Chapter 1448 - A Shadow's Insights (Patreon)

Jake would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous about making this work.

Miranda’s idea to turn Sim-Jake into a Unique NPC part of the Milky Way Territory was honestly a long shot when one really thought about it. There was no precedent for recruiting Unique NPCs into one’s own Territory, as they would also self-destruct if their Territory Beacon was destroyed.

They didn’t even have a clue what kind of approach they could take to make it happen. Miranda had considered some sort of ritual or binding spell to form a connection with the Territory Beacon, only to then hope that the system would take over and claim Sim-Jake as part of this simulated reality.

All plans hinged on the system allowing Sim-Jake to become a “real” NPC, and all of them required this permission to come with some level of assistance. If not, their best plan was to find a way to fuel up Sim-Jake like a battery, either through alchemy or rituals to funnel energy from other NPCs into him. None of these would work great, though, in part because it wouldn’t allow Sim-Jake to regenerate perhaps his most important resource:

Primeval Origin Energy.

Even if Sim-Jake himself didn’t want to spend this energy, it was still important for him to regenerate it, seeing as both Jakes shared the same body, and he was pretty low after his encounter with the Eastbound Monk. In the real world, he remained fully stocked up, but that naturally didn’t carry over.

A lot hinged on the three of them successfully turning Jake into a Unique NPC, so as they approached the building where one could recruit Uniques, tension was a little high.

The building itself was quite a sight. It was a large dome with a spire on top that let out a weak beam of light that seemed to connect to the unreachable sky. It was beautifully decorated throughout, with the architect sparing no expense in its construction. Miranda even said this wasn’t the highest-tier version of the building, but that it was still in its early stages, though she did say the last upgrade hadn’t resulted in any major visual changes beyond the runes covering the spire.

Getting inside the building, the structure didn’t get any simpler. It looked like a circular cathedral with a large platform in the middle, consisting of ten rings and a center. The rings were all filled with vaguely star-shaped runes, and as Jake threw Miranda a look, she explained what he was looking at.

“I told you before not all Uniques are equal, even for the same cost, and these rings represent just that. When summoning a Unique, the more rings light up, the more powerful a variant one gets. Even the most expensive Unique we can afford can be anywhere from a 4 to a 10, with a 10 being far more powerful. At least we assume so, because no one has seen a ten yet,” Miranda said, Jake instantly understanding.

“It’s a Gacha game.”

“Lillian said something similar,” Miranda sighed, shaking her head. “We do have two Uniques already, though both are naturally deployed. One is a powerful fire mage who displayed six rings, the other a warrior with five. Both have been great assets, with a significant disparity between them. I could call one or both of them back if you two believe that interacting with other NPCs could get us some insight?”

Jake considered the proposal for a moment, as Sim-Jake’s voice echoed from within his Soulspace.

“Summon me.”

“I’ll summon Sim-Jake,” Jake informed Miranda as he used the skill. His Eternal Shadow stepped out of him and moved towards the central platform. About halfway there, he stopped, knelt down, and touched it, and to their surprise – even Sim-Jake’s – the runes on the ring he’d touched instantly lit up.

“What was that?” Miranda asked as Sim-Jake stood back up again, the glowing runes fading.

“Some kind of resonance,” Jake muttered before he smiled, understanding as his and Sim-Jake’s minds connected. “Do you need me for anything else, or should we say goodbye for now?”

“Goodbye?” Miranda asked, as she also understood. “You think... that easily?”

“Let’s see,” Jake smiled. “So, was there anything else?”

“Nothing I can’t discuss with your other self, and it isn’t like you’ll be totally unreachable,” Miranda shook her head, still looking unsure whether whatever Sim-Jake wanted to do would work out.

“Great,” Jake smiled. “Then hopefully the next time you’ll hear from me, it’ll be through natives from Venus!”

With those words, Jake gave Sim-Jake the go-ahead, and as his Eternal Shadow stepped onto the central disc where Uniques were normally summoned, Jake disappeared from the World of the Exalted Prima and, a second later, opened his eyes in the real world.

Getting up, he stretched despite not having been in there that long, then moved to leave the World of the Exalted Prima, with a quick talk about how to approach Venus at the top of the agenda.

