Jason hadn't been sure how safe the cave he was inside truly was.
However, it had been possible for him to mine element ores and elemental crystals for several hours without a single passing beast minding what Jason was doing.
As such, he was relieved and thought that he could actively cultivate for some time.
Yet, before Jason could do that properly, he had to do something else which only became a necessity after his arrival on Manyr.
Jason had yet to read through a cultivation manual, and he wanted to choose one to cultivate with first!
There was a wide variety of manuals inside his spatial rings.
Most of them were something he received as a reward after winning the bet inside the colosseum in Janur.
Other than that, there was a large number of foreign race beings he had killed and deprived of their spatial ring during the Great Argos war.
Thus their cultivation, body refining, and martial art technique manuals were still with him!
'A neutral cultivation technique would be the best. I can't afford to injure myself by practicing an element oriented cultivation technique. After all, I have two repulsive affinities already!'
With that thought, Jason ignored the fire and ice cultivation techniques, which he could have used owing to the affinities he had.
As for the techniques he didn't want to use or couldn't, they were simply left inside his spatial ring to collect dust.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})In the end, only a small batch of three cultivation techniques made it out of his spatial ring.
Amongst them, one was at the Terra-Advanced rank and the other two were Terra-Intermediate rank cultivation techniques.
Because of the ranking, it was obvious that Jason chose the Terra-Advanced cultivation technique first which he picked up without hesitation.
While reading through it, Jason's eyes gleamed in interest, but it was only an hour later that he sighed deeply before throwing the cultivation technique back into the spatial ring.
'It really doesn't work…' be sighed deeply, before frustration overcame him.
"What kind of bullshit is that?" He sounded indignant as he read through the pages and repeated the words in his head, 'You cannot change the cultivation technique after practicing it one time!'.
Slamming the technique on the ground, he muttered to himself, "As if, I would want to permanently use a Terra-Advanced technique!"
Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to calm down before he picked up the other two techniques.
'At least give me the chance to switch to a better cultivation technique in the future!'
Jason was not sure whether he had been unlucky with the Terra-Advanced technique, or if it was common to be only able to cultivate with one cultivation technique.
He hoped that this was not the case because it would be quite annoying otherwise.
In the worst-case scenario, he would have to reject using a cultivation technique for the time being.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})Fortunately, the worst-case scenario didn't occur, and he simply discarded the second technique that warned him about being unable to change the technique after the first cultivation session.
Disappointed with the first two techniques, he picked the last manual but found the first words in the introduction to be quite reassuring.
[The technique 'Balance of the Universe' does not restrict the user in cultivating with other manuals!]
Happy about the last technique he had found, Jason decided to study the technique before starting to cultivate it.
As such, several hours passed with Jason sitting cross-legged on the floor, reading intently, and it was only when his three soulbonds were annoyed at his ignorance that they started to pester him.
Never in his life could he have thought that his own soulbonds would initiate an attack, throwing away the cultivation manual he was reading for the second time.
"What are you three doing?!"
Jason shouted, only to realise that they were glaring at him.
Sighing deeply, he stood up to pick the cultivation manual lying on the ground before he stored it away.
"If you guys are bored...let's go!"
Jason had already imprinted the most basic steps to cultivate using the 'Balance of the Universe' cultivation technique.
It was not exactly difficult, and neither did it require extreme focus.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})Rather, his mind had to tranquil any disturbing thoughts while his body would follow the motions detailed in the technique's descriptions.
The movements sounded rather weird, and the pictures that demonstrated the movements were not better either.
However, that was just his opinion, and it shouldn't matter how ridiculous he looked as long as it was possible for him to cultivate at a much faster pace.
There were several types of cultivation poses, and amongst the best was to sit down and enter a meditative stance.
Jason had often heard of such positions, like the lotus stance, but he never believed that it was truly necessary to enter such a position.
'Fortunately, I can cultivate while walking around...they would really kill me if I were to stay rooted to a spot like a statue, only to cultivate for days…'
Looking at Petri, who hissed at him in joy, while Solaris spit out small flames, only for Artemis to issue a faint squeal, Jason knew that his assumption was definitely correct.
His soulbonds may look and act as if they were cute, but they were possessive, and each of them demanded Jason all for themselves.
'Maybe they will also attempt to assassinate me if I show signs of binding another beast to my soul?'
Somehow, Jason felt like the possibility for this to happen was not negligible, and even if they wouldn't really kill him, he assumed that his soulbonds would take revenge on him.
That was if he would do something the three of them didn't like.
Sighing deeply, Jason could only walk through the cave of elements, which was the name he had given to this part of the cave while choosing one of the three tunnels to walk through.
Even if he had yet to find a way out, his mind had been calmed down due to his soulbonds' interference, the stress relief mining crystals and ores gave him, in addition to the cultivation technique he was about to try testing out.
Unfortunately while testing how exactly the cultivation technique worked, he couldn't pay much attention to his surroundings.
This mostly included his Emperor Eyes ability to see the energy flow of objects and other beings through the walls.
As such, he told his soulbonds to act as his eyes and ears, which they reluctantly agreed to.
In the end, Jason was their master, and their attacks on him had been more like pokes and pecks without any intent to hurt or kill him.
If that were to be the case, the soulbond would severely injure them, and in the worst case, if their wrath towards Jason was overflowing, they might as well die owing to the continuous punishment they would receive over and over again.
But that was extremely unlikely, even if a soulbond was treated badly.
In mankind's history, this happened only a few times, and those soulbonds had been treated far worse than one would wish their worst enemy to be treated!
Even if the incidents were numerous, Jason knew that he could trust his soulbonds with his life.
There was nothing that could tear them apart and both parties were fully aware of this, with the only issue being that Artemis and the rest knew that Jason would have to bind more soulbonds.
This was unavoidable if they wanted Jason to become stronger, and it gave the three soulbonds even more reason to become as strong as possible, in the shortest amount of time.
With that plan, Jason would need much longer before it was feasible for him to consider binding a new beast to his soul!
Jason was completely oblivious to his soulbonds' thoughts and he simply focused on the cultivation manual with a faint smile on his lips.
