While Jason had tried ignoring the effects of the poison thrown at him as much as possible, the corrosion had spread through the scales, entering his body as an itchy sensation overcame him.

This forced him to burn the poison with Solaris' help, utilizing some of the mana he was painstakingly stockpiling for the next step of his plan to dominate the rest of the tournament!

The first battle royale would determine the final winner of the tournament as the true prodigies were fighting against each other, while the remaining rounds had only consisted of a handful of strong opponents.

Despite that, Jason was confident that they would be less of a problem than facing several dozen opponents at once.

Thus, the battle royale was the biggest problem, which caused him to use every ounce of strength within his body to win.

Since he had found a way to rescue the Flers Jason's worries about the future had dispersed and his mind was not subconsciously thinking of ways to help those that were important to him.

As such, he could fight however he wanted with the sole restriction Jason had put against himself; not to kill anyone!

It was difficult to use Solaris while maintaining the fusion with Petri, but it worked perfectly fine which was slightly different from Artemis' fusion.

This could have multiple reasons, but Jason had no time to think about that.

Instead, he just began to use Solaris' flame to envelop his razor-sharp claws with them, minimizing the mana consumption while receiving the most benefits!

Appearing in between the rows of the Lizr, Jason slashed out with the black flame enveloped claws that released faint fragments of Solaris' flame the moment he pierced through his opponents' flesh.

Thus, the fragments of Solaris flames burned the Lizr from the inside, weakening them further.

However, just at that moment, several dozen spears conjured out of light affinity shot towards him, forcing Jason to twist his body in an uncomfortable angle, only to barely avoid the high-velocity light spears.

Without wasting any time, he straightened himself and left the center of the Lizr race's group before he had finished his job.

They were not important anymore, because his eyes were trained on the opponent who had attacked him.

It was the young female Tigron with the light affinity, the one who he had seen in the decimator rounds with a shocking combat prowess!

Her combat strength was the closest to the Prismar stage in the entire batch of youngest prodigies who had participated in the liberation tournament, and she was also the opponent he was the most vigilant of!

She hadn't revealed much of her strength before, but her rank was already more than enough for most people to avoid her.

Yet, instead of doing exactly that, Jason hatched a different plan to take care of the female Tigron.

He didn't want to face her right now because there was still some time left for him to fight the final boss.

Instead, he wanted to take care of the weakest among the strongest prodigies.

There were less than 30 participants left in the battle royale and Jason had defeated most opponents, while attracting the attention of everyone else.

Most may say that this was foolish, but Jason felt extremely happy right now.

This was visible to everyone because the ferocious aura he had manifested by merging with Petri was becoming stronger by the second.

The excitement that swept the entire arena was even more apparent, while Petri, who occupied his mana core was continuously roaring out in delight.

Jason didn't amplify these roars, let alone release them outside his body.

Despite that, the roars seemed to increase his morale as the adrenaline in his body received a spike.

As a reaction to the multitude of changes within his body, the black scales on his body grew while his claws enlarged.

At the same time, the corroded scales regrew, exhausting a massive amount of nutrition from his body.

Jason was not sure how much he would have to eat later, only to barely make up for the nutrition he was using in the battle royale, but it didn't matter right now.

Everything was worth the efforts he had to take into account as he was able to push his feet from the ground, only to rush straight towards Jarid and the other Ilians who were participating in the liberation tournament.

Apparently, there were only a few Ilians in the Olympus federation and both Jarid, and his brother who stood next to him were extremely talented.

Despite that, Jarid's brother could only stare at Jason with a trace of fear in his eyes as Jarid unleashed two seals of his thunder constitution at once.

His entire body was enveloped in dark purple thunder currents as he released his battle intent.

Instead of a spear or other weapons that Jarid was proficient in he used unique-looking daggers to fight, and Jason could only circulate more mana through his body as he sensed how eager Jarid was to encounter him once again.

The young Ilian was not afraid to face Jason like the other participants, rather, he was eager to show how much he had improved as he accelerated his pace.

Jarid's speed was terrific and at par with Jason's, if not higher, which allowed both of them to collide a moment after they had reached the pinnacle of their speed.

While Jarid used his daggers to fight, it looked like Jason was about to use his claws once again.

He was unable to hold a sword properly after all.

Yet, instead of doing what everyone expected, Jason retracted his claws that seemed to vanish, only to reveal a black scaled hand.

At the exact same moment, a long black colored sword manifested in the black scaled hand, that began to glow in a faint silver light as small traces of mana was injected into it.

Certain runes were activated that enlarged Byakur's size as he encountered Jarid.

When the two opponents collided with each other, both realised how strong the other party had become in the three months that had passed since their last battle.

Jason's passively released petrification- and race specific weakening curse were still working perfectly fine, but they were almost immune to Jarid, who had trained in a rare technique his grandfather had given him after he had been defeated by Jason.

It was only then that Jarid had found out that Jason had come to his grandfather's shop, which seemed to have caused Old Sadran's interest in the young man.

Jarid didn't really care about any of that because he wanted to become stronger, by all means, to show Jason that he was not someone to be taken lightly!

As such, he had trained relentlessly, allowing him to be immune to the petrification curse.

The race specific weakening curse was a different matter because it spread through the target's entire being, before weakening a specific characteristic related to its race.

Thus, Jarid's thunder affinity was weakened, but the effect was lower than he had expected.

If Jarid were to know that these were only the subconsciously released curses that didn't even drain any mana from Jason, he would have thrown a fit.

However, right now Jarid felt exhilarated as he brandished the daggers he wielded towards Jason.

Despite being excited to encounter Jarid, he couldn't help but stay vigilant of every opponent around him.

This allowed him to perceive that the light Tigron was already gathering mana to initiate another attack, ignoring the fact that Jarid and Jason were currently facing off against each other.

'So, we are behaving like this now?'

Grumbling didn't help and Jason couldn't help but avoid Jarid's first dagger strike while brandishing Byakur to deflect the other dagger's strike too.

Only a moment later, Jason used his five-meter-long tail that whipped in the air before coiling it around Jarid's waist.

This was extremely painful because the thunder currents spread through the tail, reaching Jason, who could only tolerate it as he threw Jarid towards the light Tigron who had just conjured a multitude of light spears.

Thanks to that, he could prevent fighting against Jarid while being attacked from the back. Now he only had to face Jarid's brother, who was less optimistic in fighting Jason than Jarid himself.

As such, Jason had fewer problems facing the brother whom he defeated in a few moves.

However, at that moment, he sensed that the thread with which his mana core had connected to Petri was loosening which caused Jason to sigh.

"It's already over?"

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