Jacob

Jacob is Jake Thayne's former manager and friend, an Earth-born Augur whose noncombat Path makes leadership, divination, and the realization of collective destinies his sources of power. His rise through the Holy Church turns him into Jake's ideological foil: a compassionate administrator who repeatedly accepts coercive institutions and sacrifices, then seeks enough personal authority to prevent those institutions from repeating their failures.

Biography

Tutorial leadership and the Augur of Hope

Before the system, Jacob was Jake's superior at work, socially adept, well connected, and regarded as a born leader; Bertram served as his long-standing bodyguard and family retainer. In the tutorial Jacob naturally organized their coworkers into a balanced group and tried to make survival a collective responsibility. That priority created the first serious breach with Jake after Joanna lost a leg: Jacob judged Jake's unilateral action by its consequences for everyone, while Jake rejected a morality that subordinated his instincts to a group decision. (Chapters 1–6)

After Jake's departure and Nicholas's takeover, Jacob held the frightened camp together through reassurance rather than force. He became the Augur of Hope by recognizing and accepting the fate shown to him: the camp would be destroyed by William, while willing souls could survive through an ascent he helped realize. His sermons gave people hope and accelerated his own leveling through their belief. Jacob preserved consenting souls in his lantern, bound Bertram to him as Guardian, and accepted a role as a supporting figure in a destiny shaped by gods rather than trying to defeat that destiny directly. (Chapters 82 and 95)

The Holy Church received Jacob and Bertram after their apparent deaths. Its scholars regarded an Augur as exceptionally rare; Jacob could not fight, while Bertram's reforged class and karmic bond made him the martial half of their shared Path. Study rather than combat raised Jacob's levels, and he learned that killing even one enlightened being himself would cost his class and many skills. Although he regretted relying on fate instead of asking Jake for help, he still decided Jake was his friend, and returned to Earth sincerely intending to guide its people under the Holy Mother's religion while obeying her warning neither to fight nor ally with Jake. (Chapters 100, 115, and 122)

Sanctdomo, Congress, and the Treasure Hunt

On Earth, Jacob built Sanctdomo and the Holy Church's settlements around collective administration. By the first World Congress, its three Pylons were already linked, and his faction sought agreements with nearly every other Pylon holder rather than a simple bid for personal World Leader status. Jacob's soothing presence and cabinet-led government let the organization scale beyond what one City Lord could manage. His cordial nod to Jake showed that personal regard survived their divergence, but the Holy Mother's command and the Church's ambitions kept that regard from becoming an alliance. (Chapters 216–217 and 261)

During the Treasure Hunt, Jacob used his divination to anticipate the Monarch of Blood's approach and coordinated the retreat and return of allied teams. He then approved a ritual in which fourteen willing believers died to empower a single-use Holy Sword for Bertram, preserving their souls in his lantern. Jacob understood Bertram's moral objection but concluded that concentrating rewards in one exceptional combatant would strengthen the Church more than preserving every individual life. The decision crystallized his central compromise: he genuinely valued the sacrificed people, yet measured their best future through the needs and Records of the collective. (Chapter 337)

When a system-induced hunger crisis struck Sanctdomo, Jacob and its governing body could do little beyond food management and calming unrest, exposing the limits of both augury and large centralized cities. His divination later failed to identify the famine's cause, leading him to suspect a system event rather than claim knowledge he did not possess. Even so, Sanctdomo emerged as the center of a network that would eventually control close to one hundred Pylons, making Jacob one of Earth's most influential administrators before factional expansion finally exceeded what coexistence could sustain. (Chapters 380 and 435)

Expansion, departure, and Nevermore

Ahead of the second World Congress, Jacob presided over an assembly of nobles and City Lords from the Holy Church's immense Earth network. He believed the Congress would enlarge its influence further, and the Church pursued an all-or-nothing model of religious and political expansion. That success also made compromise with other Earth powers increasingly difficult. After the first system event and shifting multiversal pressures, Sanctdomo and the Church left Earth permanently; by the third Congress Jacob was absent and the Holy Church's former city had fallen from the leading settlements. (Chapters 435–570)

