Jake had a lot to think about. Annoying things to think about.
He knew he wasn’t the most moral of people, considering his rather liberal approach to killing. He did not hesitate when he went out into the world and hunted down sapient C-grade beasts simply for experience points, and he had killed plenty of other humans during his Path so far. Some were more deserving than others, with quite a few just being at the wrong place at the wrong time or having chosen to trust someone they really shouldn’t have.
But that didn’t mean he was entirely amoral, and he had some things he wouldn’t do. Likely due to his upbringing and the culture of Earth and because, quite honestly, these things had nothing to do with his Path. They were unrelated to his goals. One of those things he wouldn’t do was use his position to take advantage of others. It just felt icky and wrong to him to even consider it.
Miranda, Meira, pretty much anyone in the Order… it just felt wrong to even consider any kind of relationship that was more than friends. Meira more than anyone else. He had watched enough movies to know she may feel attached or something due to not being treated like shit, which just made it even slimier.
Perhaps more importantly than anything else, Jake didn’t want any romantic relationships. At least nothing serious. It didn’t even have to do with his bad prior experiences anymore, but just that he didn’t have time and didn’t want to dedicate the necessary mental energy to it.
Jake had already talked a lot with Caleb and how he struggled with balancing family and his role as Judge of the Court of Shadows. Caleb did not regret his way of life, and if he had to choose between the Court and his family, he would pick family every time. Jake could honestly not say he was the same. In other words, he would be a shitty partner.
There was also the entire thing about his insane innate fear of betrayal, but that was a whole other can of worms he really didn’t want to address.
In conclusion, Jake wanted to avoid relationships, and if acting oblivious made that easier, he would continue doing so. It was honestly just easier to never try and read more into anything others did, and he would rather assume people were being friendly and not make any conclusions. The result would be nothing happening, no matter what.
The whole thing with Meira was a complicated issue and one Jake was far from qualified to deal with. All he knew was that entertaining her emotions would be unhealthy for both of them. He could handle casual relationships, like the one with Carmen, but anything more would be too much.
These annoying emotions were a lot to deal with and, quite frankly, not worth the mental energy. Hence, he moved on to something far simpler:The ritual circle.
It took him about a week to fix the most outrageous of issues with the ritual circle, and while there was still room for improvement, it wasn’t anything important. All they really resulted in was the circle being less efficient and draining the many cores of energy faster, with more energy going to waste, but Jake didn’t really care overly much about that.
During this week, Jake tried to approach Meira to talk, but she seemed to try and avoid any long conversations as much as possible. At the very least, her actions allowed Jake to consider excuses to talk to her, which was when he handed her the list from Arnold that he had totally remembered. Having her do all that shopping and then confirming all the purchases afterward would be a perfect segue into the conversation he wanted to have with her.
Additionally, it set a deadline for Jake to get his act together. Luckily, it seemed like it would take a bit of time to get everything together as some of the things the scientist had asked for weren’t readily available.
After the week of ritual circle work, Jake moved on to another important task. The improvement of cores. For this, Jake had the Advanced Core Manipulation skill, one of those skill choices Jake had semi-neglected but now felt more than happy about having picked.
[Advanced Core Manipulation (Epic)] – To touch upon a core of pure energy and Records is to touch upon the broken shell of a soul. Allows the alchemist to far more easily manipulate cores and the Records within the broken soul shells with the goal of refining them. Refined cores will, in most cases, be more effective, and you can also choose to amplify certain effects. Having taken it further, you have learned that the layers of souls can be malleable in some circumstances, and applying this knowledge, you have learned to fuse cores containing similar Records and even change their nature in some circumstances as your own soul influences the core. Adds an increase to the effectiveness of Advanced Core Manipulation based on Wisdom and Willpower.
The description wasn’t something Jake had truly dwelled on much, but now that he read it after being offered the Harbinger of Primeval Origins profession and recent revelations about his ability to affect the Origin of something, he saw it in a new light.
This skill was all about manipulating the Records within a core. It even allowed him to merge several cores to create a more powerful one.
For the final push to evolve the Bee Queen to C-grade, Jake would need a few powerful natural treasures, but more importantly, a core of pure Records. Records that would allow him to improve this Origin somehow. Jake wasn’t sure exactly how to do this yet, but luckily he had time.
