The Primal Hunter

Four more levels in his profession remained until he would finally be capped in both that and his class. Those four levels could be relatively swiftly gained by just grinding out poisons, but he still needed to improve Touch of the Malefic Viper before that.

It was the thing that had filled his head before this entire arcane-affinity thing came out of nowhere. He had even sat days in meditation to delve into the Sagacity skill to study transmutation and how to do that properly.

This allowed him to realize that many parts of Touch of the Malefic Viper were comparable to traditional transmutation, and he became more and more confident in his theory of using Touch to transmute weapons working.

He was determined that this time he wouldn’t get distracted.

After Jake had returned from the cloud island and had his meeting with Miranda, he had meditated and done a bit of mana practice before his weapons delivery arrived in the morning. He went straight into it with great gusto and began breaking the smiths’ hard work by infusing corruption into them.

The delivery was a cart-full of more than a hundred inferior-rarity steel shortswords with a variety of enchantments on them - all of them the most straightforward kind, such as making the blade sharper or harder or able to conduct mana more easily. All in all, they were kind of bad, but that at least helped Jake not feel that terrible about breaking them all as he began experimenting.

Instantly he felt how it had become easier than before. His discovering and subsequent practice with arcane mana had helped him immensely in learning to better control his energy, especially in the stability department.

This didn’t mean that he instantly succeeded, however. All it meant was that the items could last slightly longer than before without breaking apart. They were also not so brittle that just swinging them through the air could make them shatter either.

If before today he was taking baby steps, he was now taking above-average, adult-male steps. Jake looked over his newest creation, one quite a lot better than what he was used to creating prior.

[Unstable Fungicide Steel Shortsword (Common)] – A blade made of steel that has been soaked in mana and crafted by a still-growing smith, infused with a powerful fungicide. The fungicide has increased the blade’s rarity and power but made it unstable and fragile. Will break apart within 3 hours and 43 minutes. Enchantments: Fungicide Strike

Requirements: lvl 55+ in any humanoid race

Compared to before, it would now last quite a bit longer, and it was no longer incredibly fragile. It was still damn weak and not suited for combat, but it showed some promise. It was also about this time that Jake began genuinely taking notice of one of the significant issues he kept encountering: Lack of quality.

While the smiths had surely done their best, their creations were lacking. The structural integrity of the weapons was fine; the issue lay in the enchantments. Pretty much all the weapons had either Hardening or Sharpened or something like that affixed to it.

At its core, Jake’s Touch of the Malefic Viper was about corrupting something, and what he corrupted was in large part this enchantment. It did so by Jake infusing a part of his own energy into the blade with the properties he wanted, and afterward, this energy consumed and took the place of the original enchantment.

If the original enchant sucked, there simply wasn’t enough to corrupt, so it would have to consume of the blade’s other qualities instead – such as its durability. The enchant also needed to at least be partly compatible with the corrupting effect Jake infused into it. He found that the Hardening enchantment worked well with nearly every type of transmutation, but not as well as those truly compatible. An enchant making all cuts bleed more infused with Hemotoxin was just a slam-dunk, and in the same vein, he had an enchant that made wounds harder to heal, and that worked damn well with his Necrotic Poison.

Not good enough for the weapons not to still break, but he saw the potential. However, at this point, Jake felt like he had gone as far as he could without making some drastic changes to his approach, so he began attempting something… more.

Before, he just infused the effects of a toxin, but his Touch of the Malefic Viper could do more than just mimic the effects of a toxin; it could mimic the effects of an affinity. And what affinity was more opportune to test out than his new arcane-affinity? Heck, he even had a title that helped easier manipulate it, so it seemed like the obvious choice.

began his next phase of testing

when the first blade blew up into countless fragments as he tried to infuse it with Necrotic Poison combined with his arcane-affinity at the same time. He tried it again with a few different blades but ended up with the same result every time. He was glad that he did it outside at least, or

it by using the weakest poison he had, aka his own blood. Well, it wasn’t really his weakest poison, but he could make it the weakest as the toxicity was very much dependent on how much mana he used when making

while concocting poisons, as it could fit into pretty much everything. It

took him a few hours and a handful of swords before he had his first success. And not a “this blade will break apart in

Minor Arcane-Conductivity (Inferior)] –

the Malefic Viper] has reached level 96 - Stat

was the first time the system recognized anything he had done as an actual transmutation. He felt damn proud of that. The level was also super nice to get, if a

was quite pleased with the

of Minor Arcane-Conductivity (Inferior)] – A blade made of steel that has been soaked in mana and crafted by a still-growing smith, infused with potent arcane-mana. The mana has changed the blade’s basic properties, making it able to

lvl 25+ in

enchant that just enhanced mana-conductivity, one of the simplest enchants Jake knew of. He had managed to change that enchant to now instead better function with his arcane-affinity mana at the cost of it no longer working

which was the somewhat confusing requirement of now being Quasi-Soulbound. He wasn’t sure how it differed from the

to him. Without doing that, he couldn’t get a proper feel for the movements of the energy he infused, and as his way of transmuting was pretty much just pumping mana into the item, it was hard for him not to bind

made sense. He also wasn’t sure if the lack of rarity-increase was to be expected or not. To him, it was now just a

so bad that he had no use of it, the lvl 25+ requirement telling him that it was indeed a low-level weapon. Besides, the only benefits of channeling

his arcane-affinity to create sword after sword. Some

half a meter outwards, forming an

His collection of arcane weapons became more and more impressive, and his skills increased by the hour. He didn’t get any more levels, but he didn’t expect

push would come through a far more difficult transmutation than any before, on a weapon several grades above anything he had touched before - a weapon that he also happened to not give a shit about breaking, so it

of Debauchery (Epic)] – A cursed blade made by the wicked, for the wicked. Crafted from steel that has soaked in the blood of the innocent has left a powerful curse of resentment on the blade. A curse

Requirements: Humanoid race

out and tried to do some damage to

a bit of worry about binding it to him due to the rather ominous warning and curse, but he believed he could handle it now that he had Pride of the Malefic Viper. Even then, he took extra precautions and had Mystie and Hawkie leave with Sylphie to do some early flight training and give Miranda a message on their way out about not visiting in the short

it felt just like binding any other weapon, but soon he felt something else. While he was pouring mana into the blade, the blade

felt like countless cries of anger cursing him at once, and he knew the highly condensed sense of resentment was trying to pull

didn’t allow the curse to affect him whatsoever, and

the power of the curse buried within. Even if it didn’t affect him, the blade still desired to be fed. It wanted the blood of those it deemed innocent – whatever that meant. It desired their suffering. It demanded their death to absorb their

for a bit as he considered his approach. It wasn’t the first time he had thought about what to do… but it was only now he had

was slightly thicker towards its end, and it looked perfect for slicing. It didn’t look like a cursed weapon at first glance whatsoever. It was only

on the blade, he closed his eyes and delved

the raging emotions but found them… lacking. Compared to the rage he felt from his bloodline when he believed Miranda had betrayed him, this was nothing. A large part of