The Oracle Paths

The next year on Quanoth passed in a blur. Jake and Xi never once left their assigned Building.

The first thing Jake did when he was alone was to refine the Building, which was in fact a powerful Silver Artifact. This was the reward offered by Aurae to every winner of the Ordeal and these Players were not disappointed to say the least.

In addition to being able to withstand a calamity like the Mana Storm without difficulty, Jake was currently unable to damage its structure no matter how hard he tried.

It was only by using all of his amplification techniques and combining a Bronze Aether Weapon with his True Will that he was able to damage it slightly. The gash in the wall was no more than a centimeter deep and would regenerate within seconds of the attack.

Just on the basis of this one reward, Aurae had made all their efforts and sacrifices worthwhile. Those who had been eliminated just before the end could only curse their lack of strength.

The most depressed by far was Ulfar. Because he had appeared directly in the Divine Academy he did not have to fight to capture any of those 10,000 Buildings. More than 9400 Buildings could not be claimed due to the lack of survivors, making them available to the competent Players in the Academy.

This should have been good news for the King of Beskyr, but unlike Jake and the others who had already risked their lives to earn this reward, Ulfar instead had to buy his Building with his own Contribution Points. Needless to say, the price was steep.

All of the Contribution Points that he and the other students were so darn proud to have saved up were consumed in the blink of an eye, making them doubt that they had ever owned such a fortune. Now, all Players, whether they were from the Divine Academy or outside, were on equal footing: broke.

Because the Building was already pre-customized for its owner, putting a spiritual stamp on the Artifact took Jake only a few hours. If the Artifact Incarnation limit was not that of a Bronze Artifact, he would certainly have attempted to devour his Building in one bite.

Once refined, the Oracle System's description was concise but more than long enough to justify the artifact's rank.

[Silver Aether Artifact: Jake's Sanctuary: This is an extremely resilient artifact capable of withstanding a full-powered attack from an Oracle Guardian by default. Automatically repairs itself with the Grade 7 Aether Core infused into its structure. Can generate the ideal environment, energy and nutrient types for its owner. When its owner hides inside it he/she will enjoy the Oracle Cloaking lvl3 and Oracle Promotion lvl1 buff. These two bonuses can be cumulated with the corresponding Oracle Skills.]

This Sanctuary seemed to have been designed specifically in anticipation of the Fifth Ordeal to give another trump card to their Mirror Universe elites. Far from rejoicing, Jake became even more worried.

Since both sides were always of equal strength, at least on the surface, and considering their rate of defeat over the last 1000 years, Jake could only deduce that the elites of the opposing Mirror Universe also had trump cards of the same ilk.

This realization only strengthened his resolve to make the most of every second of this out-of-time year to train, and so he did.

After his evolution and the meteoric increase in his intelligence, Jake could no longer approach his training as he had before. He could now split his consciousness into multiple parts, allowing him to multitask at an unprecedented level of performance.

Simultaneously, he could also temper his Spirit Body and his physical body by subjecting them to the harshest temperatures and stresses. If he had attempted to subject his body and mind to such harsh treatment a few days earlier he probably would have passed out after a few minutes.

His body would have recovered in seconds, but his Spirit Body and Soul would have been severely damaged, requiring days or weeks of recovery. During this time, Jake would likely have lived as an amnesiac, his consciousness treading a fine line between lucidity and insanity.

That kind of catastrophic scenario could not so easily happen after his profound transformation. His Grade 10 Energy Body and Soul guaranteed that he would never run out of energy. Add to that the nourishing and energizing properties of his personal Sanctuary, and it was safe to say that Jake could train at 1000% capacity 100% of the time.

Under these unbelievably favorable conditions, the second thing Jake did after refining his Building was to decisively cast his Phantasm ability to conjure a brand new Purgatory and project several dozen slivers of his consciousness inside to participate in the many training modules contained within.

While his fighting skills and knowledge in various fields were not up to par in the fight against Ael, Jake quickly caught up under these new auspicious conditions.

While Jake's mind was assimilating all sorts of advanced techniques and knowledge from all sciences and fields of expertise, his body and main consciousness were focused on putting into practice everything he had learned while experimenting with his new Bloodline and Soul Class abilities.

For the first three months, Jake focused solely on mastering his Life Manipulation Skill. Partly because he was hopeful that it would speed up Jeanie's rebirth and partly because it was by far the skill with the greatest potential if used in conjunction with his Digestor ability to recombine any Aether and DNA Codes contained in his mental database.

During this time, Jake had a great time. In just one day, his proficiency had already surpassed that of the best biologists and geneticists on Earth. And we were talking about his era, the 22nd century. In the days and weeks that followed, he went much further, making full use of his formidable brainpower.

During these three months, Jake became able to use his new bloodline's ability to shapeshift, biomass generation and adaptive mutations to their fullest potential. Create life, heal, modify his genetic expression, manipulate his own life force or that of another person, etc. Jake quickly became very good at all of these subfields.

During those three months, several memorable things happened. The first memorable event was that through the mastery of his Familiar and Life Manipulation skills, Xi was able to create a body that was independent of and completely different from Jake's.

From now on, his Oracle AI could walk around with her own body and even modify her own DNA and Aether Code to become a truly independent and original life form. If the other Players found out, who knew how they would react?

For obvious reasons, Xi decided not to create a permanent, independent body from Jake until he had a reliable way to hide its existence. She could only hang out in a body conjured by his Familiar ability, but that was more than enough for her to play around.

The second major event of this period was, of course, Jeanie's "rebirth". Jake and Xi feared the worst, but it turned out that the fairy had not changed. From her words, she thought she had perished, but instead of simply vanishing, she had simply drifted off into a very long dream.

The Minmin fairy still felt the same inside, but her situation had changed irrevocably. Like Xi, her body did not really belong to her. She was now a Cosmic Fairy and a Familiar. Jake could recall her body and reabsorb it at any time.

Still, Jeanie was happy with this outcome. In Jake's Spirit Dimension, she felt safe. She would no longer have to live in fear.

The third event occurred at the end of the three months, and this time it was a much more unexpected surprise for Jake, Xi, and Jeanie. The second fairy spirit hatched from its egg...

Jake had no expectations regarding this second fairy spirit. Inwardly, he had even prepared himself for the possibility that the next fairy spirits to come into the world would be clones identical to the Minmin, thus confirming that Jeanie had indeed died and that only her data had been preserved.

This was why he was pleasantly/unpleasantly surprised to discover that this second fairy spirit had a face and an appearance fundamentally different from Jeanie's.

Trash Runt.

He was the Half-Leprechaun boy Jake had met at the beginning of his Fourth Ordeal and who had perished shortly thereafter when they had been involved in the joint attack by Vhoskaud, Azeus, and Shamash. Jake had forgotten about him, but his body was stored in his Space Storage when he had digested his bracelet...

The next nine months were much more routine but no less full of twists and turns. During this long and short period of time, Jake achieved a decent level of mastery in all his new abilities, including the Aetherdream.

365 days later, Jake was in his Lucid Aetherdreamer mode when one of the Dream Aether filaments attached to his body suddenly expanded and his consciousness and body were suddenly compressed into a mass of data and Dream Aether, then sucked inside.

When he opened his eyes again a split second later, Jake found the familiar, dark surroundings of the Red Cube.

His Fourth Ordeal was truly over.