The Oracle Paths

Before starting his private sampling of exotic rocks, Jake first invited Aisling's sister to join the Myrtharian Nerds as promised. It pained him to part with half a kilo of his liquid alloy stash again, but it was for a good cause.

The underground cave connected directly to a magma chamber had blistering temperatures and unless he accepted little Chloe into his faction, she would have soon succumbed were it not for the Myrtharian Body passive.

"So... Do you need... You know... I mean blood and..." Jake asked awkwardly out of a sense of hospitality.

"No." Aisling snapped back fiercely, giving him a glaring look, her red face thoroughly scandalized.

" ? "

Chloe's innocent expression showed that she had no idea what he was referring to, and it made Jake realize that he had gotten it wrong more clearly than Aisling's ill-tempered response.

[Your question wasn't silly, though I doubt your outburst of helpfulness was entirely selfless...] Xi scoffed in his head.

'Tsk, you never know, right? I'm not worried about Aisling, who has a ton of vitality, but it could have been far more embarrassing for her younger sister. Maybe I'm more open-minded than I used to be, but having to give you know what to an 11 year old so she doesn't starve to death is way beyond the moral limits I set for myself...'

[And what would you have done if the answer was yes?]

'I don't know, and I'm glad I don't have to answer that question.'

Faced with Jake's silence and scrunched up face, Aisling momentarily assumed that her aggressive retort had pissed him off. Replaying his words in her mind, she also mistook his intentions, going so far as to convince herself that he was making a pass at her. And if it was advances... Then she had just turned him down!

Flustered, she quickly made excuses, asking her sister to cover her ears during their conversation.

"Blood and you know what are the perfect source of energy for me and my sister, but unlike real Vampires and Succubi, we are not reliant on it. Anyhow, only the lesser Vampires and Succubi are slaves to their urges. Vampire Progenitors and Archdemons do not need to feed at all to survive. My father, Grimwald Dracul is the direct descendant of the Dracul clan's Vampire Progenitor and my mother Xaverie Zangruth is the Primordial Succubus of her clan.

"If we are hungry, normal food is more than enough. So don't mention this subject in front of my sister again, she doesn't know anything about it."

"...Very well." Jake finally answered after a short pause.

What Aisling hadn't said was that while it was true that she didn't need to eat to survive, it didn't change the appeal that blood and that other precious fluid held for them. When Chloe hit puberty, her older sister would sooner or later be forced to tell her the whole truth.

Thankfully, that wasn't his problem.

Now that Jake knew there was no pressing emergency, he let Jeanie frolic with them, then without delay dove headfirst into the magma lake. A year earlier, that lava would have burned him alive, and even if he hadn't died, he would have felt the pain. Now, it seemed almost as fresh as rainwater.

"This isn't going to cut it." Jake sighed wearily, his body floating arms and legs spread wide like a starfish on the magma surface.

This heat wasn't enough. His cells were relentlessly sucking in the heat energy around them, including the molten rock serving as ideal nutrients, but such a mild boost was no longer enough to stimulate his bloodline to new heights.

"No big deal. This will do for now." Jake muttered as he brought up the heavy orichalcum door from the Mutants' vault.

He had already used his Oracle Scan on it to analyze the magical substance in detail. The result had surprised him, but in the end it made more sense.

In the writings of the Greek philosopher Plato, Orichalcum was a legendary metal that existed in abundance in Atlantis and explained the advanced technology of that extinct civilization. Whether this city really existed or not, the research of more recent historians leaned towards two other theories to explain Orichalcum: platinum and brass.

Atlantis having allegedly existed more than 9000 years BC, it could fit with the copper age with some imagination and that was why the brass hypothesis prevailed over the platinum one, which was a much scarcer metal.

The Oracle Scan had given reason to the second group of historians. Orichalcum was nothing more than brass, in other words an alloy of copper and zinc, but which, after having been immersed in an environment saturated with Aether and Mana, had ended up being transmuted into something else. Simply put, it was brass with its own Mana/Aether Code.

