The Oracle Paths

Dealing with such an influx of new members was no easy task. At first, Jake was mentally prepared for it, but few of them agreed to join the Myrtharian Nerds on the spot after their rescue.

Each of Lucia and Gerulf's fellow warriors were the elite of the elite of their respective races and would not bow to just anyone, not even the friend of their beloved princess.

The positive counterpart was that there were very few casualties. Of the 2638 people to be rescued, only 19 remained missing and only 7 deaths were definitively confirmed. Hence, they had successfully rescued 2612 people.

All in all it was a great achievement, far exceeding the pessimistic goals that Jake had set for himself. This wonderfully optimistic outcome was no mere fluke.

In fact, as Jake had quickly realized when he rescued those sullen veterans, most of them would eventually have found their way to Lucia without anyone's help. Even the Beskyrians Jake thought were in danger had their own way of surviving.

They may not have possessed great Aether, Soul, or Body stats, or any way to increase them except for their Innate Luck, but they were far from helpless. Quite the opposite.

For one thing, the very place where they had appeared on B842 was almost always safe, or within a few kilometers of the nearest Oracle Shelter. Their king and his two wives had even been given the ludicrous luxury of popping up straight into the penthouse suite of a five-star hotel in Thelma.

The previous occupant, instead of being indignant and kicking them out, had spontaneously sympathized with them, absolutely delighted to make their acquaintance. Apparently, a fortune-telling technique that he practiced and that had never disappointed him until now had predicted that an opportunity would present itself if he waited here for a few days. As promised, it came in the form of these three royal Beskyrians.

The merchant had taken them on a tour of Thelma's casinos, exploiting their outrageous luck to rake in tens of millions of Aether crystals. When Jake had arrived, the merchant was already dead drunk and blubbering with happiness, refusing to let them go.

When the King of Beskyr recognized Lucia at his side, he ditched the lavish and clingy merchant like an old sock to give the young woman a warm embrace, much to the chagrin of his two wives. Fortunately, it was an act of affection devoid of lust or the latter would have made a fuss.

Jake had been sorry to end the merchant's lucky streak, but their unwanted arrival was actually a good thing. The Beskyrians' innate luck couldn't be considered illegal until they proactively used their bloodline skills. Otherwise, it would be like saying that a muscular boxer was cheating if his opponent was more frail.

So while winning a pretty penny against a few naive and tipsy gamblers or a slot machine was relatively innocent, it didn't mean that the owners of these casinos didn't have countermeasures.

Who were these businessmen and investors capable of running such establishments on Thelma? Just being rich wasn't enough to establish a business on the capital of B842. There were so many devious and underhanded abilities slipping through the cracks of the law, that those venturing into these deep waters could only be excellent swimmers.

If Jake and Lucia had arrived an hour later, the King of Beskyr would have most likely kicked a rock, coming across a croupier or gambler whose luck far surpassed his own. Even the seemingly innocuous slot machines would turn into cursed leeches, draining him of all his possessions in an instant.

Worse, by their brazen actions the king and his two wives had already been blacklisted from the capital. If they returned to gamble in any casino thinking they could make a big buck, they were in for a surprise.

The arrogance of this king was matched by his incredible luck. Although he was delighted to reunite with Lucia so soon, he had shown no gratitude to Jake, thinking he was dealing with a Kintharian hybrid.

The man had obviously not joined his faction, and Jake had wisely not made the offer to avoid unnecessary humiliation.

The remaining 39 Beskyrians had been less disrespectful, but they were loyal to their king. The predictable consequence was that none of them had joined the Myrtharian Nerds for the moment. They had settled in a little area of his island until they decided on their next plans.

The ones Jake had saved second were the Eltarians. He had never met any of them during his First Ordeal, their nation sitting far away from the Myrmid empire. Aside from Lucia, who was a Myrmidian and Eltarian hybrid, this was really his first interaction with these people.

Thankfully, the Eltarians were not as ungrateful as the Beskyrians. They had only a priestess and a templar to lead them, but their etiquette was impeccable and respectful, their demeanor calm and genial, not to say unflappably rational.

