The Primal Hunter

Jake sat back in his lodge, happy as a clam with how the last day had gone. He had killed the accursed D-grade mega-mushroom, gotten a bunch of valuable alchemy ingredients, and to top it all off, even discovered a hidden dungeon!

Eliminating the fungus was not only a good idea for his own mental health, but based on a bit of surveying he did afterward, it was also a good thing for the city. The damn thing kept growing by the day, and it was only a matter of time before it would make its way to the surface with some of its feelers.

At that point, it would begin assimilating plants and trees aboveground and grow even faster, becoming a massive threat to the entire settlement. Jake could only imagine giant Lifevines one day bursting through the ground and begin tearing apart buildings and draining the citizens with its needle-like vines. That would be a very bad time.

But now that threat was dealt with, so that was nice.

The dungeon was just the cherry on top. Sure, he couldn’t enter it, but he already felt the butterflies in his stomach as he anticipated diving in there when he reached D-grade. This is why he dove into leveling his profession the rest of the way with great vigor.

During the fight with the fungus, he felt like he was close to passing some kind of threshold with Sense of the Malefic Viper.

Based on its description, the skill only allowed him to sense what his poison had infected and nothing more. He had been clever and used Mark of the Ambitious Hunter as a way of measuring how much damage he did, but his senses didn’t tell him anything on their own.

Against the fungus, that had changed. Jake had focused so deeply on sensing the effects of the toxin that he began also getting a grasp for its effects. Perhaps it was because it touched the soul of his enemy, or maybe he had just gotten better at sensing things.

However, it wasn’t enough to get a skill upgrade. No, Jake needed to practice and experiment more. The issue is… he needed something to test on.

He had thought a long time about what to test his poisons on as he didn’t have any giant funguses conveniently waiting around anymore. The first enemy he considered was the Cloud Elementals due to how unintelligent they were.

Jake felt bad about effectively torturing something to improve himself. But at the same time, he really wanted to upgrade his Sense of the Malefic Viper. Cloud Elementals thus seemed like the most merciful foe he could try it on; there was just one minor issue with that.

He didn’t have any poisons that worked on the elementals. Well, his blood did work a tiny bit, but far from enough.

Something of flesh and blood would, without a doubt, be best. Jake wasn’t stupid and knew that many alchemists tested their toxins on live subjects, often dissecting the corpses afterward and/or using tools to measure how the poison was rampaging the test subject.

But… doing that just didn’t sit well with him. Could he go out and kidnap a few beasts to inflict with poison? Or even worse, have Miranda bring him a few citizens she didn’t like? From a practical standpoint, he could; it just wouldn’t feel right to him. He liked to fight enemies, not needlessly torture them. The more intelligent his prey, the more shitty he would feel.

So… he settled on the one flesh and blood lifeform he knew that would consent to willingly be put through torture for him to study the effects poison had on the body: himself.

His way of testing was pretty simple. He would take some of his own poison, coat an arrow, and stick it into his own stomach or chest. He would then focus on suppressing his Palate of the Malefic Viper and feel the effects of the poison as it moved uninhibited through his body.

praise himself for the method. It allowed him to not only practice Sense of the Malefic Viper but also his Palate. Granted, it would likely be more effective to experiment

have to move a dinner session with Miranda. She seemed oddly okay with that, so that had gone over easy. Jake felt like he needed to hammer when the

these days, Jake went through many bottles of Necrotic Poison and Hemotoxin. While Jake had gone through the Trial of Myriad Poisons, he had never truly pondered the effects poison had on his body

he had focused solely on fighting the poison, not actually understanding it. Breaking something apart was far more

meditation and just sat there observing its effects, almost like an out-of-body experience. He filtered out all feedback that

But more than that, he saw the toxic energies mix with the energies in his body and how the poison slowly

his Sense of the Malefic Viper to how he

body; that much was clear. However, there was an invisible barrier that stopped the poison from going deeper and doing more damage. Like the

work as it should. It didn’t work like it did when he used it on the fungus either, and he

options until a thought suddenly struck him: why could he even feel the effects of the poison to begin

understood why he could feel something was poisoned… the skill did that, but not why he could better feel the poison he himself had inflicted? Why was it just what he inflicted and not just any

poison he was the

the barrier that seemed to be the cause of why his own poison didn’t hurt him as much as it should. To do this, he activated a part of his Palate

the poison was, of

I really

it included his own mana. It included a part of him. Every single point of mana, health, or stamina

it would still contain his will and intent. Pride of the Malefic Viper had made Jake aware that his own intentions held power and

clicked in his mind as suddenly everything became clearer. He felt the

herbs only sharpen. Gives a passive ability to detect herbs and poisons in different forms and a strong feeling of their properties and affinities. Allows you to far better sense

-->

a strong feeling of their properties and affinities. Allows the Alchemist to far more easily detect affinities in the environment and detect areas optimal for cultivating herbs. Massively improves your ability to sense the poison you have inflicted and its effects on any inflicted entities. Adds an

Profession: [Prodigious Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached

Viper] has reached

of his senses expanding… but he felt it wasn’t enough. He felt like he had just touched upon something vital as he kept delving

free points into the stat as his senses sharpened even more, and he could see the mana even better.

mana, but his will, all the while observing it as closely as possible

truly separated pure mana from what he had named “destructive” mana. He knew it had something to do with how

the first time, he had passed a threshold