The Oracle Paths

As with the formation of his Aether Core, as soon as Reiga's first beam was produced Jake used all his willpower and radiation control to force the beam to bend. Its wave-like behavior made the process exceptionally difficult, but Jake had been preparing for this eventuality from the start.

Jake had achieved enough control over the ambient light to make himself literally invisible even before the Fourth Ordeal began. By contrast, forcing the light to follow a certain path was no big deal.

This constant beam of Reiga curved again and again, until it formed a ring that circumscribed the Aether Symbol within. Within seconds, this ring quickly grew in brightness, but because its light was trapped and the diameter of this ring so small, all a curious onlooker dissecting its insides would have found was a tiny black hole.

According to the laws of physics, light was supposed to travel in a straight line, and only a powerful gravitational force could normally distort space-time and make light appear to follow a curved path. His Bloodline ability "Radiation Control" allowed him to ignore this physics constraint.

Therefore, since light has no mass, forcing it to behave in a certain way was virtually effortless for him. The only real hurdle was to manage its celerity. The Reiga's speed of movement far exceeded his reaction time, so he had to plan in advance every move he planned to do with it.

But as light and user-friendly as the Reiga was, light couldn't actually bend on its own. If he relaxed his attention for even a moment, the Reiga ring would disperse in a blinding flash of light. So this was not a viable long-term solution unless he never slept again.

Jake immediately realized that something was missing. With the experience of this first attempt, he let the Reiga ring dissipate, then went back to modifying the elaborate Aether Symbol he had created. A few hours later, he was able to give the Reiga increased maneuverability.

Its movement speed and behavior was still that of light, but each Reiga particle now had several instructions in its Aether Code that made it much more obedient. The Reiga could now follow its own trajectories and even stop moving if Jake wanted it to.

This time, Jake had really succeeded. No need to make a ring or any other bold geometric patterns. The Aether Symbol produced another Reiga beam, but it did not leave the center of the Aether Symbol that birthed it.

A black dot simply sprouted in the middle of it and the Reiga produced kept stopping at the same spot, making the new Reiga Core denser and denser, though infinitesimally small.

"Success!"

Jake then moved on to the final and most crucial step in the creation of his Reiga Core: Making the produced Reiga improve the overall performance of the Aether Symbol producing the Reiga. And to do this, Jake figured that the only way to accomplish this feat was to produce an identical Reiga Symbol.

That way, the circle would be complete.

For the next two days, Jake spent his time making this Reiga Symbol. Copying the Aether Symbol and adapting it to the Reiga had taken him only a few minutes thanks to his status as a Rune Engraver, but getting the Reiga to follow the designated path took some practice.

But he had managed. When the Reiga Symbol was finally perfected, Jake scattered the first Aether Symbol used to make the initial Reiga and watched with pride as his new Reiga Core quickly strengthened on its own.

The final structure consisted of a Reiga Symbol and a Reiga Core. Jake could freely choose whether the Reiga produced would be used to enhance the Reiga Symbol or the Reiga Core, but whatever amount of Reiga was in his Reiga Core he would be able to tap into with a single thought.

Needless to say, Jake chose to channel all of his Reiga into the Reiga Symbol first, leaving only 1% of the Reiga produced to feed the Reiga Core. For now, the Reiga produced every second was negligible.

'The Reiga is produced too slowly.' Jake grimaced, before putting it into perspective by telling himself that he couldn't have done it any other way. 'I can't finalize my plan. With so little Reiga it's impossible to power the Words of Power I was planning.'

That's right. What Jake wanted to accomplish was to use his Reiga, a versatile energy that could replace both vital and psychic energy to carve permanent Words of Power into his flesh. If he succeeded, his combat power would increase exponentially in an instant.

[To produce more Reiga you should have created a larger Aether Symbol or one with more Aether]. Xi kindly consoled him. [I think what you did was the best option. You just have to be patient now and hope that your enemies will give you time to mature.]

Jake suddenly lifted his head, his Myrtharian Eyes peering through the ceiling of the cavern and beyond, to focus on the commotion on the surface several kilometers above him.

