Hearing that they would have to go home if they didn't fight Jason made them display a variety of expressions ranging from shock, anger, nervousness to fear, and a little jealousy.

This was a great sight, but what Jason had just declared was something he didn't even have the jurisdictional power to say.

Yet, looking at Elder Ben, Jason felt reassured as the middle-aged man nodded his head, approving his decision.

That made many things easier, allowing him to ramble a little bit more as he further added,

"5 Minutes…if nobody challenges me until then, you guys shall return home with empty hands!

"

With a prideful smile, he conveyed his superiority to the messengers and that he was fully aware of his high combat prowess.

Nevertheless, Jason was not being too arrogant in the face of the stronger opponents because that would be stupid, and almost suicidal.

However, in the end, he wanted to provoke the messengers that were at the Ascendion stage.

As such, if their combat prowess and combat awareness were to be great, they wouldn't have any problem fighting him.

Unfortunately, this didn't seem to be the case, which was quite disappointing.

Four minutes passed after the first messenger was defeated by him, and there had yet to be someone challenging him.

Those who were confident to fight had hoped that someone else would step forward, but that didn't happen.

Thus, now they had no option but to fight him. This caused one of the lean young men to step forward as he bowed lightly to Jason.

"I'll challenge you.

"

His voice was steady and carefully neutral, but the gaze he threw at Jason was overflowing with seriousness.

Seeing this, Jason couldn't help but smile as he returned to his earlier position he had been standing on just before the first battle began.

Calmly standing in the combat ring, he was fully prepared to fight his opponent.

Through his analytical skills, and most importantly, the Emperor Eyes, he had figured out his opponent's strength, and the affinities he received from his soulbonds.

Only his combat prowess was unknown, but that was not something Jason was worried about.

After all, none of the messengers could be considered a prodigy.

Rather, they were quite ordinary, which was what he had expected because they were simply carriers of messages of their masters, the races they made a soul contract with.

As such, it was not necessary to send out their prodigies because they had better things to do than wasting several weeks, or possibly even months of their precious time, only to return empty-handed.

This was bound to change as long as Jason's ideas would work properly, which made him feel as if he could give his utmost effort.

He might not have a real reason to help the Yinar race with anything as he didn't know them well yet.

Yet, being trusted was something that was certainly worth beating a few dozen humans.

With that in mind, Jason didn't even think of playing any tricks as he allowed Artemis to enter his body.

At this moment, Elder Ben stepped forward, acting as a referee before he started a countdown.

Through this, Jason was able to instantaneously summon Artemis' wings when the fight started.

Additionally, he used a trace of his divine energy and the moonlight transmuted mana to exert the Hermes Celeration movement technique.

A moment later, he covered his stigma with two feathers which he manifested from Artemis' body part manifestation after activating it.

This caused a faint golden light to radiate from right next to his right eye.

However, nobody seemed to notice this because he fully expanded his Celestia aura that surged towards the young man, whose appearance was changing.

Leathery wings of a bat were growing out of his shoulder blades, and his facial features, in addition to his fingers were slowly transforming.

In fact, his arms were slowly connecting to the wings, which looked quite odd.

Still, Jason couldn't waste his time watching the transformation in awe as he appeared in front of the young man with a much faster pace than the lean man had predicted.

Nevertheless, the lean man was still confident to be able to overwhelm Jason as he gathered his mana in a momentum, ready to release a powerful sonic wave.

Unfortunately, the lean man was still not able to calculate Jason's speed accurately because he disappeared in the time the man used the short momentum he required to gather his mana.

A weak gust of wind brushed past his face, and it was only a fraction of a second later that the young man sensed something tremendously huge behind him.

He tried to turn around to face Jason, whom he presumed to be behind him. But it was only at this exact moment that he realized his feet had been enveloped in a layer of ice!

This astonished the lean man, but before he could do anything, he lost his consciousness as he felt soreness spread out from his neck.

In the end, Jason had simply hit the lean man near the neck, targeting a pressure point to force him to lose his consciousness.

Afterward, he broke the ice he had manifested around the lean man's feet that had locked him on the spot. Supporting him, before he brought the man outside the combat ring, where a few medics were already waiting.

Elder Ben had ordered medics to be stationed outside the combat arena, knowing that the battle was likely to be more bloody than one would usually expect.

It was a great idea to do so as the messenger was in need of medical care. But Elder Ben was unable to pay anymore attention to the medics, let alone the messenger.

Instead, his entire focus was on Jason, who retracted his aura, and the unused mana that circulated through his body.

He was looking around in a nonchalant manner, and had not even broken a sweat, as he returned to the exact same position he had been standing before.

"Next, please! Same rule as before, five minutes…no more or less!

"

By saying so, Jason conveyed his confidence to defeat his next opponent without any issues.

It also indicated that he was able to defeat everyone without taking a break that was longer than five minutes.

This was quite arrogant, but also exactly what he wanted to convey to the others.

He wanted the others to think of him as a highly prideful and arrogant person which would irk the messengers to fight him.

However, at the same time, they should be vigilant of each other which was caused by the maximum break of five minutes.

After all, the messengers that would fight him right now were bound to lose and most probably the ones to wear Jason out.

This should allow the messengers who would fight him at the end to have a higher chance of defeating him.

In the end, this was what they expected to happen, but little did they know that Jason had already planned everything.

When he told Elder Ben that he was not a strategic person, he had wanted them to think of him as a pushover.

Jason didn't think of himself as a strategic person, and more like a straightforward fighter.

Despite the opinion he had of himself, it was near impossible for him to know how one was perceived by the outside world.

It was exactly because of this that Elder Ben couldn't help but smile wryly as he looked at Jason with a faint glint in his eyes.

'Not a strategic person…in that case, I don't wanna encounter those you will call strategic!'

With a faint grin, Elder Ben thought that Jason was a smart but also a nice person.

However, he made no mistake in understanding that Jason knew what he wanted, and he would get it by all means.

That was what Elder Ben thought of Jason, even though they had barely known each other for less than half a week!

In the end, Jason was fully aware that his mindset was quite simple, but it was quite ambitious for others.

Yet, what the others would realise only later was that his plans were much grander than they could even think!

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