The Oracle Paths

For the next few days, Jake spent all his time teleporting from one side of B842 to the other to rescue, find, and repatriate the scattered survivors of Lucia and Gerulf's army. He should have been training, preparing for his Fourth Ordeal, but this was a time-sensitive emergency.

Just as Jake had risked so much to save Kyle's sister, Lucia, who had spent two years of hardship and torment, had formed strong attachments with most of them. Even if he refused to help her, the young woman and Gerulf would have gone on a quest to save them all.

On the other hand, Jake's wholehearted help was not devoid of ulterior motives. Besides the undeniable appeal of increasing the number of subordinates in his faction, each of these survivors was the cream of the crop from his First Ordeal World.

The benefits of these rescues extended beyond that. Except for Jake, whose bloodline was pretty much functional and complete, Kyle, Sarah and Tim all suffered from growth limitations due to the impurity of their bloodlines.

Impurity could mean that the Aether in their Aetheric Code was insufficient or not compressed enough, or it could simply mean that their bloodline was incomplete. In other words, they were missing some crucial lines of code.

In the first case, if their Aetheric Code was too weak, although their bloodline would be complete, it would start from an extremely low starting point. If Jake had encountered such a problem, his bloodline would have been the same but would have been extremely nerfed, at level 0 or perhaps even lower if the Oracle System recognized such a condition.

This could have happened if the blood sample offered by Lucia and Gerulf had been a regular one. Fortunately, it was their Blood Essence. By presenting him with this gift, his two friends had been weakened for several weeks afterwards.

In the second case, an incomplete bloodline could be supplemented by other bloodlines as was the case with Jake and his hybrid bloodline, but most of the time this made the bloodline dysfunctional.

Whether it was Kyle, Sarah or Tim, they all suffered from huge limitations. It was less obvious for Sarah who had the Aether Self-Encoding Skill, but for Kyle and Tim it was crystal clear.

Without outside help, Kyle and Tim were unable to get stronger. Tim was lucky, but there was little he could do about it. Boosting their bloodline was difficult and the level-ups didn't make a huge difference. Kyle had only reached lvl 2 of his bloodline after huge sacrifices, and he still had to purchase a higher purity blood sample.

It was too late to help Sarah and Kyle, but there was still hope for Tim. Therefore, the people Jake rescued first were the Beskyrians.

Lucia's group numbered only about thirty. She figured there must be other groups of survivors back on her planet that she didn't know about. After all, she didn't claim to know everything.

In the meantime, those thirty Beskyrians were all they had.

With Lucia convinced that they would seek her out, Jake could very well have sat back and waited patiently for these hardened warriors to come to him, but an irksome episode had made him change his mind.

Of course, there was the inherent danger of switching planets, their unfamiliarity with B842 and modern technology, but that wasn't the true reason...

"Jake! Face me if you're a man! How dare you deflower my daughter!" A deep, angry voice echoed throughout his island, forming ripples across the energy shield and shaking what little infrastructure was built so far.

Looking up above him, Jake and the other rescued survivors saw a figure enveloped in rolling scarlet flames floating angrily through space on the other side of the force field. Surprisingly, his voice carried through to them, despite the absence of air in the sidereal void.

The culprit, was a handsome middle-aged man with medium-length flame-red hair draping over his shoulders. He was relatively athletic, clean-shaven, and wore a majestic Fire Archmage robe of burgundy velvet embroidered with gold and silver threads forming patterns of flames. The individual reeked of the aristocratic arrogance of a power-loving person, but this poise was marred by a stubborn, pig-headed character.

"Damn it, not him again..." Jake's face became sunken again.

It wasn't the first time that Phirune Velseyel, Enya and Esya's father, had knocked on his door. Their first meeting was an hour after he returned to his Floating Island. Back then, Lucia had just finished telling her story and he had just decided to save her comrades.