For the moment, they too had not joined the Myrtharian Nerds, but they had promised to consider his offer. They simply wanted to understand their situation before making such an important decision for their citizens.

In total, their race had 238 members.

Jake had chosen to save them after the Beskyrians because they had, with their robust minds, unparalleled cognitive abilities and telekinesis, the means to protect themselves and quickly understand their new environment. Except for the King of Beskyr and a few other elite Beskyrians, who were out of the norm, the luck of ordinary Beskyrians could not solve everything when faced with hordes of malicious Evolvers and Digestors...

For the Myrmidians, Throsgenians and Kintharians, there was no order of priority for rescue. These three races had great fighting potential and these veterans were the elite of their respective species. Jake had simply rescued them one by one under the guidance of his Shadow Guide.

Compared to the Beskyrians and Eltarians, these three peoples had not wasted his generosity. Because Lucia was officially their princess and now the last legitimate empress, the 1345 rescued Myrmidians had immediately sworn allegiance to him, as long as they remained under the young woman's command.

To that end, Lucia had created her own subfaction after Will had told her how it worked, and she had simply named it "Myrmidian Nerds". The businessman had made subtle pleas to change her mind, but as the saying goes, "sometimes ignorance is bliss."

Her confidence in Jake's naming sense was unshakeable.

As for the Kintharians and Throsgenians, they were the two easiest customers to convince and satisfy. Gerulf was the Kintharians' idol, having long since earned their respect, but that was not the reason that convinced them to join his faction.

As much as the Myrmidians needed a cause or a paramount authority to make such a conscious decision, the Kintharians just needed a little incentive.

That incentive was the lava baths.

At this very moment, even as Jake was reflecting on the past few days, he could see hundreds of muscular, athletic men bathing in his private training area. At Gerulf's request, the area had been greatly enlarged and the temperature lowered to 800° in order to be bearable by all.

Those strongest or with the purest bloodlines bathed in the glowing lava in the center, with only their heads sticking out of the magma, while the ordinary or younger Kintharians were buried in the cooled lava closer to the edge, with only their heads sticking out as well.

His training area being located in the center of the island, Melkree's Tree was planted right next to it and Melkree, in her Dryad form, had also buried herself in the ground among all those muscular men and women, she too having only her head and her pale green hair sticking out of the ground.

From the air, it looked like a field of ripening human carrots just waiting to be plucked out. Jake's face twitched irrepressibly when he saw what his secret garden had become...

"Sigh... What am I going to do with them..." he mumbled, shaking his head dejectedly.

He absolutely had to enforce some rules! Or these unassuming barbarians would eventually get the better of his sanity...

The good thing was that he had found the perfect enticement to persuade the Throsgenians to join him. All he had to do was to provide them with their own haven.

Thus, in the north of the island, another spherical energy shield of 500 meters in diameter had been erected to set a temperature of -70°C. In the center of the circle, the temperature even dropped to -150°C.

Seeing the Throsgenians and Kintharians get their own territory, the Beskyrians and Eltarians immediately requested their own land, and Jake temporarily complied, too impatient to waste his time with these trivialities.

The Throsgenians and Kintharians had only 416 and 574 citizens respectively, so the other areas had been adjusted in proportion to their population. The Beskyrians had a circular zone of 100 meters in diameter, and the Eltarians had three times that.

The Myrmidians were free to occupy the rest of the island as they wished, but they had to keep in mind that there would be a lot of reshuffling in the weeks and months to come. To be on the safe side, they were advised to build their residences on the edge of the island, and as far away from the Cubes as possible.

Their accommodations were not the only headache Jake had to solve. For the first time since the creation of his faction, it was at full capacity.

Somewhat overwhelmed and deeply annoyed by the massive dilemma that promised to burn a new hole in his savings, Jake took another tired look at his faction's tab.

[ Number of members: 800/800]

Even if Jake wanted to, there wasn't enough room to accept everyone. With a troubled look on his face and a brow furrowed with worry, he continued to stroll around his island, muttering inwardly,

'How am I going to fit everyone in...'