The Primal Hunter

Chapter 892: Time To Head Home

Vilastromoz had a lot of thoughts bouncing around in his head after the mysteriousness around the First Sage was seemingly only growing exponentially. However, he could always trust Jake to offer him a good distraction, as he was sitting on the terrace in Nevermore City with his avatar, very much enjoying the show.

He had kept an eye on the entire ritual, as quite frankly, he viewed the Demon Prince and everyone involved with creating that ritual as complete morons. From their conversations, they had clearly believed they were the first ones ever to think up such a daring ritual and viewed themselves as truly innovative and bold.

To the Viper, this wasn’t even among the first hundred rituals he had observed like that, each of them practically identical in nature. It wasn’t complicated at all what they were doing; it was just stupid. Most rituals like this ended with the entire thing just blowing up, while the other half ended a bit similarly to how this one nearly did: with the demon in the center mutating into something unintended.

This ritual was different, though. Not in its design but in that it had Jake in charge. His application of the special energy he possessed led to the creation of a far more powerful catalyst for evolution, but that didn’t solve the issue of that evolution not ending well for the Demon Prince. Honestly, the entire thought process behind what the Demon Prince of the Fourth Hell wanted to accomplish was flawed.

The entire point was for him to improve his Records, and to do that, he would have to absorb an item with superior Records. However, for him to consume an item with superior Records, he needed to have powerful enough Records to begin with. It was quite the conundrum, and to put it in the simplest term possible, the Demon Prince had tried to swallow something too big for him to handle. Mortals simply weren’t meant to handle the Records of a god, period.

Vilastromoz was also certain the higher-ups of the Fourth Hell knew this. Shit, the Viper himself had seen recordings of their own failed rituals in the past, so they knew this wasn’t going to work. Yet they had allowed the Demon Prince to go ahead, even after he had proven himself on the Leaderboards. Did they do so to use him as a political tool? If the Viper’s Chosen messed up and got one of their young talents killed, they likely wouldn’t demand compensation, but they could try to leverage it to request help from Jake or perhaps even the Viper himself in the future.

It was naturally also possible they simply wanted to take the gamble and see if maybe the Harbinger of Primeval Origins could do what was thought impossible. To lose a Demon Prince to figure this out wasn’t that big of a price to pay. They could always nurture many more. Meanwhile, the possibilities if Jake was successful were nearly limitless and something even the devils of the Hells would care about.

This was the reality they now found themselves with. Jake had succeeded… no, he had gone beyond expectations and done something that the Viper honestly hadn’t been a fan of, even if things had worked out.

”Did your Chosen just astral-project his own soul into the Soulspace of another?” the Wyrmgod suddenly asked as the Primordial appeared on the terrace.

”And here I thought you respected the rights to private property. Not to mention your illegal spying on residents… do we have a public relations disaster on our hands here?” the Viper asked teasingly.

”Nevermore City is still partly considered Nevermore and thus my domain,” the Wyrmgod answered. ”And even if I observed the situation, due to its peculiar nature, I still remain with questions. Did your Chosen truly astrally project into another Soulspace?”

”He sure did,” the Viper shrugged. ”Mind you, this is after I told him not to astrally project his soul around like that way back in the Tutorial.”

”Foolish and reckless,” the Wyrmgod said before he frowned. ”Wait, he astrally projected during the Tutorial? Where to?”

”To the Order of the Malefic Viper, using his connection to me as my Chosen,” the Viper said casually. ”I did send him back pretty quickly, though.”

”That is… hm…” the other Primordial said as he appeared to be deep in thought.

Jake doing these things was impressive, but neither was considered impossible. Astral projection was a pretty normal ability, and Jake’s version was quite frankly shit. It was the riskiest version there was and one no one ever really used unless they didn’t know better. Projecting at such an early grade did indicate an extremely powerful and stable soul, though.

As for entering the Soulspace of another, that was not something considered impossible either, just incredibly rare, and not something people often did or wanted to do. Very specific circumstances had to present themselves to make it possible. There were also certain skills that could make one interact with the Soulspace, though.

The Minotaur Mindchief Jake encountered all the way back in E-grade was a creature that could touch upon the soul. The skill that D-grade had wasn’t quite capable of entering a Soulspace, but with a skill evolution or two, perhaps it would be possible. The thing is, more often than not, there were no benefits to entering a Soulspace, only demerits.

stronger inside their own Soulspace than in the real world. The Soulspace was a representation of your Records and allowed you to have power not based on how strong you were but how strong you could become. It was a simplification,

The only ones who didn’t were those who had reached the end of their potential, and even they always had a bit more potential

someone else’s Soulspace: the suppression. A Soulspace was one’s domain, and anything foreign that did not belong there would be suppressed and pushed out or destroyed. So even if two people were equally powerful, if the fight suddenly switched to a Soulspace of either of them, that person would have an insurmountable homefield

domain of the person it belonged to, and within it, they would be far more powerful while everyone would

proved meaningless. This was what Jake had effectively done. His soul was simply

if the Demon Prince had died, Jake would have lost whatever he astrally projected for

it?” the Wyrmgod

”Nope,” the Viper smiled.

maintained a strong working relationship with them, even in your absence,” the Primordial continued. ”We both know

tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been

head. ”They owe Jake now, especially the Demon

undoubtedly want to propagate his Lineage,” the Wyrmgod agreed. ”I am also thinking… has your Chosen considered what the impact of what he has

said with certainty as he

Either way, I am still interested at some point in the future when he has matured more into his powers,” the Wyrmgod said as he turned to leave. ”Before, I was unsure if he would even be open to the suggestion, but now

head. Jake indeed didn’t know the impact of what he had done. No, not the achievement itself or anything related to it. It was the mere fact he had even agreed to the ritual

he had effectively done a commission using his abilities as the Harbinger of

major factions of the multiverse despite not knowing he had done so.

agreed to do it, never considering the wider implications of his actions. But was that really his fault? It was

his bearings. Jake could understand why it would take a while. He probably had a lot of system notifications to deal with, so Jake also took the

was an interesting one, as he wasn’t sure he had ever gotten an

creation of a Cerulean Demon Lord – A new kind of

was Jake’s first group ritual where he had been in charge. Something he had feared would hurt his experience gain, but seeing the next few messages, that didn’t appear to be the

has reached level 263 - Stat points allocated,

…

[Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 267 - Stat

so himself, and it put him even closer to level 300, which was the next milestone he really looked forward to, as that would mean meeting the First Sage

naturally also gained a few

[Human (C)] has reached level 276 - Stat

…

[Human (C)] has reached level 278 - Stat

it was such a tiny amount that the levels he had just gained nearly made up for it. He almost wanted to see if he could do another ritual sometime soon, but he also got the feeling that wouldn’t

a moment to respond as he opened his eyes again and rolled his shoulders. Rather than respond to

take in, and the metaphysical representation of the Cerulean Devil still remains within my Soulspace. It will take a while to fully absorb but with the contract in place…”