With his sharp eyesight, he detected three people, the first one being chased by the other two. The first one seemed to be in dire straits, but strangely it did not try to flee. Stupidly and completely illogically, it kept dodging enemy attacks while scouring the area.

Several times he saw it digging for something in the ground, seemingly looking in his direction, and suddenly it struck a chord in his mind. One Oracle Scan later, he frowned,

"Carmine? What is she doing here? Is she looking for me?" Jake muttered cheerlessly. Their last exchange hadn't left a good impression on him.

Seeing her again wasn't exactly high on his list of priorities, but three months had passed since then. His negativity and guilt had long since been swept away in the suffering flames of his training.

Above him, Carmin nimbly dodged yet another attack, but the third pursuer took the opportunity to shift at superhuman speed behind her. With perfect timing, he deflected the young woman's Blood Whip with one hand, then with the other impaled her from behind. A gaunt hand with long black fingernails sprang from her rib cage between her breasts, staining her day dress with a vermilion liquid.

[Are you really going to let her die, Jake? They look like Vampires, but one of them seems to be a Player.] Xi questioned him reprovingly. [They're pretty strong.]

"Tsk! Fine, I'll save her." Jake obeyed in a bad mood.

This would be a chance for him to test the results of his training. His Spirit Body merged back with his body and the Aether Sun Core was retrieved into his Space Storage. As he was recalling it, Jake figured he could now easily create a new one. He would no longer need Cekt's help to make one.

From now on, he was officially an Aetherist apprentice and by virtue of his Engraver Soul Class Rune, a very dangerous one.

"Jeanie, we're leaving." He said with a bored expression as he prepared to leap.

" Yippee!" A streak of electric blue light shot at him from a corner of the cave and disappeared into his pocket.

Jake didn't know how she'd been keeping herself busy for the past three months, but the little fairy seemed different from before. In addition to being a little taller, she weighed almost twice as much, and for the first time he felt like he was carrying a radiator.

He bent his legs and with a leap his body shot towards the ceiling of the cave like a comet, waves forming on the surface of the rock as he stepped inside. Within four seconds, he crossed the distance between his magma chamber and the surface without making a sound or a ripple to indicate his approach.

As soon as his head emerged from the ground, hidden by the tall grass, the ground liquefied beneath Carmin's two assailants, who tripped and sank into it as if they had just fallen into a pool. Before they could adjust their footing, the ground solidified again and they found themselves trapped in a lump of hardened earth.

The Vampire who had injured Carmin reacted swiftly, immediately flexing his muscles and struggling with all his might to break through his rock prison. The rock immediately began to crack, while the startled Player didn't hesitate for a second and activated the Oracle Skill Teleportation to flee the scene.

"What decisiveness." Jake praised sincerely. If the Player had stayed a fraction of a second longer, he would have been trapped here permanently.

As the rock prison was about to shatter, Jake leisurely pointed a finger at the Vampire and a tiny Aether Symbol flashed fleetingly before him.

'Hardening.'

The rock prison that looked like it was about to shatter immediately became several times more solid. And that was only by relying on his Aether Core and stamina. He had not tapped into his Reiga at all.

Even with this strengthening spell, the Vampire did not give up on escaping and his body began to cover itself in a crimson halo. If one looked closely, it was possible to see micro drops of blood oozing out of the pores of his skin, then flaring up to form that reddish aura.

"Watch out Jake, he's using his Blood Essence to boost his abilities!" Carmin shouted to warn him.

Still with the same expression, Jake ignored the Vampire's warning and continued to point his finger at his prisoner, but this time right at him.

Fear.

Anemia.

Fatigue.

Suffocation.

Paralysis.

Freeze.

The eyes of the Vampire trapped in the rock bulged in astonishment as the combination of Aether Spells struck him one after another. Separately, their power was nothing special, but executed together they produced such incomprehensible synergistic effects that the poor victim was completely befuddled.

The tremendous strength that the Vampire's muscles exerted vanished at once, while he began to shiver with terror in his rock prison, his face sallow and his eyes rolling back.

Right now, he didn't want to get out of his rock prison, but to stay hidden in it forever to escape this terrifying Mutant that came out of nowhere.