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. It

how many items

entries, the quantity of each

as he put the tablet in

want a

looked at Jake for a moment. “I would advise delaying. Preparations are underway for projects designated for use by C-grades. Based on the assumption that you are close to evolution, I predict any items would be more useful for you then. Moreover, the items requested will,

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

“Continued research has gone into

another workshop. Walking to a wall, Arnold activated some magic as barriers were rapidly removed. Jake had already seen the hidden room behind the wall and also knew that he had no fucking way to enter it. The way it was hidden was actually

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 of it, Arnold had placed bombs on the inside to blow it the hell up if anyone broke in. The dude was very dedicated to protecting his works

Jake saw a

floated, nearly all the destruction on it restored, though

evaluate those, but they looked fancy. Besides that, there were many different kinds of drones and spherical robots of sorts

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

conductivity improving continuously. Seeing your recent 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

a 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

noted down this answer. “Finally, I recall you are planning on

summoned a weird-looking cylinder of metal about the size of a person. Jake saw that on the inside, it was filled

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 the cylinder.

identified it as some stealth concept, but then again, maybe it was a mix of space and stealth. Either way, what it truly was and

you want it placed?” He

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

stood there, he couldn’t help but notice the many robots flying everywhere within his sphere within the workshop, especially those

in the Treasure Hunt, you had so many flying around. Are they all programmed? Some kind of artificial intelligence?” he asked. It was a bit rude to ask about

Jake had asked, giving Jake a bad feeling. A feeling that only grew as Arnold lowered his tablet

artificial soul constructs. The Altmar Census Golem was my basis for these constructs, 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 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

off, and it did sound interesting, but more the kind of interesting that Casper would be excited about. Sure, Jake understood what Arnold meant, but he also understood that what Arnold was doing some something others simply couldn’t. 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, it was considered kind of

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

“No,” Arnold simply answered.