The Oracle Paths

"So what do we do now? We leave the ship here and go home?" Asfrid inquisitively asked with a grimace. "I have a nasty feeling that the return trip is going to cost us even more."

"Asfrid is right. We've had a close call this time." Hade agreed with her sentiment.

"So what? You want to give up?" Jake scowled. "Focus on the positive for once. Didn't you get that notification?"

Asfrid and Hade stopped complaining at once.

"We got it."

The Oracle System notification Jake was talking about was this one:

[Side Mission n°4: Save the people of Laudarkvik from the Purge]

[Mission accomplished: Beyond perfect Rating. Save even more people to improve the rating further]

They still had no way of knowing if the reward would be worth their sacrifices, but at least they knew they hadn't taken all those risks for nothing. Seeing that this wasn't enough to lift Hade and Asfrid's spirits, Jake reminded them,

"If worse comes to worse, I have the Codex of Aurae that Crunch and Lord Phenix discovered. We should be able to change the Mana Storm's properties with it, but I'd rather not. My gut tells me that it's because the atmosphere is so tricky to get through that the rescued civilians are safe.

"The fact that our rating was delivered before the end of the Ordeal suggests that the Oracle System predicted that the likelihood of anything happening to them was zero regardless of Ruby's and those Corrupted Schwazens' ability to skew its calculations.

"It also tells us something very interesting. Lost Divinities and these other super factions don't have the time or freedom to come and deal with us anymore. Either our desire to save Ruby is covering us, or Vexa and Mirror Vanguard have decided to treat us as their allies. On that point, he didn't lie to us. He's going to give us our chance to get back at Lost Divinities. The other super factions have refused to send them support and I know he's pissed at them even though he hides it well."

"Can we trust them?" Hade asked in a cautious tone.

"Well... No." Jake conceded in a low voice. "There's still the possibility that they'll get rid of us once the Schwazen threat is dealt with. However, for once I'd like to trust my instincts. Vexa and Prysm are trustworthy in my opinion, but Mirror Vanguard is a huge faction fighting for higher interests. Their loyalty to their cause is unwavering. As long as we don't give them any reason to doubt us, I don't see why they would betray us.

"In any case, now that Lost Divinities is out of our hair and we're back in space, I intend to make my trip worthwhile. I have to replace the Aether Cores I lost... "

"You mean..."

"Yeah... Aurae wants an apocalypse, so we're going to hand it to it on a platter." Jake smiled sinisterly.

The trio climbed back into the ship and headed for Quanoth's sun. The motionless titan holding the planet in his hands locked his six eyeballs in their direction and the shadow of a grin distorted his metallic face.

Aurae had never left.

Jake, Hade, and Asfrid noticed none of this and reached the yellow star a moment later.

"Is it me or is that sun shining a little too dimly?" Asfrid commented as she glanced at the star from inside the ship with a pair of sunglasses.

"Your work, Jake?" Hade chuckled knowingly.

"Right, and this time I'm going to make it worse."

Jake was now an expert at this. He summoned all the Aether Cores in his possession to raise the local Aether density as much as possible, then used them to quickly create new Aether Cores and Aether Sun Cores. He customized them with various Aether Symbols, especially to allow the conversion of energy and matter, but this time he went even further.

Hade was not a trained Aetherist, but his Aether Fluid Grandmaster Soul Class gave him very similar abilities. Where Jake had to consciously produce each Rune, the sage warrior had a much more instinctive understanding of the Aether. All he had to do was wish for what he wanted by tuning into the Aether Dream fabric to get a result that was close to Jake's spells and sometimes even better.

Soon the two men were churning out Aether Cores in silence. Asfrid watched them perform with curiosity and also decided to try her hand at it. She was no Aetherist, but her mind was powerful and sharp. Creating ordinary Aether Cores was no problem.

An hour later, Jake felt the hundreds of Aether Cores they had created were enough and taking Asfrid's and Hade's with him, he fearlessly descended to the surface of the sun. Now that he was a Gold Myrtharian and his stats had greatly improved his body could withstand a temperature of several million degrees. As long as he did not venture into the core he had nothing to fear.

