Chapter 49 - Mother Jason

Below the tree, covered by thick roots, Jason could see the burrow with many different colored hand-sized fox cubs enveloped in a black-colored hue.
There was enough space for him to squeeze through the densely packed roots after taking out the greater-horned wolf corpse, but not more.
Because the burrow was below a tree, not much sunlight reached the bottom, but what Jason wondered, was something else.
Inside the burrow were many tunnels leading somewhere and Jason could see lots of black lights at the end of them.
There were probably a lot more fox cubs inside and Jason wondered how many lesser elemental fox cubs there were because he could already see a bunch of them in front of him.
`Did all of the lesser elemental foxes gather together to give birth to their offsprings inside this big burrow? Why would they do that here and not in their territory? Did something happen there?....
I hope that's the only group of beasts migrating… `
Looking at all those lesser elemental fox cubs which could barely see, Jason grew sad.
Their parents were killed by some humans because they were seen as a threat to the middle-school students who trained inside the one-star wild zone, even if they didn't do anything wrong.
Jason was sad but there wasn′t anything he could do about it. The world was built in a hierarchy where the strong reigns and the weak suffer and die. This was even more apparent outside the dome.
Because he had to mature since he was young, his mindset was already in a better condition than other youths at his age and Jason didn′t know if other youths thought about killing living beings like he did but sometimes Jason couldn′t understand himself either.
Four days ago he killed packs of low-star wild beasts without getting emotional but now he felt sad?
His own mindset was still difficult to comprehend, even more for himself but the longer he faced reality, the more he tried to find a good balance for it.
He didn't want to kill each and every beast ruthlessly, but he wouldn't shy away from killing matured beasts and other threatening predators.
If he gained something from it, Jason would probably still do it but was that even right?
Jason didn't want to kill mother beasts with their cubs but other than these few exceptions, there weren't many excuses to not kill them as the population of beasts increased more and more in recent years and it wouldn't take long for another beast tide to pervade through Astrix.
Most humans would probably think, Jason was to soft-hearted because beast cubs could also grow into terrifying existences and kill one in the future, but he didn′t really care about their opinion.
The news was filled with information about the overpopulation of wild, awakened, and evolved beasts while the reproduction ability of beasts with higher ranks was fortunately lesser.
The stronger one's mana core was the less active was the beast's reproduction ability.
But Jason had to say to himself, even if it was hard to accept: If he didn't kill these beasts to get stronger and more proficient with his martial arts, someday these beasts could kill him even if he didn't like that fact.
The numbers grew more and more and Jason was not confident to survive against a stampede, even if it were only wild beast-ranked individuals, which was hilarious.
He couldn't even outlive a high quantity of wild-ranked beasts, which were by far the weakest beasts… while others killed hundreds or thousands of them with a single thought, Jason was conflicted to think about these cubs in front of him.
But one thing was sure! He wouldn't kill these cubs… They had done nothing wrong and maybe they could act as cute soulbonds for someone and live a decent life.
Apparently they seemed to have been born a few days ago when their parents arrived and they wouldn′t survive without mother milk and it seemed like he had to act as fast as possible because they looked at him with hunger in their eyes.
Before anything else, Jason had to bring these lesser elemental foxes outside.
Taking out the big self-driving enlarging miniature beast cages, Jason pressed the red button and the miniature beast cage enlarged itself outside the burrow.
After that, Jason empowered it with a decent amount of mana as he began to work.
Fortunately for Jason was, that the fangs, claws, and elemental affinity of these beast cubs weren′t fully developed yet, otherwise this procedure would be a lot more dangerous.
Taking out one hand-sized furball after another. Jason noticed that Artemis looked at him fascninates as more than two hours passed before he was finally done.
Jason′s clothes were completely dirty as well as his hands and his whole face, while he estimated that there were over a hundred lesser elemental foxes that migrated but never had he thought that there were so many cubs.
There were at least 150 lesser elemental foxes and Jason was shocked to see the 20 sq.m self-driving beast cage be so cramped….
Jason gulped and activated his mana eyes again to see if he forgot a fox cub.
But Rather than that, he noticed the differentiating of black color radiating from these beasts.
He could almost immediately figure out which beast had a better potential...or higher limit?
Adding was he saw to his self-established theory that slowly formed in his mind, Jason thought that the parent genes of the cubs with denser color had to be stronger and it looked like that the kind of ability also played a role as blue-furred lesser elemental foxes had a gentle black color radiating while red-furred ones had vigorous color radiating like a flame.
But that wasn't everything as the amount of color radiating from them was dependent on their ability or so Jason thought.
In the beginning, Jason took a look at two fox cubs from the same batch and one of their colors was denser and Jason thought that it was either that one beast inherited dominant genes or the fire ability which was slightly stronger.
And again...too many questions began to torment his mind.
But there was something else that Jason noticed.
There were all kinds of wild beasts and they struggled when they saw Jason but after looking deep into his eyes, they completely stopped moving around and some even rubbed their heads at him.
But he had to steel his heart… He couldn't raise up over 150 lesser elemental foxes due to many reasons.
First of all, were wild beasts not allowed in any city except at the beast pagoda, for selling purposes or as soulbond.
One had to have a license to sell them or form a contract with the beasts if one wanted to take with one.
Jason was confident in his soul world but his soul energy rejected this thought immediately.
It was kinda sad because they were so cute and Jason wanted to try out his Purity-theory.
And the thought of having an army of powerful foxes behind him while riding on a large Artemis was pretty satisfying.
Artemis sensed his thought and immediately rejected it because even if she grew, she wouldn't want anyone to ride on her!!!
Nobody is allowed to dirty her plumage!!!!! (>'o')>
The large self-driving beast cage was ready but before Jason started his trip back to his tent, he had to do something against the blinding effect of the sunlight to the foxes that could barely see and had never been in direct contact with the sun.
Taking out a few sheets he bought for his bed, he threw them over the beast cage, blocking the sunlight before their trip back to the dome began.
While Jason looked out for beasts sensing the awakened beast cubs and tried to take easy prey, Artemis' job was much more difficult.
Once in a while, a fox cub fell out of the beast cage as the bars were too far apart and she had to pick them up and place them back inside the cage.