Chapter 1161 – Laying Much Groundwork

The pile of gemstones was perfectly balanced on top of the intricate magic circle that had been painstakingly carved beneath it. This was but one of over fifty piles that served as focal points for the massive formation that had been constructed in a vast cavern beneath a certain palace within the territory of the Pantheon of Life.

It had been about a year and a half since Jake had agreed with Jasper that he would help the little fella evolve, and after spending the first three months researching, Jake had begun constructing the ritual circle.

As for the cavern, well, Jasper preferred to be underground, and seeing as the cellar wasn’t big enough for what Jake was planning, he decided to do a minor home makeover by adding a cellar to the cellar.

With permission, of course… though in truth, Artemis sounded like she didn’t give a shit even if Jake blew up the entire palace and constructed a magic circle on the bare mountaintop.

The ritual was still not done yet, but Jake had made great progress and was quite confident in the design he’d gone for. The entire thing was a lot more personalized than when Jake had helped birth Vesperia or even helped the Demon Prince. He even had Jasper deciding where to play his piles of loot, and Jake then carving the focal points of the ritual circle beneath them.

Was he confident it would work? Kind of. The thing is, there didn’t exist any ritual to do exactly what Jake was planning, as nobody else had his Primeval Origin Energy. He was limited in the wisdom he could borrow from the previous generations, but that didn’t mean he was entirely empty-handed. In fact, he’d based this entire ritual circle around two existing ones he’d haphazardly merged through the guidance of his gut feelings.

The first one was a ritual circle used by Shimmerfur Warpsnatchers and the other variants of the species. More accurately, it was the ritual circle of a slightly weaker variant than Jasper that wasn’t able to absorb the Records and energy from the collected loot as easily, requiring them to construct an actual magic circle to assist.

Second was a magic circle used by the Order of the Malefic Viper to try to pour Records into others. It was, to be perfectly honest, a really fucked up ritual. Its most common use case was to try to force Records into slaves or prisoners just to see the results. Forceful Record infusion wasn’t really a thing in the multiverse, as it always led to horrible results and ruined people’s Paths when it was done. A bit similar to when Jake had the “opportunity” to turn into a Malefic Dragonkin back in the day, or even the Demon Prince.

In those instances, it had worked out, but that was the exception, not the rule. Of course, Jake wouldn’t try to force a bunch of Records into Jasper, but just needed aspects of this ritual to allow himself to infuse the loot piles spread out in the place.

That’s right, Jake wasn’t actually planning on injecting Jasper with the Primeval Origin Energy directly. Instead, he wanted to funnel it through the loot piles, absorb the energies and Records from those, and then allow Jasper to absorb it.

He’d even talked with the little bugger about this after the Warpsnatcher reached peak C-grade and finally got his evolution quest. The quest had been exactly as expected, and honestly… it was a slam dunk for what Jake was trying to do.

Jasper’s evolution quest required him to gather a sufficient treasure hoard and absorb all the energy and Records from what was gathered. Apparently, this kind of evolution quest wasn’t all that uncommon, especially not for monsters walking a Path like Jasper or Sandy, who were all about natural treasures rather than fighting.

This being the evolution quest meant Jake would effectively just be adding his own flavor to the entire process. It truly was lucky, seeing as this was Jake’s first attempt at trying to infuse energy into a monster semi-directly.

It was kind of a middle step between infusing a core with Primeval Origin Energy and having the monster absorb it and infusing the energy directly into their bodies. If this ritual went well, an even more direct infusion would be next.

However, there was one problem… Jasper wasn’t ready to evolve yet. Due to the Warpsnatcher mainly chilling after getting to Jake’s place and being from a less-than-ideal Hunting Ground before that, the accumulated hoard wasn’t good enough yet. At least Jasper wasn’t satisfied.

That’s why the Warpsnatcher had spent nearly a year coming and going with new treasures. Artemis had kindly provided Jake with a token for the little guy, and once more, Jasper had shown that while he still wasn’t super good at talking, he wasn’t stupid.

He instantly understood how the teleportation gateways worked and, with an information crystal outlining the general geography and power levels of the Great Planet, began to actively use them to jump around it to find suitable loot-gathering spots.

Needless the say, the resources on a Great Planet were vastly superior to a Hunting Ground, and while it was certainly also more dangerous, Warpsnatchers were notoriously elusive and good at running away. Every time Jasper returned, Jake would hear stories from the little thief, the most impressive ones being when Jasper managed to steal a treasure from under the nose of two mid-tier B-grades fighting.

Also, no, Jake or others couldn’t help Jasper by donating to the loot piles. In the same vein that Jake would get nothing out of Villy or Artemis bringing him a half-dead B-grade for him to kill, Jasper would get nothing out of having loot handed to him.

Anyhow, that was the state of Jake’s ritual circle project, and he was confident about being done with it before Jasper was ready. As for his other projects, things were also steadily progressing there.

The bow was growing with every passing day, and Jake was working hard on creating his first epic rarity poison… well, his first one that didn’t appear only due to Malefic Viper’s Poison, anyway.

Jake also already knew what kind of poison he wanted to make, and it was one unlike anything he’d made before. Actually, that wasn’t entirely accurate. Jake had made something similar once, though it had been with the help of Malefic Viper’s Poison and had happened during his fight with Minaga in Nevermore.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

There, he’d impromptu created the kind of poison he now wanted to purposefully make. As for the one he’d made back then?

[Volatile Malefic Soulbane Poison (Ancient)]

Nothing in the name mattered besides the “bane” portion, because it was that kind of poison Jake wanted to create. To clarify, bane poisons were an entire classification of poison, and the name bane was always paired with something else. Back in Nevermore, he had made a Soulbane poison, which was admittedly one as broad as could possibly be made.

Bane poisons were toxins aimed at very specific things, or more accurately, at very specific Records. A bane poison would be far more effective than a regular toxin on its specified target, while it would have zero effect on anything else. In simpler terms, it was a way to focus all the energy of the poison.