The Oracle Paths

A few minutes later, Jake withdrew his hand from the Stele, wearing a hideous grin as if he had inadvertently swallowed a fly. He was still in shock from what had just happened. He could feel that this Soul Class had been forced upon him even after he refused.

"I won't accept it!" He punched the Stele in an unprecedented state of rage and hatred, generating a deafening sysmic shockwave that blew away all the trees and students peacefully picnicking in the gardens.

Only the fountain and the Stele remained intact. But far from relieving him, this only fueled his intense anger and predatory instincts. To make matters worse, he received a notification of the same ilk as the one he had received a few hours earlier, only much worse:

[The Stele has been pushed beyond the performance threshold for which it was programmed. Pending further maintenance, the Stele will remain out of service.]

" ... "

This time, the Stele didn't even bother to inform him how long he would have to wait. It was basically the equivalent of "We're closed, bugger off if you're not happy."

Jake certainly wasn't happy, but he had no intention of going anywhere else. He was going to make his point right here and now.

"All right. You want to play it that way? No worries. You mess with me, you find me!" Jake muttered ominously, spurred on by a sudden impulse. "I'm going to eat you!"

A gentle breeze wafted by, punctuating an awkward silence. The students present and the "Stele" all stared intently at him, eyeballing him dubiously. Yeah! Jake could have sworn the Stele was taunting him too, but it was obviously only in his head.

Flushed with anger, Jake glared at the inquisitive students who were eyeing him like some sort of curious animal escaped from the zoo and at that moment a burst of killing intent erupted forth from his body, acting like a cold shower on the nosey witnesses. Their clothes soaked with cold sweat, these Players and natives immediately looked away and went back to their previous activities, the whole thing accompanied by nervous chuckles.

This Player claiming he wanted to eat the Stele was just too terrifying! At that moment, they were even willing to take his word for it. They would let him try it first before laughing, just to be sure they hadn't provoked the wrong person.

If one doesn't seek death, they wouldn't die. Those who had resided in the highly secure environment of the Divine Academy for a long time had just been reminded of this truth the hard way.

In fact, deep down they were even more fired up at the prospect of his success. Other students had tried to steal the Stele before, and Principal Grigori's punishment had been as swift as it was brutal. Would this daunting Player fare better than those other would-be thieves? Nothing was less certain...

Undeterred, Jake opened his mouth wide, then as he approached the Stele he realized he had a bit of a problem. His mouth was clearly too small to swallow such a "rock". Crunching it piece by piece was also out of the question. He didn't know what exceptional material this Stele had been carved from, but at his current level it could be considered indestructible.

Yet, when Jake closed his teeth on it, contracting his jaw muscles with all his might, his teeth gritted but did not break. Between his teeth and the Stele it was a draw. Or maybe his jaw muscles weren't strong enough to subject his canines to loads they couldn't handle.

Jake considered channeling a massive amount of Strength and Constitution Aether into his teeth and facial muscles to attempt a second round, but after a fleeting hesitation he gave up. He had the nasty feeling that strength alone would not be enough to destroy this artifact.

After all, it was an object created by Aurae.

"But my mouth is indeed too small..." Jake frowned.

It was indeed easier when he was still a Myrtharian. Although he could take on a human appearance before, his actual size was that of a seven or eight-meter giant. Even more so with Bloodline Ignition.

[Your body is no longer miniaturized like before, but your Stafeyrves Body is described as highly morphable]. Xi added her two cents when she sensed his bad mood and helplessness.

Jake wanted to get back at the Stele, but had no way to vent his foul mood. However, after hearing his Oracle AI's reminder, he steeled himself and then began to inspect his body meticulously.

He closed his eyes and began to listen to the "breathing" of his cells, trying to reach out to them mentally. An undecipherable feedback answered him, an echo of his own will, and the atomic bonds linking his cells suddenly loosened up.

More and more space formed between them, and the existing cells began to rapidly synthesize all sorts of proteins and nucleotides. The cells whirred and their nuclei emitted a bright white light as if a nuclear reactor had just been ignited, delivering a continuous stream of energy.

In an infinitesimal time scale of a microsecond, these cells began to divide like in a time-lapse movie and the upper half of his body began to swell like a balloon while his legs remained the same size, giving him a comically grotesque appearance.

In the blink of an eye, his torso was as tall and wide as a ten-story building, while the diameter of his skull exceeded that of a basketball court. The huge-headed Jake laid his small-car-sized eyes on the "tiny" Stele at his feet and a vengeful grin contorted his face.

"Thanks for the meal."

His fingers wrapped around the Stele like a hand around a sword hilt, then Jake pulled hard with his arm to pull it off the ground. The Stele didn't move one iota, continuing to taunt him. It was as if the ground was magnetized and the Stele and the floor were glued together.

The students watching the scene with bated breath had learned their lesson and didn't dare laugh at him. Who knew if this madman had any more tricks up his sleeve?

Good thing they did. Jake had not said his last word.

"If I can't get you off the ground, I'll just eat the ground with it." Jake sneered.

What narrow-minded moron had said that Escalibur had to be extracted from its rock to be taken away? All one had to do was take both the rock and the holy sword with them!

The jaws of the onlookers dropped to the ground as they beheld the disproportionate giant spooning up the Stele and the several-meter-thick metal base that anchored it. A magical formation bound the Stele to the garden floor, but it was nowhere near as strong.

"STOP THIS!" Grigori's outraged voice exploded from somewhere in the Academy, shaking the ground and imploding the eardrums of half the students.

Jake smirked. "Too late."

Like a peanut, Jake gulped down the Stele and its base and swallowed hard.

Gulp!

"YOU DARE!" The furious principal teleported in front of him, but it was too late.

When Grigori in a panic managed to make him spit out the contents of his stomach a split second later, only a few acid-eaten slabs rolled on the floor.

"Where is it? WHERE IS THE STELE, DAMN IT!"

In anger, the child-sized alien with cute antenna ears slapped Jake's giant head with such force that it smashed into the ground, uprooting the few half-dead trees that still stood. At this point, only the fountain featuring Aurae and the other fellow was still intact.

Foreseeing a disaster, Grigori peeked inside his throat, going as far as to enter it, but he didn't go any further down. Pale as a sheet, the alien had already determined that he would not get his Stele back. As he wondered how to explain this to his superior - an uncompromising Ancient Designer named Aurae - a mental message rang in his head,

" Drop the matter. The Stele will be replaced shortly. At my expense."

The little alien's face, until then on the verge of collapse, miraculously brightened up upon hearing these words, regaining some color.

"Really?! No problem." Grigori exulted. "In that case, I want the Stele A7 model, the limited edition one made jointly by Aas, Grishaam and you seven million years ago."

"...Don't push your luck..."

The little alien was seized by a shiver of cold sweat and immediately mellowed into an apology. After having licked Aurae's boots for several minutes, bombarding him with compliments, each more original than the last and not repeated even once, the exhausted Ancient Designer snarled,

"Fine. The A7 model it is. Don't call me. I'll call you."

With a big, delighted smile, a far cry from his despondency of the moment before, Grigori ended the telepathic communication and looked for his "benefactor" to thank him.

"Where did he go?" He barked coldly at the students still present, who were still transfixed in awe.

"... He left a while ago."

" ..."