The Primal Hunter

Jake sat cursing to himself near the cave entrance he had exited just a bit over a day ago. He wasn’t here for a rematch with the Indigo Mushroom, but instead just to do his alchemy. The reason for his sour mood was because he, in his stupidity, forgot the book he was right in the middle of reading back at the pond.

Could he go back and get it? In theory, yes. Would he? Hell no. They had already begun constructing his new house, and Miranda, together with Louise, seemed very adamant about him staying away until it was done - something that should take less than a week.

While they hadn’t explicitly stated he couldn’t go there, he very much got that feeling from them. He had helped a bit by leaving behind a few dozen potions of all three kinds. They were some of the mid-tier iterations he made in his two weeks of mass-production, but they were still peak-inferior or common.

He had explained to Miranda about his plan of making the cellar. They had decided to simply build around the pillar while making the cellar. To make the basement a square with a hole in the middle holding the Pylon, it merely looking like a supporting beam for the entire house.

It wasn’t strictly necessary due to the builder profession’s skills and the far improved raw materials compared to pre-system construction, but aesthetically it would look relatively normal.

The reason why he wanted to do it like that was relatively simple. He wanted to make that cellar into his secret alchemy lab to truly keep anyone out, which meant that he would make it a place where no one could easily enter.

He had learned from both Duskleaf and the Viper that alchemists of the Malefic Viper often designed their labs with affinities in mind. They often flooded a room with a certain kind of poison gas, creating a field of deadly miasma where anyone without strong poison resistance would quickly find themselves poisoned and dying.

If he could do that in the cellar, it would function as both an improved lab, and at the same time, keep anyone too nosy out. Quite a win-win if he said so himself. And from how Hank spoke during their final stages of planning, the man seemed like he knew how to do his job. The fact that he had been working in construction before the system was showing.

Though it was a bit surprising that the quiet kid Mark had followed in his father’s footsteps and chosen the builder profession. In retrospect, this was quite a nice thing, as it would speed up the construction by quite a bit.

Louise served as the architect, and Miranda was apparently still messing around with her new skills. She had been above level 40 before her profession change but surprisingly hadn’t lost a single skill. She had only gained new ones. A part of Jake couldn’t help but wonder if this could somehow be meta-gamed by switching between professions, but then again, it more likely just had something to do with the City Lord profession being unique.

He was sure that he would have lost any skills related to the Malefic Viper if he changed. And speaking of skills associated with the Malefic Viper… he felt level 70 creep closer than ever before. So with nothing else to do, he began making the final push.

As his book was left behind, he just began experimenting instead. He already had gotten a few ideas, so he started by testing those. He still had many ingredients from the challenge dungeon left, and he reckoned some of those had to be useful.

Only a few hours later, he got his level.

*’DING!’ Profession: [Prodigious Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 70 - Stat points allocated, +5 free points*

And with it the expected message.

*Prodigious Alchemist of the Malefic Viper profession skills available*

The last time he got a skill at level 60, he got offered quite a few useful skills, with Sagacity of the Malefic Viper being the clear standout. It was a no-brainer.

He ignored two of them right away, both of them being rare skills related to being some fanatical

to devour the skies. You too refuse to be earthbound. Allows the Alchemist to summon two phantasmal wings and take flight. While active, you can burn the blood within the wings and release potent toxic fumes. The toxicity and effect of the poison are based on Blood of the Malefic Viper. Toughness

fight with, yet it prevailed only with its fangs. Its bites the deliverer of death. As a human, you have taken inspiration and learned to apply the same concept. Allows the Alchemist to coat his teeth in deadly venom, sharing all the same effects as Blood of the Malefic Viper in an empowered state. Additionally, all poisons you have crafted or created are significantly more effective when injected directly into the body of your foes. Passively provides 1 Strength per level in Prodigious Alchemist of the

more easily. Significantly increases the effect of all Words of Power spoken. Your pride increases all

He wanted all of them, but he could only pick one. This was by far the most challenging skill choice

tested method of going through them one by one. Starting from

in the name alone. Wings. Flight. What human didn’t desire to sprout wings and take to the air like a bird?

would very likely serve him incredibly well in combat. One of his most significant weaknesses currently was his inability to move properly when airborne. He

also impressive. It even burned the blood from Jake’s Blood of the Malefic Viper, once more proving the synergy

could even be effective against the Indigo Mushroom that he was having trouble dealing with. If he could release toxic gas into the chamber, he could potentially kill it. Though he seriously doubted it for several reasons. Likely it could just retreat underground or

Perception was a weird stat, that while helping his damage quite a lot, didn’t have much effect outside of boosting his skills and bloodline. At least not

his reaction speed, and of course, also helped boost pretty much all of his class-related abilities. It was

the skills gave stats. Another stat Jake felt like he could

clearly just directly combat-related. It didn’t even appear to have

for his current fighting style. He chose to completely ignore the part about coating his teeth in poison, as there was no way he would go around biting people. He wasn’t some kind

was happy that he had managed to upgrade it to ancient-rarity, as it would hamper many other skills if he hadn’t. Then again… maybe he wouldn’t have even gotten these options without

hit 60 despite the skill being upgraded then.

would very likely provide him the most significant boost in

knew, he didn’t know. He just did. If he had to guess, it was likely

to be stronger in combat, he would go for

and Fang had both been relatively straightforward, but the

of skill that had more things in the description he didn’t get than he actually understood. Sagacity was not helping at all here for some reason. Honestly, what the

get any of those. Like, could he just

the skill he did get was the fact that it improved his mental defenses. That part he very much desired. However, he did find the whole ‘wanes in despair’ part a bit

most useless by far. Aside from the passive

barely mattered as he chugged down mana potions like a teenager consumed energy drinks during a 24-hour gaming session. The mental defenses

had already been explained that willpower didn’t help with mental things that weren’t affected by skills, so it wasn’t like he could overcome his social anxiety by dumping more stats into it. If that worked, he wouldn’t find talking to anyone

next one at 80 and the final at 90. If he also managed to get his Sense and Touch of the Malefic Viper to ancient-rarity, and his theory proved

however, he needed to make a choice. He liked pretty much all of them, the

…

to decide on anything, he took out a piece of paper and wrote down each skill’s pros