Chapter 197 - What The Hell Is Going On?

While Jason was correct with his assumption about the Daer siblings soulbonds, as both of them summoned a peak-evolved ranked Shadow panther with a dark green color radiating from them, Lin summoned a five-meter tall treant whose roots, branches, and twigs were shaped into limbs in order to walk around freely.

It looked somewhat hideous and crude but seemed to be efficient enough in order to walk around, even though it was slow.

Malia only summoned her Nightmare-horse, without even thinking about summoning her water fairy, but this did not change the surrounding atmosphere.

Lux´s soulbonds were the reason for him to feel uncomfortable and even the other expedition members felt slightly uneasy.

This was mainly because Lux summoned three unblemished ranked Skeletons with blue flames burning in their eye sockets, as they released their eerie death affinity without restraining it a tiny bit.

Through his mana eyes, Jason could tell that they reached their potential limit, but everything about the Skeletons felt weird.

While one was a Skeleton Warrior, with a broadsword in its hand, another one was an Elite Skeleton Archer, while the last one seemed to be a Skeleton Assassin with a smaller build.

However, all of them looked like human skeletons, which was the cause for him to feel so uncomfortable.

The radiating death mana wasn´t the real cause for him to feel weird and awkward, but because he knew how Skeleton's were created thanks to his master's knowledge.

'Did he create them by himself or are the skeletons from rifts with an innate death domain?' Jason asked himself, knowing that creating a human undead was only possible by using a corpse whose soul has yet to leave its body.

Sealing the soul and using certain magical ingredients, one could create a Skeleton, without any intelligence and memories about their past.

Jason´s knowledge was not perfect, but he remembered that strengthening or evolving such Skeletons was not possible because the mana core would stagnate once the owner died.

As such, Lux´s three skeletons were all undead humans at the Master rank, which caused him to shudder.

Everyone noticed that and the others could only smile sadly because their first time with Lux´s soulbonds was even more uncomfortable.

They were also somewhat disgusted about Lux´s decision to form a soulbond with former humans whose soul had been sealed within their mana core, but they could hardly do anything against it.

Lux didn't care if anyone had prejudices against him and they were free to think whatever they wanted about his soulbonds. It was his own business what soulbonds he would form a contract with and not anyone else's.

If he wanted to survive he would have to form a soulbond with a beast that had a death affinity and only thanks to his family's utmost efforts, was he able to receive a few Skeleton from a death domain.

Human Skeletons weren't per se the best choice but they were the strongest beasts he obtained, causing him to bind them even though he was looked at like a psychopath.

In the end, he would do anything in order to become stronger, without caring what others thought about him, even if he had to socialize to a certain degree in order to graduate from school, as the expedition was mandatory for everyone.

It was not really difficult to remain friendly with others, however, this changed almost immediately once they figured out what his soulbonds were.

Without bothering about anyone he just wanted to become stronger in order to reign over himself and not some big clans, who valued their citizen less than some magical treasures!

When Jason saw the other members' pitying gaze towards him and slight disgust disguised behind, he understood that they already knew about Lux´s soulbonds.

As such he could faintly comprehend that the black-eyed youth probably didn't do anything wrong, as he convinced himself that Lux received the Skeletons from a death domain, even if he wasn't sure about the truth.

In the end, Jason didn´t dare to ask, because he felt uncomfortable doing so.

'If Lux did something wrong, the government should already know about it..probably?'

Malia sensed the whole situation turning awkward when she said

"Let's go earn some credits! We have no time to waste" while trying to sound euphoric.

Nodding their head, they began to approach the rift with their 8 soulbonds next to them.

There were still a few demolished constructions in their way until they were finally able to see the rift complete, causing everyone to marvel at its sheer size.

Jason was still bewitched by the seemingly invisible runes within the blue shining liquid, but his attention was drawn to the hundreds of students and young men and women at the Master rank, standing in a queue waiting for their turn to venture into the rift.

"So many want to enter the rift?.... Will we even obtain anything at all, if the numbers increase further?" Jennifer said with worry when they noticed that some young men and women were already at the peak of the Master rank with their late-unblemished soulbonds next to them.

The others were also confused because they never ventured into a newly materialized rift and didn´t expect such a massive crowd of people trying to become rich.

Some of them already ventured into a permanent low-star rift but it was not even closely comparable to the current situation, which also astonished Jason.

However, his astonishment was not devoted to the mass of humans, but rather their soulbonds, as many rare beasts were among them, even though their potential seemed to be used up.

From Canines to Felines, Flying beasts, Snakes, Bison to Spirits, Elementals, Velociraptors, and much more, every kind of beast seemed to pop up in his view, causing Jason to imprint their affinities, individual mana channel distribution, and potential in his mind.

More than an hour passed until they were barely halfway through their queue, while Jason completely forgot about the queasy feeling he had about Lux, as his soulbonds were rather ordinary compared to some other unique ones he observed.

He wasn't even aware that so many different kinds of beasts existed on Astrix and Jason kept wondering if some of them were imported from other islands or even Canir.

It felt like a new world opened up to him and everything was somehow thanks to the materializing rift which released thick mana currents, suppressing its surrounding.

From his detailed research about all beasts he saw, Jason could tell that there wasn't yet a single Magical ranked beast until now, while peak unblemished ranked beasts seemed to be more ordinary and the reason for this was quite simple in his opinion.

While it was already extremely difficult for humans to compress their mana into the first liquefied mana drop, the same applied for beasts, only that they had to follow their instincts to do something like that.

As such it was even said that some beasts with a potential allowing them to barely enter the magical rank, wouldn´t necessarily mean that they would ever reach this rank.

In the end, Jason felt rather disappointed that he didn´t see any magical ranked beast, which was only because he wanted to observe if the rift´s restriction would repel it or not.

Normally that should be the case but within the soul world, everything could change and Jason was curious to figure that out.

Nevertheless, until it was their turn, he couldn't see a single magical ranked beast could, and he immediately felt disappointed as he approached the rift.

Sensing the pressure descending on him, Jason felt as if he was about to suffocate when he enveloped himself with a small membrane of mana.

The guards that protected the City and the rift at the same time eyed him weirdly, wondering why an Adept rank would venture into a four-star rift, which distracted them from their duty.

Jason didn´t care about being eyed like this anymore because almost everyone during the whole interval before they entered the rifts proximity eyed him like he was suicidal or extremely stupid.

Everyone took a deep breath before they crossed the rift and it felt like space twisted around them when everything went black around them.

Meanwhile, Jason felt like Shane used his spatial teleportation with the addition of an unimaginable weird and uncomfortable, yet interesting feeling as time and space in front of him twisted.

Through his mana eyes, he saw the black color representing an unknown affinity, the golden color indicating the space affinity, and the silver color which most likely represented time transmuted mana swirling around them, while everyone around him collapsed.

'What the hell is going on?!'