The Primal Hunter

Jake focused as he felt the mana flow through his body and into the reddish mixture in the bowl before him. He felt that this would be the one. After nearly twenty failed tries, this had to be the one.

For nearly a full day, he had been attempting to make health potions. He had been very positive initially, believing that it would be a cakewalk considering his experience with the mana potions. But oh boy, was he wrong.

Much of the process had become far more straightforward than his first attempt to make a potion. But the mana injection still stumped him. He had to do it in a way that would bring forth the natural healing properties in the red lavender and successfully combine it with the Evergreen Grass.

It was changing the mana’s properties by filtering it through the bowl and into the herbs. Normal mana was relatively easy to control, but it became more problematic when Jake had to transform it. The herbs and moss served as catalysts for his mana, binding itself to them.

The ultimate purpose was to make the liquid in the batch resemble the energy that is health points. Also known as vital energy. The herbs themselves already contained a lot of this energy, but he had to bring it out and make it into an actual potion.

To be perfectly honest, Jake still wasn’t entirely sure how the whole thing worked; he just went by what the books said and what felt right during the moment. He had long learned that a lot the crafting was ‘feeling’ what to do more than just following some step-by-step guide. As long as your underlying methodology was serviceable, chances are you wouldn’t go all wrong. At least with inferior-rarity potions.

Luckily, this time, he didn’t fail. With a final push, the liquid gave off an invigorating smell, and he barely managed to contain his excitement as the system messages appeared.

*You have successfully crafted [Health Potion (Inferior)] – A new kind of creation has been made. Bonus experience earned.

*’DING!’ Profession: [Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 5 - Stat points allocated, +2 free points*

*’DING!’ Race: [Human (G)] has reached level 7 - Stat points allocated, +1 free point*

He did a mini-cheer as he bottled the health potions. He only ended up making three from the whole batch, but a success is a success. One of the primary reasons why the number of potions varied was the purified water evaporating during the brewing.

According to the books, in a perfect scenario, nearly none of the water would disappear. This would, in turn, lead to more of the energy contained in the herbs not being wasted. Jake was currently wasting a lot of precious energy, mainly because he quite honestly still sucked.

But then again, he had only been an alchemist for less than two days. He could not be expected to be a potion master instantly. On a side note, his free points were once again just thrown into wisdom.

Apropos of becoming a master of alchemy. Having reached level 5 in his profession, another message appeared along with the level-up. One he had been looking forward to.

*Alchemist of the Malefic Viper profession skills available*

Jake didn’t hesitate to open the menu. The first thing he noticed was that there were far fewer skills to choose from compared to his archer class. But that wasn’t really a bad thing. All of those skills had been ‘filler’ so-to-say. Useless passive weapon skills mainly, all of which he had no interest in at all, and every one of them was inferior-rarity. The alchemy profession didn’t have a single one of those. Instead, it had given him only six options. He started going through them one by one.

[Pill Consolidation (Inferior)] – The path of alchemy is diverse and methods aplenty, potion brewing but one of the major paths, another being pill consolidation. Pills come in many forms, but most have the purpose of empowering the one who consumes it, both temporarily and permanently. Must have suitable materials and equipment in order to create pills. Adds a minor increase to the effectiveness of produced pills based on wisdom.

Reading through the entire thing, Jake had to scratch his chin a bit. Pill consolidation did seem useful; however, Jake had no interest in it at all right now. He already had a hard enough time making potions, and he still had poisons to concoct on his timetable. On top of that, he was still somewhat unclear as to the differences between pills and potions. The description did offer a bit of a hint, mentioning permanent benefits. But it also compared the two ‘paths’ as similar.

While the promise of permanent buffs was tempting, unless those permanent benefits included not dying in less than a month, he wasn’t that interested. So, learning about the wonders of alchemical pills was something for later, if ever. For now, he moved on to check the next skills.

