The Primal Hunter

Jake could feel that both his mana and stamina were reasonable despite the many Shadow Vaults. His quiver was also more than half-full making it unnecessary to reconjure more quite yet.

After he had poisoned a few more arrows, he set his sights on the next pack - four badgers, levels similar to the one he had just taken out.

With a Powershot, he once more took out the group's strongest, as he retreated to where he had fought the first group to not attract more beasts. He had to be a bit cautious for the last group and kite them in a circle, while he now had more space to use.

Minutes later, the beasts met their end, as Jake once more got a level. Quite honestly, this was too easy. His arrows were getting low, though, so he had to conjure some more. His stamina also began getting low, so he decided to take a quick break to stock up on arrows while restoring some stamina.

Said restoration happened through the consumption of a stamina potion, as he took a quick peek in his spatial storage and saw that his stock was getting low.

His consumption of stamina potions was quite insane. He used his skills liberally, making him consume a lot of stamina. That, coupled with him still not being all that practiced making the potions, made him have to drink one nearly every hour when it was off cooldown.

Deciding to extend his break a little, he retreated to the tunnel in which he had entered and sat down on the ground as he summoned his mixing bowl.

Following that, he took out some purified water and put it in the bowl, along with the Green Lavender and Evergreen Grass, as he prepared himself to make the stamina potions.

Placing his palm under it, he activated Alchemist’s Flame, making the transparent flame spring forth. The water slowly heated up, as he used his other hand and small strings of mana to pick up the other ingredients as he started his brewing.

He always found alchemy relaxing. Even during the challenge dungeon where his life was on the line, he still enjoyed it. It was challenging and complex, yet immensely satisfying to create something. Jake had never really had any hobbies that led to any actual products, being far too into archery or games.

His job was the same, with most of his creations simply being documents and figures on a computer. He didn’t count putting together a PowerPoint with a bunch of graphs and forecasts to be considered a worthwhile or satisfying creation.

But seeing herbs and water slowly turn into the desired color, and hearing the following message of his success was oh so satisfying, especially after struggling for a long time to make it correctly. He seriously doubted he would ever forget the first time he made a common-rarity Necrotic Poison.

Smiling to himself, he jumped into the work.

The hours passed by in the blink of an eye, as Jake sat there absorbed in his alchemy.

The dungeon around him was silent, the badgers simply milling about, sniffing the ground and sometimes bumping into each other. The Alpha was just sleeping, as it seemed to be waiting for a challenger to appear before it.

Only four groups of badgers remained. One of them had four members like those he had already taken down, while two of the others had five, and the last one six. By how they were placed, it seemed apparent that you should fight them in order of least to most, ending up against the Alpha at the end.

Just like a goddamn game, Jake sighed as he started packing up the unused materials and threw the stamina potions he had made into his spatial storage, but not before taking one and chugging it down. Interestingly enough, newly created potions tasted exactly the same as older ones, making Jake briefly wonder if potions had expiration dates.

He didn’t get a level despite hours passing, but he hadn’t expected to either. While his leveling speed was likely monstrous compared to many others with their professions, it was a slow and arduous process compared to leveling his class.

only minutes could earn him a level in his class, while he could easily do alchemy for an entire day without seeing a level-up, especially not

level. Jake was in no danger while doing alchemy, and that was even with Jake’s profession being one with relatively high levels of risk due to the focus on using potent toxins.

to be noted though that Jake was in relatively little danger during his fights, in large part due to his profession providing him a very high amount of vitality and toughness, making him far more durable than

he dismissed all distracting thoughts as he locked onto the next group of badgers. Four of them once

battle went as one would expect, with Jake easily managing to kite them back and kill them one by one. He was exceptionally well-matched against

one of them

didn’t get a level from the last group, but luckily

to slowly gain ground on him until he was forced to meet the final one in melee. He ended up getting a nasty bite on

arrow to stab the beast repeatedly while holding it down, with it becoming a battle of attrition. Perhaps the badger had hoped that the potent venom within its teeth would take out Jake before it succumbed to his attacks. A hope that swiftly died as Jake got the notification

entirely through his Palate of the Malefic Viper. He felt a slight burning sensation in his arm as the

as he could feel the venom’s toxic potency through his Sense of the Malefic Viper. In terms of pure toxicity, it was on par with

of note, at least. Which wasn’t that surprising as many animals usually didn’t even have resistance to their own

be poisoned if bitten by another venomous snake of the same species, or even if it bit itself. Their venom was protein-based, which meant that while they could easily eat prey they had killed with their poison, the same venom would still be deadly if injected

and absorb it, making drinking snake venom not actually dangerous under most circumstances. If you didn’t have any open wounds in your mouth,

kind as snake venom. Of course, one had to factor in the system and possible magic elements involved. Jake could feel traces of inner energy within the toxin, making it

considering it was quite literally mana-injected blood. The ingredients used in poison concoction were also all filled with mana, making the poisons

system would fare against his current body. He remembered certain animals being absolutely ridiculously poisonous, being able to kill giant animals

venom currently being

that there was any way to know in the end. The system was here, and it was likely

final trace of venom in his arm, as he noticed that it had managed to take less than 1/20 of

notifications quickly, he saw that he had

reached level 36 - Stat points allocated, +4 free

reached level 41 - Stat points allocated, +5 free

Additionally, he had the Big Game Hunter skill, which helped him close the stat-gap by quite a lot. Noticing his class also reaching level 36, he

arrow to stab

felt that unlike the rare Greatsword of Nature, this one didn’t reject him at all but smoothly absorbed his mana. He immediately felt the faint connection and became aware of how exactly

long time. Due to the material used, the

35+ in

toxins that had some physical parts to them, this

him, the enchantments and power within also activated as its edge chilled - a frosty

sword before he reached level 35 and found that he couldn’t inject his mana into it at all. As for wielding it without binding it to himself, that too was impossible as the blade just wouldn’t sit right in his hand. It was a weird feeling, but it felt like if he tried to attack anything with

was

right now was that he finally had a proper melee weapon once more. He had found a common-rarity dagger in the valley before, meaning he could now duel-wield it together with