“Be honest here. I know it’s not ideal, but do you think that’s better or worse than expected?” Jake asked the projection of a woman in front of him.

“Slightly worse... I had underestimated the arrogance some people possess. Even if they logically know they need to rein in their egos, in the heat of the moment, they forget themselves and act based on old habits,” Miranda said with a sigh. “Those from the Dragonflights are especially a handful.”

“Remember that you have my full backing to act however you see fit,” Jake said stoically.

“Oh, I’m aware, but luckily, the factions are pretty good at handing out punishments internally to satisfy us, and when we’ve had to step in, none have dared to complain. Most factions believe – rightfully so – that their current presence on Earth is very much a probationary period to see if they’ll be allowed to stay for the long term,” Miranda explained.

“That’s good, at least,” Jake nodded. “Have you had any issues with some of the more notable figures?”

“You’re asking about Draskil, right?” Miranda asked with a slight smile, Jake nodding in confirmation.

“Surprisingly, he’s been on his best behavior, though he has expressed discontent over the lack of interest from the female natives,” Miranda chuckled. “I guess it is true that the average woman’s type often isn’t someone scaled and with a tail. Alas, I’ve tried to convince him that beauty standards evolve over time, and he should try to stick with those more integrated with the rest of the multiverse.”

Jake shook his head, not really surprised, as he asked a few more questions to get a better understanding of how Earth was doing after the ninety-third universe had been opened up.

It had happened a month ago now, and using one of Miranda’s skills to reach out, they had this conversation with Jake in hiding while recovering. Back when the universe had opened up, Jake had felt the odd shift instantly, and not long after, Miranda had reached out and asked him some basic questions before they scheduled this follow-up meeting.

From his further questions, Jake learned that, overall, things were going well, even if there were challenges, primarily born from the culture clash between the natives of Earth and those living in accordance with the norms of the multiverse.

One easy example was the entire concept of queueing. Naturally, one still had to sometimes queue in the multiverse, but it was standard that those with status or power could always skip ahead without having to ask or do anything else. No one batted an eye if Jake went ahead of everyone while back in the Order, and he even knew that in cases where there were limited slots for something, and if Jake decided he wanted to take part while there were no more slots, someone of “low” status would simply be kicked out.

Meanwhile, on Earth, it was naturally considered quite bad manners to skip ahead. Someone like Jake would still be allowed to, and so would some others, but the average Earthling didn’t subscribe to the norm of someone being ten levels above them, meaning that someone can just skip ahead.

This was just one small, relatively insignificant example – one that Jake wasn’t even sure if fully fit as there were still examples of cultures on Earth that didn’t respect the sanctity of the queue - but there were dozens of others, too, and when they all compounded, real issues could be created. According to Miranda, there had even been a few examples of people from the Order or another faction with high status killing a native “nobody” for insulting their honor or some other nonsense like that.

These were naturally the biggest problems, and in most cases, these people would be sent back to the first universe and punished by the Order of the Malefic Viper. Having them stay on Earth and punish them there was just way too complicated, and Miranda wasn’t comfortable jumping straight to capital punishment for a “young genius” from a major multiversal faction.

It was all very complicated, and Jake could only respect Miranda for handling things as well as she was. Luckily, some of the factions that had visited hadn’t created any problems at all.

The vampires had stayed with the Noboru clan and been on their best behavior, even helping many of the newly evolved vampires to better understand their Path. Then there was the Altmar Empire who had done some trading, explored the culture, and even visited Arnold with a delegation of scientists.

Miranda had been a bit afraid something could go wrong there, but things had turned out very smoothly, which didn’t really surprise Jake. He knew that Arnold respected the methods of the Altmar Empire after having studied the Altmar Census Golem in D-grade, and the scientist had even procured more creations from the empire of elves to study. Now, he had been given the chance to discuss science with young talents from the Empire itself, and while they certainly weren’t on his level, their different perspectives and teachings would undoubtedly prove valuable to him.

Jake and Miranda discussed a bit more about some details before it was time for them both to get back to the matters at hand.

“I have confidence things will improve with time, and these are primarily growing pains. Both sides need time to adapt, and as we’ve talked about many times before, the newer generations of Earthlings will be far more integrated with the norms of the system. That doesn’t mean we can disregard those with conservative views from before the system, and I must praise my own genius for getting Arthur on the council as he can offer some valuable insight, and hopefully, Earth can create its own culture that can make the most people happy,” Miranda finished off with saying, having quite a positive outlook on the future.

“So, no civil war within five years?” Jake asked jokingly with a small smirk.

