The Oracle Paths

As soon as the digestion was complete, Jake immediately put an end to the Aether bombardment. The Aether Cores and Aether Sun Cores stopped emitting their light beams and he finally got a respite.

However, he did not recover. With his current Vitality and boosted by the increased Aether density it should have been almost instantaneous, but instead his body just kept breaking down, while his cells continued to disintegrate.

The accretion disk had accumulated so much Aether that it would take hours for it to finish being absorbed. With no choice, Jake gritted his teeth and reactivated the Aether Sun Cores, Lightning Cores and other modified Cores to boost his Myrtharian Bloodline. At the same time he resumed devouring the asteroid he was standing on.

Sensing that this was dangerous, Hade and Asfrid used the Spirit Shell by tacit agreement to supplement him with their Spirit Energy. The Fluid Grandmaster also teleported to one of the disabled Aether Cores and closing his eyes to reach out to the Aether, he began to modify it to produce a rudimentary Healing Spell.

"Jake activate this Aether Core here." He shouted telepathically.

Jake, whose body was now as translucent and cracked as a windshield after a car accident, subconsciously obeyed and immediately felt a warm, invigorating light caress his skin. Unfortunately, this was counterproductive.

A Healing Spell, no matter how well cast, was still Aether. Especially since Hade was no Master Aetherist. As Jake's cells had far exceeded their Aether limit, the matter within him had begun to destabilize, reverting to the Aether it was originally part of. More Aether would only hasten this process.

Hade had just made a mistake.

"Damn it! I forgot everything is Aether. I've only made it worse" He realized as he saw Jake's face contort in pain. "We've got to get rid of all this Aether overflow."

"Too late." Asfrid retorted grimly, "We can't get near him in these temperature and radiation conditions unless we use our Oracle Shield. That accretion disk is confined to his body, so we have no way to control this Aether unless we damage his Spirit Body even more than it already is. This is a bad idea."

"In that case, what do you suggest?" Hade fidgeted.

"Nothing. Jake has already done what needs to be done. Check the faction chat."

[Jake: Gerulf, Rogen, Drastan, Lord Phenix, I need you to transfer wounds. Are you available?"]

[Lord Phenix: ... Will it be painful?]

[Jake: Very.]

[Lord Phenix: I want a reward.]

[Jake: Fine. A Grade 6 Aether Sun Core for each of you.]

[Gerulf: Count me in.]

[Rogen: No need for Gerulf, I can take these cheap wounds on my own.]

[Drastan: A Versing Troll fears no injury.]

Their leader did not respond as they had expected. Because at that moment, the danger and pain he was enduring had just reached a critical level.

"ARRRRGGH, Fuck!" Jake roared suddenly, a loud shockwave rippling through space despite the supposed absence of air, flattening the asteroid another dozen meters and deflecting it from its previous course.

Its translucent and almost disintegrated body suddenly became compact and healthy again, but the accretion disk had hardly shrunk at all. Just then, he had used one of his two Oracle Heals.

His body and Spirit Body began to disintegrate again immediately afterwards. Mentally exhausted, he wrote back in the Faction chat,

[Jake: Thanks guys.]

The four fortunate companions enlisted to share his suffering suddenly had a foreboding feeling upon receiving his gratitude in such a concise message. Gerulf and Rogen, who were far from being the penguins sliding the furthest on the ice floes, also felt that something was wrong.

They understood why a second later when they accepted the notification sent by Jake.

[Vitality Link activated.]

In four training rooms positioned at four different locations in Mirror Vanguard's Purple Hell, four heart-rending shrieks of agony pierced the silence simultaneously. Vexa and Prysm, who were monitoring the various screens while flirting in the control room, were immediately alarmed.

"What's going on? A technical failure?" The cube man muttered with incomprehension.

At that moment, he telepathically sought the reason from one of the Myrtharian Nerds taking a break and the latter replied matter-of-factly,

"Our leader has activated our Faction Skill Vitality Link."

Vexa was not at all reassured by this explanation. Rogen and Gerulf had clearly underestimated the danger and had not properly configured their training room to withstand such injuries.

Drastan was still hanging on thanks to his insane troll regeneration but his DNA was already damaged. As for Lord Phenix, he had already burned himself to a pile of smoking ash beneath him.

