The Oracle Paths

935 I Grant You One Minute

The moment Jake's eyes met Lucia's, he was immediately consumed by unease. The stolen kiss had occurred just minutes prior, and its memory lingered.

Will, Asfrid, and Hade, all exceptionally intelligent and keenly perceptive, shared a knowing, subtle smile after the initial shock wore off. Silently, they gave Lucia a mental thumbs up, commending her boldness.

It must have been no small feat to shatter the icy armor Jake wore, an emotional firewall keeping everyone at bay. But his priceless, flustered expression made it worth it.

Jake, no less clever than the others, knew what thoughts danced through his friends' minds, and it chilled him to the bone. An overwhelming surge of spiritual pressure involuntarily radiated from his body, rendering the island's atmosphere heavy and oppressive, as if replaced by liquid lead.

"Cough, cough, Jake, have mercy, please," wheezed Will, the weakest of the three, nearly fainting on the spot.

Ironically, among Hade, Asfrid, and himself, Will was the only one who had survived until the end of the Ordeal. Perhaps the rewards he l d gained had closed the gap between them, but Jake doubted that a merchant focused primarily on Charisma could surpass them so suddenly.

Asfrid and Hade may have perished before the Fourth Ordeal's end, but disregarding that detail, their overall performance had been stellar. Their rewards must have been substantial, but the extent to which their deaths had impacted them remained unknown.

With pursed lips, Jake reluctantly retracted his aura at Will's pleading. Asfrid and Hade had remained stoic, but they were still disconcerted.

"Your mental energy has increased considerably since the last time we saw each other," Asfrid observed expressionlessly, her inner turmoil hidden.

Through her mental sense, she could see that the density of his Spirit Body had become unimaginable compared to their last encounter. By her estimation, his Spirit Body level was extremely close to Hade's, but considering the quality of that spiritual energy, Jake likely stood a tier above.

Hade's only possible remaining advantage was his Soul Strength, which could only be developed through the accumulation of memories and experiences. This was the sole way to nurture a soul.

However, if Asfrid could see his current intelligence stat, she might have thought differently. The amount of information that Jake's brain and soul could process and store every second was simply extraordinary. At this pace, he would catch up to Hade in no time.

If Asfrid could perceive this, then the former Fluid Grandmaster sensed it even more distinctly. If one were to consider only the mass of knowledge stored within their respective souls, Jake probably already surpassed him.

In just one year on Quanoth, Jake's titanic intelligence could achieve what a normal human would need millions of years to accomplish. The only reason Hade's Soul Strength still surpassed

Jake's was his maturity. To truly mature, accumulating knowledge wasn't enough; one had to experience emotionally stimulating and enriching events.

But this was a problem easily resolved with Jake's mental strength. He merely had to deploy his mental sense across an entire city or country and, by merging his consciousness with all local life forms, he could rapidly accumulate maturity by experiencing and living their emotions and experiences as a silent spectator.

In a few years, Jake would become as mentally stable and rooted as an old hermit. The only reason he hadn't done so was that he had been too busy to waste time in such a manner.

To him, this sort of voyeurism was not only disrespectful but also akin to watching reality TV shows - an activity he had considered beneath him even as a humble Earthling.

"What business do you have here?" Jake finally inquired about the purpose of their arrival, though he already had a vague inkling.

Sensing Jake's willingness to spare them, Will hammered his fist into his palm with a look of realization and leaped at the opportunity,

"We noticed you've been upgrading the Faction." He said with a grin. "I expected merely a level or two, but your ability to produce Aether as Lucia mentioned has surpassed my wildest dreams. Tell me... How many Aether points do you currently possess?"

Seeing the merchant's burning gaze of curiosity, Jake could have withheld the information, but after being embarrassed by them regarding Lucia, he suddenly felt the urge to bruise his ego, "Merely 89 sextillion Aether points." He sighed smugly. "I had 90 before, but after expanding my Floating Island, I have only 89 left."

