Chapter 1179 – A Ritual Performed In Haste

The ritual slowly began to come alive as the lines drawn on the ground within the cavern, connecting all the loot piles, glowed with the color of Jake’s arcane affinity as he poured in his energy.

Needing a moment to think as the ritual began winding to life, Jake closed his eyes and calmed down. He had no idea what the fuck was going on or what had happened with Jasper, but he could make an educated guess. The Warpsnatcher had gone somewhere called the Drifting Planes and stolen the jewel from a bunch of far too powerful monsters and barely managed to escape back to Jake’s residence using the special token Jake had given him.

Jake was also fully aware that for this kind of soul injury, there were very few ways to fix it, but all tended to require either a Transcendent skill or direct involvement from the system. Jasper’s current situation wasn’t that much different from Jake’s back during the Tutorial when he had overdrafted his own soul to kill the King of the Forest. Back then, his savior had been the system fully healing him upon the completion of the Tutorial.

Jasper’s only real option was doing the same thing now, but rather than leaving the Tutorial, he could choose to evolve. If he did so before deactivating his boosting skill, none of the soul damage would be permanent; however, if he deactivated it, chances were his option to evolve in the first place would disappear due to soul damage.

Perhaps that had been why Jasper had dared this kind of heist in the first place. He wanted to use the system as a perfect healing tonic should he overexert himself. Likely, he had returned with the intent of evolving down in the cavern amongst his treasures, as Jasper had told Jake prior that he needed to evolve there.

It was a long shot, but maybe the Warpsnatcher had even considered that Jake could help should something go awry. No matter what, he doubted Jasper had planned on suffering his current injuries, as the state of the little guy was quite horrid.

Ultimately, whatever thoughts Jasper had didn’t matter anymore. Things were clearly messed up, and if Jake wanted to pull off this ritual to help Jasper, he needed to do it now or never.

Jake opened his eyes once more when he felt his arcane mana had properly propagated throughout the entire ritual circle. At least the part of it he needed to activate for this first part. The many piles of loot collected by Jasper over a long period of time began emanating energy, and the Shimmerfur Warpsnatcher in the middle did his part as he started greedily absorbing portions of this energy.

As a reminder, Jasper had always planned to absorb Records and energy from his stash during the evolution process. It was standard practice for Shimmerfur Warpsnatchers to do so, as the sudden infusion of Records right before evolving could help achieve a better evolution and even help guide the direction of the evolution somewhat based on the nature of the consumed loot.

Consuming powerful natural treasures before a big evolution wasn’t anything weird for all monsters. In fact, many only became able to evolve in the first place due to consuming some extremely powerful natural treasure, and when he looked at the Supreme Crystal of the Drifting Planes held tightly, Jake began to suspect this was one such item.

“Tell me a bit about that crystal Jasper brought back,” Jake said to Artemis as he continued guiding the ritual.

“It’s from the Drifting Planes, which is a common name given to a collection of minor worlds that exist outside of the regular universes. Some believe the Drifting Planes were once a single large world, but were at some time broken apart and became the many fragmented smaller worlds it is now,” Artemis began her explanation, adding a lot of fluff Jake didn’t need to know, but when factoring in she was delivering the entire speech in less than a second, he didn’t complain. In fact, learning more about the item and even where it came from would only prove beneficial due to Sagacity of the Malefic Viper.

“These Drifting Planes aren’t too dissimilar to that world called Yalsten, you talked about. Also similar to Yalsten is that the Drifting Planes contain unique energies and treasures born from the environment itself. Most valuable are the jewels from there, but as these jewels cannot last for long outside of the unique environment of the Drifting Planes, and they can’t even be put in spatial storages, which is why they are most often consumed by the creatures within.”

Jake listened as he continued working, memorising everything she said.

“In fact, many creatures go to one of these Drifting Planes with an energy intensity suiting them with the hopes of obtaining one of these jewels. This is especially true for the monsters closing in on an evolution, as it’s well known that consuming one can help a monster overcome a wall and be able to evolve. Seeing as Jasper had a mythical version of these jewels, even a peak B-grade would have wanted it. It’s a miracle Jasper even obtained one and made it back here.”

If Jake’s guess was correct, Jasper had completed his evolution quest upon stealing the jewel and was indeed planning on using it during the evolution. At least that would explain why the Warpsnatcher still clung tightly to it even now.

“So, a natural treasure suited even for peak B-grade monsters to consume in preparation for an evolution,” Jake nodded.

“A peak B-grade would likely need more than one jewel, but for a C-grade, it’s already more than most would be able to handle,” Artemis said, her voice calm as she observed everything that was going on with the ritual so far.

“Can use?” Jasper asked from the center of the ritual circle, looking concerned and tired. The boosting skill was naturally still going at a maintenance level, but Jake saw the wounds his potion had healed before beginning to reemerge, showing that the little guy wasn’t doing well at all.

“I’m not going to tell you what you can or can’t choose during the evolution,” Jake said to the Shimmerfur Warpsnatcher in a serious tone. “You are the master of what you become entirely. I’m just here to provide you with an extra boost along the way, and while that jewel will certainly affect the outcome, we are already in completely unexplored territory, so I can’t tell you what the effects will be.”

This was a conversation they had already had several months ago when Jake and Jasper originally agreed to do this ritual, but he still found it pertinent to give a reminder. Primeval Origin Energy or Jake Juice, as the enlightened called it, was something fully beyond Jake’s conscious control, and all he could do was faintly guide it.

Jake performing this ritual in the first place was in part for him to explore ways he could control the energy better. He wanted to better direct it towards helping with the evolution, and at least feel as if he had some control over the ritual.

To clarify, Jake wanted no control over the evolution itself, and he doubted the system would allow him to either. If Jake knew one thing, it was that the system was big on choice. Sandy hadn’t been forced into becoming the space worm they were today, but could have chosen not to go down that evolutionary Path. All Jake had done was give the option.

That remained all Jake hoped to do, though this time without a special system-provided item to function as the catalyst to make it happen. Instead, he would infuse his Primeval Origin Energy into Jasper through the many loot piles in a quasi-direct fashion.

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A few minutes passed as Jake ensured everything was as it should be, and he even found a small error he rapidly fixed on the fly as he moved on to the next stage. Jasper had already been infused with a lot of energy from his own loot piles, while all Jake had done was lightly assist in the process.

Now it was time for him to take a far more involved role.

“Be ready, Jasper,” Jake said, keeping his tone and demeanor serious. “I’ll begin to slowly introduce Primeval Origin Energy into the ritual. Remember, even if you feel like you want to evolve, wait till I’m done or tell you to go ahead… or until you can’t hold on any longer and just need to go for it.”