--

Miranda watched Jake disappear, and right as he did, something about Sim-Jake seemed to change. She understood that, to Jake, his Eternal Shadow looked like a shadow, but to her he looked entirely real; visually, nothing changed; it was more that his demeanor seemed to shift when Sim-Jake got a proper body.

“Do you need me to do anything?” Miranda asked.

“Nothing I can’t do myself. I am the Chief Administrator of this Territory, am I not?” Sim-Jake asked her with a wry smile as he spread out his arms. “Now let’s see if I’m right.”

A slight amount of energy from Sim-Jake entered the platform beneath him, and he spread his aura to cover it as the ring closest to the center lit up. Miranda felt Sim-Jake’s presence slightly shift yet again as he continued pouring in energy, and a moment later, a second ring had its runes light up.

This continued as his aura rapidly shifted, changing ever so slightly every couple of seconds, and soon a third, fourth, and even a fifth ring were glowing. Then suddenly it stopped, and the rings flickered for a moment, the runes seemingly unstable, but rather than panic, Sim-Jake just smirked.

“Got it.”

A torrent of energy erupted from Sim-Jake’s body, and in an instant, all ten rings lit up with a brilliant glow as the colors changed and a powerful rainbow light filled the entire hall.

This energy then rose, and from the spire a massive beam of light shot towards the sky, causing a phenomenon as the sky filled with rainbow clouds that covered the entire Milky Way Galaxy’s Territory and even beyond.

Miranda was just standing there when her communication token started buzzing, delivering messages from confused allies and Vassals questioning what had just happened. She scrambled to respond using the token that everything was fine and to spread the word there was no issues, and about halfway through doing this, she finally learned what had actually happened as surprisingly a system message popped up in front of her, and likely every other Administrator from their Territory.

Congratulations! Your Territory has successfully summoned a 10-star Unique NPC as the first within the World of the Exalted Prima. As a reward, the upkeep for Uniques has been permanently reduced by 5%

She stared at this message as the light around the room faded, and Sim-Jake slowly started walking towards her.

“I still find myself critical when being referred to as a Unique NPC, but I guess this flawed simulated world doesn’t have the proper terminology to truly determine what I am,” he said, shaking his head. “At least it recognized that should I be classified as a so-called Unique NPC, then at least I represent the pinnacle of such a category.”

“How the hell did you do that?” Miranda asked, entirely forgetting that maybe being polite to the clearly more murderous version of the Chosen of the Malefic Viper would be the smartest course.

“I must give you partial credit; your theory regarding what I am to this world and me not being properly anchored gave me food for thought, so I tested it out. Turns out you were correct; that did appear to be the core of the issue, so I changed what I am,” Sim-Jake casually explained.

“Elaborate,” Miranda frowned.

Sim-Jake seemed amused as he smiled. “Clearly, I already have some level of connection with this world, given I’m recognized as a Chief Administrator and am capable of operating here independently. So I merely tapped into that connection and changed into something that this virtual world would recognize. I believe we told you that I’m made up of an amalgamation of failed simulated versions, correct? That gives me certain chimeric properties, as I indeed do not belong to any single virtual version; rather, it could be argued that I can fit into all of them. The system seemed to agree with that assessment after I gave myself a little push toward this virtual world. In simple terms, I guess you can say I attuned myself to the World of the Exalted Prima, and it gladly embraced me as part of it.”

Miranda stared at Sim-Jake, who spoke as if what he’d done was the simplest thing in the world. She knew part of it definitely had to be him bragging, but he was right that it had been far more effortless than she could have possibly predicted.

“Say, are you somehow a lot smarter than the Jake I know?” she couldn’t help but ask, despite already knowing the answer. Given his superiority complex, of course Sim-Jake would claim to be-

“No, but I am more familiar with the virtual world and my instincts are better tuned to it,” Sim-Jake surprisingly shook his head. “I can already tell you now that you should expect no proper alchemy out of me, nor for my magic abilities to rival that of my other self. He has far more experience with both and is quite frankly better at them than I am.”

“I’m surprised you’d concede that,” Miranda muttered. “You strike me as the type that would never acknowledge anyone as superior to you.”

“People can be better than me at some things, but you are correct that on the ladder of evolution, I conceptually belong at the top, with my only true limitation being my limited lifespan,” Sim-Jake shook his head. “Of course, given that my other self and I are one and the same at our core, we are both superior beings. Though, if I had to admit, he might be slightly ahead. I came to be because I made a different choice when young. I denied following my instincts and intuition. Your Jake didn’t.”