The unexpected arrival of this lunatic had precipitated things. Jake was no slouch, but just by the overwhelming and tumultuous aura the Fire Archmage was emitting, he knew he was no match for this opponent.

Needless to say, he had denied him access to his island. The shield that came with his Floating Island was not invincible, but it was not something that any random Fire Archmage could destroy.

Enya and Esya had appeared before her Yellow Cube in a hurry, aggravated anxiety written all over their faces. Esya especially was in a daze, blushing shyly every time she met his eyes.

It was only after a concise and annoyed clarification from Enya, interspersed with their father's defiant roars, that Jake had finally understood what this was all about.

It had only cemented his resolve. Even if it was a misunderstanding, Jake had no intention of wasting his time with this " stepfather " at the moment. For all he cared, he might as well let him rant and rave here while he was busy rescuing Lucia and Gerulf's friends.

On his first rescue, Jake had even expected him to show up out of nowhere and ruin his plans, but the Fire Archmage never appeared elsewhere. However, every time he would return home, Phirune would always show up, making his rare moments of respite a grueling cacophony.

After a few trips back and forth, he even came to prefer B842 to his own island. As long as that doting father kept bugging him, he would never find rest.

Enya and Esya were particularly embarrassed, so they agreed to stand guard on his island while he was away. With their presence, Jake was also able to carry out one of his old goals: filling his Floating Island with raw materials.

Whenever Jake left the safe and secure confines of an Oracle Shelter, he would use his Earth and Metal Control along with his telekinesis to transfer absolutely anything that appealed to his greed or interest into the Faction Vault.

The two sisters, then emptied in real time the stuff stored in a dedicated area. The mountain of rocks, uprooted plants, ores and other unidentifiable detritus quickly formed a shapeless mountain strongly reminiscent of a garbage dump, but his island's 3 Oracle Constructors, who hadn't done much, could finally get to work.

To accommodate the newcomers, Jake finally put to use the immense Aether fortune amassed by Mufasa and his pack of felines. Their wealth was in the tens of billions, and it was more than enough to expand the size of his Floating Island substantially.

Each square meter used to cost 1000 Aether points, but Jake quickly realized that for every additional meter he bought, the price would increase slightly. After spending 20B, his Floating Island had only gained 8M more square meters, but the price per square meter had increased to 3000 points.

Jake didn't know how high the price would rise, but his island was now over three kilometers in diameter. That was more than enough to house a few thousand refugees if they squeezed in a little.

He could have expanded his island further, but he soon noticed that this also increased the high maintenance costs of his energy shield, breathable atmosphere and temperature. As long as it wasn't an absolute necessity, Jake preferred to take his time.

The other major change that took place on his island was the appearance of a gigantic tree in its center. Jake discovered it on his return from yet another rescue mission, and it was only after he tried to chop it down with an axe that an angry Melkree told him it was her real body.

At first, the Dryad felt a little lost and confused, out of place on this desolate island, but that changed when tons of fertile soil and rock began to pour down in a steady stream onto the island.

Only then did she realize that this place wasn't so bad. It was quiet, the Aether Sun Core provided plenty of light for her leaves, and her roots were finally getting the nutrients they needed to grow. All that was missing was a water source.

That problem was also solved over the next few days when Jake stumbled upon a lake while rescuing a group of Throsgenians lost in the jungle.

Separating and arranging the available resources was extremely simple with his Floating Island control tab and he had easily dug the equivalent of a large pool of space to dump his water in.

Melkree had found these conditions suitable for settling down. Her pinkish white trunk tree was as tall as a sequoia, but more like a willow. Its auburn leaves were shaped like a spearhead and let out a chime every time they swayed in the wind.

It was currently the only bona fide form of vegetation on his island, and there was plenty of room for a tree. Thus, Melkree's Tree became the third incongruity on his Floating Island after the Aether Sun Core and his training area.

Four days later, the rescue missions came to an end and Jake finally got the chance to take stock of his efforts.

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