Chapter 24: Mankinds 'advantage'

In order to obtain high-quality mana gathering and purifying techniques, Shane required not only an astronomical amount of wealth, but the system would also send out a bunch of missions, which he had to accomplish to obtain permission to buy better manuals.

With a strict time limit, accomplishing some of these missions could only be described as extremely difficult, but not only did the time pressure one, the difficulty some missions provided exceeded most human capabilities, as it was said that some missions even involved invading foreign Primordial Dimensions, that humanity never entered before.

Some of them were even inhabited by other races and bloodbaths couldn't be prevented in some cases.

Shane remembered a case, where a human prodigy with a mana purity of 80% ventured into a foreign Basic-Dimension, only to cause problems with other races which almost created war.

Fortunately, the authorities of both sides could get a hold of their troublemakers and explain the situation, while the human prodigy was allowed to accomplish his mission, as long as they would never return to this particular Dimension.

Losing a foreign Dimension in order to get back their captured human prodigy, who had a high chance to accomplish his mission, wasn't considered a bad deal, as mankind was already conquering more than enough shelters as of now.

Having a stable position in 30 Basic-DImension was still far away from satisfying humanity, which was filled with greed and the desire to have more.

As such roughly 8 more shelters were in their building process as of now.

200 years ago, humanity had still a population of more than 10 billion left but with the blessing in disguise, also called Primordial Dimensions, old age and disease weren't considered a problem anymore.

While beings at higher stages would reduce their fertility rate, it did not apply to anyone below the Master rate and with their increased strength, even older humans seemed to regain their youth while cultivating.

In the past, the average age humans achieved was on average 80 years and was roughly the same compared with the mortal stage, while the apprentice stage increased one's lifespan by roughly 20 to 30 years, entering the expert stage one would receive another increase of approximately 50 years.

If one lived healthily without sustaining serious injuries, one could even become even older and 170 years wasn't uncommon for Expert stages.

Breaking into the Master stage, one would have a lifespan of more than 300 years.

This meant that a large number of humans that survived the horror provided by the Primordial Dimensions were still alive, if they entered the Master stage, without being killed by monsters.

It was also estimated that mankind recovered from the loss of 20 billion casualties and even broke through a new population record, which Shane was neither sure about nor did he really care about it

As long as he wasn't obstructed by the sheer masses of humans, he was fine with everyone bearing as many children as they wanted.

In the end, it could even be said that it was an advantage of humanity because humans' fertility rate was considered extremely high compared to other races, even though some races are still better in that aspect.

Goblins, for example, are tenacious and even rabbits feared their reproduction ability, but their innate strength was much lower compared to humans and one didn't even need to mention their intelligence.

In order for them to reach the intelligence of humans, they would have to evolve either into Goblin mages, Shamans, Goblin Lords, or throughout a series of evolutions into a Goblin King.

These were only a small part of their population, as such mankind was still better than them and Shane didn't even know if Goblins habited a planet somewhere in the universe, or if they only lived within the Primordial Dimensions.

Umbra was still searching for a perfect position to support Shane during a battle, but he was still way too small to coil around his neck, without falling down, as such fighting together seemed still hard, even though the required will and spirit existed.

Looking out of Shane's chest pocket of his black robe, Umbra's head stuck out and one could consider this position as the best possible spot to support Shane with some shadow needles in order to distract the opponents.

Right now, Shane could see a bunch of mid-Wild stage sparky-horned goats with reinforced horns with feeble electric currents spreading out from them.

Getting hit by these horns would not only be extremely painful but also shocking, as the electric currents would force their way through armors and even mid-Wild beasts.

Sparky-horned goats weren't especially powerful in other aspects but their horns were definitely a threat one wouldn't want to face.

But Shane sneaked up to a group of ten without even the slightest hint of fear in his eyes.

He was ready to embrace these goats, as they were rare to find, so close at the outskirts of the mountain.

The sparky-horns of the goats could be used to make a variety of elemental weapons at the Mortal grade, with a common quality as the worst possible outcome.

Injecting mana into these weapons, small sparks would envelop them, increasing their lethality by a small margin.

As such each of the 4th Wild stage beasts was worth around 7 silver coins.

This wasn't comparable to the products manufactured by the sparky horns, which were worth more than 50 silver coins, but Shane didn't mind that.

His plan right now was to generate money to invest it once again in his human capital.

Shane was only slightly more than ten meters away from his prey and the next few step would alarm them as an 8-meter radius was the estimated distance for most beasts to notice invaders by either smelling, hearing, or feeling them.

This radius would only increase with the ranks and assassinating would become even harder, but right now a distance of 8 meters was more than enough for Shane to prevent his first target to evade him.

Leaning forward, Shane circulated mana within his lower body, and from a slow first step, he pushed himself forcefully from the ground, reaching a breathtaking speed, shocking the unaware sparky horned goats that grazed innocently, causing their horns to release electric sparks.

The distance of 8 meters was crossed within a single moment and Shane had to twist his body, as the sparky-horned goat he targeted surprisingly reacted much faster than he had anticipated.

But it only lowered its head to face him head-on with its horns, which wasn't that smart, due to Shane's exceptional flexibility he acquired thanks to the hellish instructor that forced him to do yoga and run through the forest while doing a certain strenuous parkour.

How he hated this devil!!! Shane thought for a quarter of a second, before his focus laid on the mid-Wild stage goat in front of him.

It was only 45 centimeter in height without its head and Shane exerted his force to jump over it, while twisting his body to thrust out with his dagger, causing a deep wound, close to the neck.

Unfortunately, his attack was slightly off, as such Shane still had to face 10 opponents at the same time, but unbeknownst to him, Umbra shot out a paper-thin shadow-needle into the deep wound he created, decreasing the combat strength of the already injured sparky-horned goat even more.

Most people would feel a deep sensation of danger while fighting against 10 beasts at the same time but the only thing that Shane did was to smile innocently, finally having a real fight, exactly what he wished for.