it!

Either he had to stop using the race specific weakening curse for himself in order to curse other targets, or Petri had to curse them, which was not much of a problem, but slightly annoying, if one were to think about it more intently.

It was definitely not an advantage but it was not much of a hassle either.

If he could actively use the weakening curse on other targets, it was highly likely that he would be strong enough to defeat stronger opponents without the need to rely on Petri to use the curse, instead of doing so personally.

However, this was just a thought he had in mind while thinking about the perfect timing to change the degree to which his soul amplification should be.

Right now he had just entered the Lique stage with one drop of mana.

However, this one drop was unique and required the amount of mana, three drops of liquefied mana would normally require to be liquefied.

This was something, he thought to be the Celestia bloodline's unique trait.

On one hand, he would have to use more mana to liquefy one drop of mana, but on the other hand, his foundation would be much stronger than anyone else's.

Once his already large mana core was filled with mana drops, it would be difficult to use up his mana which was extremely beneficial.

That was if he didn't learn any new, more mana-consuming techniques or stronger affinities that used up more mana!

However, what allowed him to be truly confident in his own strength was the fact that the primal awakening increased his physical strength drastically too!

His physique should be equally strong as someone who liquefied around 80 drops of mana, if not more, and he had yet to complete the infant phase of the Netherworld's fort technique!

This would give him an additional boost in his physical strength and Jason began to wonder how strong he would become after his physique reached the first stage.

'I should be able to fight against someone at the Grandmagus stage, right?'

If Jason didn't misunderstand humanity's mana core ranking system which said that every 10 drops of liquefied mana indicated a new level at the Magus rank, while the 100th liquefied drop of mana allowed one to be called a Grandmagus!

After that, every 100 drops of mana were a new level within the Grandmagus rank before one would enter the Lord rank with the 1,000th drop of mana.

This might not look like much but most 'common' prodigies required 6 months to liquefy one drop of mana. That was without using any cultivation resources and at the beginning, when one was not proficient in liquefying mana.

As such one could say that liquefying another drop of mana after two to three months would be a decent goal to achieve.

But even then it would take 250 years to enter the 1st Lord rank.

Fortunately, one's mana absorption rate would increase with each level and rank one would pass, while the same applied to one's control over mana, which allowed those prodigies to become faster after liquefying a few dozen drops of mana.

This meant most humans that were labeled normal prodigies could enter the Lord rank after around 150 years. That was if they received resources to absorb mana without interrupting their cultivation too often and for too long!

Jason didn't even want to think about something so cruel.

Fortunately, his mana veins, his control over mana, perception, the amount of mana he could absorb, almost everything improved insignificantly.

Now, Jason would have more problems finding places that would allow him to absorb enough mana without the need to use too many additional cultivation resources.

While they were traveling with the help of Shane's spatial affinity with which he manifested several hundred up to a few thousand spatial portals to reach Canir in a matter of hours, Jason's mind was focused on the soul world.

After the primal awakening, everything, including his soul world changed completely. This included that his soul amplification increased too!

It was not only his world that received an augmentation but also his soul amplification, the connection to his soulbonds, and the soul energy recuperation process!

Jason was not sure about how high his current soul amplification was, but if he were to estimate, it should be around 40%.

This means that if he were to deactivate the race specific weakening curse within him right now, he would receive a 40% amplification from every soulbond he had!

'Scorpio has reached his racial limit with 20 liquefied drops of mana, Artemis has already accumulated 40 drops of mana, the drops of mana Solaris created won't give me an amplification and Petri has yet to enter the Lique stage.'

Jason's mana core size would increase by a lot, but this wouldn't intervene in his liquefaction process as it didn't matter how large his mana core was to liquefy mana, it was only important to determine how mana drops of mana Jason could store.

On the other hand, only his vessel might have some problems with the physical amplification of 40% he could receive.

Maybe not now, because he had already created a large gap between his vessel's maximum limits, which increased after he had undergone the primal awakening of the Celestia bloodline, but he was unsure how exactly he would fare in the future.

"But...I can adjust the curse...to what degree I want...doesn't that mean I could decrease the curse further than I initially planned as long as I'm confident to bear with the increased soul world amplification for the next 6 months?"

Jason sensed that he found a loophole he hadn't seen before and couldn't help but smile while Emily was looking weirdly at him

'Did he become insane after awakening? How can he smile right now..?'