Likely due to the passive nature of the Lone Hunter, Jake didnt really feel anything different after getting it. He considered testing out the one aspect he could right now, namely the improved effectiveness of stealth, but he reckoned there would come a better time after returning to Earth. Right now, all it could potentially do was make it harder for Sandy to find him. Besides, there would definitely be many chances for Lone Huntering around during what was to come with the Prima Guardian Alliance.
As Jake had felt, Sandy appeared not long after, popping out of what looked like a hole in space. Jake regarded the worm, and once more, he could only be happy to have a living spaceship available. If not, it would have taken annoyingly long to fly back to Earth, especially with his Wings of the Malefic Viper unavailable.
”Couldn’t even have begun flying to meet me halfway?” the giant space worm asked in an admonishing tone.
”Shouldn’t expect an injured patient to move around too much,” Jake responded.
”Always with the excuses… now get in here,” Sandy said while opening their maw. Jake felt the suction and didn’t resist as he was eaten.
He appeared in a pretty familiar-looking room as he raised his eyebrows. ”You made a new alchemy lab for me?”
”I didn’t make it; the people at the Order did. Try not to make me break everything again by making me face another B-grade, alright?” Sandy said semi-jokingly.
”Now that you mentioned it, we could check out what’s going on with Mars…” Jake said, for a split second seriously considering it, before shaking his head. ”Next time, that is. For now, let’s get back to Earth. Good suggestion, though, maybe there’s also a few B-grades on other planets.”
”Sure, sure, let’s also go see some of the solar systems closer to the core of the galaxy! Maybe we can even find a few A- or even an S-grade or two there! Great thinking, Jake!” Sandy said, not super receptive to Jake’s great suggestion.
”That definitely does sound like something we should do down the line! Imagine what kind of treasures they’re hiding; it’s gonna be awesome!” Jake kept the gag going… though he not joking at all. But, again, all of that was for later.Nothing in his Lone Hunter skill said anything about using a taxi service either, and seeing as Sandy wasn’t a fighter at all, Jake believed it should be possible to have Lone Hunter be active even while traveling with the worm. It was not like Sandy would ever get involved in any kind of fighting if the worm could avoid it.
Sandy didn’t give any response but was too busy entering subspace, or Sandy’s Sand World, as they called it, to speed up their return trip. Jake got the hint and entered meditation to try and fully recover by the time they got back. He had already healed a fair deal during his skill evaluation time, but he was far from in top form.
The space voyage ended up being relatively uneventful, taking only about four hours in total, Sandy having gotten even faster since their moon journey despite literally dying. Jake healed up as well as he could during this time, with the only communication happening during this time being Miranda sending him updates about how everything was going and the Fallen King asking once when Jake and Sandy would be back.
Jake learned from Miranda that things were going pretty damn well. It was just a cleanup of Primas, with everyone able to assist in killing the many enemy monsters doing their utmost. Earth did still take quite a few losses, but not a single person Jake knew the name of died.
After Eron had dealt with healing the strike team, he began to help kill regular Primas, with others also following suit when able. Miranda even praised William a fair deal, calling him a ”valuable asset,” with Jake not socially inept enough to not know what she meant by that.
She wanted to make use of William. Even if Jake didn’t like him, he could recognize William could be of great assistance in certain matters. Karma mages were one of the rarest types of mages around, primarily because learning about karmic magic without a teacher was incredibly difficult, and it was easy to form wrong conclusions that could make you screwed down the line. Shit, Jake would probably suck quite a bit at karma magic due to his overly simplistic view of karma. Even if it wasn’t inaccurate, he just viewed karma as some kind of connection between people and other people or things. This wasn’t wrong… but too simplistic to work with to achieve anything substantial. So, to conclude, karmic magic wasn’t anything Jake wanted to learn about actively.
William, on the other hand, had learned the Legacy of Eversmile, the foremost expert in karmic magic in the entire multiverse. Eversmile hadn’t taught him anything fake either, but his genuine Legacy. From what Jake understood, William was even pretty damn talented in karmic magic. In fact, he seemed pretty talented in all forms of magic and mana manipulation as a whole. He truly was a genius in his own right… but that didn’t mean Jake liked him.
Perhaps he could tolerate him, though. If Miranda wanted to make use of the mage, Jake could at least put his personal feelings aside as long as he didn’t have to play too nice with the guy. He also knew that Casper had steered very clear of William for a good reason, as he was partly responsible for Casper having a ghost girlfriend and not a regular living girlfriend.
Actually… Casper wouldn’t even have become a Risen if not for William, would he? He also wasn’t sure if Jacob would have ever become an Augur. Who knows… the gods were clearly playing quite a few games during the Tutorial, and Jake really didn’t want to uselessly dwell on the past. Suffice it to say, what William had done hadn’t made him the most popular of sorts, but if someone like Casper could resist killing the guy on sight, so could Jake allow Miranda to make use of him.
