The Oracle Paths

"Is that good? Did you have a good time?" Jake cringed as he rubbed his temples over his horrible headache.

His Soul had finally returned to its fleshy shell. The return to reality was brutal and he reflexively closed his eyes to avoid losing his temper as he read the crooked letters of a wooden sign indicating the name of the temple square and the adjacent streets. Even the amateurishly carved inscriptions on the Prophetic Stele made him feel itchy.

"It's going to be hard..." Jake muttered, biting his tongue to quell his frustration.

"What's going to be hard?" The little Minmin's squeaky voice asked innocently from inside his mantle.

Too lazy to answer, Jake asked another question,

"How long did it take me to get my Soul Class?"

Trash counted with his fingers before realizing he couldn't count. Even if he could, he didn't have a watch or any way of knowing the time. Jake facepalmed, suddenly feeling drained, but fortunately the fairy was able to answer him.

Pulling a tiny silver pocket watch from her pocket, she proudly declared,

"Seven to eight seconds at the most."

Jake rolled his eyes at Jeanie's laughable attempt to garner his admiration, or at least his gratitude. If she hadn't looked at the time before, how could looking at the time afterwards possibly help her know how much time had passed?

This question, from the beginning, Jake had never expected an accurate answer.

'Seven to eight seconds?That means that time is practically frozen inside the Prophetic Stele.' He stroked his chin thoughtfully as usual, his eyes still closed to escape the torture imposed by his immediate surroundings. 'If my soul wasn't completely cut off from the outside world, including my Oracle Device, this could have been the perfect cheat to train my mind, gather knowledge and perfect my techniques. Either way, it proves that Time Magic exists in the Mirror Universe. At least this Aurae isn't an Ancient Designer for nothing...'

[Of course.] Xi snorted scornfully. [To create such a complete Soul Class system, he can only be an ultimate Aether expert. There are very few Aetherists who can match him. Without him, a tiny minority of Evolvers would be able to awaken a Soul Class. They would have no name, no precise classification, and it would have taken a tremendous amount of soul force and a long process of accumulated experience to achieve this transcendence of the soul.]

'Yeah, yeah, I got it. Such a great guy.' Jake retorted sardonically. That didn't keep this Soul Class system from being completely messed up.

Gurgle, gurgle!

Jake's ears twitched. The gurgles came from both a pocket in his coat and the teenager to his right.

"All right. Let's get that breakfast." Jake smiled, as he recalled that Trash had indeed not enjoyed a real meal in several days.

Jake wasn't familiar with the city's establishments, but a scan of his wristband allowed him to locate most of the inns and other restaurants. He didn't care if he was spotted by other Players or local bigwigs. In fact, he wanted nothing more than that!

The scan report told him that there were a bunch of strikingly powerful individuals scattered throughout Lodunvals, though most were located near the palace. The other places to be careful were the main guilds of the city, especially that of the Adventurers and Mages.

In the end, Jake didn't have to pick one, as Trash insisted on dragging them to his old gang's favorite inn, the facility almost being their second home. Jake and Jeanie were looking forward to a tasty and filling meal, but they were soon disappointed when they saw the condition of the place.

Describing the inn as a dumping ground may have been an exaggeration from the outside, but the filthy alleyway in front of it could definitely be called a cut-throat. The crooked and almost illegible writing on the rotten wooden sign dangling above the door especially... Jake's face almost started to convulse as it broke his heart.

Seeing Jake's distraught and pained expression, Trash immediately broke into a cold sweat and quickly justified himself,

"I-I swear the food is great. It's one of the most famous inns in town! Uncle Oaf always said that the reputation of the Holy Dung Quagmire Inn extends to the farthest reaches of the Icarden province!"

Jake's face was ugly now. Just the name of this inn portended the worst.

"Tell me... Trash? You and your mercenary gang... How rich were you?" He couldn't help but check.

"Super rich!" The teen proudly raised his fist. "Uncle Oaf always said that truly rich people are flat broke and swimming in a sea of debt. Because you have to be rich to keep living like that. A poor person would have killed himself."

