The Oracle Paths

Holding his cat and turkey friend by the neck like two lost puppies, Jake reappeared sitting atop a tree over twenty kilometers from the ravaged area. From his vantage point, he could clearly see, through his cosmic vision, the spatial rift gradually closing, leaving nothing in its wake. Conversely, the blast of the residual explosion that had disintegrated River's Bane continued to spread, quickly expanding towards the periphery of Lustris City…

The capital of the Lustra Plains was still smoldering, evidently still engulfed in flames... It shouldn't make much difference if kilometers of water pushed by the explosion's blast unexpectedly showed up at their windows. Probably…

Jake felt bad for the civilians who had nothing to do with their Ordeal or this continental war, but he didn't let remorse weigh him down. After all, it wasn't his fault that the damn cephalopod had released all the Water Lumyst in its Core before kicking the bucket…

All that waste of Lumyst and lifeforce... Just thinking about it gave him a headache.

Fortunately, Jake hadn't come out of it empty-handed. Remembering what he had managed to steal from the Titan just before its destruction with his Essence Snatch ability, he couldn't help but chuckle proudly. Beyond that, his Lumyst Aura had also done its job of collecting…

As for his lack of guilt, it wasn't just because he was heartless and devoid of humanity. If he wanted, he could still save them.

But it wasn't necessary. Lustris, being the capital where the Radiant Conclave was located, was more than adequately defended. The ongoing fire had surprised him, but he could see with his sharp eyes that whatever caused it had already been neutralized or forced to flee. The fact that the flames and smoke were extinguishing one by one was the most telling sign.

Jake took the time he had before the wall of water pushed by the blast reached him to quickly inspect the injuries of his cat and turkey, but lost interest just as quickly upon realizing that their lives were no longer in danger.

As the saying goes, it's often the worst scoundrels who live the longest. Or was it the other way around?

Nah, it must be that. Somehow, he was sure those two troublemakers would still be there to annoy him even after 100 Ordeals...

As Jake anticipated, long before the blast – preceded by its giant tsunami – reached Lustris, millions of radiant roots, several meters in diameter, sprouted from the ground in front of the city, intertwining in no time to form a towering, impassable barrier.

The wall of water crashed into it at several times the speed of sound a split second later with a dull thud, wooden splinters flying in all directions. The true blast propelling all that water came right after, crashing against the tough wall of roots.

CRACK!

Half of the roots shattered, with split wood literally raining from the sky over half the region, but the other half held firm, albeit severely damaged. Once the danger passed, the roots retracted underground as they had come, leaving only gaps behind as reminders that it wasn't a dream.

Ironically, it was Jake, much closer to the epicenter of the explosion than Lustris, who absorbed the tsunami and the accompanying blast second, having let it come to him. Naturally, he could have moved further away, but he wanted to check something.

By his own admission, he hadn't expected his last attack to be so spectacularly devastating and he wanted to be sure…

As the wall of water was about to slam into him, Jake deployed his mental sense and closed his eyes. Almost simultaneously, the wall of water lost a substantial portion of its inertia, the resulting impact from their collision proving much weaker than expected. The tsunami then continued past Jake, losing momentum until it collapsed into a foamy wave that submerged hundreds of hectares of the surrounding forest.

This tsunami, impressive as it was, was far too slow to harm Jake, and as expected, he emerged unscathed, the deep-blue Cosmic Lumyst faintly emanating from his body repelling the water around him like an anti-gravity generator. The real danger of this tidal wave was the residual Water Lumyst inside.

Before dying, the damn Kraken had released thousands of years of cultivation to create all that water, but a good half was actually used to control it. Jake wondered why his Lumyst Blade had suddenly gained so much power, resulting in such a destructive chain reaction, but he now had his answer.

At that moment, although the wave was far behind him, all the Water Lumyst supposed to have mixed with the liquid was no longer there. Instead, it floated in suspension like a galaxy of pale blue light particles around Jake, who had become its center of gravity.

"Phew, just as I thought," Jake elucidated, not without astonishment.

[Lumyst is an energy belonging to no one.] Xi concurred. [Depending on the attribute of the Lumyst and the cultivation level of its host, it is possible for the latter to adapt to a very specific form of Lumyst and gain a remarkable level of control that does not depend on other parameters like mental sense. It's like a human having fine control of their own limbs thanks to their nervous system. Their mental strength has nothing to do with it.]

"Indeed, that's exactly it," Jake smiled before adding more seriously, "But it's not without drawbacks. Since this Water Lumyst no longer belonged to this Titan as soon as it lost control, anyone with an affinity for this type of Lumyst can then claim it. If two Lumyst cultivators with the same type of Lumyst clash, with equal body and spirit, the one with the most advanced Lumyst Core could theoretically seize the Lumyst of their opponent and make it their own without any counterbalance. The control of Lumyst weakens as it moves away from the Lumyst Core, meaning a Lumyst cultivator of a lower stage is completely powerless against a stronger one."

Finishing his last sentence, Jake raised his arm in front of his face and thoughtfully stared at the back of his hand shrouded in a halo of dark blue Lumyst. With a thought, the Water Lumyst suspended around him began to flow towards him, merging with the deep blue light of his hand.

Logically, one might have expected a clash between the two different natures of energy, but nothing happened. Instead, the dense current of pale blue light siphoned from all directions, reminiscent of a levitating river, obediently entered his hand, the dark blue Lumyst coating it gaining furiously in brilliance, changing from a timid flame to a fiery blaze.

"Earlier, while fighting that Titan," Jake continued calmly, "I immediately realized that my 5-second-old Lumyst Core was nothing compared to its thousands of years of accumulation. If my psychic faculties weren't so overpowered, my Lumyst would have been just a rigid mass of energy good only for nourishing my organism and supporting my close combat attacks and defenses. I knew my Lumyst was of superior quality, but that should have just allowed me to buy time.

"As you saw, I was far from the mark. My Cosmic Lumyst includes almost everything that makes up the cosmos, and water is part of it. Instead of clashing with its Water Lumyst, my Cosmic Lumyst simply swallowed it. As long as River's Bane tightly held the reins of its Lumyst, the balance was maintained as it could be the case between two Water Lumyst cultivators of equal power, but as soon as River's Bane lost concentration after my counterattack, the winner was decided. All the Water Lumyst it opposed to my Lumyst Blade and me in an attempt to kill me was engulfed inside, exponentially increasing the power of my Cosmic Lumyst. I didn't have much time to experiment with Breath of Living Elements, so this Cosmic Lumyst contained almost all my attributes, including Space and Time. Hence this result, cough, how should I say... spectacular?"

For someone unfamiliar with Jake, his tone might almost sound embarrassed or repentant, but Crunch and Lord Phoenix, who had silently regained consciousness a while ago, rolled their eyes disdainfully.

"Master is truly shameless, but I like it," the Himalayan black cat praised with its comically flat-faced look growing even more stupid over time.

Not to be outdone, his partner in crime sweetly overplayed, "Only true shamelessness can lead to immortality! Hail our shameless leader!"

"..." Jake dropped the two idiots into the void, suddenly regretting having saved them. "A simple thank you would have sufficed."