Entering the dome with a huge beast cage, covered in blue, black, and grey sheets attracted much attention and Jason felt slightly uncomfortable under the curious gazes, but it was definitely not as bad as in the beginning when he had recently gained his eyesight.
There wasn't much time to think about others as he had to update the city's AI as soon as possible, of the arrival of the cubs inside the dome. Jason was worried about what would happen if a fox cub fell out of the beast cage inside the dome.
He had heard about such cases and most of the time they had ended miserably, while he would be lucky if the defensive system 'defended' the city only with simple magic enhanced gunshots.
The AI requested Jason´s permission to access the beast cage, where it scanned the fox cubs to count the number before it labeled them temporarily as 'harmless'.
Jason sighed in relief and ordered a special shuttle truck while waiting patiently with a relieved expression.
While waiting, he opened his messenger and wrote a message to Greg, Malia, and even to their mother, Gabriella who had also given him her contact information for emergencies.
There wasn't much information in the message, only that Jason would visit their mansion with a beast cage.
He wasn't sure how to explain the situation right now and it would be easier for them to see it with their own eyes, than him trying to explain everything on a call.
As he waited for the special shuttle, Jason practiced the Heaven's Hell technique.
He also purchased some baby bottles, special milk from an evolved mutated cow with a formula for fox cubs online.
It was relatively expensive and Jason had to use most of his reserved credits, but it was fine. He was of the opinion that these fox cubs should not suffer before their fate was decided.
The shuttle arrived and looked like an extra-large metallic pick-up with a broad loading area.
Extending a metal arm, it lifted the beast cage carefully before it was placed on the designated area.
There was still some empty space left on the loading area and Jason decided to sit there because he wanted to look after the fox cubs with Artemis, so they wouldn't accidentally fall out or hurt themselves.
While Jason kept an eye on the fox cubs, he tried to subconsciously gather and replenish his mana. Compared to his earlier tries, he seemed to be getting proficient in the technique, even if it was still slightly sloppy.
This caused him to be overjoyed and around 40 minutes later, Jason found himself once again in front of the Fler Mansion. But this time Jason felt much more comfortable entering it with the self-driving beast cage next to him.
Artemis was sitting on his shoulder visibly exhausted, looking as if she had been haunted by ghosts.
Throughout their journey to the mansion, she had to pick up so many fur balls all the time that she didn't want to do that anymore.
These furballs could consider themselves to be fortunate because she hadn't enhanced her talons with mana, which she would have liked to do….
Every member of the Fler family saw the large pick-up placing a huge beast cage down in front of their gates before it drove off. They looked at each other in confusion, wondering what on earth had Jason brought them this time.
They knew that Jason would come with a beast cage but it was covered with different colored sheets which was an amusing sight in Greg's opinion.
Malia was only confused and questioned herself as to which kind of wild beast in this area could be so large to require such a big pick-up because her mind was fixated on Jason´s ability to find beasts with potential.
Gabriella looked calmly on the outside but she was also thinking the same as Malia did and questioned herself if Jason´s ability to find potential beasts was just too exceptional.
This caused her to frown because it was extremely rare to find wild beasts with good potential. She was also impressed with Jason who had found yet another in merely four days.
But while the three of them looked interested and hopeful, Mark heard the yelping of multiple young beasts.
Jason and the beast cage were still relatively far away and only Mark could hear the yelpings inside the beast cage, because of his exceptional hearing due to his soulbond and a big question mark formed inside his mind.
The squeaking sounded different and overlapped multiple folds making it difficult to estimate the number solely based on the sound. A shocked expression appeared on his face as he vanished from his position, only to appear in front of Jason within a second.
He stared at Jason with visible confusion and asked,
"What happened and why are there so many cubs inside??"
Jason was startled to see Mark appear in front of him as if he had been conjured out of thin air. At the same time, a drone that brought his parcel sent him a notification, indicating its arrival.
He had put in the address of the Fler mansion for the particular parcel's delivery, and Jason saw a drone lifting a huge parcel and rushed to it, ignoring Mark's question.
Accepting the parcel, he stored it away without looking inside, before approaching Mark and the beast cage again.
"I´ll try to explain everything later, but we should take care of the cubs first, right?"
Beast merchants had the responsibility to take care of beasts before selling them and it was upon them to safekeep them until potential buyers sought them.
Mark was still shocked and confused, but he nodded his head while he led them to the backyard which was secured with adequate fencing.