Nevertheless, the danger of solar flares and sub-surface currents was still as perilous as ever. During his descent, one of these small flares ejected thousands of tons of plasma at 800km/second right at him and if he hadn't anticipated it with his Shadow Guide, the impact alone would surely have killed him.

When he was close enough, Jake dumped all of the Aether Cores and Aether Sun Cores into the sun and the task was completed as he quickly made his way back to Hade and Asfrid.

"Now what?" Asfrid asked.

"We wait. Or we can keep making Aether Cores to speed up the process." Jake replied calmly.

"Then, let's do this." Hade aggreed evenly.

Jake was supposed to meet Vexa at nightfall for the briefing on the counteroffensive operation against the Schwazens, but this was too important. He wouldn't go back while this sun still had an ounce of heat and radiation to vamp.

Fortunately, he had underestimated the productivity of three elite players like them. Every half hour, Jake would drop hundreds of brand new modified Aether Cores into the sun and the effects were soon felt.

90 minutes later after the first Aether Cores and Aether Sun Cores fell into the star, its surface began to dim like magma pouring into an icy river. The sun became covered in dark, ashen patches as the heat of the core failed to maintain the temperature of the star's periphery.

And all the while, the first Aether Cores, which were already Grade 5 to begin with, continued to grow in density, their absorption rate increasing exponentially. The trio produced another batch of Aether Cores and then patiently let time do its work.

An hour later, Jake landed on the surface of the star, the glaring plasma having solidified into a smooth, dark gray shell. Solid hydrogen at -262°C.

His legs froze at the touch, but a blast of heat instantly evaporated the fuel, the rest forming a pool of liquid hydrogen.

"I can't use my Earth Control on this." Jake informed Hade and Asfrid who were levitating at a distance from him.

"Converting heat and energy into Aether is fast, but converting matter takes much longer. Recovering our Aether Cores will be difficult if we let them sink any further. Unless we are willing to wait here for a few years until the entire star has been fully absorbed..." Hade frowned.

"Unless I can extend my Earth Control over this hydrogen." Jake disagreed with a steely look on his face as he tore off a wafer of solid hydrogen from the star with his bare hands.

His hands froze upon contact, but he ignored the freezing sensation and activated his Double Bloodline Ignition, biting fiercely into the icy piece of hydrogen. He swallowed hard and almost immediately felt the foreign object singeing his esophagus before landing in his stomach.

BANG!

The hydrogen quickly went from solid to gas by sublimation, resulting in a massive explosion inside his stomach. Jake belched a mushroom cloud of hydrogen plasma and grunted,

"It didn't work."

"No shit..." Hade facepalmed.

"You give up?" Asfrid teased him.

"No... Plan B." Jake uttered darkly. "I should have implemented it a long time ago. Vexa gave me the idea, but I couldn't do it before. Besides training my True Will I've spent the last six weeks honing the Aether Spells I need to accomplish this."

"Why didn't you give it a try sooner?" Hade worried, sensing he was omitting something.

"Because it's dangerous." Jake half-admitted. "I would have preferred to try it in a safer environment, preferably with my master Cekt to salvage the mess in case it gets out of hand."

"Well, we're here." His two friends reassured him. "At worst we fail the Ordeal. No final death, so no big deal."

"Your optimism warms my heart." Jake rolled his eyes, but with their support he decided to go through with his plan.

First he called back the Aether Sun Cores and Aether Cores within range, pulling them back through the solid hydrogen crust while the others maintained their slow descent toward the core. With the Aether Sun Cores giving off constant heat, the hydrogen melted again, but Jake had no intention of taking advantage of it.

348 Grade 4 Aether Cores, 36 Grade 5 Aether Cores, 3 Grade 6 Aether Cores, 112 Grade 4 Aether Sun Cores, 16 Grade 5 Aether Sun Cores, 1 Grade 6 Aether Sun Core.

With this, Jake would accomplish a feat that would change not only his future, but that of his entire faction.