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 on

An alchemist must be able to find the materials

to find the

they were, he just wouldn’t know without a skill to help him find them. Or he would be forced to scour through

need them for sure. But the last skill made it absolutely clear he

same vein, the Alchemist of the Malefic Viper can consume toxins to learn their effects and properties. Grants the alchemist immunity or resistance to most low-level poisons. Through consumption, may your power grow, through gluttony

were rather direct, but this one was quite a bit more

effects of the skill, the prospect of eating the blue mushrooms came as both pleasing and horrifying at the same time.

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

Flyeater one. He picked it due to it being inferior-rarity. He assumed that even if his skills didn’t work like he

A carnivorous and poisonous mushroom that eats insects to accelerate its

judge, he hated mushrooms even before the tutorial. According to him, the mere thought of people willingly adding them to salads was one of life’s greatest

them for… ‘recreational’ purposes either, even though he did know some who did during his university days. And yes, 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

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

thing that hit him was the taste. Or more accurately, lack of taste. It was a bit chewy, 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 or was uncomfortable

of realization struck him. Akin to if one had been struggling with a math problem for hours, and then suddenly, something clicked, and the solution came

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

knew there was no way for him to use all of the ingredients found here in 30

starting to get a bit worried as he chomped down Flyeater after Flyeater. He 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 that he found

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

with the little buggers. While he had no intention to confirm it currently, he felt like

to go back to the laboratory. He felt a bit tired earlier from trying to make health potions, but now he felt strangely invigorated. Looking at this stamina, he noticed that it had actually gone up over his feeding frenzy. It was only a measly two points, but it had gone up. More surprising, however, was his mana. It had been topped up, him having

with his newfound intimate understanding of the shrooms, he

the mushrooms most certainly did

try making poisons soon, considering it was kind of the focus of his profession and all. But he decided against doing so before he got a chance to eat some moss… something he was most certainly

like shit and didn’t give

with mana. That part of the process went relatively easy, far more so than before, and he quickly got to

herbs rather quickly, or it would ruin the mixture. But too fast, or done wrong, else the batch would also go bad. But once again, the ease of the process

he stood with 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 in three potions this time. But it did confirm it wasn’t

so hours later, and a good number of

Viper] has reached level 6 - Stat

into wisdom. At this

about how nice it would be to see his skills

Status

Name: Jake Thayne

(G) – lvl

[Archer –

of the Malefic

Health Points (HP): 510/510

Mana Points (MP): 324/480

Stamina: 247/270