The Primal Hunter 9, page 19
"It is," Duskleaf said, smiling. "Ritualism and formation, in general, are not simple. Formation masters can spend lifetimes creating and mastering a single formation. I know that, usually, the circles you make are simply following a blueprint, but this is different. Hm… to use your analogy, then usually you are just acting like a printer and not actually doing any proper painting yourself, while now you need to pick up the brush. You do have it a bit easier, as this ritual is still based on a well-studied one, but that also means the changes you make need to be well-thought-out."
About now, Jake also had some more context on the differences between all the terms. Ritual circles, magic circles, and formations in particular.
Ritual circles were, on average, considered very conceptual in nature. They relied more on traits of mysticism and leaned into a lot of what Jake called system fuckery to work. These rituals also nearly always dealt solely with energy. This meant they, in most cases, needed an active caster, and if the caster died, the ritual would cease to be. The main guiding energy of a ritual was thus nearly always the caster or casters who would actively participate for it to work. More than that, rituals were often considered shorter endeavors, not long-term installations. They were created with a purpose, and once the ritual was done, they would fade.
Formations leaned more into math. They were highly calculated creations that were more like a grand circuit board made to run one specific computer program. They could activate autonomously, self-controlled, and the really high-level formations were even capable of showing AI-like behavior. More importantly, they did not necessarily require a controller, but could function purely off external energy sources. In fact, if the creator had to actively use any energy to make it work after its completion, it was a sign of a poorly made formation. Even if the original creator died, as long as the formation was maintained over time, it could remain active nearly indefinitely.
This did mean that, on average, formations were seen far more often in the multiverse. Arrays that helped defend cities were just another form of formation. The teleportation circles made to allow travel were also just formations.
Ultimately, these two could never truly be separated. A ritual would always have traits of a formation, and a formation would nearly always have aspects of a ritual. To call one more complicated than the other also wouldn’t be right, as it often depended on what the person themselves found harder. Both could also just be considered magic circles.
Honestly, the terminology was all mixed up, and some used the two interchangeably. Even the system changed between them at times, seemingly viewing them as very much the same. The only reason they were separated as they were was because of just how damn complicated formations and rituals were. Miranda could call herself a great ritualist, but not quite a formation expert. Neil was just the opposite. So if both called themselves magic circle experts, it would just lead to confusion.
Anyway, that was a quick summary of what Jake had been forced into reading way too many books about. This was even without mentioning all the researchers arguing about it and their different hot takes.
For Jake, hardcore formation theory was the worst. He was way more of a ritual guy himself, as he liked the control they required. Duskleaf also agreed that he should know when to limit himself. While having some breadth was a good thing in alchemy, he would learn enough about formations simply by trying to get better at rituals.
Not to misunderstand that Jake couldn’t do math. He was just more the kind of guy who liked math with numbers, while formations were all about that high-level math that wasn’t even real math. Real math had numbers, not letters, and yes, he had fought with Casper about that several times. Speaking of Casper… that dude was one of the few who truly did do both rituals and formations to a very high level. Jake hoped he was doing well, and resolved to meet him too.
Regarding Jake and rituals, Duskleaf seemed extremely keen on convincing Jake to study curse rituals more, primarily due to Eternal Hunger. The old alchemist god had some good points, including how he could use the weapon as a powerful catalyst to do some amazing things, especially as the weapon was linked to his soul. Worth considering, but later. For now, it was all about the bee ritual.
Jake and Duskleaf had only been at the bee ritual for about half a day when someone else also returned to the mansion. Someone who had been quite busy herself.
"Lord Thayne, congratulations on your evolution," Meira said with a bow as soon as she exited the mansion and noticed him and Duskleaf outside.
"Thank you," Jake said with a smile, adding, "You are fast approaching C-grade yourself. Ah, but one warning. You have to, at the very least, attempt to officially join the Order before evolving, okay? Of course, I am also open to alternatives, but the status quo will change."
He had not really talked to her about it during his last visit, but Meira had picked up even more classes on her own. Jake had kind of expected it, but more just that she would continue down the Path they had talked about. Seeing her take the initiative and pick up entirely new topics was only a positive, and further proof she was more than ready. Based on what Duskleaf had said, she was also skilled enough by now to join. Jake wasn’t entirely sure what her hang-ups were, but he felt like he had to set a deadline.
Meira did look a bit taken aback at Jake forcing the issue. She looked to Duskleaf, but the old alchemist just smiled in response.
"If you have any concerns, just ask me," Jake said with a shrug.
"I will," Meira said after a moment of hesitation. "I apologize for disturbing Lord Thayne and the Grand Elder, and I shall return to my studies."
With a bow, she left towards her own residence, walking at quite a brisk pace.
"I don’t get it," Jake muttered to himself.
"What is there not to get?" Duskleaf asked.
"Shouldn’t joining the Order be something she wants? I also know that she has the opportunity to go to the Altmar Empire. Both must be better than being a slave here.”