“I will strangle any rebellion in its cradle before it even has the chance to utter a single word of dissent,” Miranda answered coldly while keeping her same positive smile.

Jake didn’t comment about that very scary statement but just nodded as they soon cut off the connection. He felt confident Miranda had a handle on things, and while he had considered if he would have to return to Earth briefly to stabilize things, it appeared that wasn’t necessary.

Which was good because Jake had a lot of apes to kill.

Releasing a Pulse, he made sure no patrons were nearby before he moved from his hiding spot. During the last month, Jake had killed a lot of apes. Enough to attract the attention of the B-grade Warlord. The Warlord had moved himself on several instances, but Jake had dodged him every time as he had no interest in facing off against the B-grade when he was with his army.

It was getting tougher to kill the apes, though. Jake had taken down several hundred of them already and eliminated pretty much every single Scoutmaster remaining. Because of this, the surrounding islands had noticed the lack of scouting and upped their attacks recently, which gave Jake space and time to continue his own assault as several fights were always going on around the island.

The apes now moved in squads, often with five to ten apes at a time. Jake aimed for the smaller teams to begin with, but a week ago, he encountered a patrol he couldn’t kill fast enough before a second one arrived, and while he did end up killing this second patrol for the most part, three apes made their escape to report back to the Warlord. It was after that the Warlord had also begun to move personally, realizing this was no longer just the usual attacks from surrounding islands having increased.

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However, even if things had gotten harder, Jake had also gotten better at finding kills. While it wasn’t enough for any kind of skill upgrade, Jake also noticed how much his Unseen Hunter had improved over the last month, and even his archery had seen a bit of practice, though still primarily in the realm of curved arrows and just the overall power Jake could pour into every attack.

Finally, there was experience gained from what had to soon be nearing five hundred near or peak C-grades, and it was honestly... Jake wasn’t sure if he would call it disappointing, but it wasn’t a lot, either.

’DING!’ Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 304 - Stat points allocated, +50 Free Points

’DING!’ Race: [Human (C)] has reached level 308 - Stat points allocated, +45 Free Points

’DING!’ Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 305 - Stat points allocated, +50 Free Points

Two levels were still two levels, but Jake definitely felt the experience gain having dropped off. His Path truly did make gaining levels a lot harder, his Anomalous Soul not helping things either.

Jake did have ways to make up for it, though. He got more experience than usual when killing others far above himself in power and levels, so truly, if he wanted to get some good leveling in, he needed to be taking out B-grades. If not, he doubted he could reach B-grade himself within a century, with how much worse his experience gain would begin to get the closer he got to his evolution.

For now, he could at least squeeze a bit more experience out of killing peak C-grades before it was time to take on the Warlord. Before he could take down the B-grade, he would have to take down the most annoying C-grades, which was what Jake was about to do now.

The Chieftain Jake had killed to help the Fortuna Ferret was far from the only one among the Simivita tribe. Jake had seen a total of eight during his scouting of the island, and today would be the day he made that seven as he closed in on a patrol team very isolated from the others. Likely because the tribe had full confidence this group wouldn’t be attacked, seeing as they numbered twenty-four Simivitas, including their peak C-grade Chieftain leader.

Usually, this kind of large group would be hard to handle for Jake, who primarily specialized in strong single-target damage and fighting individuals, but through the power of alchemy, Jake had created a little something just two days prior that he was excited to test out.

It was naturally another type of poison gas, one that would hopefully be even more effective than what he used against the Rainbowfeather Songbirds.

[Arcane-Infused Creeping Death Poison Gas (Rare)] – Unseen, without taste, without sound, death shall creep up upon those unlucky enough to experience this poison gas. Mixing potent death affinity toxins, arcane energies, and soul-soothing waters, a powerful poison gas has been concocted. This poison silently inflicts any biological entity that comes into contact with it. The toxins are dormant upon inflictions as they are stabilized, but will automatically activate if too much accumulates, or the alchemist activates the poison manually by turning stability into destruction. Destructive arcane energies allow it to spread faster as it weakens the foe’s tissue. Wounds caused by necrotic poison are extremely difficult to heal.

Oh, and yes, its successful creation had also led to another nice level gained that Jake had genuinely not expected.

’DING!’ Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 313 - Stat points allocated, +35 Free Points

’DING!’ Race: [Human (C)] has reached level 309 - Stat points allocated, +45 Free Points

When it came to the poison itself, Jake was quite pleased with its effectiveness. He had infused his arcane affinity to stabilize the poison during normal conditions, and while it was mostly undetectable, it wasn’t completely impossible to sense, even for the Simivitas. The poison gas still contained innate energy that others could perceive, and while Jake could gamble on the apes being foolish enough to linger in an area filled with unknown mana in the air, he didn’t like his odds.

