Asher and Arthur arrived in front of the door, which had "Greville" labelled in gold on it. It was clear that this whole floor was a luxury above others, just looking at the Mana Concentration outside the room, which was comparable to the Mana Room in their estate.
"So this is your son, Arthur. Quite a dashing fellow to look at," an old man walked in front of them and said while his eyes were on Asher.
"Asher, meet the old man of the Mage Association, Edward Amaris, one of the SS-rank hunters in this world," Arthur said while introducing the old man.
Edward Amaris was actually one of the Mage Association Elders who was acquainted with the Greville Family and helped Arthur arrange the Mana Room for Asher.
Asher gave a look towards Edward and he could feel a strong mana force emanating from his sheer presence. Seeing how only the pressure of an SS-rank hunter was capable of killing him made him remember that he was no longer one of the strongest men in the world, but he knew he could make it to that pedestal much earlier in this life.
"Hello, I am Asher Von Raven Greville," Asher said while still wondering why this old man was here.
"Oh, are you wondering why I am here? Ask your father about this," Edward said while smiling towards Asher.
"Yeah, I forgot to tell you. Old man Edward will help you accommodate the Mana Gem during your awakening," Arthur said while signalling Stephen to hand over the suitcase to him.
"Let's go inside the room first because the thing inside it is quite a shocker for this old man, too," Edward said while smiling towards Arthur.
Arthur and Asher followed Edward into the room. It was a white-marble room with runic language all over the borders of the room. Even not knowing what the runes did, Asher could guess they were Mana Gathering runes and were probably some of the best ones because the Mage Association monopolized almost 90% of Rune Masters.
Asher could have guessed that his awakening this time was pretty different from his previous one, maybe due to his parents being happy that he tried to awaken early or some other reason because his previous one did not require another person to help him, especially an SS-rank hunter who specialized in magic.
But when Arthur opened the box, oh boy, he was shocked. What Arthur had just pulled out was an S-rank Mana Gem, which was not even sold anywhere in the world and was only used during item exchange of equivalent worth. A Mana Gem was a highly rare mana stone, which dropped when you killed monsters which were formed in dungeons and only above ranked C beasts formed a Mana Gem.
People used Mana Gems for their awakening because it was a pure form of mana with less impurities than a Mana Stone, and there would be no injuries while forming your mana core during your awakening. In his previous life, he used a rare A-rank Mana Gem, which was so costly it alone could buy a couple of lands in Soran.
But despite being only one rank above, an S-rank Mana Gem was incredibly rarer than an A-rank Mana Gem because there were fewer S-rank beasts compared to A-rank, and even a marginal amount of those S-rank beasts dropped a Mana Gem. So the supply was so low that even S-rank hunters had difficulty getting an S-rank Mana Gem.
Asher, though grateful, could see that his father had just used his own Mana Gem, and this was pretty much the case because when you form your Mana Heart, you can increase your level in two ways.
First, gradually absorbing Mana from your surroundings and consolidating it in your Mana Core increasing its power.
Second, you use Mana Gems to move that mana inside your body and gently nourish your Mana Core with it. But absorbing mana through a Mana Gem is not advised because it will not allow your Mana Capacity to naturally grow; it will be filled before it could have grown bigger. Mana Gems should only be used as assistance when you reach the peak of your rank and encounter a bottleneck to cross the threshold and rank up.
Arthur was already at the peak of S-rank, and this Mana Gem, along with a few more, would have helped him become SS-rank like in his previous life. But he was losing one of his S-rank Mana Gems for Asher.
"Dad, I can use an A-rank gem just fine. You don't need to waste this," Asher said, meaning what he said. It didn't matter to him what gem was used in his awakening because his special bloodline would balance it out.
"Don't even try to convince me. Your mother would probably beat me to death if I cheap out here," Arthur said, giving him a look that said it can't be helped.
"Sigh Okay, if that's what you want, let's start," Asher said to Edward, who was just smiling, looking at the soft father and cold son duo.