And, no, Jake wasn’t afraid of William taking advantage of Miranda or messing with her using karmic magic. He had personally seen all the damn magic she constantly deployed to defend herself, especially against any form of mental influence, and there was no way William could get through that. If he did manage to, Jake also felt confident he or someone else would notice. Finally… William could be bold, yes, but Jake really hoped he wasn’t dumb enough to start shit, or they could have a repeat of the Tutorial, and this time there would be no Eversmile with a Golden Leaf of Yggdrasil.
These were just some of the things Jake considered on the way back, as he honestly didn’t have anything better to do while recovering. Once they broke through the final layer of clouds, and he could fully see the desert below, he returned his attention to the outside world and the huge metal egg-shaped thing still nested within its crater.
He could see a bit of fighting still taking far away at a few of the defensive sections, but the Primas really were just about wiped out. At the Prima Vessel, he saw the strike team gathered once more, most of them never having left as they were recovering. Even if they had healed their bodies, prolonged use of boosting skills really wasn’t healthy.
”Sandy Express arriving at Prima Vessel Station now. All passengers, please depart now or be thrown out forcefully and get a mouthful of sand,” Sandy said in a very professional tone as Jake felt the space around his body quiver a bit.
Not resisting, Jake was spit out as he appeared floating a bit above the sand, not far from the rest of the strike team. Oh, and by the rest of the strike team, Jake only meant those who didn’t have to disengage. Maria and Casper were still nowhere to be seen, likely recovering on their own somewhere else. Arnold was back with the group, though, and he looked quite curious to see what was going on with the Prima Vessel.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Jacob had also appeared. It wasn’t like he was of much help in the cleanup battle anyway, but he wanted to be there for this Prima Vessel exploration. Jake could perhaps have said no and rejected him, but he didn’t care enough to. The more the merrier to check out what was up with the giant egg-like metal meteor.
”About bloody time,” Carmen said when she saw Jake had returned. ”Just how far up did you chase that damn chimera?”
”Quite far, obviously,” Jake answered with a smile. ”My escape skill has been put on a ridiculously long cooldown, that’s for sure.”
”Stop delaying and get us into the Prima Vessel already,” the Fallen King said, having no patience for chit-chat.
Jake had already spotted the new opening, which had a white barrier blocking it. Not even Jake could see through it, but when he laid eyes on it, he faintly felt a response from the key imprinted on the back of his hand.
”Alright, alright,” Jake said as he floated up, the others naturally following along curiously, with Sandy deciding this wasn’t anything they bothered to get involved in as the worm took off once more. Reaching the barrier, Jake simply reached out, and the moment he touched it with the hand holding the key, it disappeared, leaving an opening about three meters wide and four meters tall. It led straight into a hallway, and to Jake’s surprise, there was no spatial expansion going on.
He did notice whatever was there had been ”generated” by the system after the Prima Guardian had died, as the entire section of the Prima Vessel he now saw hadn’t been present before.
Entering the hallway, the others followed as Jake kept a lookout for traps, but he didn’t feel anything dangerous anywhere. The hallway led to a cross-section not soon after, with a room to each side and one straight ahead. Two of the rooms were blocked by barriers, each with the same key symbol as the one on Jake’s hand. The last one had both Jake’s key symbol and a number that currently displayed ”31” before dropping to ”30” while they were looking. Jake quickly guessed this was the number of surviving Primas and that this one would only open after the last one was dead. What lay beyond this barrier was quite interesting, too, because there wasn’t anything on the other side.
Not as in there being a big empty room, but that the entire space just didn’t exist. It looked like the inside of a lockbox that hadn’t been opened yet… making Jake guess this room could effectively be a giant lockbox. That was pretty exciting to think about, but he was more interested in the two other rooms first. The room off to the other side had what looked like teleportation platforms within, and Jake was very curious to discover where they led.
The first room he chose to enter was the one straight ahead, though. Because Jake could see what that was before he even opened the barrier: a control room.
Holding up his hand with the seal on it, the barrier quickly melded away as Jake and the others entered.
”The interior is reminiscent of the Seat of the Exalted Prima,” the Sword Saint commented, everyone nodding in agreement.
There was definitely a high magical tech vibe to the entire place. The silvery surfaces definitely helped set the mood, and as Jake approached what he assumed to be the main console, he saw what looked like a steel ball half-inserted into the dashboard. It reminded him of an old upside-down ball mouse.
”Pretty sure you’re the only one who can operate stuff,” Carmen said after she had haphazardly tried to press down on the surface of the dashboard several times.
”Very likely,” Jake nodded as he reached out and touched the embedded steel ball. The second his hand laid upon it, the entire control room came to life, and a giant screen appeared in front of them all, showing a massive map of something quite familiar.
”The Milky Way Galaxy,” Arnold noted as small flag-like markers began appearing all over the map. ”And these markers appear to show planets certain planets.”
