The Oracle Paths

In the end, Jake stayed only a few hours in Hade's workshop. Soon the harsh realities of his physiology set in.

To mass produce Adamantium and other magical metals, he needed to eat a lot. A LOT.

If that was the only constraint he could have had it delivered to him, but his past mistakes had taught him a lesson. This time there was no way he was going to sabotage the future growth of his Bloodline.

To evolve optimally, his Gold Myrtharian Bloodline needed a 'balanced' diet. Lightning, heat, radiation, magnetism, gravity, earth and metal with the greatest possible diversity and in equal energetic proportions.

To be entirely fair, no place on Quanoth could provide such an environment in ideal proportions. In the meantime, he had to make do with his underground base and the Purgatory to get what he needed.

The initial cave connected to a magma chamber was already spacious to begin with, but after several months its dimensions had been multiplied dozens of times. Jake's stomach was a bottomless pit and gorging on magma was not nearly enough.

His Aether Sun Cores weren't doing the mountain and forest on the surface any good either. The local temperature had risen at least ten degrees in the last few weeks and on some of the rocks at the surface it was already possible to cook eggs just by putting them on.

Worse, the walls of the cave and magma chamber had begun to melt, which contributed to accelerate the expansion of the cave. If this continued, the very integrity of the structure would be threatened and the risk that the entire mountain and valley would collapse was very real. To avoid an unforeseen accident, he had been compelled to activate a small Purgatory Realm to isolate himself completely.

The time for migration had come.

BANG! BANG!

In a Purgatory barely larger than a basketball court, a scene worthy of Hephaestus, the ancient Greek blacksmith god, was playing out right now. A man physically shaped like a Greek god, except for his crotch, was furiously hammering an Orichalcum ingot, the initial block of metal having already been compressed at least a hundred times from its original size.

The magical brass had begun to glow mesmerizingly and its density and hardness had long since surpassed that of Adamantium.

Simultaneously, lightning was relentlessly striking his body, shooting down from the artificial clouds generated by the Bronze Aether Artifact. A tight ring of Aether Sun Cores unleashed their fiery rays on Jake's glowing body, supplying him with power beyond comprehension.

Too much power, in fact.

His skin was continually blistering, sometimes even melting until his steel muscles and Adamantium bones were exposed beneath. With his free hand, Jake was using his telekinesis to guide tons of rock and metal into his mouth, inhaling them in a steady rhythm without ever breaking expression or pausing.

Bang! Bang! BAAANG!

Jake hammered one last time with his Adamantium-covered fist and inspected his work. His face twitched with displeasure, then he tossed the ingot into a pile of discarded identical ingots.

"Another failure..." He sighed wearily.

Next to this first pile, many neighboring piles contained ingots of different magical metals. They too glowed suspiciously, illuminating the Purgatory Dream with multicolored shimmers reminiscent of a legendary treasure vault.

The Myrtharian wasn't doing all this for naught. His Spirit Body was currently in the inner Purgatory Dream, the separate dimension that allowed him to undergo various trainings to earn the corresponding Soul Glyphs. His body was currently being remotely controlled by his consciousness through the Spirit Link created a few months earlier.

His mind was currently multitasking, separated into four distinct subconsciousnesses. This was the first time he had used his Eltarian abilities so extensively. Before his bloodline evolved, splitting his attention into two was his comfort zone, and three his limit. Now, splitting his mind into four was just exhausting, but not unbearable.

His first subconsciousness was controlling his physical body, producing the magical metals required by Hade while training and applying his new knowledge. Another was trying to become an Advanced Aether Blackmith and obtain the corresponding Gold Blacksmith Soul Glyph. The third one was studying like a tireless zombie the huge amount of data generously given by the Fluid Grandmaster. Finally, the last one was studying and practicing his Aether Spells and more specifically Soul Spells.

"You should take a break." Ruby said joylessly as she casually swallowed the refined Orichalcum ingot he had just thrown away.

Jake thought he caught a hint of sarcasm in her voice and that was good news. It meant that his efforts of the past few days had not been in vain. She wasn't completely neurasthenic anymore, but that brought other drawbacks too.

"When can I get out of here? It's hot!" The young woman complained as she whimsically flailed her legs sitting atop the pile of bullion. "You don't have to worry, I won't kill anyone. I don't know what you and Craig are doing but it looks like it's working."

Jake stared her straight in the eye, then looked away.

"No, it doesn't." He smiled bitterly. "You may feel better, more at peace, but that's because you don't realize that we've been continually increasing the power of our spells to keep you that way. Your Digestor nature resists fiercely and every day it grows stronger. I can feel it feeding off the Aether from our spells to strengthen itself. The lvl 5 Aether Core that I used to power the Aether Symbol placed in your Spirit Body has already been polluted by your Corruption. Soon, this Aether Core will be a Digestor Aether Core..."

Ruby stood stumped. Of course she knew that! She was just too happy to feel like herself, appeased. But deep down, she knew it wouldn't last.

In New Earth, she had met General Rob, the most powerful Evolver in the Earth Union, a few days before her Fourth Ordeal began. She had tried to attack him on sight, but as soon as she met his gaze, her rage had left her.

She had thought she was finally saved, but the Eight Ordeal Evolver had ushered her out of his office with a disappointed wave of his hand after scrutinizing her for a few seconds. At that moment, she had known it was all over for her. If even such a powerful Evolver thought her case was hopeless then it surely was.

She appreciated Jake and Craig's efforts and didn't want to look like an ingrate, but deep down she knew it was a waste of time.

" Yeah we're failing." Jake suddenly said, honestly acknowledging his ineptitude. "Hade tried to save his son for 150 years and he didn't succeed either. I'm not even sure my master Cekt could do it either. But that doesn't mean we can't succeed either.

"I have my theory about what Corruption is, but I'm afraid it won't appeal to many people. The more advanced an Aether Spell or Bloodline is, the smaller its Runes are. If I want, I can draw an Aether Symbol with other Aether Symbols."

To illustrate his point, Jake drew a huge Light Aether Symbol with only a few Runes. He then moved it in front of Ruby and using her mental sense she noticed that each Aether drawing was in fact a string of slightly different Aether Symbols.

"Look."

He activated the Aether Spell and instead of the expected white light, a pale blue light came out. Ruby thought she figured out where he was going with this, and she got a better idea of why he considered his failure almost certain.

"As you can see, the big Aether Symbol should have produced pure, white light." Jake explained grimly." The small, slightly altered Aether Symbols that make it up code for blue light. As you can see, blue won out. This is the Principle of Incorporation, which also determines a Bloodline or Aether Spell's Grade.

"What's to say that the ambient pure Aether we use and are made up of isn't also made up of some kind of microscopic Aether Code that affects us? This could be what defines our belonging to the Mirror Universe. Like the common DNA of our cells that ensures that they don't attack each other. Except in the case of cancer, and autoimmune disorders, but that's another topic.

" But the Digestors are probably not native to the Mirror Universe. Following this logic, it wouldn't be a surprise if something in their Aether drove them to attack us. If these Runes are smaller than the smallest Aether Runes in the Mirror Universe, then the surrounding Aether becomes corrupted with no ability to resist.

"No Soul Spell I am able to cast can change this, since ultimately the Aether Runes leading to their creation are unable to reach the Corruption that affects you. I can affect your emotions, maybe even your DNA, but not the Corruption that causes all your symptoms.

"I would even say that by mixing your Aether with mine and the Mirror Universe's, you and the other Digestors are corrupting us little by little. It's hopeless."