Leaving Earth did not end Jacob's responsibility for its people or his connection to Jake, but it moved both beneath formal Church interests. He entered Nevermore with a faction-backed party that still sought a high-tier placement rather than treating the dungeon as mere training. Unlike several other Earth elites, Jacob and Bertram did not attend the prominent gathering at the end, underscoring the distance created by their affiliation. The corpus provides little detail about their individual floors, so the lasting development is institutional: Jacob returned stronger and still fully embedded in the Holy Church. (Chapters 737 and 878–919)

Return for the Prima Guardian

Jacob formally applied to bring a Holy Church delegation back to Earth for the Prima Guardian event, offering gifts and compensation and accepting that no permanent outpost would follow. The arrangement placed him among enemies of the Church as well as old acquaintances, requiring restraint rather than attempted reconquest. Jake still regarded him as a friend despite their years apart, while Miranda treated his faction cautiously. Jacob's return therefore reopened personal cooperation without reversing the political separation that had driven him away. (Chapters 919–925)

His most important contribution was a symbolic vision of the Guardian's arrival. Jacob interpreted lifeless heat, stars, a shadow, and a shockwave as a celestial impact in an equatorial desert, then traveled to narrow the landing site rather than presenting his first reading as certainty. The forecast let Earth's factions concentrate their defenses and proved accurate when the meteor arrived where he indicated. He remained outside the principal strike team, acting according to an Augur's supportive role rather than seeking combat credit. (Chapters 925 and 930)

Ell'Hakan's soul and the Church's defeat

After Jake killed Ell'Hakan, Jacob collected the remnants of the Usurper's soul because the Holy Church wanted to preserve his Bloodline. Ell'Hakan's prior contract supplied the consent Jacob's lantern required, but Jacob believed any resurrection would create only a damaged, short-lived husk. He fulfilled the assignment while pointedly explaining that the locked universe prevented immediate divine intervention and announcing the exact Guardian-swap skill he would use to escape. His conduct protected the soul and obeyed the Church, yet gave Jake both information and time to oppose what Jacob himself found wrong. (Chapters 1034 and 1037)

At the Church's holy city, Jacob argued against releasing the Desolate Child of Loss, seeing a young being who could still be guided and warning that it would kill allies as readily as Jake. A superior invoked a direct divine edict, and Jacob complied while assigning responsibility to the priest. The release caused precisely the destruction he feared. Jacob later explained the Church's policy and the Holy Mother's longer strategy to Jake without pretending they absolved him, helping expose how his willingness to remain inside the institution repeatedly made him an instrument of decisions he opposed. (Chapters 1062–1066)

Once Carmen permanently killed the False God, Jacob became the highest Holy Church authority remaining in the Milky Way. He constructed a public account that enabled renewed negotiation, formally surrendered, and secured evacuation rather than a retaliatory slaughter of ordinary believers. He accepted the Church's ban from the galaxy and released Ell'Hakan's Truesoul from the lantern, ending the Bloodline instead of continuing the resurrection plan. Jacob left for the nearby Andromeda Galaxy saddened that Earth would be closed to him but convinced a diplomatic precedent was better than endless war. (Chapter 1067)

Taking responsibility in Andromeda

In Andromeda, Jacob watched new Holy Church leaders repeat the triumphalism that had failed in the Milky Way: they planned infiltration, expansion, and even a renewed claim on Earth's future Seat of the Exalted Prima. He concluded that advice without authority would again be ignored. Although he did not want power for its own sake, he deliberately became more selfish in acquiring it, used the Holy Mother's backing to place loyal officials, marginalized incompetent rivals, and gradually consolidated the galaxy's World Leaders under his leadership. (Chapter 1261)

