Chapter 164: Upgrade

"That's enough!! Guard, bring young master Neil to his residence." command Abet.

As the guard starts to apprehend Neil, "You can't do this. I am the most talented son of the Clan Head." said Neil while struggling.

"Yes, but I am also the guard leader of the Sur Clan. Guard brought him away." said Abet sternly.

Hearing this, the guard immediately catches Neil and drags him away. Even Neil is already a grade two combatant, his body strength is still inferior to the clan guard, who is majority grade four and consists of other races.

After Neil was dragged away, "Young master Angus, Lady Jayna, I am sorry for this kind of inconvenience." said Abet apologizing to Angus and Jayna.

"Don't worry about it. We already get used to ignoring annoying people." said Angus shortly.

"Yeah, as long as he didn't overstep his boundary, we could just ignore him." replied Jayna.

"I-I see, then let's move along." said Abet.

Meanwhile, inside the beast territory, Ian has been sneezing non-stop for a while.

"Urgg.. Someone must be thinking of my greatness." said Ian.

Soon, Angus and Jayna arrive at two small tents that have already been prepared before. The tent is not too shabby but also not too luxurious compared to the clan head tent. There are also few guards patrolling around the tent, which makes it relatively safe.

'It seems uncle really thought highly of us.' thought Angus.

As Angus wanted to enter his tent, "Hmph… Why do they prepare two different tents?" asked Jayna.

"Err.. Jayna.." said Angus.

"They should prepare one just one tent. Hmph…" grumbling Jayna.

Ignoring Jayna's remark, he enters his own tent. Entering his tent, he immediately put on some simple protective rune. Although their location is relatively safe, his experience during the past week told him that there is no such thing as being over cautious.

Finishing laying some simple trap rune, "Draven, please watch the surroundings." said Angus telepathically.

"Alright, Master." replied Draven shortly.

Then, Angus begins to sit and meditate. He focuses on his mana core that is on the verge of breaking through. During the feast, he already feels his mana core is in the middle of upgrading. 

But, he suppresses it as upgrading his mana core needs a lot of preparation and couldn't be done half-heartedly.

Unlike normal mana cores, Angus designed his mana core to be superior in many things to other normal mana cores. It may not feel different during the lower grade stage, but its true capability will start to show up after entering the upper grade.

However, there is a downside for this mana core. It needs a complete upgrade to retain all this benefit, not just half-heartedly like doing it during the fight. Complete upgrade means he needs to be ready in body and mind along with the mana core itself.

Gathering all his mana at one point, he sends it towards the mana core to nurture it. He feels his mana core that usually regenerates his mana stop and begins to absorb the mana during this time. The mana core absorbs all the nearby mana like a bottomless hole. 

A dozen minutes later, the mana core becomes more saturated after basking in the mana. Suddenly, it creates an invisible shockwave towards the surroundings. Fortunately, Angus already set up some barrier runes before.

Otherwise, the guard outside will notice the mana turbulence in the air. During this time, his mana core suddenly works at full power and produces purer mana than before. The sudden change makes Angus feel like soaking in warm water.

It feels relaxing yet also energizing. Angus feels like a dry wasteland that is being flooded by water after many years. Still, Angus keeps in control of his mana and circulates it properly. The last thing he wants at this moment is his mana going out of control.

A few hours later, his mana started to calm down. Angus could feel that he has become stronger than before going into the upgrade. Moreover, he could feel the presence of his mana core become thinner than before, yet the regeneration is faster.

After that, Angus summons his status panel to look at his growth properly.

Host: Angus Victory

Age: 14 Years Old

MP: 347/347

Heritage chi: ???

Strength: 38 

Dexterity: 38 

Intelligence: 41 

Vitality: 43

Soul Point: 123

Looking at his status, he couldn't help admiring his mana core upgrade. First, his mana has increased by 47 points. Since last year, his mana point has already risen at a slow speed. 

Forty-seven points are almost like a whole year worth of refining mana to increase his capacity. Furthermore, he also feels that his mana regeneration is twice than before. Having this kind of regeneration means he could fight longer than others.

Furthermore, he feels this regeneration will be increased along with each mana core upgrade. He didn't need to worry about such a thing called mana deficiency in the future. The weakness of every combatant up to now is their low mana regeneration.

Even the high-grade combatant also couldn't regenerate their mana quickly. But, Angus designed his mana core to overcome this limit, making him a walking human mana generator.

Besides the mana, Angus also got an increase in Strength and Dexterity by three points. Now, both of these stats need a whole 320 soul points just to increase one. This is an enormous point even after he got ten points a day through the automatic battle system.

Because of this, every single increase in status is significant for him. The only downside is he could not control his power to the smallest detail like before. However, this is only a small setback. What he needs now is a significant power boost over some most negligible control.

After checking his growth, Angus opened his eyes and found that a few hours had already passed since the start of his breakthrough. His body is still full of sweat from trying to control his mana circulation before.

If Jayna's [Arctic Heart] mana circulation is a delicate thing that could hurt oneself, Angus mana circulation is another level. One wrong mistake could potentially kill him or seriously wound him.

On the contrary, his body has more refined control over his body and sharp sense. This is one of the primary reasons he could avoid or deflect all attacks. As long as it is not ridiculously overpowered, Angus is confident he could deflect or avoid it.

His mana circulation didn't have a name since it was self-made and tailored to his body. So, if he teaches them to others, it will not bring benefit but only disaster to them. Like the [Arctic Heart], his mana circulation also made him sensitive to emotion.

He even could perceive the malicious intent of other people without looking at them, like when he perceived the fire phoenix intent previously.

Then, Angus begins cleaning himself with a simple cleaning spell. The basic thing to survive in the wilderness is learning this spell. Although it is not as good as taking a real bath, it is still good enough to maintain hygiene.

After cleaning himself, he also didn't forget to resupply Draven's food. Apparently, Draven could store things in his shadow. However, Angus has his own pocket storage, which makes it useless for him.

So, Draven decides to fill up his shadow storage with food. This way, Angus didn't need to keep feeding Draven every single time. Of course, he didn't give a lot of food at once to not make Draven too docile.

Draven is a Mundus that not even King Leon and Jade could perceive. So, Angus decided to make it one of his trump cards. A being like Mundus is a cheat existence since it could be anywhere as long as there is a shadow.

Done resupplying Draven food, Angus decides to rest for a while. Despite his body not feeling tired and energized, he still feels mental fatigue and becomes a little bit sluggish. After sleeping for a few hours, Angus could hear a commotion nearby.

"What do you mean I can't approach the tent? Don't you know who I am?!" asked Neil from outside the tent.

'It seems that Neil still didn't give up and decided to approach us despite being stopped by the nearby guard.' thought Angus inwardly.

Hearing this commotion, Jayna and Angus couldn't help but get out of their tent. At this time, Jayna looks at Angus and feels there is something different about him. Her phoenix instinct tells her that Angus is becoming stronger.

Approaching Angus, "Morning, Angus. Or should I call it afternoon?" asked Jayna.

"Well, it is quite hard to differentiate the time with this kind of strange climate. Anyway, did you have a good rest?" said Angus.

"Yup, although it is not as good as when I am with you." said Jayna.

"Err... " as Angus becomes speechless at his girlfriend.

"Anyway, Angus, did you breakthrough?" asked Jayna curiously.

"Huh.. How did you know?" asked Angus back.

"I don't. It's just my instinct telling me you are getting stronger than before. I guess this is the perk of merging with Fire Phoenix." said Jayna.

While the two converse with each other, "Oii... You two.. How dare you flirt in front of me!!"