Fortunately for Jake, he had found an ingenious method to mask the poison gas:

Big explosions.

Another Pulse confirmed the Chieftain and his squad would soon be upon Jake. Some of them were slightly injured from fighting other invaders, and Jake reckoned they were a bit low on energy, which made this a perfect time to strike.

Charging his Arcane Powershot, he waited patiently for the Chieftain to appear within his line of sight. He was standing in the middle of the jungle, down on the ground, and soon enough, he saw the apes.

They all charged right toward Jake, but he didn’t move at all. He stood perfectly still as his Arcane Powershot kept charging, and it was only when the apes got within ten meters of him that the Chieftain noticed something was off. At that point, it was way too late to dodge.

An Arcane Powershot blasted straight into the chest of the unprepared Chieftain, sending him flying back hundreds of meters into a large tree that toppled from the impact. Without any pause, Jake unleashed Pride and his full aura while summoning explosive arcane orbs in the air. At the same time, he also took out a handful of bottles in each hand and tossed them out.

A moment later, all the arcane orbs exploded alongside the bottles, filling the entire jungle with an aura of destruction. Poison mist also permeated the jungle, but due to the arcane explosions, why wouldn’t there be traces of Jake’s affinity lingering in the air everywhere?

The many apes had been tightly grouped while moving through the jungle and were all hit by Jake’s opening attack of arcane explosions. Not that it had done a lot of damage, only resulting in some damaged fur here and there. The only one who wasn’t faring well was the Chieftain, but even he still lived, as Jake felt the same spirit-energy aura erupt from the ape as he’d felt during his duel.

Jake had already fully activated his boosting skill from the get-go, and the Chieftain had a hole through his chest large enough for a beach ball to fit through, making Jake doubt he was gonna survive long without serious assistance or immediately switching to focusing on recovery. Rather than that, the ape instead went fully on the offensive. As he roared loudly, all the apes surrounding Jake woke up and went into a frenzy as they all attacked Jake at once.

He was ready and responded by jumping back while unleashing a barrage of arrows that all exploded, sending a few apes flying while injuring others. Before his opponents could recover, Jake stepped down and teleported to the side as he released another barrage, this time of stable arrows that tore into a cluster of apes.

From the side, a fully powered Chieftain charged at Jake with a spear piercing through the air, but Jake easily responded by dodging to one side as Eternal Shadow manifested on the other, stabbing the Chieftain in the neck before dispersing when the ape exploded his own armor to try and get the temporary clone away from him.

By that time, Jake had already retreated and resumed his barrage of arrows upon the large group of chasing apes. Those of them capable of magic tried to lock Jake down or hit him with their own spells, but with Pride up and Jake holding nothing back, he either dodged or nullified every attack as the minutes slowly passed.

Due to his constant attacks and intermittent throwing of more poison gas bottles, none of the apes noticed anything was amiss. Well, alright, a couple of them died of arrows, and their leader was on his last legs, so they definitely knew something was wrong, but they hadn’t detected the poison.

Jake continued to systematically dismantle the group of C-grades, and the Chieftain quickly realized they didn’t stand a chance at all. He himself was also nearly dead, the large hole in his chest not healing at all due to the poison Jake’s initial arrow had been inflicted with, and the seven or so arrows that had struck him since also didn’t help matters.

That’s when he made a wise decision.

“Retreat!”

Sadly for the apes, it was too late. They had spent nearly five minutes within a poison cloud, and even if Jake didn’t take action personally, the poison had soon accumulated enough to automatically activate.

As all the apes turned tail to run, Jake raised a hand as Touch of the Malefic Viper activated, and all the Creeping Death poison was activated at once. The already damaged apes fell out of the trees from the sheer pain while trying to run as their bodies began rotting from the inside. Jake didn’t lose this opportunity as he floated into the air and began to finish off the apes one by one, starting with the Chieftain.

After their leader was dead, the other apes still tried to run, and their distress calls had certainly caught the attention of other patrol squads, but none were close enough to reach their location in time.

The entire encounter ended up taking less than ten minutes, resulting in the death of twenty-four Simivitas. By the time assistance finally arrived, all they found were rotting corpses and discarded weapons, and before they could fully figure out what had happened, yet another distress call came from elsewhere on the island as Jake had truly begun to up the ante with the intent of forcing the Warlord into a direct confrontation.

And if he didn't... death would continue to creep its way further and further into his tribe.