Emerging outside the spatial portal, Jason was enveloped in a reeking stench that tried to forcefully infiltrate him, within a matter of seconds.

Manifesting the black origin flame around his face, he could breathe freely without any disturbance and the reeking stench slowly dissipated.

Looking around, there was a huge mountain on Jason's left while the right side was a large plain.

Starting to look around, he couldn't help but smile as he said

"These are the Abandoned lands on Terebrean?"

The Abandoned lands were places humanity gave up to construct city's on, or even nearby.

As for the reason, it was pretty simple.

The surrounding environment released a reeking, poisonous stench that harmed humans greatly as long as they didn't prepare anything to protect themselves from it.

Jason for example could just filter the air with his black origin flame, but doing something similar with millions of people in a single city was not feasible and would be expensive, nullifying possible profits almost immediately.

There might be a few groups of hunters around the Abandoned lands that spanned over the western part of Terebrean, however, it would be rare to encounter anyone.

This was not only because Shane brought him to a deserted part of the Abandoned lands but he and Shane were both sure that there were not many ways to counter the poisonous air.

Normal gas masks would start corroding, while the same would happen to other materials and only living beings wouldn't have to face the same issue.

Jason's skin wouldn't start corroding just like that but he would start feeling a burning sensation spreading through his whole body before the poison would slowly start paralyzing his organs until they would start malfunctioning. 

After that, Jason would die slowly, fully aware of what was happening to him.

Fortunately, however, he had the black origin flame.

After testing that everything worked according to his expectations several weeks ago, with Shane next to him, he could finally enter the Abandoned lands alone.

Turning around he could see Artemis, in her large form, flying through the air, while Scorpio followed him with loud noises.

Both shared their excitement with Jason through their fortified soul conjunction and he couldn't help but smile when he sensed that.

It was already evening and there was not much light left to brighten the surroundings so Jason decided to look out for a better place to construct a small resting place with a tent and a campfire.

Meanwhile, Scorpio and Artemis could do whatever they wanted as long as they didn't run too far away to help Jason, a strong beast was to attack him, which he couldn't handle alone.

Right now, they were inside a territory which released mana fluctuations turning it in a wild zone between three- and four-stars, which told Jason that only Evolved and Unblemished ranked beasts should inhabit this area.

However, this didn't mean that there might not be wild, awakened or even magical ranked beasts because there was nobody controlling the abandoned lands as it was the case around cities.

It was extremely important to control the surrounding wild zones from cities to oppress strong beasts that might turn into a threat, while nobody cared about what happened inside the Abandoned lands.

There might be a few mercenaries hired every now and then to take a look at the strongest beasts around there, but that was already the most one would do.

Jason was unsure if that was the best way to ensure Terebrean's safety because the same tactic didn't seem to work on Astrix as the Goblin King was able to build a large base without anyone knowing until the number of accidents with Goblins reached a certain threshold.

As such, it was crystal clear to Jason that 'a few mercenaries every now and then' was not the best strategy to take care of threats in unsafe areas.

But who was he to complain about it? 

In the end, this strategy would most likely be the reason for many casualties if there were to be a beast outbreak in the future, but also cost a huge fortune that could have been prevented with hunting units inside the Abandoned lands or other areas.

Nevertheless, Jason couldn't even say for sure that there was something extremely dangerous in the abandoned lands, and interpreting too much into nothing serious was not something he would do needlessly.

After he found a great spot to construct his tent with few beasts around, which he saw thanks to his mana eyes, he halted in his steps and showed both Artemis and Scorpio where he would stay for the time being.

Transmitting to him that they understood him, Jason finished building the tent and making a small campfire within ten minutes.

Sitting on a mattress he took out of his spatial ring, he started to wonder if there might be some treasures in the Abandoned lands that would be worth enough to venture through them.

However, after thinking about it for some time, the natural poisonous mana shouldn't be able to create any treasures, other than poison transmuted mana treasures.

They might be helpful for Scorpio but his soulbond was not even allowed to become much stronger than it currently was because of his feeble vessel which couldn't even take two soulbonds and a small baptism.

Sighing deeply, Jason was sure that he had more than enough to do during the next two days in which Scorpio and Artemis would start to increase their combat experience to become proper peak-Unblemished beasts.

If that was everything, they could have also gone to a nearby three-star wild zone only to change to a four-star wild zone, later on, once his two soulbonds got the hang on their current combat prowess and what flaws they should fix first.

The most apparent reason for him to enter the Abandoned lands was to become stronger while fighting next to his soulbonds, or having one inside his mana core to fight with his other soulbond next to him.

Not only did his soulbonds never fight next to each other or even alone for much, but Jason also understood that he had to build up greater teamwork while fighting with his soulbonds against other beasts, and also with one soulbond inside his mana core.

There were only a few instances he was able to use his fortified soul conjunction truly.

Even if he could manifest his soulbond's body parts inside the B-grade city they were currently living in, as long as he wore a mask or other means to disguise himself, it was still different from being able to go all out while fighting.

Inside the four-star rift Scorpio's exoskeleton protected him from greater harm and probably from dying while his stinger helped him out to defeat Greg in the Big-Three tournament.

However, he never really tried to attack with his dagger and the stinger at the same time.

There were so many tactics he wanted to test and the most important thing Jason wanted to try was flying through the air and fighting a flying beast up there!

The latter might require some time but it was important for him to become proficient in every expertise, otherwise, he and his soulbonds might die in the future only because of such a mistake!