"Amazing." Jake muttered in a low voice, deeply impressed by all the mysteries the Mirror Universe held.

If Orichalcum was just a magical variant of brass, then surely this phenomenon applied to the other precious metals of Quanoth, and probably those of the entire Mirror Universe. In other words, the periodic table of elements was still relevant. It was just that Aether added an infinite number of variations.

Glancing through his Space Storage, he could confirm that Mithril was nothing more than steel forged from Mana-saturated silver, while Adamantium was based on tungsten, the hardest natural metal above iridium and titanium. Generally speaking, all the natural magic materials in his possession were related to an ordinary element.

After confirming the origin of these materials, he refocused on the Orichalcum door before him.

Even with his colossal strength, he could clearly feel its weight in his hands and as he held it, his body immediately began to sink. Undaunted, he brought his teeth to a corner of the door, then bit into it mercilessly.

CRACK!

His masseter muscles tightened as hard as they could, followed by all the muscles in his jaw and even those of his throat. His bones and joints cracked, but the orichalcum door stood firm. After chomping on it with all his strength for nearly a minute, he gave up, leaving a glowing stream of drool on the metal door corner.

Even submerged in lava, the Orichalcum was still cold, demonstrating the extraordinary potential of this magic metal. Inspecting his work, Jake found slight indentations only a few millimeters deep, the only evidence that he had not bitten into that door for nothing.

'At least my teeth held up.' He consoled himself as he massaged his sore jaw.

[You can try heating the metal to soften it, otherwise it might take a while.] Xi suggested sweetly.

'I'll try that.'

Jake cast a few Aether Spells, then began to channel all the heat from his cells and the surrounding lava into the door corner he was trying to chew. The metal went from cold to warm to hot, but it never glowed. However, when Jake bit into it again, the Orichalcum buckled under his teeth like marshmallow.

"It works!" Jake rejoiced with relief. If it hadn't worked, his little experiment would have ended prematurely.

[Don't get too excited, the real test is just beginning.] Xi dampened his spirits with a casual comment.

As the chunk of Orichalcum fell into his stomach, he realized how right she was. Far from melting, the orichalcum marshmallow behaved exactly like the liquid alloy he had once tried to swallow, sitting like a stone in his stomach.

Unlike liquid alloy, Jake could feel that digestion was still possible, but the process was agonizingly slow. At this rate, it would take him months to digest that tiny lump of Orichalcum. It was totally incompatible with this Ordeal's time constraints. Not to mention the fact that he still had an entire Orichalcum door to devour, plus all the magical materials and metals stored in his Space Storage.

Disheartened, he stowed away the Orichalcum door in his hands, then rose to the surface.

" So in the end, I will have no choice but to restore my Aether Sun Core if I want quick results."

Flying to the nearby cave where the fairy and the two sisters were bonding, he informed them of his intention to leave temporarily, then with a leap he crossed the rocky ceiling, emerging a few moments later to the surface.

[You're going to do what I think you're going to do?] Xi asked gravely.

Jake nodded slowly, "I don't really have a choice."

He could easily make new Aether Sun Cores, but without external help it would take them years to reach the level of his previous Aether Sun Core at its peak. The easiest thing to do was to revitalize the one he already had.

And to accomplish this feat he could only think of one solution.

Quanoth's Sun.

Jake had already tried to break through the planet's atmosphere at the beginning of the Ordeal to see what was lying beyond those black clouds, but he had been forced to give up. With his new stats, he was confident he could fly much higher. If that still wasn't enough, he was ready to resort to his Purgatory Artifact.

With a solemn expression, Jake looked up at the swirling mass of opaque clouds above him that kept the Laudarkvik region in darkness, and then after a long exhale, he shot into the air.

In just a few meters he broke the sound barrier, setting off a deafening shockwave that raised a cloud of dust behind him. His speed kept picking up until he was only a blurred, untraceable silhouette. When his body broke through the first layer of clouds, they dispersed in a 100-meter circle as if a bomb had been dropped, and he continued his ascent with gritted teeth.

The real challenge had only just begun.