The Oracle Paths

"What the fuck?! Is this a joke?" Jake cursed as he found out about his new mission.

Of all the possible tasks, the Oracle had to specifically request him to save the one person in his immediate vicinity that he was more than happy to watch die or at least take a good beating. As for the beating... One could already say that she had paid a pretty hefty price, but did that mean that he had to save her now?

Certainly not!

"Xi, what do I risk if I ignore the mission other than a lower rating at this Ordeal." Jake asked with a reluctant expression.

[If it's not your main mission... Not much.] The Oracle AI replied succinctly. [However, as you have seen on many occasions, the Oracle System is not always impartial. If this Side Mission earned you 2000 points, would you be willing to ignore it?]

Jake began to freak out.

"Is that possible?" He worried with a surprised look.

[I don't know...] Xi admitted sheepishly.

"Damn it! Then why are you spooking me like that?" Jake snapped. "I almost had a panic attack just now!"

[Sorry, hehe.] Xi giggled mischievously, pleased with his quip.

"So! What do we do?" Jake asked again seriously.

[I was only half joking earlier. Even though 2000 points seems excessive to me, letting Ruby die could indeed incur heavy penalties depending on the importance the Oracle System places on her.]

Jake's heart sank as he noted her adamant tone.

[On the bright side...] Xi tried to lighten the mood. [At least the Oracle System called Ruby by her first name this time. It didn't have the nerve to use the term soulmate again after her betrayal last time.]

Jake snorted in contempt as he recalled the unpleasant memory.

"So, should I be grateful for its thoughtfulness?" He ironized sourly.

[No, but I'm afraid you'd better save her anyway. And then kill her after the mission is over.]

"That's the problem." Jake retorted in a bad mood. "During the previous Ordeals, the Oracle didn't always inform me clearly about the success of my missions. I didn't find out the final rating until the very end. This mission just asks me to stop her from dying. There is no time limit, no context. This looks like the kind of messed up mission I'm going to have to deal with for the entire Ordeal."

Xi said nothing this time. Regretfully, there was some truth in those words. That they would have to keep Ruby from dying all Ordeal long was more than likely.

The real concern for both of them was why such favoritism? Jake didn't believe in this soul mate crap. When he had just been granted his Oracle Device, he had fleetingly believed that it was somehow the answer to an unconscious longing for love, but he was now convinced that it was just a pretext to coerce him into bonding with the disabled young woman.

What had changed his mind was obvious: It was always his turn to sacrifice and take risks to protect Ruby and never the other way around. By robbing him, Ruby had unwittingly helped him win his Second Ordeal, but he refused to believe that it was an intentional sacrifice.

The look on her face when she had stripped him still haunted his memory. There was no doubt about it, for a brief second she had considered killing him before changing her mind. A little earlier, she had followed through with her act and had undoubtedly tried to eliminate him.

How could he knowingly protect such an unstable and psychologically ungrateful person? It was just not possible.

But he had no choice. To become stronger and have control over his life, Jake needed those Ordeal Credits.

"Hopefully saving her isn't difficult this time. I just have to wait until she runs out of Aether and at that point I'll deactivate the Purgatory Dream to allow her to escape." Jake concluded with a sly grin.

[Great plan.] Xi scoffed condescendingly. [Did you even look at how much Aether you had left to say such nonsense?]

Jake flinched at the reminder. Sustaining the Purgatory Dream in the real world was no small feat. All the illusions he created were supported mostly by the Fluid Grandmaster Core converted into an Aether Soul Core, but he still had to contribute a tremendous amount of Aether.

Summoning the Purgatory Dream in reality and creating all that lava and gigantic steel ramparts had cost him over 100B of Aether points alone. In comparison, sustaining the Purgatory activation once the illusions were set up was cheaper, but it still cost him a whopping 1B Aether points/min.

