Chapter 17: [Artemis' Blessing]

Shane was unsure how much time passed but it was already evening when he regained his senses when a bunch of notifications flooded him.

[[Artemis' Blessing] activated, host can perceive impurities better]

[[Artemis' Blessing] activated, host's compatibility with mana increase due to being blessed by nature]

[[Artemis' Blessing] activated, aptitude towards mana increased]

[[Artemis' Blessing] activated, host established amity with mana]

[[Artemis' Blessing] activated, host entered [Zone] thanks to [Hunter's mind] and host's innate determination]

[[Artemis´ Blessing] activated, quality of [Mortal-(Bronze)] Mana gathering& purifying techniques increased thanks to host's unrestrained will to become stronger, amity with mana, nature's blessing, and innate mana aptitude]

Confusion spread throughout Shane...

'What happened? Since when can blessings do something like that? And why did his blessing went rampage like that? At least the messages sounded pleasing without <You'll die in 24hours> or something like that…'

Establishing amity with mana, increasing his aptitude and compatibility with mana, and furthermore even increasing the quality of his manuals, which Shane thought to be impossible, was amazing.

There was no description about the [Zone] and Shane didn't remember anything about such a thing and the only thing he roughly knew was that he couldn't remember how much time passed when he began to greedily devour mana to gather it and afterward to purify it in turn.

This kept going and he lost track of time, which was a rare occurrence for him.

Everything seemed to play into his hands but Shane grew more curious about the origin of his blessing as he doubted it was from the System.

On earth, he was also loved by nature, rational and good in sports, which caused Shane to wonder if he was already blessed by Artemis in his last life.

[Artemis' Blessing] said that his soul was blessed and Shane thought it might as well be his old soul that transmigrated into the chaotic era on Igra.

'Was it also a coincidence that I awoke the Taming skill?' Shane wasn't sure and thinking about it didn't bring him any benefits.

As such he looked at the time and opened his status afterward, to look how efficient his first-time cultivation was.

_______________

Title: [None]

Occupation: [None]

Name: Shane Suro (Orus)

Race:[Human 100%]

Cultivation Level: Mortal-1st [Purity 0.03%]

Body Refinement: [Mortal-4th]

Cultivation Manual:

→Mana purifying [Mortal-(Silver)]

→Mana gathering [Mortal-(Silver)]

<Skills/Techniques>

[Artemis´ Blessing]+

[Innate Skill]: Taming |Trash-★(+)|

Finances: 4 Silver, 50 Bronze

_______________

A [0.03%] increase in mana purity after one sitting, could be considered extremely good.

It was his first sitting and the more proficient he would get, the easier it would be to gather mana and purify it within a shorter amount of time, while the cultivation manuals he used were also one of the worst possible, decreasing the potential outcome further.

Between his arrival in the DeepMountain shelter and now roughly 4 hours passed and it could also be said to be a good starting point.

Shane didn't even know that so much time passed and he wasn't even remotely bored.

Taking out some food to eat, Umbra woke up due to the nice aroma filling the reeking stone field.

The smell surrounding the stone field was extremely bad and Shane swore to himself that he would search for better spots to cultivate, as soon as he was more proficient with gathering mana.

He should at least cultivate through the night before leaving to not waste the 10 silver coins he paid.

After telling Umbra, that he would cultivate throughout the night, Umbra coiled together on Shane's head and he had the feeling that not only he would cultivate now.

All kinds of beats have the Innate ability to gather mana and Shane was glad to see that Umbra didn't throw a tantrum about their current situation.

The only slightly disadvantage thing was, that Umbra would absorb normal mana that hadn't been transmuted.

Because of that, Shane wasn't sure if it would be as beneficial as darkness transmuted mana, or if his growth would just take longer.

Nevertheless, it would still be better than doing nothing.

As such Shane exerted his newly upgraded mana gathering manual with its silver quality to see hundreds of mana particles all around him.

Creating a small vortex inside his mana pool, its suction force increased by at least 30% compared to before when he exerted the [Mortal-(Bronze)] to its maximum capabilities.

Everything was much clearer than before and Shane once again entered the [Zone], where focus and determination were solely focused on cultivating.

Within the Zone, the track of time would become negligible and Shane only knew that he exerted the mana gathering technique once, before changing into exerting the mana purifying technique.

Switching between exerting both techniques a few times, Shane's cultivation speed could be called 'exceptional' even though he only used a [Mortal-(Silver)] mana gathering and purifying technique.

Thanks to [Artemis' Blessing] and him entering the [Zone] everything was much cleaner and cleansing the impurities within the mana seemed exceptionally easy.

---

Waking up due to dozens of thoughts transmitted into his mind, Shane was forced to stop cultivating as he opened his eyes.

Glaring at Umbra, he knew that his small companion was hungry

While taking out the only two dishes he had in his spatial ring, Shane noticed that the sun was already up.

Once Umbra was supplied with food, Shane could look at the time.

12 hours passed? Shane was confused, for him it seemed like it was only half an hour when he began exerting his new enhanced silver quality cultivation manuals.

But it was definitely an advantage to forget the track of time while cultivating because it was seen as the most boring thing that struck humanity since the Dimensional Portals appeared.

Nevertheless, cultivating was important to get stronger and one had to force his way through the Cultivation realms to increase one's lifespan and strength to stay alive.

In addition to that, one would be able to gain much more wealth once one reached higher realms by defeating stronger beats and selling their corpses.

As such almost all humans forced themselves to cultivate even though it was boring but apparently that wasn't the case for Shane and taking a glance at his mana purity, he was overjoyed.

Previously slightly less than four hours were enough for him to increase his mana purity by 0.03% but now it seemed like he had reached 0.17% and calculating everything through, his cultivation speed had increased by roughly 55% which was definitely a large increase.

This caused Shane to be happy and looking at the two fist-sized mana stones within his spatial ring, he couldn't help but smile.

Due to them having a [uncommon] quality, the quantity of mana inside them was enough to reduce the time of his mana gathering manual by many folds.

Looking at Umbra, he seemed to have grown to 12 centimeters, and it wouldn't be long until he reached the 2nd-Wild stage.

Thinking about that, Shane looked at the Upgrade-mission which increased from 1% to 4%.

It would take a few days until the required enhanced strength of 20% would be achieved, but Shane wanted to increase this speed slightly, after noticing that Umbra seemed bored.

He had reached a loyalty of 18% could be said to be good and Shane went out of the stone platform, without hesitating a single second.

Purchasing a few special DeepMountain shelter dishes, Shane's fortune decreased to 3 silver.

As such, even if Umbra was not bored, he would have to enter the Mountain to either gather herbs or kill beasts in order to gain some living expenses.

With Umbra coiled around his hand, Shane left the DeepMountain shelter, not forgetting to show his status as human in addition to his tamed beast, that attracted only a little bit of attention from the guards, as it was rare to see a black scaled snake around the Deep Mountain-river Primordial DImension.