Jason stood calmly in the center of the magic circle, looking at the God's Children who had begun to sweat buckets due to the tremendous pressure weighing down on them.
Almost everyone seemed to be having the same issue, and there were already a few who had collapsed barely a few moments after the magic circle had been activated.
Meanwhile, Jason was enveloped by his Celestia aura, while his eyes were glowing faintly.
He was still feeling some of the pressure, but it didn't really affect him. Furthermore, Jason knew that he could completely diffuse the pressure if he were to unleash and enhance his stigma by merging it with his Celestia aura.
At the same time, it was possible for him to insert more mana into his Emperor Eyes that were likely to diffuse the pressure that weighed on his mind.
Apparently, the magic circle was releasing pressure in three different ways.
First, it attacked the body, then the mind, and last but not least the mana core and mana veins.
Jason's Emperor Eyes prevented his mind from being influenced by most external factors as long as he inserted enough mana into them.
At the same time, the Celestia aura and his stigma completely fended off the pressure on everything that had to do with mana as it instinctively protected his mana core and mana veins.
The same applied to his soul world that seemed to have been targeted by the mind-boggling pressure but was perfectly shielded as well.
Barely some of the oppression managed to touch his physique though it had failed to penetrate his defense and affect even a single cell inside his body. Jason's body had already been refined by the divine aura that had released a tremendous pressure that was much more distinct and scarier.
Time passed slowly, and Jason looked around, sizing up his competitors and gauging who was likely to pass the second round and turn into his opponent in the combat rounds that would likely follow.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})As such, he had lots of things to do, while trying to assess whether there were hidden races he hadn't seen or encountered in Janur before.
"Klarir, Dragonewts, Ilians, and a total of four Demi-humans, Tigrons, Hamaa, Fyrmn, and Lizr..."
Jason was just mumbling the names of all the races he saw in front of him while walking through the crowd seemingly unaffected.
There were several participants that were holding their ground like Jason, but they couldn't move as freely as he did.
Earlier, Jason didn't want to encounter other races he had never seen before because it would force him to adjust his combat style to the specific trait they had but now this had changed.
Despite his opponents revealing tremendous strength, Jason felt as if he was holding himself back.
Something hindered him from advancing further and he had yet to figure out what exactly it was.
When he had fused with Artemis, this sensation had temporarily dissipated but Jason was still unable to comprehend what exactly it was that had happened.
The fusion process seemed easy but it was more complex than one could have imagined.
Every cell inside his body was slowly merging with Artemis in the fusion process, and it had only been possible for them to achieve this because their soulbond was extraordinarily strong.
However, that was not everything as Jason's body had slowly been altered by his soulbond's influence, which was in fact the amplification he had received.
This was extremely interesting, and one could say that humans with dozens of soulbonds would lose the traits that made them human over time!
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})Initially, this had only been a theory made by a Professor called James Gray, who had lived in Astrix inside a small c-grade city for his entire life until the Great Argos war had begun.
However, this theory had been proven partially correct as the DNA tests of thousands of citizens reflected small evolutionary changes that occurred over time.
Because Jason had known James Gray, he had read through his publications from time to time. The fusion process was one of the possible theories put forward by Professor Gray after studying the relationship between humans and their soulbonds along with a fortified soul conjunction that had been established long back.
And this was a theory he had released years ago!
There were several other theories but most of them were uninteresting to Jason because they named advantageous or disadvantageous factors that came with the change of the humans' DNA.
It was possible for the entire human race to be slowly torn apart, and be rendered unable to procreate with other humans if their genetic model underwent a drastic transformation.
However, what Jason could only perceive from such theories was an exaggeration.
Since the mana awakening, it was obvious that mutations could prevent one from procreating with others, and the last three centuries since mankind had found out about the soul worlds, nothing had changed.
Furthermore, being unable to procreate with the human race was probably one sign of these particular individuals being able to procreate with other races!
The very same reason made him assume that his mother's Emperor Eyes were the reason why she had been able to give birth to a halfling aka Jason!
This was only a theory he had made up in his head, but Jason didn't think that it was unlikely.
But even then, his existence should have been a miracle because a woman belonging to a race that had yet to be even considered a common race had been able to give birth to a Celestia race halfling.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})His father was a divine being like every other Celestia, and Jason was not sure how the human side of his bloodline had been able to stay dominant against the influential and extremely powerful Celestia bloodline.
What Jason didn't know was that his entire Celestia bloodline had been sealed even before he had been born, just to allow his body to stay intact, and enter Argos without tearing the world bridges and the planet itself apart!
However, even more interesting was that it was not his father who had sealed his bloodline, but something that even his father was afraid of. His father had been oblivious to Jason's existence until years ago so there was no way he could have done it.
It was something Celestia Yaldra was unaware of. A being had wanted to protect Mina and her unborn child, that is Jason, in return for having been saved, tended to, and protected by a mere mortal being.
And that is how the being had returned the favor, by sealing Jason's bloodline!!
If Jason were to know any of that, everything about his existence would make more sense, yet, turning everything he knew about his mother and grandparents upside down.
Their tale hadn't ended with Argos, but it had only begun and Jason had yet to find out anything really important about his family!
Oblivious to his true lineage, Jason was roaming through the magic circle that had become less crowded with more and more participants collapsing on the ground.
Despite that, there were a few of them who used their entire willpower to push themselves and overcome their limits. They were trying hard to turn the obstacles they had to face into an opportunity to become even stronger by strengthening their mind and body.
At the same time, the pressure allowed some particular participants who had intentionally not used any technique to diffuse the oppression to comprehend something important.
When Jason noticed this, he couldn't help but feel intrigued as he understood what they were trying.
"Should I also..? Why not?!"