After an hour of maintaining the blockade of Lodunvals, Jake had only 200B Aether points left from the initial close to 400B. It may have seemed foolish considering he had already escaped, but for him it was also a dream opportunity to gain valuable information about the elite fighters on this planet.

Within an hour, Jake had identified at least sixteen Players, suspected twelve more, and discovered two Rank-S natives hiding in this city whose power was no less than that of Laudar. Their way of fighting was quite different and three of the sixteen Players had already lost their lives to them. The others continued to keep a low profile as they stealthily migrated to the outskirts of Lodunvals.

One of these Rank-S was a nobleman from a family competing with the Baron. He was an ordinary knight, almost frail in appearance, but each of his rapier thrusts was capable of splitting a river of lava in two.

The other Rank-S was hiding in the Cathedral consecrated to Aurae and was an old woman covered in jewels and wearing a long golden toga. She was the person Jake had watched the longest, but after all this time he still hadn't managed to figure out the true nature of her powers.

Each time she clasped her hands together in a gesture of prayer, a stream of eerie energy would gush out of her and then she would start chanting as if she were possessed. When she finished her incantations, whatever illusion was in front of her would eventually disintegrate. And then Jake would be unable to conjure them up again.

What these two natives had in common was that his Oracle Device failed to scan them. Basically, the Oracle Scan was a very advanced form of mental sense, a kind of highly penetrating spiritual impulse that was very difficult to detect and intercept.

On Quanoth, the natives mainly cultivated their Spirit Bodies and Jake discovered for the first time that a powerful Soul was enough to resist an Oracle Scan. It gave him hope for the future, but it also raised new concerns.

As Jake turned his attention back to Ruby to see where she stood, he raised an eyebrow.

"She's deactivating her Oracle Shield now?! That's a lot sooner than I thought." Jake commented with a skeptical face. "Does she know I have to save her or does she have another trick up her sleeve?"

Jake was puzzled. Up until now Ruby's face had always been calm and dispassionate, but now he could clearly see the panic in it. With their crazy Agility and Perception, faking emotion was a breeze, but her Spirit Body was also showing signs of restlessness.

'She's not faking it! Fuck! I have to save her now!'

*****

Earlier, Ruby was still wavering between continuing to wait and using her medallion. In either case, she would have wasted a huge amount of Aether, but she could afford to wait another half hour before reaching the point of no return.

Except that only two minutes had passed when her Oracle Shield deactivated itself.

[Warning! The liquid alloy has gone into Aetheric overload. Shutdown of the Oracle Device to prevent its destabilization. Oracle Device restart in 120 seconds.]

Ruby was the first to gasp. She had never resorted to using her Oracle Shield for more than a few seconds before. How could she have imagined that something like this would happen. But when she thought about it more seriously, it actually made perfect sense.

With her lvl 2 Oracle Shield, 200M Aether points were being spent every 10 seconds and that Aether had to go somewhere. The Oracle Shield's indestructibility had already proven in the past that when the enemy was too strong the Oracle System could fill in the missing Aether with a cosmic wifi like method of transmitting Aether over distance.

Whether it was Jake or her, they never imagined for a second that the limit would come not from the Aether, but from the metal in the bracelet! After billions of units of Aether had passed through it over a long period of time, its atomic structure had finally been affected and was showing clear signs of overheating.

It wasn't obvious, but Ruby could feel her body tingling as if liquid lead had been injected into her veins and brain. Her Oracle AI was no longer responding either. Her Oracle Device had indeed been deactivated for safety.

As the ghastly truth dawned on her, the young woman's face became bloodless and she exchanged places with one of the adventurers' corpses that Actalaus had already crushed. She reappeared a few dozen meters behind them and Laudar's heavy claymore obliterated the former captain of the adventuring group.

Elduin and Bhammod, who was still hiding nearby, roared silently in rage, but there was nothing they could do to avenge their comrade. He was already dead pointlessly and now even his remains had been desecrated...

"Kill this bitch!" they screamed mentally, suddenly taking the side of Laudar and his pegasus.