The other three were astonished to see him rushing next to Jason and afterward, leading him to the backyard where they normally took care of the beasts they captured.
They exchanged perplexed looks before rushing after Mark to reach the backyard.
Jason entered the fenced backyard and he could see multiple environmental settings with trees, sand, water, and even ice in spacious enclosures all around. One could say that their backyard was comparable to a Zoo without beasts, except the scaled wolf he caught a few days ago and the greater storm eagle inside a huge birdcage.
Jason entered a small enclosure with trees all around and it was fenced like almost every small enclosure he could see. The mechanical beast cage followed suit almost like a dog following its master.
Once he and Mark entered it, the gate closed and Jason was able to remove the sheets.
The trees could cover the sunlight with their shadow and it wouldn't be too bright for the lesser elemental foxes but, more important was that they didn't have to squeeze themselves inside the enclosure like they had to do within the cramped beast cage.
As the little cubs looked around, the lesser elemental fox cubs noticed that the sheets were removed and the gate of the beast cage opened slowly.
A few brave fox cubs pulled themselves together after hesitating for a moment and stood up. They tried to leave the beast cage while stumbling around, looking nervously at Artemis, who was completely uninterested in their behavior.
Once the first few cubs left the cage without getting thrown back, the other fox cubs began to rush out of the cramped beast cage with delight.
It was an interesting sight for Jason who smiled faintly at the happy sight, and Mark was now even more confused. They were lesser elemental fox cubs that would grow up into awakened beasts after maturity and were extremely difficult to find in their cub stage.
Looking at Jason, he wondered how he had been able to catch so many newborn awakened beasts.
They seemed to barely be a few days old which would be the perfect age to form a soulbond.
It was said that the younger a beast was, the easier it was to form a contract as their mind was still in its development phase and they wouldn't resist against a soulbond.
Taming, raising, and training beasts in their early days was much easier than trying to change the wild instincts of a matured beast.
Once a beast had fully matured, its instincts couldn't be changed or manipulated as easily as in the early days.
Mark could be considered a rational human and also slightly greedy, causing him to see moving credits while looking at beasts and the total number was also not small.
There were many breeders who used wild, awakened, and evolved beasts, but lesser elemental foxes were slightly special because their elemental ability was their strongest characteristic.
Comparing its strength which was at the low to mid-awakened rank with other beasts at the same rank, one could easily figure out that a lesser elemental fox had exceptional elemental ability. It was almost at par with high-evolved rank elemental affinities and some even had an elemental affinity of a low-evolved ranked beast.
It was an advantageous prospect for most humans with lower soul energy to bind a beast with a higher affinity compared to other beasts at the same rank to enhance their combat prowess.
Forming a contract with an awakened beast didn't need much soul energy and an elemental fox already had an elemental ability that was advantageous.
There were many awakened beasts with an elemental ability but a majority of them rather had other abilities.
As they had been born just a few days ago, their strength including soul energy was at its lowest while their mana core was already at the awakened rank, but almost completely empty.
It wouldn't take long for them to mature with decent nutrition. However, the most important thing was that youths could form a contract with these cubs to increase their strength gradually while adjusting to the feeling of a first soul contract.
At the same time, their soul energy would also increase concurrently with the soulbond.
These lesser elemental foxes were perfect for the first soulbond as most middle-school graduates with bad exam results were still getting tested and the soul energy of most students was around that of an awakened beast, or even higher.
'The demand for beasts like the lesser elemental foxes was always high'
Mark thought, smiling happily, though it was weird that these fox cubs feared him, who concealed his mana core, while all of them approached Jason. They all were trying to get close to him even if Jason had not even the slightest proficiency in concealing his mana fluctuations.
Furthermore, he was not from the same race as them which should deter the lesser elemental fox cubs but that was not the case.
Jason's heart ached and he was a little bit sad seeing these fox cubs... If he could, he would have just formed a contract with every fox cub right now because he wouldn't have a single disadvantage out of this.
His soul had enough space but his soul energy was just too weak.
Nevertheless, Jason told himself that he wouldn´t form a contract with any of these cubs if he couldn't have them all.
It was just sad and Jason smiled dryly, while hundreds of fluffies attacked him with their tongues and little paws.
Gabriella, Greg, and Malia couldn´t see Mark and Jason when all of them entered the backyard, but when they sensed their mana or rather the mana fluctuations of over a hundred beasts they were instantly alarmed.
Seeing over a hundred small fox cubs attack Jason while the beast cage was open, their jaws dropped to the ground.