Chapter 610 - Outside

Breaking through the faint membrane of energies that sealed the tunnel from the scorching heat, Jason exclaimed in joy as he emerged on the surface.
A faint gust of cool wind brushed against his face that made him smile in relief.
He was beyond happy to have finally left the cave.
Never could he have expected that his entire journey through the cave of elements would end so suddenly.
It was truly a miracle and taking in a deep breath of air, Jason expected a fresh scent to enter his nostrils.
However, contrary to his expectations, what he smelled was a reeking stench that almost caused him to vomit.
Instinctively, black flames emerged from his body, enveloping Jason's mouth, and nose, protecting him from the pungent smell as he forced his eyes to adjust to the bright sun rays.
Comparing the sunlight with Argos, he found it to be much brighter, but at the same time, it was more like a soothing feeling instead of a burning hot sensation.
As such, Jason felt rather good right now.
His body had long since adjusted to the higher gravitational force that had consistently increased the further he ascended.
This was scientifically wrong, at least, if he had learned everything on Argos correctly, but Jason could only shrug his shoulders, thinking that mankind had never been able to truly enter other planets with a higher gravitational force.
'Maybe mana has something to do with the similar gravitational force...under normal circumstances, I would have been mashed into a pulp of flesh the moment I emerged on Manyr, its gravitational force must be more than ten times higher than on Argos after all…'
As such, Jason was not sure how exactly gravitational force worked owing to the three cultivation energies that were present on Manyr.
The weight of his body had only increased by a small margin after he had arrived on the surface, but that was not really worrisome because his strength had increased much more.
Thus, he could easily handle the gravitational force, while the mana consumption of Solaris' black flame wings and mask were almost negligible.
Because of that, he could easily take a look around, trying to figure out his surroundings, what kind of beasts the surface harbored, and even more importantly, if there were societies of other races around.
Even if entering an unknown society could be dangerous for him as a foreign being, Jason had to figure out where he was, and what the entire situation in his surroundings looked like.
Knowing the basic information would only take him further ahead which was exactly what he was supposed to do right now!
However, to his dismay, Jason saw nothing but barren lands and poisonous lakes, which caused his earlier excitement to die down real quick.
While taking a deep breath of the filtered air Solaris' black flame mask produced, he scratched the back of his head, trying to figure out the direction in which he should fly.
However, before that, he let Artemis occupy his mana core by manifesting her white wings, while his physical strength increased further.
If a beast were to attack him, Jason wanted to be prepared to fuse with Artemis, and thereby increase his combat prowess as high as possible.
Despite Jason's assumptions, he didn't really think that there were many beasts on the surface.
Even underground he hadn't come across many beasts, and those he encountered were probably like cockroaches, surviving on everything thrown at them.
As such, the number of beasts above the surface was bound to be less owing to the poisonous gas.
Thus, those that managed to survive the dangers were likely to be the most annoying for him to face.
Looking at the sky, Jason thought of flying at a high altitude, but that was likely to be an even worse choice because he might encounter more beasts there.
Sighing deeply, he inserted a large amount of mana into his Emperor Eyes, allowing him to see at a distance spanning several kilometers.
It was just clear and open sky all around and there was nothing to obstruct his sight such as the mana enriched soil underground, thus he could see everything down to the finest detail.
"There is literally nothing…"
Scanning his surroundings proved to be a futile effort, and Jason could either waste his time debating with himself or get going.
Thus, he decided to let his instincts guide him, which made him choose a direction before he took off.
He chose to fly at a low altitude because there were more flying beasts he had sighted than those living on the ground.
It was a vast expanse of barren plain stretched across the ground for as far as his eyes could see.
In a way, this helped him, because he could see the terrestrial beasts from a safe distance, up in the air without the worry of bumping into them.
At least, if one were to ignore beings with a high cultivation base whose eyesight was naturally better than Jason's.
However, if he were to be attacked by such beings, he could only curse his misfortune because it was extremely unlikely for individuals at the peak Prismar stage with good eyesight, or maybe even those at the Ascendion stage, to attack him.
Jason was unable to come up with a valid reason for such beings to attack him as long as he didn't release a tiny trace of his stigma or Celestia aura.
Even hunger shouldn't drive them to attack him because he was most likely just a small snack and not nutritious enough to be worth the effort to hunt him!
With that in mind, Jason still decided to maintain a safe distance from beasts at the Prismar stage that had at least a few prismarine crystals in their mana core.
Unfortunately, that was easier said than done, because he had been oblivious to the fact that there were two more cultivation paths his Emperor Eyes had yet to investigate and evaluate properly.
Jason's knowledge about the path of strength; Pryr, was much higher than the path of wisdom; Spiral, but that didn't mean he knew how to differentiate the cultivation base of beasts at the Pryr stage.
'Spiral path beasts have a physical strength that is slightly weaker than common Maest path beasts, while Pryr beasts like Petri are obviously physically affine.
However, Spiral path beasts are much more intelligent, and they seem to be able to survive every kind of scenario.
From the looks of it, all Spiral cultivators have some sort of psychokinetic ability that increases with their cultivation base, while their vessel is in their mind.
As for Pryr beasts, they solely rely on their physical strength, and their vessel seems to be their entire body. As such, it is extremely difficult to determine their strength based on what I can see with my Emperor Eyes.
Only the fluctuations of their primordial energy are a rough indicator, while their life force drops are extremely weird to count… The energy fluctuations are something others can perceive too. Furthermore, I cannot be sure whether it's their entire strength or not because they might be holding back, or concealing some of their primordial energy…
To think that my eyes are still lacking…'
If Jason hadn't been acquiring wrong intel for the last month, the path of Spiral cultivated in a similar way to the path of Maest, which was the path of mythic energy, and the one that used mana.
The path of Spiral was just that one path focused on strengthening the mind, while the other path strengthened the mana one absorbed, allowing one to wield elements and be versatile.
The spiritual force, absorbed by those that cultivated in the path of wisdom would be absorbed, until a certain extent before it would be liquefied too, only to be further compressed into crystals.
Thus, Jason, who could see the spirit pool of Spiral beasts, was able to roughly gauge their strength.
It was by no means perfect, but definitely much easier than trying to figure out the strength of a Pryr beast according to its drops of life force or primordial energy fluctuations.
In the end, the liquefied life force might be a good indicator of a Pryr beast's strength, but Jason had yet to figure out the ratio of proportion in which the size of a liquefied life force could be related to its strength.
'If one drop of life force is equivalent to 1000 drops of liquefied mana, a Pryr beast with 10 life force drops should be at the peak of the Lique stage...but why are there so many?... Are they not further compressing their life force, or is life force not directly correlated to the cultivation path Pryr with primordial energy as the cultivation energy?'
Jason knew that he required much more information to survive in a world with three different cultivation energies and many more mysteries.
However, in the end, he simply decided to avoid all Pryr beasts with more than 10 life force drops because it might be a beast he wouldn't be able to cope with!
Weirdly enough, the unknown should be something that would instill fear, but Jason felt his entire body thrumming in excitement.
'Maybe it was not that bad to have been pulled into the world bridge, and underground for a month...it might as well be beneficial to me!'
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