The takeover elevated Jacob to B-grade and left the Holy Church dominant across Andromeda. He immediately redirected its plans away from contesting the Milky Way's Seat and toward securing its own and assisting other galaxies, accepting resentment from displaced leaders as the cost of preventing another war. He still obtained information about Jake and Earth through Kindroth and took quiet comfort when Jake and Casper reconnected, but he barred official infiltration. His latest position is thus the culmination of the Augur's contradiction: a leader centralizing power in order to make a collective institution behave with restraint. (Chapter 1261)

Appearance and personality

Jacob is described as handsome, with a serious expression that becomes striking when he studies. After becoming an Augur, his presence is weak in raw combat terms but ethereal and difficult to ignore; at the World Congress it manifests as a serene, soothing aura with magical and mind-affecting properties. He commonly presents himself with a composed smile and formal bearing suited to a preacher, administrator, and negotiator rather than an armored combatant. (Chapters 100, 217, and 435)

Socially perceptive and naturally reassuring, Jacob can organize frightened people, speak across political divisions, and make an institution feel coherent. He is neither naive about the Holy Church nor free of its logic: he recognizes its factions, manipulation, and cruelty, yet repeatedly accepts sacrifices or commands as the least harmful available outcome. Regret and self-criticism grow with every failure. By Andromeda he no longer mistakes warning others for adequate responsibility, but his answer—consolidating power around himself—also shows how far the former consensus-minded manager has changed. (Chapters 1, 82, 100, 337, 1037, 1062–1067, and 1261)

Path, class, and abilities

Jacob's Augur of Hope class is a support and leadership Path built around fate, belief, knowledge, and the destinies of others. He is not a combatant: his powers predict, coordinate, preserve, persuade, and empower a Guardian, while his own growth comes through learning and fulfilling the conceptual role of an Augur rather than killing enemies. (Chapters 82, 95, 100, and 115)

Augur of Hope and noncombat progression

Jacob awakened the class after sustaining the tutorial camp's hope and accepting that his vision described a destiny to realize rather than avert. Believers' faith accelerated his levels, and recognizing the logic of his fate granted further progress. Later, reading and understanding Records also produced experience. The Path's prohibition is severe: direct involvement in taking lives damages his potential, and personally killing a single enlightened being would strip the class and many skills. He therefore depends on coordination, ritual, and Bertram for violence. (Chapters 82, 95, 115, and 122)

The class is conceptually aligned with collective outcomes. Jacob gains value by helping people reach what he understands as an ideal destiny, which makes sermons, administration, diplomacy, and leadership genuine power-system activities rather than ordinary sidelines. This alignment does not guarantee moral correctness: his Holy Sword decision shows that the class can accommodate willing sacrifice when Jacob believes it improves the whole, and his later regret shows that following an institution's forecast can still create disastrous human consequences. (Chapters 82, 337, 1062–1067, and 1261)

Divination of the Augur

Divination of the Augur presents fate through visions that require interpretation. Its first major image showed a metal tornado, dying candle flames, a winged man, and a golden warrior; Jacob correctly connected it to William's attack, the souls he would preserve, himself, and Bertram. The skill works with probabilities and Records rather than fixed omniscience, and gods can shape the circumstances it reads. Jake's obscured, fate-disrupting nature can muddle or blank Jacob's predictions, while system-scale interference caused his inquiry into the great famine to return nothing useful. (Chapters 82, 95, 100, and 435)

By the Prima Guardian event, Jacob could extract a useful location from symbolic environmental details and then investigate physically to improve precision. His equatorial-desert and meteor interpretation proved correct, but he explicitly presented the raw vision, separated interpretation from confirmation, and made no promise of an exact site until further work. The corpus does not give a numerical range or resource cost for the skill; its demonstrated limitations are ambiguity, susceptibility to obscured fate, and the Augur's own judgment. (Chapters 925 and 930)

