The Oracle Paths

This half-man, half-gorilla thug was indeed weaker than he was. Jake could on paper thrash him with one arm, but that was notwithstanding his Spirit Body lvl.

The Soul and Spirit Body as defined by the Oracle System did not exist in ordinary creatures nor in those from worlds with low Aether density. For these living beings, consciousness and spirituality were not dissociable from their neural network.

When they died, their residual brain electrical activity was what was called Proto-Soul, but this energy was insignificant and would dissipate very quickly into the environment. For the Oracle, the notion of an eternal soul or life after death simply did not exist in lower worlds.

With higher Aether density and higher mental Aether stats, it became possible to stabilize and strengthen this Proto-Soul and with this condition Extrasensory Perception was awakened, or at least it was raised enough to become harnessable. With this ability to sense and attract Aether, the Proto-Soul would finally become a true Soul and the Spirit Body would take shape, conforming to the shape of its vessel and nervous system.

This was the Spirit Body lvl 1.

Until level 10 this Spirit Body had almost no effect on the physical world. It simply had the merit of existing. The brain, supported by the Intelligence Aether, was generally much more powerful.

This changed at level 10 and above. The Spirit Body now had enough substance to create tangible effects on reality such as poltergeists. A Spirit Body wandering around in this state was what the Mirror Universe more commonly called a Ghost.

These poltergeist effects, however, were extremely limited. Even Jake, with his level 28, high Aether stats and the amplification provided by the Myrtharian Spirit could only muster one or two percent of his maximum physical strength in this state and that took all his concentration.

It was more than enough to extinguish candles, sizzle light bulbs, lift girls' skirts with an invisible breeze in enclosed spaces and levitate small objects. By tormenting ordinary humans, haunting their homes, nightmares and possessing weak minds, one checked all the boxes of the perfect ghost as described in horror stories.

In this state, his Spirit Body was not really strong and he could still easily walk through walls. If he willed it badly enough though, he could actually touch objects and even grab them, but that would take all his energy.

The crucial nuance to mention however was that in this spiritual state he could actually perform any miracle if he wished hard enough. A Spirit Body lvl 10 wishing fervently to make a house's power break could actually do it if its desire was strong enough.

If the ghost was too weak, but persistent, then a lingering obsessive desire could trigger incredible phenomena. If Jake wandered around in his spiritual state and spontaneously wished for the heavens to strike someone down, his lvl 28 would probably not be enough. It would be pretty good if something happened.

But if he focused obsessively on this particular wish, after several days, months or years, then maybe the lightning would strike the right target at some point. This was the danger of wandering spirits. One can then suspect that when a demonic spirit haunts a living being, the end of the story was rarely happy...

But these were anectodic tragedies and their only victims were ordinary humans and creatures. An Evolver like Jake had nothing to fear from these gnarly ghosts. They were just flies in his path. Noisy and annoying, but certainly no threat to him.

That was why Jake never took his opponent's level 51 seriously. Because of this cognitive bias, he had only paid attention to his stats. Big mistake.

Jake obviously didn't know this at first, but it had become more than clear to him over the past year. Increasing his Spirit Body lvl... that was hard.

The first ten, twenty levels had been gained relatively quickly, but each subsequent level had been hard gained. On that score, unless he could defeat a skilled opponent like Asfrid fair and square, Jake had no particular advantage.

He wasn't a pure Eltarian after all. He couldn't just do sudokus and gain Spirit Body levels.

Nevertheless, this increasing difficulty was there for a reason. This constraint obviously had a cause. And that cause was that each new level gained strengthened the Spirit Body more than the previous levels.

A level 10 had a soul about 3 times stronger than a level 1, but that increased to about 12 times at level 20, and at level 28 Jake estimated his Spirit Body density to be almost 40 times that of his lvl1 Spirit Body.

Following this logic, at level 28 his soul was still of little use in battle, although the Soul Class greatly solved this problem, but what would happen at level 40, 50 or 60?

Jake suddenly had a hunch that this Ordeal would not be as smooth a ride as his proven overpoweredness had suggested.

