The Primal Hunter

Chapter 923: Politics Still Suck Chapter 923: Politics Still Suck

Miranda stayed a bit longer, discussing stuff with Vesperia, as Jake tried not to get in the way. He did feel like the two weren’t being very friendly but overly professional. It wasn’t ideal, but better than them being assholes to one another, for sure.

After Miranda left, Jake had half-expected Vesperia to do the same. However, she made no attempts to but stuck around even as Jake planned on heading to his lab to do some alchemy with one of her Queen’s Guards. She seemed to notice his confusion and quickly clarified:

“I see no reason to go out myself, but will instead only send my drones to do the job. No purpose in me taking any risks for myself, and my sisters were also very adamant about being as safe as possible while here on Earth. And the safest place is by your side.”

“So you’re staying here?” Jake asked.

“Can I not?” Vesperia asked, looking at him with big eyes.

“Of course you can; I was just surprised,” Jake quickly wanted to make clear. “I just think it will be boring for you, as I plan on doing alchemy all the time.”

“It’s fine; I shall attend to my own matters, too,” Vesperia said with a smile. “I have much to attend to within my Internal Hive. It will slow down things a bit that I have one less Hive Queen to assist me with Sandy having taken one, but one should be enough to continue to facilitate my growth.”

“That actually got me thinking… how do the Hive Queens help in the internal world? I thought you said they can’t spawn anything in there?”

“They cannot… but they can help spawn the eggs I make. Making eggs does not consume that much Hive Energy on its own; it’s only as they grow and hatch the true cost comes. I can have other Hive Queens share some of this cost in Hive Energy with me, effectively making spawns cheaper for me, at the cost of reserving some of their Hive Energy on my behalf,” Vesperia explained. “Queens who do this a lot often end up taking one of two Paths. One Path is to become a fully support-type Hive Queen that never aims to make its own hive but only assists the true Hive Queen of the Hive. The second is to become Warrior Hive Queens, focusing all their time on improving their combat skills, as the majority of their Hive Energy remains constantly reserved anyway, making it not worth it for them to focus on creating their own spawns. Ah, but some Warrior Queens also simply never focused on making any spawns in the first place, and they can even lose their ability to do so with evolutions.”

“I see,” Jake nodded, getting a far more detailed and longer answer than he expected. Also, by now, he was wondering how many huge internal secrets of the Endless Empire Vesperia had shared with him so far. Probably a lot, right?

“Well, if you’re gonna stick around, how about a quick lab tour?” Jake said with a smile, Vesperia gladly agreeing as the two of them headed down to the laboratory beneath the lodge.

Granted, things did seem a bit cramped in places, as Hank had constructed it with human height in mind, but Vesperia managed nonetheless as Jake showed off the place. He did wonder if she was incapable of shrinking herself in any way, but didn’t ask outright as that seemed rude in case she couldn’t. Actually, if she could, she definitely would have by now, seeing as how she nearly hit her head on every single doorframe.

Once the tour was over, they ended up in the alchemy lab. Due to the alchemy lab itself being inside a giant bubble of glass, Vesperia couldn’t really enter it while Jake did his alchemy, as breathing in toxic fumes wasn’t healthy unless you had Palate of the Malefic Viper.

Luckily, there was a bedroom right next door where Vesperia could set up shop. Unluckily, she had to bend her head a bit to not touch the ceiling. Back to being lucky again, that wasn’t really a problem as Vesperia didn’t plan on actually being in the room much.

Summoning the portal to her internal world, Jake’s first thought was that something would break if one of her large spawns tried to walk out of it. However, she didn’t plan on bringing anything out. Instead, she would go in.

Now, Jake had very much assumed her way of entering her internal world would be through meditation and having an avatar or something in there. Not to physically walk through a portal with her real body, which just left so many questions.

Seeing as she was the source of the portal, wasn’t it like bringing a portal into a portal? Kind of? Secondly, what would happen if someone broke the portal while she was inside? Thirdly, wasn’t having a portal constantly active like this incredibly risky? Like, what if someone decided to toss dangerous shit in there while she couldn’t sense the outside world? True, no living being could enter, but Jake confirmed that he could pump in toxic mist if he so desired.

usually result in a rejection, but should they be powerful enough and press hard, they could collapse the portal,

couldn’t help but voice his concerns at what may be a fatal flaw of how the Internal Hives of the True Royals worked… but in retrospect,

the portal, it’s pretty standard to leave some scouts outside to ensure nothing unforeseen approaches. More often than not, I wouldn’t even wait for someone to try and enter the portal or throw anything into it but simply collapse it upon noticing their approach. Now, this

Jake still saw an issue

though?” Jake questioned. “Will you just be trapped until the universe opens

perplexed. “My Internal

As he understood it, something like an Internal Hive had to

– our deepest heartlands. It exists physically within the void, outside of any universe, and it wouldn’t be inaccurate to refer to it

muttered. “Doesn’t that mean it’s a sure-fire escape method to just enter your Internal Hive, collapse the portal, and hide there while waiting

can track my location, as I lose the system’s effects that help hide it when the portal is active and I’m inside. Seeing as the Internal Hive is located in the void, my enemies will be able to attack me once they know the location. This is how many

of authors by visiting the original site for

stuff he shouldn’t have, and things that were definitely considered confidential… something that was confirmed a moment later as

very least getting quite a few theories confirmed,” the god said, sounding quite

warn you, the Malefic Viper is listening in to every damn thing you’re saying… so probably keep all the secrets of the Endless Empire

have volounteered thus far. The Endless Empire views you as a close ally and as if you are part of my Hive. Almost like an honorary member of the True Royals, if you will. Seeing as the Malefic One is your Patron, we also view him,

you can’t do politics… now look at you, fostering powerful diplomatic ties between

of the primary people who call me

Jake shot back.

once in a while doesn’t make you a professional. At most, you are professionally good at being accidentally proficient in politics,” the Viper teased Jake,

Empire for the trust. From

You’re my Sire, after all,” Vesperia said, clearly not viewing her show of trust as a big deal. Likely because

entered her Internal Hive while Jake went into his alchemy lab. His plan was still to work on the Heartrot Poison, but now he had added a bit of stabby-time with wasp

only slightly disturbed when Vesperia went topside and unleashed her army a few days later before going back underground again. She did this

wasp venom. Through the grapevine, Jake did hear a bit about what was going on with Earth, but he focused

all the hives. What’s more, according to her, many of the bigger hives were in contact, and the order of the True Royal would definitely be known to all ectognamorph on the planet before the Prima

a bit guilty about just doing alchemy, but he tried his best to stay focused and with his

him that Jake staying away made Earth look stronger. Jake wasn’t sure if she meant stronger as in actual power or more that Earth’s position appeared stronger when they didn’t even feel the need to bring out the true leader of the planet. As if telling the arriving groups that they were ultimately only guests, and at a lower position, unable to make any

but Miranda once more informed him not to, with Vesperia in vehement agreement. She also explained things to Jake, making it clear that the

treat him according to the whole he embodies. Anything else could cause misunderstandings, especially as the Risen are far from a popular race, and your showing favoritism toward them will cause dissatisfaction for some. Especially seeing as I

do like the Risen more than the Holy Church…” Jake muttered, making Vesperia shake her

weapon and defense, and right now, you have a powerful position as this planet’s World Leader. You are capable of keeping everyone in check because they all fear being the ones to make you break your neutral stance and act against them, so as long as you remain impartial