The Oracle Paths

GASP!

When Jake reopened his eyes, he was back on the white sand beach and the corpse of the pterodactyl vulture was hovering behind him. Normally, he would have insulted the Oracle and his misfortune of all names, but he was not in the mood for that this time. He just felt tired and weary.

Even though the conclusion of his last attempt had ended in the same failure, he had nevertheless made significant progress. During his fighting last night, Xi had continued to collect data despite his unconscious state. The clues he had gathered so far were as follows:

-There were three unique minerals on the island with mysterious properties: Flintium, Orxanium and Naequat. The red crystal housing the soul of the T-Rex possessed all three minerals, but the proportions of each mineral were not known.

-Orxanium gave a blue color to the blood or sap of certain plants or animals and gave them hallucinogenic and sedative properties.

-The red blood seemed harmless during the day, but increased the aura and ferocity of the monsters tenfold at nightfall when the blood started to glow. In the morning, the backlash was so severe that most predators emerged extremely weakened and vulnerable from their night fights.

-Both blue and red blood glowed at night. There was not a single creature on the island that did not possess one of these two types of blood.

-Despite their incredible effects, his Status had never displayed any poisoning condition of any kind. No chemical reaction in his body indicated that he was under the influence of any poison. However, it was clear that his consciousness and Spirit Body had been severely affected on each occasion.

-Lastly, the last clue was this green stone around the monster's neck that finished him off last night. It was the only creature on the island in his memories that had green eyes and possessed such a stone. It was also the only predator of his knowledge that hunted in the morning despite having a crippling weakness when exposed to sunlight.

There were still many unknowns, such as the role of Flintium and Naequat, and the reason for such differences in the properties of these materials between day and night, but he felt he was close.

ROAR!

The hybrid roar of the feathered T-Rex pulled him out of his thoughts and seconds later he witnessed the expected arrival of the hungry dinosaur, which uprooted a few palm trees as it had done on previous occasions.

Already tired of this trial, Jake strangled the T-Rex with his telekinetic grip, but instead of dragging the monster to him in order to lure the predator with the green stone, he decided to take the lead this time.

It was clear that this humanoid monster was the main obstacle in this trial. If this creature had been eliminated, perhaps he could have survived the morning of his previous attempt. After all, all the red-blooded animals were in a similar state and the blue-blooded animals were lethargic during the day, as demonstrated by the snake, which only attacked him after being sliced in half by his machete.

The T-Rex seemed to be an exception, no doubt thanks to the crystal that protected its soul, but it nevertheless remained weaker than the level of prowess expected from such a carnivore at the top of the food chain.

MEOW!

The shrill sound between a meow and a canary's call was heard a couple of seconds later and Jake understood that he had only a short period of time to act. Leaving the T-Rex unconscious and rotting on the spot, Jake leapt about ten meters to the top of the nearest palm tree, and then with some extra acrobatics reached the high branch of a tree a little further into the jungle. The foliage was dense, but its position was ideal for ambushing the green stone predator.

As Jake waited eagerly for the humanoid giant to arrive, he felt a rustle not far away, but luckily it turned out to be just a sleeping parrot. The bird was about five feet tall, with red, green, and blue plumage, but its attitude was completely carefree in its presence. Sleeping upright, the sound it heard was only the bird spreading its wings briefly to stretch.

' Why is this shit still alive and fine?' Jake was partially skeptical of the bird's lack of alertness, but that was not his concern for now.

While Jake waited with increasing tension for his opponent's arrival, the parrot continued to drowse without concern for its environment. The footsteps of the green stone monster were almost impossible to pick up, but the same could not be said for the trees uprooted by the creature's passage.

The characteristic sound of collapsing shrubs and snapping vines were perfectly audible, as were the monster's abnormal cries that were causing quite a racket. That this parrot was still able to sleep peacefully at this point was almost a miracle.

About a minute later, the charcoal-colored silhouette of the humanoid monster appeared in his field of vision and Jake recognized the green stone around the creature's neck. Defeating this monster was his primary goal, but if he failed, getting the stone was an absolute necessity.

Resembling an emerald the size of a tennis ball full of impurities, its appearance was distinct from the red crystal inlaid in the forehead of the T-Rex, which was instead sparkling, pure and shaped like a precious piece of jewelry. One had been extracted manually by primitive means and was unprocessed, while the other was clearly the result of advanced technology.

Crouching on his branch, Jake slowly unfurled his claws and his body gradually warmed up, while taking care not to emit any light. He also refrained from deploying his Spirit Body to scan for Aetheric signatures around him so as not to attract the creature's attention. It was also for this reason that he had not noticed the parrot's presence until it made a movement.

After last night, he realized that his Aether control was not invincible on this island and that most creatures here seemed to be sensitive to spiritual auras. In other words, when he detected an enemy through his Spirit Body, he took the risk of being detected as well.

If Jake knew of more advanced Aether-based mental techniques, it would undoubtedly have been possible to spy on his enemies unsuspectingly, including humans with mental stats similar to his, but unfortunately this was not yet the case.

Five meters, four meters, three meters... When the humanoid monster passed under Jake's branch, he stopped breathing and even stopped his heartbeat for fear of ruining everything. With his Agility and Perception, it was doable for a short while.

Luckily, it turned out that the giant predator was not particularly sharp despite his long, pointed ears. Either its hearing was bad or the creature was abnormally relaxed. However, on second thought, Jake thought it was perfectly normal.

At this time of day, most of the dangerous animals on the island must have been in a critically weakened state or sleeping soundly like the parrot next to him. The charcoal colored predator was therefore the king of the jungle during this early morning hour.

Once the monster walked past him without showing any sign that his presence had been noticed, Jake let himself fall from his branch without a sound and landed noiselessly on the monster's neck.

In a gesture repeated mentally hundreds of times over the last minute, Jake crossed his glowing claws around the monster's throat and uncrossed them with a sharp jerk. A shower of green blood sprayed the flowers at the foot of the monster, but a horrible screeching of metal against metal was also heard.

Far from being slit cleanly as Jake had hoped, the monster uttered a long, raging wail and began to shake itself around to get rid of the parasite on its back. The parasite in question was hanging on somehow, using his extraordinary balance to swing back and forth and right and left without tipping over completely.

Realizing that this tactic did not work, the monster suddenly performed a backflip on the spot. A giant over ten meters tall doing a back flip was so unexpected and unbelievable for Jake, that he only had time to raise his arms to protect his face before hitting the ground hard as if he had just been catapulted.

"Cough, cough! Fuck! "Jake spat out a clump of dirt and several teeth with great difficulty, but it was not the time to mourn.

Rolling sideways, he narrowly avoided being trampled by the monster again, then by pushing on his arms he managed to roll backwards and fall back on his feet. His lips were swollen and his nose and mouth were bleeding, but that was the least of his worries at that moment.

The giant monster was raving mad and his wheezing breath indicated that Jake's failed ambush had not been in vain. The monster's throat had been slit, but the wound was not deep enough and the bleeding had already stopped.

More importantly, Jake's scratch had served its secondary purpose. The string holding the green stone had been severed and the green stone was now in his hand.