Chapter 1264 – Jake’s New Flame

So… yeah, Jake really hadn’t known when he would get a Soulflame. With how the Cradle of Soul’s Kindling worked, it couldn’t guarantee anything but was effectively just a way to optimize gambling by giving one more chance to pull the lever while hoping to hit triple sevens.

Jake had made it a habit to check the item once a week or so, and while the Arcane Soulflames had grown steadily within, there still wasn’t a singular one that truly stood out, and seeing as he could only extract a single one, Jake chose to be greedy. However, he began to realize that pursuing a Supreme Soulflame just wasn’t realistic.

As a reminder, Soulflames had the rarities of elementary, low-tier, mid-tier, high-tier, pinnacle-tier, and Supreme Soulflames. Raising a Soulflame, a single rarity, was already a tall order, and raising it multiple times would be incredibly difficult, as it got progressively harder the more one tried to improve one’s Soulflame.

Seeing as an Alchemist could also only ever have a single Soulflame, it was important to get a good one right off the bat. Okay, technically, one could separate from one’s Soulflame, but that was even harder than upgrading what one had. Due to the connection between a Soulflame and the alchemist’s soul, some level of soul damage was guaranteed during the separation process, making it far too risky to even consider for most. Jake included.

Despite not believing it was realistic for a Supreme Soulflame to be born within the Cradle – and even if it was, Jake doubted it would happen before he reached godhood – there was still hope due to one crucial feature of the mythical item. One that Jake had already theorized when he read the description of the Cradle of Soul’s Kindling before.

[Cradle of Soul’s Kindling (Mythical)] – The Cradle in which a flame may be kindled as it awakens its own spirituality. Nascent Soulflames of hundreds of affinities burn within the internal space of the Cradle, experiencing a cycle of life and death as they struggle and absorb one another while growing in power. Waiting for one of them to ascend to the world outside. Only a single Soulflame can truly be born from the Cradle, the item getting destroyed upon extraction as all others become fuel for the chosen one. The Cradle can be infused with energies to sustain and influence the internal world. The internal world of the Cradle cannot be entered by any being with a Truesoul, and any Truesouls born within will immediately find themselves destroyed, their energies only nurturing the Cradle further.
Requirements: Soulbound.

The important part of the description was that it mentioned all other Soulflames within the Cradle being consumed when he extracted his chosen Soulflame. The way Soulflames grew within the Cradle in the first place was primarily through consuming one another, so having a single Soulflame consume the others during extraction had to give it a good boost.

Of course, Jake didn’t actually expect it to absorb the energies from all the other Soulflames perfectly. If it could, he could have just dragged out a high-tier one, and going by how many Soulflames were within, it would have a good chance of reaching Supreme rarity.

Even if Jake didn’t end up getting Supreme rarity, he could totally live with just a Pinnacle Soulflame. As the name indicated, Pinnacle Soulflames were already more or less as good as they could be, and when it came to how powerful a Soulflame was, there weren’t actually any differences between Pinnacle and Supreme.

Instead, Supreme Soulflames tended to have greater breadth in what one could use them for, primarily because of their superior ability to connect with their owner. While no Soulflame could ever be called intelligent, Supreme Soulflames were about as close as it could get.

While they still couldn’t think for themselves at all, they could better interpret and adhere to the orders of the alchemist. In the simplest of terms, rather than having to direct every detail, a Supreme Soulflame would passively do some of the more minor stuff all by itself as long as its user intended it to.

Anyway, as said, getting his Soulflame wasn’t something Jake had planned on happening, but it kind of just did. On that fateful day, a few months after he’d started his alchemy grind, he checked the Cradle and instantly noticed something was different from usual.

Under normal circumstances, the Soulflames were constantly moving about to consume one another, but this time they were far more tightly grouped, without going after one another. Instead, they all seemed to be expecting the arrival of a nearby Soulflame, which definitely caught his attention.

It was Jake’s first time seeing a pinnacle rarity Arcane Soulflame, and he was immediately in a good mood. What’s more, this Soulflame was moving toward this collection of over a thousand lesser Soulflames with a clear intent to consume them all.

Jake immediately paused alchemy for the day as he watched on with interest to see what would happen. As the Arcane Soulflame got close to the collection of Soulflames with all sorts of affinities, both parties suddenly started moving toward one another.

Dozens of Soulflames were consumed by the pinnacle Soulflame in an instant, unable to fight back against the superior flame. With fervor, the Arcane Soulflame consumed over a hundred in rapid succession, but as it did, all the other Soulflames also started to nip away at it.

This was one of the reasons why it was so difficult for a truly powerful Soulflame to appear within the Cradle. The stronger a Soulflame was, the more potent energy it contained, making it appear more tasty to all the others surrounding it. Every act of assimilating and consuming another Soulflame took a bit of energy, weakening it and allowing others to take advantage.

Combined with Soulflames not possessing any intelligence or survival instinct in the slightest, they often just ended up getting themselves killed in situations exactly like this one. With such a tasty Pinnacle Arcane Soulflame, the other flames didn’t even notice one another, but were solely focused on trying to consume the big guy.

Jake watched on with some concern as the Pinnacle Arcane Soulflame fought valiantly, but it was clear that before the day was over, it would be consumed, likely giving birth to a few high-tier Soulflames in the process, at which point there was a good chance those high-tiers would try to consume one another. Ultimately, this would only weaken them and, in the end, they would be consumed by lesser flames shortly after evolving, effectively restarting the entire Soulflame cultivation process.

If this were an actual creature, Jake would have just kept looking on and allowed the Arcane Soulflame to suffer its fate, only wanting to take it as his own if it won… but this wasn’t a creature of any kind at all. Assigning any of his regular values to an Arcane Soulflame would be like watching the battle between flowing lava and a lake. It was just nature doing nature things… except in this instance, Jake chose to step in.

He allowed the Pinnacle Arcane Soulflame to consume as much as it could before finally making his move and activating the core function of the Cradle of Soul’s Kindling.

Immediately, all activity within the internal space of the mythical item came to a stop. Some unknown energy wrapped itself around the Pinnacle Arcane Soulflame Jake had selected, and at once, the entire world within the Cradle started to collapse.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

As it collapsed, thousands upon thousands of Soulflames were caught in the process, instantly consumed and turned into a wave of energy that surged into the Pinnacle Soulflame. It was like watching the end of all things, reality itself shattering and disappearing from all sides, with Jake’s chosen Soulflame in the middle of it all.

The destruction of the Cradle soon reached the surrounding Arcane Soulflame, destroying and turning all of them into energy that surged toward the energy-wrapped Soulflame. It greedily took in everything as it grew in power. Jake kept watching as this energy infusion continued, the process taking several minutes, as all he could do was trust the built-in functions of the mythical Cradle.

In the outside world, the Cradle started cracking all over. Jake felt pretty damn nervous as small pieces of it started breaking off and turning into motes of energy that reentered the Cradle, creating small beams of light.

With a final rush of energy, the entire Cradle caught fire. At first, it was a colorless flame, but very quickly it turned pinkish purple and began giving off a very familiar aura. The newborn Soulflame fully emerged from the Cradle, consuming even the physical item in the process as the mythical item was no more, replaced with a flame that floated mid-air.

Jake simply watched it floating there for a few moments, feeling its aura. Soulflames weren’t particularly dangerous as they didn’t have any instinctive desire to attack people, but that didn’t mean they were entirely harmless.

For an alchemist to claim a Soulflame required them to absorb it into their bodies and tame it, and should they fuck up too badly, they risked suffering extreme soul damage or even death. As expected, the stronger the Soulflame, the more difficult it was to absorb.