'Oh my god...' Jake was this close to slapping him.

"I retract everything I didn't say, but thought with all my heart." Jake stated stoically.

"What?"

"Uncle Oaf was a brilliant man. I thought he picked your name when he was drunk, but he apparently knew pretty well what he was doing." Jake praised as he ripped the sign off the wall with his hand.

Trash wasn't offended, but he still had enough brain cells to tell that it wasn't a backhanded compliment. Still, before he could give it much thought, his curiosity overcame his doubts as he watched Jake erase the engravings on the wooden sign.

Using his telekinesis, Jake cut a thin layer of wood from the sign's surface and smashed it with his foot, then with his fingertip he rewrote the initial message, this time with gorgeous calligraphy that he wouldn't have felt capable of even the day before. At last, he put the updated sign back in its place and entered the inn.

After they entered the inn, the word "Holy" that he had rewritten began to glow with a mystical energy that was pure and sacred. The tramps and other misfits and laborers hanging around the front of the inn immediately felt the difference, one of them even began to sob inexplicably. It was as if he had just been forgiven for his misdeeds.

They all began to search for the root cause of the phenomenon, but came up empty-handed. Eventually, they remembered the handsome man who had just entered and their inquisitive eyes focused on the rotten wooden sign.

One of them promptly tried to grab it, but was met with a frontal kick to the face by one of the delinquents present. A few seconds later, a full-scale brawl broke out in front of the inn. The trophy of this glorious battle: A rotten wooden sign.

*****

Meanwhile inside, Jake, Trash and Jeanie had already found a table to sit at and had already placed their orders. The interior of the inn was just as Jake had imagined, dingy, damp and full of shady, hooded guys. However, the atmosphere was welcoming and there were also many ordinary adventurers happily celebrating their homecoming.

Alcohol was flowing, drunken warriors were dancing on the tables to the beat of the applause along with several damsels just as drunk as they were, while boisterous laughter broke out over and over again as a result of dirty jokes. In a corner, a ringed bard was playing his lute while yawning, very much at the end of his rope.

Such a scene would not have been unusual in the evening, or even at the end of the night. The thing was, the sun had just risen. It was an hour when the late sleepers were supposed to be sleeping, while the early risers were getting ready for work. In any case, it was not a time to binge drink.

A few minutes later, a pretty but exhausted waitress slalomed over to them with the food they had ordered, avoiding the wandering hands of perverts trying to touch her butt. To please the two gluttons, he had ordered a little bit of everything and she had to go back and forth several times to bring everything.

As Trash gracelessly pounced on a huge prime rib, Jeanie's skittish but clearly envious head popped out of his pocket, the fairy not hesitating to fling her abandoned puppy look at Jake.

"Can I come out?" She whispered bleakly.

Jake swept his gaze over the room and seeing that no one was paying attention to them, nor did they have exceptional mental strength, he spread his Spirit Body until it encompassed the entire inn and all its customers. Unaware of it, they all became victims of a group hypnosis, which made them completely forget the presence of the trio.

"You can go out, but don't go too far from the table."

"Hooray!"

Overjoyed at the chance to stretch her wings, the Minmin swirled above the table, flapping frantically, but none of the other guests noticed the droning. It was as if their brains had filtered out the noise.

The fairy may have been tiny, but her small size was misleading. Minmins were semi-spiritual creatures and should not be regarded as normal beings. In the end, she had almost as much appetite as the teenager.

Jake definitely had the biggest appetite of the three, but after swallowing dozens of pounds of food out of gluttony he stopped and produced a tiny pebble which he swallowed in an instant.

Trash and Jeanie were stunned as they witnessed the scene, their mouths agape as they forgot to chew. Jake could have explained, but he remained silent.

The explanation was simple. The attributes derived from his Aether Stats didn't require more energy, since their effect was applied to matter and energy like an amplifying coefficient.

This was not the case with his Body Stats, which were fundamentally anchored to the material world. With few exceptions, more strength required more muscle and therefore more energy to mobilize. This was reflected in his mass and ordinary food had long since become inadequate to his needs.