Will's and his three other friends' legs began to wobble upon hearing this astronomical figure. Lucia and Will had mentally prepared themselves by greatly inflating their initial estimates, but hearing the number for real still left them traumatized.

The falsely dignified and indifferent gaze Jake cast upon them only twisted the knife in their wounds, and in Will's case, his eyebrows began twitching with envy.

'Is becoming powerful truly more profitable than building a sprawling company spanning the entire Mirror Universe? The merchant didn't want to admit it, but he was starting to doubt himself.

However, he quickly regained his optimism and a beaming smile stretched across his face, his eyes narrowing into thin crescents. Rubbing his hands together with excitement like any shady merchant before a good deal, he approached Jake and whispered in a low voice, "Tell me the truth, boss..."

When Will called Jake "boss," it meant he had a favor to ask.

"Speak." Jake grumbled.

Having received the green light, Will chuckled merrily and inquired, "How many Aether points can you compress in a day?"

Jake blinked, but answered honestly nonetheless, "If I don't pay attention, about 300 trillion Aether points per second. If I decide to consciously focus on the task... I've never tried, but multiplying that value by ten shouldn't be a problem."

A stunned silence struck his four friends. Or rather, three and a half friends... Lucia had just managed to shed that label.

Once the surprise subsided, Will swallowed hard, realizing his throat was dry. He was still in shock even after making a quick mental calculation before asking his question.

"Boss..."

"Yes, Will?"

"Please, lend me 3, no 5... Wait, forget that. Give me 10 seconds of your passive Aether point production!

Seeing Will throw his ego out the window to beg put Jake in an incredibly good mood. Feeling philanthropic, he nodded and declared in a regal tone, "I grant you one minute."

The sentence sounded ridiculous just hearing it, but seeing the merchant's blissful face as if he'd received his Christmas gifts early, Jake suddenly felt in high spirits. Turning to the three others present, he announced, "Let me know if you need money."

"I need a quintillion Aether points to develop my laboratory and my Floating Island." Hade immediately requested without the slightest embarrassment.

"Granted." Jake agreed without hesitation.

Will's jaw dropped, a sense of absurdity pervading his being. Almost an hour of Jake's passive Aether point production had just been granted just like that... In that case, why had he bothered begging and demeaning himself like that?

At that moment, he felt the same way Jake had when he noticed the knowing smiles of his friends earlier. The vague feeling that he was being mocked...

"Grant me 2 hours. You know why." Lucia playfully blew him a kiss, but upon witnessing this overt display of affection, he broke out in a cold sweat and hastily handed her the Aether points she requested.

"Hehehe" The Myrmidian princess flashed the V sign with her hand before Will, taunting him, and the merchant nearly coughed up blood.

'l may be shameless, but I cant emulate your ways.' This time, he could only bow and admit defeat before Lucia.

Asfrid held herself with more dignity, but ultimately, like Hade, she requested a quintillion Aether points to develop her Floating Island and research certain Spirit Artifacts mentioned in the ancient writings of her people dating back to the arrival of Eltar, Myrmid, and the other heroes.

The Spirit Shell she had invented to connect the minds of all Myrtharian Nerds was part of this.

When Jake consoled Will by also giving him a quintillion Aether points, the group then returned to the main topic at hand, that being the selection of new Faction Skills.

The first priority was, of course, to replace the Myrtharian Body passive with the preferable Cosmic D Starfeyrves Body, but as a matter of principle, Jake shared his list of skills with his four companions. It was an act of trust he wouldn't dare with just anyone, but these individuals were the exceptions.

Upon discovering that Jake's astounding Aether production capacity stemmed from the Grade 10 Energy mentioned in his Cosmic D Starfeyrves Body and Spirit Body, Will exulted with anticipation but still forced himself to read on.

He thought nothing could surprise him further, but soon he had to admit that every skill within Jake's newfound bloodline enticed him. There was a reason Jake was their boss.

Nevertheless, the long-term benefits from the first two passive skills were too alluring, and unanimously, they resolved to choose one of them. But swiftly, they found themselves grappling with a vexing dilemma.