Chapter 278: Superior beast pack

"Igra will awaken its mana heart and establish an Artisan organisation?" 

Everyone was baffled to hear this because there hadn't been any news about Igra's mana awakening.

Not even the tiniest clue to such a grand event had been disclosed so far.

The only news that had been released was that the government had established a trading and truce agreement with another race.

However, nobody would have expected that Igra would awaken its mana heart already!

Yet, Shane somehow knew about it and he was casually talking about it as if it was the most ordinary occurrence.

"I'm also invited to the event that will be held because of the mana awakening. I'll try to promote the Astral Artisans there….at least, I will give my best!"

Shane's words caused everyone around him including Milan to look at him dumbfoundedly.

'Can't you just act as if it was something honorable for you? Why does it feel as if you'll be bored there??'

Nobody was sure why they thought so, but from Shane's behavior and body language, they assumed that Shane was not interested in attending any of the government's events!

However, only a moment later he turned towards Jack and Kylia as he said

"I'm not sure how good your relationship with your family has gotten, but I doubt that both of you have spoken to them for three years. That's not an order per se, however, I think it would be great to attend the event with a few more people! If we were to demonstrate our stance and prowess to a certain degree, everything would be much easier, right?"

Shane had already asked Aisha and Frer if they would attend the mana awakening event.

Yet, to his astonishment, both hadn't received an invitation, at least for now!

This told Shane that he was one of the earliest to be invited, and he couldn't help but smile drily at that time.

Kylia and Jack were astonished by Shane's question and they looked at him a little bit uncomfortably.

"Since we ran away, our relationship with our family worsened...by a lot! To be honest, I'm not sure what exactly our parents would do if they would see us at such an event…"

It was Kylia who had answered Shane, and Jack seemed to look grumpier than his sister, which was astonishing.

Thus, Shane was able to understand the rough situation.

'Either their family is more conservative than my dad, or they were humiliated that both their children had eloped from their home in order to avoid being married to someone they didn't love or know. 

If rumors are to be believed, there are even cases where a family sells their children to someone extremely disgusting or cruel, maybe that happened?'

Nobody could answer his question because he didn't ask it out loud! It was not his business and it was nothing but an invitation he handed out.

As such. he nodded his head and replied,

"Alright, if you don't want to go, nobody will force you! Let's depart and earn as many funds as possible during the next few weeks!"

However, before they continued, Shane recalled something as he turned to Milan.

"I don't know if you're still after the Syldalyr sand, but if I were to consider that you have been locked within the underwater cave for 20 years, you must be short on funds, right? 

We are strangers to each other, which is why I don't know whether you will betray us later when we enter the last cavern room with the Syldalyr sand. As such, I would like to sign a system contract with you! We will give you a certain amount of gold coins and take you out of the underwater cave. In exchange, you will keep it to yourself about the method I employed to take you out of the underwater cave and you won't beg for more funds!"

It didn't sound like an offer to Milan and it felt more like 'my way or the highway' to him.

Milan was not sure why, but he felt that Shane was much more mature, rational and calculative than anyone else.

It was obvious that he wanted to earn something too! He had been locked within the underwater cave for 20 years after all!!

Unfortunately, it seemed as if it was impossible to earn a large amount of gold coins and Milan could only sigh as he replied,

"Alright. Let's sign a system contract, but don't be too harsh. I haven't earned 100 gold coins in the last 20 years. I've been barely hanging on to my life as it is!" 

Shane had almost been unable to suppress his grin because he knew that Milan was nonchalantly lying to him.

'He is not a pushover, huh?'

As such, Shane promised 2,000 gold coins to Milan, which he handed out immediately in order to prevent anything from happening later.

This astonished Milan and the others, but after reconsidering everything, Milan was now forced to obey the system contract.

Furthermore, he had yet to leave the underwater cave and see the surface again!

With that in mind, Shane and the others left the large cavern hall they had been inside in order to continue their journey through the underwater cave.

*

Several hours had passed and according to Milan, they should have reached the last cavern hall habituating beasts!

This made everyone feel joyous because they had already fought more than a dozen groups of peak-Awakened beasts.

Those beasts had the combat prowess of a human at the Expert stage with a mana purity of at least 75%.

Some of the Starlight guild members hadn't even reached such a mana purity, and it was only because of their upgraded equipment that nobody had sustained an injury!

At least, there hadn't been an injury that Kylia couldn't heal!

Milan had guided them the whole time, but based on his facial expression, Shane could tell that something was off.

He had also read through the report Milan had released on PrimWeb and Shane was aware of what worried Milan.

'Every beast has become much stronger than what Milan wrote in the report! If that's the case, the next group of beasts should be superior peak-Awakened beasts!!'

Initially, that would have worried Shane a little bit, however, that was not the case anymore.

Based on his detailed observation, he could tell that everyone's combat prowess had increased by a large margin.

The only thing Shane had to pay attention to, was that everyone's mana pool should be completely replenished and the cooldown period of each and every skill's cooldown was over!

As such, they had to wait half a day longer, which was deemed useless and unnecessary by a few guild members.

However, Shane only had to reveal that they might encounter superior peak-Awakened beasts that had possibly reached the mana purity of 85%, and everyone quieted down in an instant.

When every skill was usable again, Shane concealed his mana core with his concealment skill before he gulped down a mana concealment potion.

After that, he gulped down a scent dissolvement potion before he began to walk inside the last cavern hall.

He wanted to figure out which beasts they had to fight and what kind of tactic might be the most useful to utilize against them.

Only ten minutes later, he returned to his group with a conflicted facial expression and announced,

"There are 7 Superior peak-Awakened stage Advanced Ocean hounds, and every single one of them has a mana purity of 85%!" 

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