The Primal Hunter

Chapter 965: Jake the Beta Tester Chapter 965: Jake the Beta Tester

Jake had been looking forward to this day for several months, and now it was finally here. Granted, it was only called a beta test, but Jake still chose to remain excited. He had played enough video games before the system to know that calling something a beta test was just another term for a demo and to convince people to pre-order the product.

It turns out that wasn’t the kind of beta Arnold was talking about… the guy actually used the term correctly, as when Jake arrived at the teleportation circle, it clearly wasn’t fully ready yet. In the room with the teleporter, Jake found Arnold on what looked like a large terminal with wires of mana connected to the teleportation circle, with William writing something on one of the walls in deep concentration and a shrunk-down Sandy chilling in the corner, seemingly asleep, contributing nothing.

”So… how are things progressing? Does the circle work now?” Jake said as he walked in, Arnold not even turning to look at him.

”We completed all the milestones of alpha-testing after a period of twenty-six days and have now entered beta-testing. The teleportation circle now successfully taps into the power inherent in the Prima Vessel, using the star map and our own relative calculations of coordinates of every target planet based on this map. This is further corrected using a scan for mana signatures correspondent with Prima Vessel teleporters to accurately estimate the final teleportation destination,” Arnold briefly explained, Jake nodding along as he glanced at William.

”I noticed no mention of any karmic magic involved,” Jake commented.

”That is part of the elements we are working to implement in the first phases of the beta testing,” Arnold answered, with William still deeply focused on… something. ”It is intended that we will be able to get a general scan of what will be found on each planet to supplement what is provided by the Prima Vessel. More accurately, a method of knowing if notable figures are there that are either best avoided… or pursued. Additionally, karmic considerations are part of the calculations, but due to my own lack of knowledge on the subject, I cannot make effective use of the karmic mage’s knowledge.”

Jake raised an eyebrow, as honestly, the way they wanted to use karmic magic did sound kind of neat. It also didn’t escape Jake how Arnold clearly stood up for William, even raising his gaze from the terminal and giving Jake a look that told him to back off. Jake also instantly realized why.

William was part of the project.

Arnold was the project leader.

Arnold was a good boss who wouldn’t allow his project members to be thrown under the bus.

Jake took the hint and changed the subject as he kept asking about the teleporter: ”What is left to be ironed out before you would say the teleporter is complete?”

”The most substantive challenges right now are the power consumption and relative inaccuracy of every teleport. We are working over long distances with many concepts and factors at play that may disrupt our calculations,” Arnold continued. ”The more entities are teleported, the more inaccurate it will also be. We have done a few tests already with objects or captured low-intelligence beasts with trackers on them, and the results are both encouraging and troubling.”

”How so?” Jake asked, hoping the problems weren’t too bad.

”Let me first clarify that the power of those we teleport only affects energy consumption and not the inaccuracy. During some of our first tests, as we honed in the accuracy of the teleporter with single-entity tests, the outlook was positive. However, the moment we tried to teleport two at once, things proved difficult,” Arnold began as he looked a bit exhausted just talking about it. ”Every subsequent entity added to the teleportation exponentially increases the energy consumption and the inaccuracy. When we teleported two, they appeared five days of Sandy’s full flight speed within subspace from the planet. Three entities were over a month’s worth of travel distance away, four over a year, and with five entities, they appeared too close to the local star to even get any proper readings, indicating a travel distance of more than twenty years if we are conservative. These are just rough estimates, but I hope this clarifies my meaning.”

how about teleporting several entities one after another instead of all at once?” Jake asked, though he probably didn’t have to as Arnold would have, of course, considered that. Which he

takes time to cool down after each teleport, built in as a safety mechanism. Additionally, as we weaken the immediate void membrane around the circle with every activation, we need to give it time to fully restore lest we want to risk ruining our work

what would happen if we break this void membrane?” Jake asked curiously, as he was interested to

temporarily open a hole to the void and, without the ability to

were people with the power of gods. The thought that gods could poke holes in reality that consumed galaxies was a bit of a

to other places in the galaxy. However, it seemed like he would have to wait a bit longer. At least that’s what he thought… having yet to realize he was their

mean it isn’t useable. Single-entity teleportation is already stable and accurate enough that I have full confidence in its ability to teleport you or any other singular person within a short distance of any target planet in the database. The reason why I believe you are the best subject is because we have no method to return the one teleported. It is possible the teleporter within the Prima Vessel can be used, or the local population that remains can offer assistance, but your ring remains the most consistent method available

home is a different platform. Support the

believed the teleportation circle was good enough to work decently, and Jake was the only one who was a World Leader and could teleport home by himself. Oh, and should the accident be out and he couldn’t,

wasn’t like Arnold was wrong, and Villy would definitely laugh his ass off if

I’ll be your beta tester,” Jake agreed without any fight or arguments. ”Now, I assume this works

on it,” Arnold answered. ”That includes the three marked black. While they may be designated as destroyed, there

hoped for. Thinking about it, these Prima Vessels were all incredibly durable, so they shouldn’t be destroyed by C-grades fighting. Secondly, it wasn’t like the planets that were marked with a black flag had all just exploded. They were still there, even if they were no longer

atmosphere found themselves destroyed as they teleported through the atmospheric layers, so you will have to find your own way through. I’m certain you can handle it,” Arnold

have a few ideas. Now, do you have any particular place in mind you want me to go?” Jake asked Arnold. It was his teleporter, so

projected onto the wall. Jake instantly recognized it as identical to the one

could go to those without this teleporter, and those

ones were the most obvious choice. They were the ones where he had the highest probability of saving the most people while knowing there was a Prima Guardian there. It was also possible planets marked with a gray flag still had Prima Guardians alive, and there were likely people to save there, too, so those two options were kind of

didn’t want to head to any of these. Instead, he looked at Arnold as he pointed toward

first planet to get marked with

selected and nodded. ”I understand. Trying to discover more about the nature of this anomaly seems like a

curiosity. What kind of world had given birth to a creature now just going around destroying worlds? What the hell had the natives done to make such a thing happen? These were all questions he would hopefully soon have

ready,” Arnold said as he took out sixteen glowing cubes of metal, all overflowing with energy, and levitated them over to different focal points of the

alive one after another. The first thing Jake felt was space itself, seemingly loosing up all around him, and through his sphere, he saw William

and for a fraction of a moment, Jake felt the presence of