Hatching the egg before Nevermore was a priority, but if he didn’t manage to do it, that would be fine too. He wasn’t in a rush and wanted to get this one right. As Villy had said, this would be Jake’s first time intentionally trying to create some super variant using his Bloodline-related abilities.
While he didn’t have a core yet, he would go get one after he practiced a bit with what he already had, as well as some cheaply bought cores. Insectoid monsters were far from rare, and getting the cores was easy and cheap. Compared to most beast cores, ectognacores were a dime a dozen, and from just clearing one hive, thousands, if not millions, could be obtained.
There was, of course, still a variance to them, and Jake did have some better variant versions. Like the Queen’s Guard cores.
[Isoptera Queen’s Guard Ectognacore (D-grade)] - An Ectognacore left behind by a D-grade Isoptera Queen’s Guard, containing remnants of its Records within. Can be used as an alchemical ingredient for many types of creations but is most often found in Elixirs.
Jake did plan on heading back to Earth and making a visit to the termite hive to obtain more cores. More specifically, he wanted some C-grade cores from the Queen and to get some revenge on the Termite King. But that was only for when he was ready to actually use the cores.
Or really needed a break from doing alchemy.
For this core manipulation, Jake had wanted to ask Duskleaf for any tips, but the god had categorically refused and told Jake he was one hundred percent on his own. The intent was clear there: the two gods wanted to see what Jake could come up with himself without any feedback. He and Villy both wanted to see what exactly Jake would come up with through his reckless experimenting.
Not that Jake was against this as he got to work.
The Fallen King slowly lowered himself toward the white void as he observed the landscape before him. Ice covered everything, and he felt the intense mana in the air. What had the humans called this… the pole, he believed? An odd name, but the naming sense of humans often struck him as weird.
He took in the environment for a moment, and he felt slightly affected by it. The cold was so intense it required him to keep his barrier constantly active or risk his movements being affected, which bode well that he would find worthy prey. Flying inwards, the cold within the desert of ice and snow only intensified, and soon enough, he spotted movement in the distance.
An iceberg appeared to be moving as five bulky blocks were put together. One larger one with four smaller blocks functioning as feet, the entire body made of pure bluish ice. It was over five hundred meters tall, and the snow below it seemed to almost solidify as it walked.
[Northbound Ice Elemental – lvl 226]
Disappointment was the next emotion he felt. He had hoped for something better. 226 was low, but sometimes he had to take what he would get.
The King was not there to get levels. Not truly. He knew of Nevermore, the witch of Haven, having told him about it. He knew he had a level limit of 210 until the humans were ready, but he still wanted to test himself during this time. He wanted to properly understand his own power and the Path he walked.
As a Unique Lifeform, he had three forms of magic. Gold, Soul, and Force. Those were the three schools he practiced, and everything he could do was one of those three or a combination. Was this limiting? Perhaps, but with enough power, anything was possible, and the more he grew, the more he began to understand what he could do.
His issue with what he called Gold magic in D-grade was how much power it required to use. It was not actually related to metal but was just named for the color. In reality, it could be more closely compared to an arcane affinity, but naturally, Unique Lifeforms could not possess arcane affinities. They were born with their inborn magical powers, and that was all they had and would ever have.
Now that he was in C-grade, his energy had spiked. He had far more mana, and using his golden magic was finally more feasible.
Staring at the elemental, he began to condense the first type of magic he could now use. Force magic could be used as a form of telekinesis, and it allowed him to control objects directly or form constructs or waves of force. He would do the same now, but he could also introduce the power of gold.
Force and gold combined as a golden translucent barrier appeared. With his other hand, he attempted to create a spear, but he felt its weakness. Force magic and the concept of piercing never worked well together, as while focusing the power on a singular point seemed smart, it also made the construct incredibly fragile. No, better to go for more solid constructs.
His second try was far better. He allowed the energy to flow out of him, and he created a golden orb about a meter across. He slightly began to reform it and discovered that if he remained in contact with his construct through a constant stream of energy, it was far easier to control.