Duskleaf scoffed and shook his head. "You truly are clueless. While this may be overstepping, and I am usually not a fan of getting involved in personal business, I guess I have no choice. First of all, you view her as far more naïve than she is. She is still a D-grade and isn’t stupid. She knows the benefits her current station brings. Just look at her. Unlimited lessons, me teaching her, and this mansion to live in with you, someone who does not care at all what she does. The only negative is her status as a slave, but considering that is never used against her, all she truly lost is her own sense of pride from not being free in principle. For someone who has never truly been free, that is not a demerit at all."
"That," Jake said after thinking a bit, "makes sense."
"I am not saying for you to change anything, but if you want to convince her the status quo has to, a conversation is needed. If not, it will be nothing more than a punishment. To you, perhaps freedom is the ultimate prize, but for her, it has never held any understandable value."
"But who ever said her not being a slave would change anything besides her status?" Jake argued.
"Who says it won’t? As a slave, she is tied to you. She has some kind of connection with the Chosen of the Malefic Viper. I am only here because of you. If she is no longer your slave, then what is she? A random D-grade elf member of the Order that you used to know. What she has right now is good, and the unknown is always frightening. She doesn’t know what will happen. Also, can you truly tell me nothing would change? Tell me, where did you expect her to live once she became a member of the Order?"
"Well… every member of the Order gets their own place…" Jake said, but he instantly saw the issue there.
"Which to most is nice, but to her a bad thing when she wants to stay where she is," Duskleaf said. "Granted, if you make this an issue is still your own decision. Ultimately, you could just kick her out at any time if you wanted to. While the girl isn’t horrible, she is far from a genius, and if separated from you, I see a difficult future for her, but that isn’t your concern. Right now, she is taking advantage of you due to the circumstances both of you unintentionally found yourselves in, and you truly don’t have any obligations to her. But from what I gather, you do feel responsible, so you have to do something to make her want to change the status quo."
"So, what is your advice?" Jake asked, a bit unsure what the god was getting at. Clearly, Duskleaf was not just mentioning this for nothing. Or maybe he had just gotten annoyed at Jake being oblivious… Both were entirely possible.
"Make a decision and tell her. From my understanding, you want to no longer have her as your slave, so assuming that is a given, tell her what will come next. Whatever rules or norms may exist don’t matter to you. If you want her to remain here working for you, simply hire her as an attendant, making the status quo unchanged despite her change in status. If you don’t want her around, tell her that. If you want to be rid of her entirely because she now knows your secrets, kill her or make her sign a contract. The only important thing is actually sitting down with her and talking about it. Make it so her future is not a feared unknown but has some element of certainty."
"It just feels like me deciding what will happen goes against the entire point of me doing this,” Jake muttered. “I want her to want to be free and to make decisions herself. If I just tell her how things will be…"
"Then explain that to her, too. In some ways, you fail to realize that she has actively made her choice already. She wants to become someone you want to keep around, useful to you for purely selfish reasons. You are the Chosen of a Primordial, Jake. If you decided to recruit slaves tomorrow, there would be a line halfway across the planet. The two of you will never be equals, and I doubt you can ever make her truly see you as an equal, no matter how much you may want that." Duskleaf shook his head.
"Yeah…" Jake said with a sigh. "You do have some good points; I guess I should have a proper sit-down with her and decide on what the future holds. In all fairness, I am fine with whatever she wants to do. I do kind of need an attendant in the Order to do things for me, and it may as well be her, right?"
"All up to you," Duskleaf said, smiling. "I do like the girl as a student. She picks up on things quickly, and being in your presence will for sure keep benefiting her. Her talent is growing by the day, and if she keeps up her current dedication, she could go far. Right now, her primary motivator is to remain useful to you, and I doubt that will change if you keep her around, but that is honestly not a bad thing. The system, at least, doesn’t care, as long as she remains consistent in her Path."
Jake nodded along. "Got it. I will talk to her about it and try to figure out what she wants. I still hope that some part of her wants freedom and to, at the very least, be able to leave if she wants to. It isn’t like either of us wanted to be in this situation originally, and she must carry at least some level of resentment towards me, as the Order enslaved her, so who knows?"
"That is the final part you don’t get," Duskleaf said, shaking his head. "She clearly likes you, Jake. Not you as the Chosen, but you as a person. I would not say her emotions pass into love, but it is similar. For this, I will not say anything; that is up for you young ones to figure out yourselves. Just know she doesn’t solely remain around you due to the benefits you bring."
Jake didn’t say anything as he looked at the god.
"You did know," Duskleaf realized. "More to consider, then. I will go get some tea while you sort out your thoughts."
With that, Duskleaf disappeared with the clone made from a plant that couldn’t even consume tea, as far as Jake knew.
Chapter 21
Experiments Requiring Varying Degrees of Violence
Jake had a lot to think about. Annoying things to think about.
