The Primal Hunter

Jake really had to restrain himself every time he visited Arnold. Mainly by suppressing his desire to see if he could break through the big dome of metal that guarded his workshop. It looked and felt damn sturdy, but he should have a good shot with enough destructive arcane mana. If not, then surely Touch of the Malefic could do it.

Alas, he was not there to break stuff.

He had already gone to see Arnold before he went on holiday, so he was a bit interested in why Arnold had asked for him to stop by. Interested in what kind of thing the madman had made that he wanted to show Jake and potentially hand him. Or maybe he wanted a favor this time around?

As expected, then he was let straight in, Arnold aware Jake was back. The workshop had expanded once more, this time primarily downwards, it seemed. From Jake’s sphere, he also saw some weird robot-looking things digging even further, making it clear the scientist was still expanding.

It didn’t take long to locate Arnold, who was working inside a laboratory with a familiar cube. The one Jake had brought from the Void God, Oras.

“Good, you are here,” Arnold stated when Jake entered without even turning around.

Jake was a bit surprised, not by what he was doing, but by the response when he used Identify on the man.

[Human – lvl 199]

The bastard has surpassed Jake in level. As for if he was working on getting his Perfect Evolution or still had evolution quests to finish, Jake didn’t know, but he had still surpassed Jake. Holidays were truly detrimental to growth.

“So, what did you want?” Jake asked bluntly.

“I have been made aware you will soon return to the Order of the Malefic Viper,” Arnold stated. “I would ask of you to procure some materials when you are there. Compensation shall naturally follow. Further discussion as to the form of compensation beyond Credits is possible.”

“Oh?” Jake asked, a bit surprised, but he quickly got it. Arnold was probably running low on high-level materials. The guy had stockpiled when the system store was around and made ample use of the Holy Church and all other merchant groups… but by now, he had outgrown them. That, or they were gone off the planet.

He maybe even needed them for his evolution quest.

“Sure, we can figure something out,” Jake agreed.

Arnold nodded and took out a tablet from his spatial storage, and handed it to Jake. “All details are within. A list has been made and ordered based on priority. Will a deposit of funds for the purchase be necessary?”

“Nah, I should be able to front the cash,” Jake shrugged as he took the tablet and opened it to see the… list.

scrolling. It kept

many

the quantity of each item specified individually,”

think as he

I don’t want a deposit now… maybe we can

any items would be more useful for you then. Moreover, the items requested will, in high likelihood,

would need a lot of new stuff after his evolution, wouldn’t he? “But, give me a sneak peek anyway, okay?

before nodding. “Continued research has gone into improving many weapons.

seen the hidden room behind

and Jake reckoned only Alchemical Flame could do the job. The opening mechanism to enter was also simple but effective. The door of sorts required one to open it correctly, or a massive wall of steel

room, Jake saw

the Census Golem floated, nearly all the destruction on it restored, though by other types of metal. If it was functional, Jake didn’t know, but clearly, Arnold was far from done with

accurate. Jake had no way to properly evaluate those, but they looked fancy. Besides that, there were many different

Jake would likely care about. It was just a thin long piece

optimize the internal structure to support thrusting over slashing attacks. Moreover, from your explanations of Fangs of the Malefic Viper, the nanoblade can be further optimized to better facilitate and make use of the skill. I assume you are still interested

temporary. When sim-Jake fully merged with him, it would lose much of its Records and power, making it effectively

answer. “Finally, I recall you are planning on visiting the Grand Mangrove River. If possible, please take

man summoned a weird-looking cylinder of metal about the size of a person. Jake saw that on the inside, it was filled with mechanisms, and Jake could only throw Arnold a questioning

within the Grand Mangrove River has interesting properties. I would like to analyze it to assist in another project of mine. From my initial tests, while a satellite is easily doable, proper drones for space exploration face challenges in the open cosmos as creatures and energies

simply nodded and took the cylinder.

maybe it was a mix

it placed?” He asked

safe, as the measuring device is not made to sustain unnecessary and sudden forces acting upon it during readings,” Arnold answered. “Simply place it somewhere and infuse mana into the center circle. That will allow me to know it is in position

robots flying everywhere within his sphere within the workshop, especially those that seemed to do some rather complicated work like analyzing what looked like circuit boards.

around. Are they all programmed? Some kind of artificial intelligence?” he asked. It was a bit rude to

was the exact opposite… he seemed elated that Jake had asked, giving Jake a bad feeling. A feeling that only grew as Arnold lowered his tablet

and I can only admire their ingenuity and prowess. However, the methodology and magiscripts used by the Altmar Empire do not suit my own, requiring me to adapt it, which made me switch to a more unorthodox approach by applying scripts and runes of the eldritch variety. The skill I received from Oras allows me to more easily split my attention between different tasks, and by augmenting the concepts within, I managed to implement soul constructs faintly mimicking my own, which then also allows me to temporarily fully immerse a part of my conscious within a

mind into segments and had each handle different things. At least partly. Of course, this wasn’t really anything special, and, in fact, it was considered kind of normal to do this. Jake could, as an example, focus on different things at once while doing alchemy or using magic, but Arnold had taken it to a whole new level for a D-grade. One could only imagine how

he was dealing with someone using the Legacy of a Void God. Eldritch things and

“No,” Arnold simply answered.