[Geology (Inferior)] – Grants knowledge of minerals and other similar natural treasures found throughout the multiverse. These natural treasures can be combined with other materials to amplify or bring forth strong magical effects. An alchemist must be able to distinguish the magical rock from the mundane gravel after all.

[Metallurgy (Inferior)] – Grants knowledge of metallic materials and substances found throughout the multiverse. Many types of rare and powerful metals are found throughout the multiverse and can be combined with other material to amplify or bring forth powerful magical effects, not limited only to alchemical products.

Jake decided to group these together as they were somewhat similar. They were like his Herbology and Toxicology skills, only for stones and metals. Or well, geology does include things that can’t strictly be defined as stones, but quite frankly, he didn’t really care. He had always found geologists a weird bunch, and there was no way he was going to spend his days looking for, or studying, rocks.

he moved

a passive ability to detect herbs and a rough feeling of their properties. An alchemist must be able to find the materials to craft his

must be able to find the materials to craft his products after all. Adds a minor increase to

as finding herbs and toxic materials he could craft from likely wasn’t just found lying about. Or maybe they were, he just wouldn’t know without a skill to help him find them. Or he would be forced to

But the last skill

toxins found throughout the multiverse. In the same vein, the Alchemist of the Malefic Viper can consume toxins to learn their effects and properties.

rather direct, but this one was quite a bit

associated with his variant of alchemist. Thinking about the effects of the skill, the prospect of eating the blue mushrooms came as both pleasing and horrifying at the same time. He did

felt nothing despite getting another rare-rank skill. He had to open his status screen and check to make sure that he, in fact, did

the mushrooms. He decided to go for the Flyeater one. He picked

(Inferior)] – A carnivorous and poisonous mushroom that

call it appetizing would be a straight-up lie. Not that Jake was the best judge, he

he had been offered plenty, despite him barely ever participating in social gatherings. One guy even knocked on his door at 4 am, randomly offering him a bag. Though he was pretty sure the guy was looking

no better time to do mushrooms than when stuck in a dungeon with less than a month to live, Jake thought as he threw

but it didn’t have much flavor to it, honestly. He had half-expected it to taste like chicken. The juices coming out of the shroom made sizzling sounds as it came into contact with his spit. It did not hurt

much of it as a weird feeling of realization struck him. Akin to if one had been struggling with a math problem for hours, and then suddenly, something clicked,

knew a lot, not about the mushroom per se, but the poison it possessed. It felt familiar to him now. But he also knew that the knowledge was not complete. A single mushroom was not enough to truly familiarize himself with its properties, far from it. And as such, his feasting

there was no way for him to use all of the ingredients found here in 30 days, even if he was several times

had to be honest with himself; the taste was kind of growing on him. Or maybe it was just the feeling of quite literally eating himself to knowledge and understanding

of all, because his stomach was starting to hurt from being overstuffed. Secondly, the diminishing return had kicked in

no intention to

had actually gone up

about restoring resources from eating mushrooms. And with his newfound intimate understanding of the shrooms, he knew nothing in the

make sense. While not containing a lot of it, the mushrooms most certainly did hold

to try making poisons soon, considering it was kind of the focus of his profession and all. But he decided against doing so before he

shit and didn’t give him any knowledge. So the skill did indeed only work on

came in later after the grass was correctly saturated with mana. That part of the process went relatively easy, far more so than before, and he quickly

or it would ruin the mixture. But too fast, or done wrong, else the batch would also go bad. But

another successful batch, even resulting in four bottles. Without hesitation, he got started on another round and was once more met with success, only resulting

number of

Profession: [Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 6 - Stat points allocated, +2

wisdom. At this point,

page, feeling rather pleased. He thought about how nice it would be to see his skills on the menu, which it

Status

Name: Jake Thayne

(G) – lvl

–

[Alchemist of the Malefic Viper – lvl

Health Points (HP): 510/510

Mana Points (MP): 324/480

Stamina: 247/270