"Ignore the phoenix, he' ll be fine." Vexa shouted to Prysm, who had already left to provide assistance.

His girlfriend nodded and went to Drastan's rescue, while Vexa temporarily moved Gerulf and Rogen to the same room. Once they stood in front of him, he sealed them in one of his Green Cubes.

Their wounds healed instantly, but Vexa grew gloomy as their cells kept disintegrating without explanation.

'This kind of damage, it looks like...'

How could this happen in a fourth Ordeal? Unless...

"No fucking way." Vexa cursed as he looked up to the sky at where Jake was enduring his torment.

*****

A few hours later, well past the time he had promised to return to Vexa, the accretion disc raging in Jake's body finally came under control. His wounds healed instantly once the root cause was dealt with.

Where an asteroid once stood, there was nothing but void. Jake had eaten it all up to endure this hardship.

Jake brought his hand up in front of his face and clenched his fist in wonder, his True Will of Gripping subconsciously kicking in. The space around his fist began to warp as it was compressed by a power that shouldn't exist.

[Spirit Body level: 41>50(Digitized)]

[Species: Gold Myrtharian]

[ Physique: Gold Myrtharian Body lvl4]

[ Height: 6.17>7.86 meters]

[ Weight: 12046>18689kg]

[Soul Class: Rune Aetherist]

[Strength: 54489.6>108979]

[Agility: 29543.8>59086]

[Constitution: 92899>185798]

[Vitality: 70216>140432]

[Intelligence: 27748>55496]

[Perception: 57986>115972]

[Extrasensory Perception: 29855>59710]

[Luck: 207>329]

[Aether Stats: 3815>12386]

[Grade 4 Aether Core: 5719>64389 points.]

[Reiga Core lvl 3>4.]

This was his progress since the onset of his training with Vexa, but half of the growth had taken place in the last few hours alone. The dramatic increase in his Aether stats, Aether Core and Reiga Core were almost entirely due to the forced absorption of all that Aether.

As for his Body Stats, they had increased significantly, but it was his Bloodline that was the greatest winner. It was already a little closer to its next evolution even if there was still a long way to go.

But the most astounding thing by far was his Aether Core and Reiga Core. This was the first time Jake had been in this configuration. Namely, having an Aether Core that gave him by default an Aether stat amplification so much greater than that of the local Aether density.

The last time this had happened was during his first Ordeal when his Aether stats had reached the cap of 100 in a world limited to an Aether density of 8. With such Aether stats, Jake could even tackle his Sixth Ordeal right now and he wouldn't necessarily be at a disadvantage to the average Player.

"Unbelievable... So that was all I had to do to break the game." Jake laughed sorrowfully as he explored his newfound power.

Quickly, though, he noticed a subtle change in his surroundings. The Aether density next to him had dropped. Instead of the 1000 points it had been before, the value was now 999.9 and was slowly but surely dropping.

He was appalled when he saw this. Until now he had always believed that the amount of Aether in a world could only go up and never down. Hade and Asfrid had long since noticed this anomaly while their leader was getting tortured and their expressions showed a certain urgency and concern as they flew over to him.

"I think it's from the Grade 6 Aether Cores." The Fluid Grandmaster gravely deferred.

"What makes you think that?" Jake arched a confused eyebrow.

" Just come and see..."

The trio flew to one of the three Aether Cores and Jake observed for the first time in his life a phenomenon that was only possible to witness on rare occasions: A lack of Aether.

To be exact, upon reaching Grade 6, the Aetheric pull of an Aether Core would become so strong that all Aether for kilometers around would be siphoned off at an ungodly rate. Until now, an inexhaustible source of Aether had always seemed to replenish the absorbed or consumed Aether in real time, making it impossible to notice any difference.

They had come to believe that Aether was unlimited. The Aether was, but the amount available at any given time was not. A Grade 6 Aether Core was enough to locally drain the Aether of a Fourth Ordeal World with an Aether density over a thousand times less.

Still, Jake noted that this was a slow process that would take several days. Thinking fast, he immediately came up with a quick fix: Keep the Aether Core moving, so that it would never siphon off the same location for more than a few seconds.