BXBX NOVEL Chapter 21 - Quality Amplification
Shane and Umbra ate until their bellies were filled to the brim. When Shane looked outside the window, he saw the prismarine-luminous crystal street lamps brightening up their surroundings, while they were weekly supplied with mana.
When Shane used the prismarine-luminous crystals, he overclocked them with a higher than required dose of mana, causing a much brighter light to dazzle the shadow snakes and mountain boars.
Unfortunately, overclocking the prismarine-luminous crystal would slowly destroy the inner structure and cause them to crumble, as it happened to his small crystal.
Nevertheless, the investment was definitely worth the costs. Shane was pleased as he retrieved one of the fist-sized mana stones at the [Mortal-(Uncommon)] rank from his spatial ring.
Mana could still faintly enter houses and other buildings through gaps or cracks. But, on exerting the mana gathering techniques, Shane noticed that, compared to the surroundings, there were at most 10% mana particles inside his room.
Nevertheless, Shane wanted to absorb and purify his mana for a few hours before sleeping and even Umbra looked at the mana stone with greed.
Umbra curled himself on top of the mana stone, while Shane held it in his hands, after sitting in the meditation stance to increase the efficiency of the mana gathering and purifying technique.
As Shane continued to exert the mana gathering technique, before purifying the gathered mana, three hours passed.
The mana stone\'s light slowly dissipated, as it crumbled in his hands.
There were still many mana particles floating around the room due to his weak graded mana gathering technique.
Once mana was released from mana stones, they wouldn\'t stop releasing it until emptying themselves completely.
Thus, if the output was larger than one\'s input, the excess mana particles would float through the air.
Shane could still absorb more mana, but he looked at his mana purity instead.
It had already reached [0.23%] which was not satisfying for Shane. But, he hadn\'t slept for the last 40 hours and experienced more tension than he had accumulated in his whole new life together.
As such, he could barely remember taking a glance at Umbra who looked at him pleadingly. He retrieved the last fist-sized uncommon quality mana stone from his spatial ring when darkness enveloped him, pushing him into a well-deserved sleep.
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Hours later when Shane opened his eyes, it seemed as if the morning had almost passed.
When he checked the time, with his half-lidded eyes it was 10 am.
Shane\'s eyes widened as he scrambled to get up from his bed, straightening his back.
`Argh!! I didn\'t want to waste time and now I\'ve slept so long?` he lamented when he noticed a shattered stone next to him.
Looking around in confusion, Shane thought that he had already cleared the mana stone remains. But, then he recalled that he had taken out his last mana stone for Umbra, and searched for the small fella.
Not much time had passed until he found the `small` culprit.
However, instead of being enraged, Shane\'s brows furrowed seeing an 18-centimeter long snake with deep-black shining scales instead of the small 12 centimeters Umbra with slightly dirty scales…
He was about to ask who that was, as he sensed a connection between himself and the snake, and Shane\'s eyes widened.
That was Umbra?? How is this small boy growing so fast?
Looking at Umbra\'s stats, Shane was even more confused.
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Name: [Umbra♂]
Race:[Shadow-snake]
Rank: [Low 2nd-Wild stage(Low-Wild)]
Quality: [Uncommon](+)
<Locked> |Evolution|(+)
Affinity: Lowest Basic-Darkness(Shadow)
Ability: [One with the Darkness(Trash)]
Loyalty: [21%]
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It was obvious that Umbra\'s strength increased and reaching the 2nd-Wild stage was the proof for that, while the increase of its loyalty to 21% was already pleasing to see.
What confused Shane however, was something else.
In front of Umbra\'s quality, there was a (+), which wasn\'t there before, and after clicking on it another message appeared below.
[Quality enhancement] Increases the quality by a minuscule degree.
Shane had never seen this before and looking through his notification log, he noticed something important.
[Taming|Trash|] Upgrade-Mission |★★| → Tame a beast and increase its strength by 20%, accomplished! Reward: [Growth boost] Boost\'s the growing speed of tamed beasts by a small margin]
[ Upgrade-Mission |★★★| <Unlocked> Possess a tamed beast with [Common] quality!]
[Taming|Trash|] Upgrade-Mission |★★★|→ Possess a tamed beast with [Common] quality, accomplished! Reward: [Quality enhancement] Increases the quality by a minuscule degree]
[Upgrade-Mission |★★★★ |<Unlocked>→ Let your tamed beast fight against a stronger beast without the host\'s support!]
Looking at the mass of messages, Shane couldn\'t help but smile widely as he let out a light laugh, which caused Umbra to look at him weirdly.
It took him some time to get back to his senses when he looked at his status.
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Title: [Berserk-Hunter(F)]
Occupation: [None]
Name: Shane Suro (Orus)
Race:[Human 100%]
Cultivation Level: Mortal-1st [Purity 0.23%]
Body Refinement: [Mortal-4th]
Cultivation Manual:
→Mana purifying [Mortal-(Silver)]
→Mana gathering [Mortal-(Silver)]
<Skills/Techniques>
![Artemis\' Blessing]+
[Innate Skill]: Taming |Trash-★★★(+)|
-[Growth boost]
-[Quality enhancement]
Finances: 70 silver
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Even though Shane tried to, he couldn\'t hide his smile anymore.
Umbra coiled itself around Shane\'s hand as he sensed Shane\'s happiness and due to their deepened connection, he also felt joyous, even though he didn\'t know what was going on.
Shane was deep in thoughts for a while as he read through the status when he noticed that his finances were a lot more than they should have been.
There could only be one answer to this and it was exactly as Shane had predicted.
When he entered his store once again, there was nothing inside anymore.
The whole store was completely cleaned out and Shane smiled lightly, thinking that he should have increased the price for the boars.
Eight adolescent boars were sold for one silver coin each, the 24 adult boars he hunted were worth two silver coins per corpse and the five younglings were also worth two silver coins.
The price for the younglings was as expensive as their parents\' because the meat was more tender and delicious.
Though they didn\'t have anything else worthy, the meat and organs could definitely be described as valuable.
Glancing at the store log, he noticed that it was once again a single individual that had bought his entire stock. But, this time, it was a human and probably someone from a butcher shop who had gained some profits due to him.
Looking once again at the time, Shane calculated that there were still slightly more than 3 days left until the Soul-Onyx-Jungle would enter another long night.
As such within the next three days, he should increase his capabilities as much as possible.
Thinking about the different paths he could choose to increase his strength to the most perfect way within three days, Shane noticed that he could at most increase his cultivation by one rank, if he focused solely on it, while his physique couldn\'t be increased without a suitable body refining technique.
His combat prowess was already decent and gaining funds to play around with prismarine-luminous crystals could be a way to enter the shadow-snake valley, even if it was rather crude.
Furthermore, he was unsure if he would damage the Nightshade flowers with too much light or even decrease their magical effect, causing the already stated price list to lose its validity.
As such, Umbra and solving more upgrade missions seemed to be the easiest way to increase his strength!
Looking at Umbra, Shane noticed that he was once again hungry and the same applied to himself.
Taking out a bunch of dishes, he had to remember to purchase more food henceforth.
This note was even more important after he saw Umbra gobbling down the dishes as if they were snacks.
Looking at Umbra, he could only sigh deeply and take out a few more dishes, lamenting about having tamed an insatiable fella.
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