'This Ordeal is going to be extremely dangerous. I've been thinking the wrong way until now. I'm not the top dog in this place. Jake finally understood, his face solemn. 'With his level 51, every thought from this guy can affect reality. With the synergy of his Soul Class over-specializing his mind in a single field of expertise, the force he can generate is unimaginable.'

Jake was unaware of this, but Ruby who was happily fomenting her evil plan was displaying the same wide-eyed astonishment. She too had not expected such a nasty surprise. The alarm bells in her head warning her not to attack the adventurers around her had never been so legitimate!

"Hmm? You dodged my first strike?" Simgut marveled calmly as he studied his expression.

He had been furious at the beginning of the fight, but now that the duel had begun his veteran experience was showing. No matter how he felt, he would not be easily influenced or distracted.

His opponent's shocked face had indeed given him a jubilant satisfaction, but in retrospect he had finally figured out what was wrong. How could a lvl 28 greenhorn dodge his attack?

This kind of implausible reflex... It shouldn't exist at this level. 'Should I stop or continue the duel...'

Jake saw the hesitation on the adventurer's face and guessed what was on his mind.

'There's no way you're going to back out of this! You're the perfect opponent to learn as much as I can about how the people of this world fight.'

Once the surprise was behind him, Jake took the initiative of launching a counter-attack. With much less grace than his opponent, Jake pushed the ground with his foot with all his strength, which collapsed underneath him, and he vanished from his position leaving an afterimage in his wake.

"So fast!" Simgut and the other spectators gasped in disbelief.

The simian warrior knew at once that he would never make it in time and roaring with rage, he threw his hammer into the air and slammed his heavy bulwark into the ground. In a split second, the single bulwark multiplied around him, creating a formation as invulnerable as a turtle shell.

'Supreme Defense of the Bulwark!" he cried inwardly.

BOOOOOM!

Jake, whose fist was already only a few millimeters away from the enemy's left cheek, suddenly had the illusion that his field of vision was engulfed by a gigantic war hammer. The distance separating his fist from his opponent's cheek seemed to increase exponentially while the air resistance increased sharply, drastically slowing down his movements.

When he finally hit something, the bulwark had intercepted his fist without suffering any noticeable damage and a whistling gust of wind grazed his face, informing him ominously of the cataclysmic landing of his opponent's warhammer.

'Divine Judgment of the War Hammer!'

Alarmed, Jake dodged with a quick leap and Simgut took the opportunity to catch his hammer in flight and strike back with a violent horizontal swing. Cautious, his backward jump propelled him several dozen meters out of reach of the hammer-wielding adventurer, but surprisingly the latter did not try to close the distance.

He continued his lateral hammering and Jake saw again the illusion of a gigantic hammer about to flatten him like a pancake, but coupled with an incomparably hostile killing pressure, as if the sole purpose of this hammer was to drive a nail into the ass of the Universe itself.

Not knowing what to do but refusing to dodge indefinitely like a coward, he equipped his Furnace Gauntlets and struck the huge illusory hammer with all his might, adding his Aether, Telekinesis, Myrtharian Trance, fighting spirit, rage and everything else he had learned in the past year.

BOOOOOOM!

He won the exchange. Even before he fully understood what had just happened the fight was already over. This aura, this illusion was not as tangible and indestructible as he had feared. Or rather, Simgut was not the invincible and formidable opponent he wanted him to believe.

When Jake gave up all fear and thought of retreat, retaining only a supreme will to annihilate his enemy, his punch easily shattered the illusion, passing through with ease after feeling little resistance.

A microsecond later, Simgut was struck by the condensed, superheated blast of the attack, losing consciousness instantly. The hammer illusion faded away instantly afterwards as if it had never existed.

If Jake had not held back his punch at the last moment, his opponent would have been blown several kilometers, smashing through half of the city's buildings and walls before passing away in a state of charred bone powder.

Instead, thanks to the miracle of digitization, Simgut survived. The searing blast had shattered most of his bones and caved in his rib cage, but his heart and brain had not been completely pulped. One of his aghast allies quickly poured the contents of a vermilion potion over his body and his wounds miraculously healed.

The transfixed gaze of the crowd then turned to the culprit, an unranked level 28 adventurer, and a stunned silence fell in front of the guild, only to be noisily replaced by loud eruptions of screaming.