Turning his attention towards the elemental, he saw that it, too, had taken notice of him. There was little movement of life within the icy plains, making him stand out as his very presence disturbed the land. The elemental didn’t seem keen on conversation as magic began gathering around it, and the King gladly responded.
With one hand, he sent the barrier of gold flying toward the elemental. It slammed into it with force capable of making mountains crumble, and the King followed up with the orb. Golden energy still extended to it as he swung it like a flail, slamming it into the side of the huge C-grade in front of him. The impact lifted the living iceberg off the ground for a brief moment before the orb managed to pierce all the way through and go out the other side.
Adequate.
But with room for improvement.
The King considered the weapons of man. Swords, axes, spears… nothing quite fit him. Ah, but there was one that came to mind. A weapon he rarely saw people use but that the King believed would prove quite helpful.
Extending both his hands, golden forms grew from them. The golden energy extended out and formed two constructs resembling battle hammers, the heads made circular. He admired his weapons for a moment, but before he could use them, he annoyingly had to deal with a counterattack.
A giant blast of ice magic flew toward him, and the land itself seemed to rise in opposition to his presence. A singular golden bubble appeared around his body, and he allowed everything to impact him. The blast of ice energy washed over the barrier, turning the world blueish white, as a giant spike of ice pierced from below, but broke apart and shattered upon impacting the barrier.
The King never moved at all from the attacks.
With a thought, the defensive barrier expanded outwards, pushing away all the energy and allowing the King to go on the offensive. A single hammer flew out and grew in size while mid-air as it hit the elemental, sending it tumbling back with huge cracks covering its icy body. A second hammer came from above soon after, smashing the living icy mountain into the ground below, making the land itself crack and crumble from the impact.
Naturally, something like this was far from enough to actually kill a C-grade, and the elemental soon rose again, only to promptly get smashed down again by yet another hammer of golden force. The constructs made by the King were more durable than most equipment humans wielded, so even when the elemental tried to fight back by breaking the hammers, it failed spectacularly. While attacks on the hammers did drain the King’s energy, he remained connected to them through a constant stream of golden energy.
To call these constructs some form of shaped barriers would be an accurate assessment. They were in essence simply barriers moved through powerful telekinetic force magic, allowing them to hit harder and faster than the vast majority of warriors wielding the weapon using their bodies.
After attacking the elemental for a while, the King stopped as he no longer saw a purpose in it. The C-grade ice elemental healed from the attacks nearly as fast as they came, the mana in the environment feeding it. Physical force would likely never be able to kill a being such as this, so the King moved on. Moved on to a form of magic that no living creature was not susceptible to.
Soul magic was quite difficult to attack with. The energy would rapidly disperse when exposed to environmental mana, and often one had to use one’s presence to attack. That is to say, some kind of contact was necessary. Rituals that worked with soul magic were much the same; the caster just used the ritual itself as the origin of the presence.
Soul bolts were possible, but they were the simplest form of soul magic. These bolts mundanely attacked and dealt damage to the soul, and its mana efficiency was far from ideal. The King could do them too but viewed them as beneath him. So he did something else to make a ranged soul attack.
Rather than create a simple soul bolt, the King condensed a golden orb and filled it with soul energy within a barrier. He looked towards the ice elemental and blasted the orb in its direction. The elemental seemed to realize the danger and created a barrier of ice mana just in time as the orb exploded, releasing a golden nova of pure soul energy reminiscent of his ultimate attack.
The response of the elemental was correct, as the energy was mostly blocked by the ice barrier, but what made it through tore into the soul of the C-grade.
Satisfied, the King continued this line of action. A dozen orbs condensed around him as he pointed at the elemental, sending them all out at once. The elemental reacted promptly as giant barriers appeared all around it, but with dozens of novas at once, it failed to adequately block everything.
Damage for cost is acceptable.
The elemental had parts of its body crack and crumble, but sadly for it, the King was far from done. Next, he moved on to more novel applications of his magic. Soul, Gold, Force. These were his tools to reach godhood, and while that was far fewer tools than nearly any other race would have, the King knew.
It was enough.
Waving his hand, he began weaving more magic as he stared at the unfortunate elemental.
He had more experiments to carry out.