Jake counted thousands of markers in total and noted how they all had three different colors. One color was red, which was displayed on most planets. Another was blue, which was showing on hundreds of others. Finally, there were green flags… three in total.
Focusing on the different colors, Jake quickly came to know that the red flags marked planets with an ongoing Prima Guardian conflict, but only those not part of the alliance. The blue markers were all the planets part of the alliance also with unkilled Prima Guardians, while finally, the green markers were the planets that had killed their Prima Guardian.
”Three planets have managed to take down their Prima Guardian?” Jake questioned out loud. ”One of them is us, I bet Ell’Hakan is another… but who is the third one?”
No one said anything, seemingly as puzzled as Jake. He had nearly expected Vesperia to speak up that it was some insect hive or that Arnold would jump in and inform him it was another follower of some Void God, but nope, no one seemed to know.
There was also one other big question…
”If three planets cleared the Prima Guardian already, who did it first?” Caleb questioned.
”It should be us, right?” Carmen said, sounding pretty sure.
”Very likely,” Arnold weighed in. ”Even if we were not, I’m uncertain as to its significance if we were first. The Prima Guardian we killed was an outlier and likely the only one of its kind, so in some ways, it can assumed we would have gotten the first kill on our kind of Prima Guardian no matter how long it would have taken us.”
”Dwelling on it is useless,” the Fallen King added as he regarded Jake. ”What more are you capable of doing with this Prima Vessel?”
”Good question,” Jake said as he placed his hand back on the metal ball again. He connected to the Prima Vessel more than before, and quickly, information entered his mind. He saw an interior map of the entire Prima Vessel and what it could do… which wasn’t a super lot. But it did have some functions, one of which he wanted to try pretty quickly.
”Hang on, people,” Jake said, and without any warning, activated the teleportation function.
Turns out there was no reason for Jake to tell anyone to hang on, as no one inside the Prima Vessel felt a thing, as from the outside, the entire metal egg teleported away in the blink of an eye… to reappear again deep beneath the surface of the planet.
”What did you do?” Caleb asked.
”Teleported us close to the Planetary Pylon,” Jake commented. ”We’re right now at the core of the planet.”
”… I assume you can teleport us back again?” the Sword Saint asked with a raised eyebrow.
Jake just smiled and changed the topic, as the teleportation feature was entirely gone from the options he had available. ”Oh, look at that on the map!”
He had activated some more features as information began to appear around the blue flags – the planets part of the Prima Guardian Alliance. It provided some basic information about the planet, such as its general core affinities and whatnot, and Jake saw quite a mix. Some planets had overwhelming water affinity, others were planets of rock and magma, while one was primarily wind affinity… yeah, they should definitely try to send Sylphie there to have some fun.
Jake’s plan had been to distract everyone from the fact he may have fucked up with the teleport, and it had worked wonders, as Jake had even forgotten his own fuck-up as he noticed something else.
Right around the center of the galaxy, in an area dense with countless stars, there weren’t any planets with flags showing Prima Guardians despite the density of stars, but a new marker appeared when Jake activated a function. A larger-than-average golden flag popped up, marking not the location of any Prima Guardian… but perhaps what this entire system event was all leading up to.
The Seat of the Eternal Prima.
And when Jake focused on it even more… he made a new screen pop up for them all to see.
Seat of the Exalted Prima
This marks the location of the Seat of the Exalted Prima within the Milky Way Galaxy. Currently, the Seat is being controlled and taken care of by a temporary administrator while the Administrator Selection is in progress. Should an individual be named the new Administrator of the Seat of the Exalted Prima, they will gain full control of it and be one step closer to controlling the true World Wonder known as the [Redacted].
Performance during this Prima Guardian event will heavily impact the rankings of all Administrator Candidates. Given a sufficiently satisfactory performance, full graduation to Administrator during this event is possible.
They all read this, as nothing was really surprising there. They had always known that the Seat of the Exalted Prima was just one part of what was some great World Wonder. A branch of sorts. Still… taking control of it was an interesting prospect, and Jake was sure Miranda would be more than happy to have Jake unload all responsibility on her if he did end up taking control of it.
”What can the Seat even do if you take control of it?” Carmen questioned. ”Maybe something to do with that Myriad Paths event we did there?”
”Perhaps,” Jake shrugged, truly not knowing. Nor did he care. ”This isn’t really as much about me wanting to take control of it, but to make sure someone like Ell’Hakan doesn’t.”
”Fair,” Carmen shrugged. ”Can you see the rankings anywhere?”
”Let me see… oh, here we go,” Jake said as he made a ranking pop up over the golden flag, displaying three names.
Current Administrator Candidate Rankings (subject to change):
1: Jake Thayne
2: Ell’Hakan
3: I
Seeing himself at the top over Ell’Hakan was nice… but…
”Who the fuck is called I?” Jake questioned, confused… though he had a strong feeling he would come to learn who – or what – they were during this event.