Miranda frowned, as there were clearly a lot of emotions behind his words. Over their day of experimentation, she’d come to learn a lot about Sim-Jake and his past, and she roughly understood the kind of life he’d lived. She also knew how Jake had lived before the system, which made her find his statement a little odd.

“But didn’t Jake end up having to suppress his Bloodline to better cope with the world before the system? While you leaned into it?” she asked, wondering whether she was overstepping by asking that kind of question.

“See, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, as my other half probably hasn’t for a reason, but fortunately for you, I care less about such secrets, likely because they’re not truly mine,” Sim-Jake smiled.

“As you said, he suppressed his Bloodline. Do you even realize how preposterous that statement is in the first place? What is a Bloodline? A fundamental part of the Truesoul, a defining trait of who a person is. Yet he managed to suppress it to the point that even the system didn’t immediately detect its existence until he “awakened” it during the Tutorial. That in itself is a testament to the power of our Bloodline, but it’s also a testament to the level of control he attained over it. I’m not ashamed to say that I fully embraced it and lived accordingly. I never tried to control it. Jake did, and I have to acknowledge that.”

Miranda was silent for several seconds after Sim-Jake finished speaking, surprised by his openness and what he’d said. Sim-Jake was arrogant, yes, but he seemed to recognize the Jake Miranda knew, having no problem with his other self being superior in some aspects. She also knew some of what he told her about Jake’s past, but she hadn’t known all he shared. Especially not the part about the system recognizing he’d suppressed his Bloodline.

Jake had told her a bit about his life before the system and how he had indeed suppressed his Bloodline, but there was a big difference between that and effectively sealing it away in a way even the system recognized. She also understood that probably said a lot about Jake’s control of it.

“But don’t you now share memories and experiences to some extent? Can’t you learn all he knows relatively easily?” Miranda asked after thinking a bit.

“No,” Sim-Jake outright denied the sentiment. “He learned to control it before the system arrived, circumstances that cannot be replicated for quite obvious reasons. Moreover, much of what we are or what we learn does not come through knowledge but instinctual understanding. While some of that is shared, much of it is not, which is also why we have different skill levels in certain things. Even if I theoretically know how to do alchemy, I do not have the muscle memory or honed instincts. Seeing as we both rely on instinct so much in everything we do, that naturally becomes quite a limitation.”

“I see,” Miranda muttered, having gained much more insight into both of these Jakes than she’d expected. She still wasn’t sure why Sim-Jake was being so open about everything, as it didn’t seem to fit the personality she’d observed during their experimentation, but she welcomed the information.

“Now, enough about all that,” Sim-Jake said, cracking his neck. “I believe you have quite a few people to calm down about the natural phenomenon the system recognizing me caused, and I should perhaps start making myself useful given the upkeep I now seem to require.”

Oh, right, the upkeep! Miranda was suddenly reminded as she quickly checked her system menu, ready for Sim-Jake to drain an utterly ridiculous level of Prima Credits every day. Uniques were already fairly expensive, so it was only to be expected that Sim-Jake would come at an absolutely premium price.

However, yet again, Miranda found herself pleasantly surprised when she saw the number, unable to hold herself back from commenting on it.

“You’re not as high-maintenance as I would have expected,” Miranda said with a smile. Factoring in that there had been no upfront cost for summoning Sim-Jake, he couldn’t even be considered more expensive than their current 6-Star Unique, and she was nearly tempted to ask if they could figure out a way to summon even more of him.

“I could choose to be offended by that statement, but I’ll take it as a compliment,” Sim-Jake smiled in return as he walked off the platform and towards the exit of the building.

“What are your plans now? Take some time to get more familiar with your new, far more permanent existence?” Miranda asked as Sim-Jake walked up and stopped beside her.

“Point me in a direction,” he said, still smiling, as his aura silently churned, bloodlust hidden within.

Miranda almost felt bad for doing so as she nodded. “The north-eastern front could do with some assistance...”

“Great,” he nodded, not bothering to restrain his aura anymore as he walked out of the summoning chamber. “Then let me go and see what this body is truly capable of.”