Appoint Guardian and Bertram's bond

Appoint Guardian intrinsically links Jacob's karma and destiny to a chosen protector, reforging that person's class and preventing their Path from diverging from the Augur's. Bertram accepted the role in the tutorial and became a defensive combatant whose conviction and personal loyalty are part of the bond. As long as Jacob lives, Bertram has semi-immortality; Jacob can use a long-cooldown skill to reconstruct him after death, though a revival can leave serious curse or soul effects that must still dissipate. (Chapters 82, 100, and 1037)

The bond also gives Jacob an emergency displacement tool. After collecting Ell'Hakan's soul, he instantly exchanged positions with Bertram, moving himself and the lantern to safety while leaving his Guardian to delay Jake. The technique does not make Jacob personally fast, stealthy, or durable, and its protection relies on Bertram being available and able to buy time. Bertram's own barriers can resist powerful attacks directed at Jacob, but the Guardian still experiences injury and death even when revival prevents them from being final. (Chapters 1034, 1037, and 1062)

Leadership aura, language, and coordination

Jacob's presence can soothe nearby people and has explicit magical and mind-affecting qualities, complementing the persuasive skill he already possessed as a manager and preacher. At system initiation he received Endless Tongues of the Myriad Races as one of three gifts, granting comprehension of ordinary spoken and written language, though deliberate codes can defeat it. These tools let him lead cabinets, assemblies, and negotiations across races, but they are not presented as irresistible control: opponents remain able to disagree, resent him, or reject the policy he advocates. (Chapters 82, 100, 217, and 1261)

His tactical coordination is most effective when paired with divination and institutional resources. In the Treasure Hunt he detected the Monarch's approach, contacted dispersed parties, timed Bertram's return, and supervised the Holy Sword ritual without entering combat himself. By B-grade, the same strengths operate on a galactic scale through appointments, decrees, and coalition management. His latest mastery is therefore less a new attack than an expanded field of responsibility: he can align an entire galaxy's Church structure, while remaining vulnerable whenever his information or political authority is wrong. (Chapters 337 and 1261)

Power progression

Relationships

• Jake Thayne: Jacob begins as Jake's manager and friend, becomes his moral critic in the tutorial, and later serves as his prophetic and political foil. He never fully stops caring about Jake, but loyalty to the Holy Church repeatedly puts them in conflict; their postwar negotiation preserves coexistence without restoring their former closeness.
• Bertram: Bertram is Jacob's pre-system bodyguard, closest companion, and appointed Guardian. Their karmic bond makes Bertram the combatant and shield Jacob's class cannot be, while Bertram's dry objections also provide one of the few candid checks on Jacob's decisions.
• Holy Mother: The Holy Mother recognizes Jacob's rare class, becomes his Patron, and gives him religious legitimacy. Her strategies both protect and constrain him: Jacob follows her warning about Jake, benefits from her backing in Andromeda, and interprets her tolerance of failed Church factions without claiming certainty about her motives.
• Miranda Wells: Miranda deals with Jacob primarily as a rival administrator and diplomatic representative. She accepts his Prima delegation under restrictions and becomes the appropriate negotiator for the Church's evacuation, reflecting mutual competence without political trust.
• Casper: Casper is one of the few survivors from Jacob and Jake's tutorial. Their factions diverge sharply, but Jacob retains personal concern for him and is pleased to learn that Casper and Jake later spend time together.
• Carmen: Carmen fights the Desolate Child released by the Church and stands beside Jacob during the settlement that follows. Jacob uses her intervention in the public account of the disaster and trusts a Runemaiden of Valdemar with his candid political interpretation.

Items

• Lantern of the Augur: A class-summoned ancient lantern tangible only to Jacob and his Guardian. It accepts souls only with prior consent, prevents their decay, nurtures them according to Jacob's Willpower and Wisdom, and cannot safely leave his person. Jacob first uses it to preserve tutorial victims, later receives voluntary sacrifices, and finally stores and releases Ell'Hakan's damaged Truesoul.