He knew he wasn’t the most moral of people, considering his rather liberal approach to killing. He did not hesitate when he went out into the world and hunted down sapient C-grade beasts simply for experience points, and he had killed plenty of other humans during his Path so far. Some were more deserving than others, with quite a few just being at the wrong place at the wrong time or having chosen to trust someone they really shouldn’t have.
But that didn’t mean he was entirely amoral, and he had some things he wouldn’t do—likely due to his upbringing, the culture of Earth, and because, quite honestly, these things had nothing to do with his Path. They were unrelated to his goals. One of those things he wouldn’t do was use his position to take advantage of others. It just felt icky and wrong to him to even consider it.
Miranda, Meira, pretty much anyone in the Order… It just felt wrong to even consider any kind of relationship that was more than friends. With Meira more than anyone else. He had watched enough movies to know she might feel attached or something due to not being treated like shit, which just made it even slimier.
Perhaps more importantly than anything else, Jake didn’t want any romantic relationships. At least, nothing serious. It didn’t even have to do with his bad prior experiences anymore, but just that he didn’t have time and didn’t want to dedicate the necessary mental energy to it.
Jake had already talked a lot with Caleb regarding how he struggled with balancing family and his role as Judge of the Court of Shadows. Caleb did not regret his way of life, and if he had to choose between the Court and his family, he would pick family every time. Jake could honestly not say he was the same. In other words, he would be a shitty partner.
There was also his insane innate fear of betrayal, but that was a whole other can of worms he really didn’t want to address.
In conclusion, Jake wanted to avoid relationships, and if acting oblivious made that easier, he would continue doing so. It was honestly just easier to never try and read more into anything others did, and he would rather assume people were being friendly and not make any conclusions. The result would be nothing happening, no matter what.
The whole thing with Meira was a complicated issue, and one Jake was far from qualified to deal with. All he knew was that entertaining her emotions would be unhealthy for both of them. He could handle casual relationships, like the one with Carmen, but anything more would be too much.
These annoying emotions were a lot to deal with and, quite frankly, not worth the mental energy. Hence, he moved on to something far simpler:
The ritual circle.
It took him about a week to fix the most outrageous of issues with the ritual circle, and while there was still room for improvement, it wasn’t anything important. All they really resulted in was the circle being less efficient and draining the many cores of energy faster, with more energy going to waste, but Jake didn’t really care overly much about that.
During this week, Jake tried to approach Meira to talk, but she seemed to try and avoid any long conversations as much as possible. At the very least, her actions allowed Jake to consider excuses to talk to her, which was when he handed her the list from Arnold that he had totally remembered. Having her do all that shopping and then confirming all the purchases afterward would be a perfect segue into the conversation he wanted to have with her.
Additionally, it set a deadline for Jake to get his act together. Luckily, it seemed like it would take a bit of time to get everything together, as some of the things the scientist had asked for weren’t readily available.
After the week of ritual circle work, Jake moved on to another important task: the improvement of cores. For this, Jake had the Advanced Core Manipulation skill—one of those skill choices he’d semi-neglected but now felt more than happy about having picked.
[Advanced Core Manipulation (Epic)] – To touch upon a core of pure energy and Records is to touch upon the broken shell of a soul. Allows the alchemist to far more easily manipulate cores and the Records within the broken soul shells with the goal of refining them. Refined cores will, in most cases, be more effective, and you can also choose to amplify certain effects. Having taken it further, you have learned that the layers of souls can be malleable in some circumstances, and applying this knowledge, you have learned to fuse cores containing similar Records and even change their nature in some circumstances as your own soul influences the core. Adds an increase to the effectiveness of Advanced Core Manipulation based on Wisdom and Willpower.
The description wasn’t something Jake had truly dwelled on much, but reading it now, after being offered the Harbinger of Primeval Origins profession and recent revelations about his ability to affect the Origin of something, he saw it in a new light.
This skill was all about manipulating the Records within a core. It even allowed him to merge several cores to create a more powerful one.
For the final push to evolve the Bee Queen to C-grade, Jake would need a few powerful natural treasures, but more importantly, a core of pure Records. Records that would allow him to improve this Origin somehow. Jake wasn’t sure exactly how to do this yet, but luckily he had time.
Hatching the egg before Nevermore was a priority, but if he didn’t manage to do it, that would be fine too. He wasn’t in a rush and wanted to get this one right. As Villy had said, this would be Jake’s first time intentionally trying to create some super variant using his Bloodline-related abilities.
While he didn’t have a core yet, he would go get one after he practiced a bit with what he already had, as well as some cheaply bought cores. Insectoid monsters were far from rare, and getting the cores was easy and cheap. Compared to most Beastcores, Ectognacores were a dime a dozen, and from just clearing one hive, thousands, if not millions could be obtained.
There was, of course, still a variance to them, and Jake did have some better variant versions. Like the Queen’s Guard cores.
[Isoptera Queen’s Guard Ectognacore (D-grade)] - An Ectognacore left behind by a D-grade Isoptera Queen’s Guard, containing remnants of its Records within. Can be used as an alchemical ingredient for many types of creations but is most often found in elixirs.
