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.

started scrolling.

many items are

and seventy-one unique entries, the quantity of each item specified individually,” Arnold answered with a

Meira, Jake could only think as he put the

is quite a lot,” Jake commented. “And even if I don’t want a deposit now… maybe we

I predict any items would be more useful for you then. Moreover, the items requested

wouldn’t he? “But, give me a sneak peek anyway,

before nodding. “Continued research has

gladly did so as they entered another workshop. Walking to a wall, Arnold activated some magic as barriers were rapidly removed. Jake had already seen the

metal, very similar to what the dome consisted of. It would take quite a while to get through it, 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 would fall and block the entrance, and from the looks

the room, Jake saw

recognized. In a tank filled with murky water, the Census Golem floated, nearly all the destruction on it restored, though by other types of metal. If it was functional, Jake didn’t

Or, well, calling them blasters was probably more accurate. Jake had no way to properly evaluate those, but

which is why he led Jake to the one item Jake would likely care about. It was just a thin long piece of metal, but Jake recognized it

switch to the use of katars, time will be needed to 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 in the weapon?” Arnold

bit before nodding. While he had two weapons right now, he knew the bone weapon was only temporary. When sim-Jake fully merged with him, it would lose much of its Records and power, making it effectively useless. By then, he would need

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

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

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 now lurk there. From my assessment, the

and took

some stealth concept, but then again, maybe it was a mix of space and stealth. Either way, what it truly was and how to make use of

specific you want it placed?”

answered. “Simply place it somewhere and infuse mana into the center circle. That will allow me to know it is in position

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

they all programmed? Some kind of artificial intelligence?” he asked. It was a bit rude to ask about someone’s secrets like that, but considering how much Jake had shared with the

the question but was in no way offended. No, it was the exact opposite… he seemed elated that Jake had asked, giving Jake a bad feeling. A feeling that only grew

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 given model. Do note that I do not need to use this functionality as the artificial soul construct will already act based on pre-programmed instructions and can be updated remotely through the eldritch scripts. Finally, all information from every drone is fed to me continuously, which required me to develop skills and methods to filter, archive, and in other ways, sort through all data gathered. Models of machine learning are being applied here, which do require further development and improvement of skills, but the

From how he understood it, Arnold effectively split his mind into segments and had each handle different things. At least partly. Of course, this wasn’t really anything special, and, in fact,

have to ask as he knew that was a risk. Especially as he was dealing with someone using the Legacy of a Void God. Eldritch things and human brains didn’t mesh well based on all the books Jake

“No,” Arnold simply answered.