The Oracle Paths

A sharp glint burst from his pupils, and a vortex of silver-black light began to swirl within. Just by his intent, his cells and mind had entered a new state, strengthening their resonance and shifting into some kind of hypnotic vibratory state. The Aether his body was continually drawing from an unknown source was drained even faster and his already high Aether Stats he could only approximate skyrocketed under his Aether Conversion ability.

He poured all of this excess Aether into his muscles, which would normally cause the Aether Stats in the rest of his body to decline. They didn't. As he channeled his Strength and Constitution Aether into his arms, their attributes shot through the roof, but they didn't drop in the rest of his body. The Aether he was drawing in and generating every second had already made up for the deficit.

His arms began to glow with an endless reddish aura that even an ordinary human without Aether Vision could see. Strength in its purest form.

His height did not change and his muscles did not bulk up either. However, even without an Oracle Status any onlooker could have been able to tell that his body mass was increasing rapidly. The ground cast in an unknown metal had already begun to cave in under his feet.

Jake hesitated to proceed any further. There were still many ways to increase his strength: Words of Power, Reiga Spells, Bloodline Ignition, Telekinesis, Gravity Field... He had plenty of choices.

"It should be enough..." He muttered with slight doubt as he moved his hands closer to the two giant door wings.

SHLAK!

He hadn't even touched it with his fingertips when the two doors slid open as if by magic, letting out a cogging roar. The strong gust of wind ruffled his hair, but other than that he was fine.

When he wondered if it was a bug or if someone had manually opened the door for him, the principal's voice he had heard earlier rang out in his mind.

"Ahem... The door has been opened for you and your four companions." Grigori Tyrastus announced in a voice fraught with reproach. "You may enter without fear...It will not close on you, I swear it on my honor as Rank 4 Oracle Overseer."

Jake felt slight regret and frustration at being denied this chance to test his strength but he was a man with manners. After a short pause to digest the information, he thanked the powerful Evolver and motioned for Tim and the other three Beskyrians to follow him.

*****

In his office, a child-sized humanoid alien with two cute snail antennae for ears, tapped a few buttons while staring at a camera screen that showed Jake and his friends walking through the door locked in the open position. An irritated sneer stretched the face of the alien and he tsked in bad mood,

"Tche! As if I'd let a moron with that much strength open that door with his bare hands. The last time some dumbass Player did it half the Academy ended up being repaired for six months and 2800 disciples died."

To calm himself he reached for his mug filled with a still warm frothy beverage and took a sip that he kept in his mouth while closing his eyes. You could see his cheeks swelling and jiggling alternately as if he was swilling it in his mouth to better appreciate all its flavors.

Of course, Jake was only a Fourth Ordeal Player. The consequences wouldn't have been as far-reaching, but one could never be too careful. This Intersystem Class Player had the ability to cause heavy damage to the campus infrastructure regardless.

The alien then contacted somebody with his Oracle Device and the hologram of a metallic face with six eyes brighter than six suns rose above his desk.

"What is it, little Grigori?" A metallic, bone-shattering, nightmare-inducing grating voice echoed through the room, cracking the walls even though they were forged from the same supposedly indestructible alloy as the rest of Celestial City.

The alien, who was also the school's principal, grimaced ruefully as he inspected the damage, but didn't dare blame the person behind the hologram for anything. Instead, a forced but honestly slavish smile crept across his face as smooth and plump as that of a toddler.

"Venerable Designer Aurae, I opened the door for this Jake as you asked. May I ask why his Oracle Device is disabled?"

To cover his curiosity, he took another sip of his drink, again keeping the liquid in his mouth out of habit.

"He ate it." Aurae replied candidly.

"Pfffft!!!" All the drink in his mouth squirted onto the hologram, making it sizzle intermittently.

Seeing the Ancient Designer's stoic face, Grigori's heart felt cold and he apologized in a shaky, obsequious voice, "Sorry... It won't happen again."

"It's okay. It's just a hologram, not my body." Aurae replied robotically.

The Ancient Designer's benevolence chilled his blood even more than if it had raised his voice. Grigori knew that the giant android's last sentence was not a way to play down the incident, but words to be taken literally: If this was my real face, you'd be dead.

After recovering from his fear, Aura's previous answer finally reached his neurons and his expression changed.

"For real?" He blurted out.

"For real." Aurae was as tight-lipped as ever. "Treat him like any other Player. No favoritism. Same with Hazzom."

"Okay..." Grigori was used to this kind of instruction.

In over 126,000 years in this position he had never favored one of the victors, nor even one of his own students. It was all for the great purpose. His only role was to oversee this Divine Academy and monitor these victors from behind his screen.

"Another thing." Aurae said suddenly, which startled the alien in her seat.

"Yes?"

"Later today, he will be visiting my Stele to receive his final Soul Class. Because of his somewhat special circumstances, this one might not work out properly. Several spiritual signatures of the level of an Ancient Designer, including myself, will be descending into the Stele in a few moments to modify it. Don't panic."

Grigori almost shat his pants when he heard the news. He had just evaporated enough sweat in a millisecond to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

"Y-you what? M-more Ancient Designers here?" He stammered with the face of someone about to cry.

"Anyway. Keep up the good work." The transmission ended and Aurae's apathetic holographic face disappeared with those words, leaving Grigori on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Slumping down in his seat, he chugged the contents of his mug dry and threw his cup against the wall.

"Fuck... I want to quit."

*****

Once inside the Academy, Jake and his four left-behind quickly caught up with the others who were delighted to meet up with them so quickly.

"How did you get in?" Lucia whispered as she leaned close to his ear. Seeing that he didn't answer immediately, she nudged his ribs and chuckled, "Come on tell me the truth. Did you manage to open it with your bare hands? I wanted to try earlier, but it opened too quickly."

"Gerulf wanted to try too." The giant, who had been listening to their conversation uninvited, spread his arms as if he were tearing open an imaginary curtain.

"Even if you failed, I certainly would have succeeded." Rogen boasted pretentiously as he pointed to his own face with his thumb.

Faced with the insistent looks from Lucia and the other Myrtharian Nerds, Jake didn't have the heart to maintain the suspense any longer and sighed, "The principal opened the door for us before I could try..."

Lucia's interest waned instantly.

Bam!

"Aouch!" Tim's pained groan rang out behind his back.

Somehow, he had managed to trip over a perfectly smooth floor by hooking his own legs. He had just performed the legendary falling on flat ground.

When Jake and the other witnesses of the scene were tempted to laugh, it was the turn of Trea, Skorgeld, and then Fo to fall flat on the ground one after the other. Because of their curse, the safe floor of the Academy had become even more perilous than the surface of a frozen lake in early spring. The slightest misstep and they'd end up face down on the ground.

Even crawling or lying on their backs was not without risk. Skorgeld specifically tried the second method, refusing to move until his curse was gone, but that was the moment the heavy steel chandelier hanging above his head broke loose and fell on him.

A permanent student of the Academy had immediately run up, sweating like a pig, to apologize profusely. He was in charge of the cleaning and maintenance of the hall this semester and according to him such a mishap had never happened since his admission in the school.

When they finally managed to appease the student who was afraid of being accused of negligence, a loud burst of laughter echoed across the hall. Turning in the direction of the noise, they saw a svelte, handsome man with medium-length, clean-shaven gray hair. His pupils were slit and his irises were a bright orange.

"Dad!" Skorgeld nearly burst into tears.

Yep. The man before them was Ulfar. The King of Beskyr.

The only Myrtharian Nerds who had made it into the Divine Academy in the first minute of their Fourth Ordeal.