The Primal Hunter

Lavender, Evergreen Grass, a lot of mana and a bit of love, and you have a perfectly healthy potion. It seemed simple on paper, but there was a bit of work going into it. The mana-control aspect of the crafting process was something that could always be improved, and the more you trained, the better your potions would inadvertently get. While there was a cap caused by the ingredients and your own stats, it wasn’t one Jake could ever feasibly reach.

He did improve a whole lot, though. His potions got better and better, and he honestly took quite a while to get proper pricing down but ended up just settling on 20.000 for each potion. While he certainly could charge more, he didn’t feel the need to. He didn’t craft them to make money, to begin with, but to level his profession and get as comfortable with his new D-grade mana control prowess as he could before he would begin crafting some more interesting things.

Like some uncommon-rarity poison.

Well, his pricing scheme was like that for the first week until he talked about it with Miranda.

“Why don’t you have someone else sell it for you? Merchants or others with compatible professions apparently get great experience selling items through the store to other cities and have even better methods to price goods with their skills. That way, they can gain levels, and you can gain Credits without thinking about putting them up for sale yourself,” she said, sounding quite reasonable.

“Do you have anyone in mind?” he had asked.

This was when he learned that apparently, being a City Lord’s assistant also included selling stuff as a part of the job, at least the system agreed it did. Lillian came by later that day, and from the first week and moving forward, she handled all the commercial stuff for him. She just came by once a day or so and took all the potions he had already made while giving him any stuff he asked her to buy or look out for.

Jake still bought most of the items he wanted himself, as quite frankly, he only knew he wanted it when he saw it. Every item above common-rarity was more or less an impulse buy because he thought: ”hey, I guess I can use this for something.”

It had now been two weeks total since the World Congress ended, and Jake was spending most of his time every day experimenting on making an uncommon-rarity poison, but he did still spend a few hours pumping out potions.

The experience was great when he mass-produced things, and he had gained two levels during this period. While that doesn’t seem like a lot, one had to remember that leveling only got harder and harder as time went on. Villy had told him that sometimes going years between levels at higher grades was just to be expected.

*’ DING!’ Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 103 - Stat points allocated, +10 free points*

*’ DING!’ Race: [Human (D)] has reached level 109 - Stat points allocated, +15 free points*

*’ DING!’ Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 104 - Stat points allocated, +10 free points*

As for what kind of poison he was trying to make an uncommon variant of? He had decided to start with the old trusty one: Necrotic Poison.

Necrotic Poison did have some drawbacks, but against any living being, it was just great. Against elementals, it was quite bad, but it even functioned okay-ish versus plant-based foes. It also happened to be the poison Jake had the most experience with.

Finally, he decided to go for this poison because of a certain herb. Or, more accurately, mushroom. An old friend of his, but in a new and improved form.

[Aged Bluebright Mushroom (Uncommon)] - A poisonous blue mushroom that emits blue light. The Aged Blue Mushroom has grown to a point where simply being touched by its light can bring you harm, and the juices found within are more toxic than ever.

Jake had discovered that the System Store was indeed a bit dynamic and adaptable. He had bought all the normal common-rarity Bluebright Mushrooms that he could and found that the store stocked a few more every time, with it even giving out a few uncommon-rarity ones every time now.

do and ate them. All competent doctors would agree that death-shrooms would

a bit stronger flavor, and the juices within them sizzled in his mouth when he ate. He was perfectly aware that without Palate of the Malefic Viper, half his mouth would have

these mushrooms in the long run, even after the System Store disappeared. Problem is… Jake had never actually done any proper gardening in his life, and he also really didn’t

someone to do it properly. That

had considered it, but that would also take time… there was also the issue that he couldn’t just take anyone random. They had to know the basics and be strong enough not to be killed by the mushrooms. He considered it for a while and decided to just postpone it for now. He would also need someplace to

think that it would be smart to do the mushroom-growing down in the cave by the dungeon due to the mana it leaked, but the issue was that the dungeon portal leaked life-affinity mana, while the mushrooms primarily had death-affinity

other kinds of herbs and plants in. There were many different types of

could save all the herbs he wanted to plant later in his spatial

with Sylphie or meeting with Miranda and/or

Dungeon time.

to the madness as she began chanting words in a language she truly didn’t understand. It wasn’t a question of her translation skill not working either; it was that the words she spoke truly didn’t exist, or

hold power,

saw her targets. It was an old enemy most in the city would recognize as an Oakwood Tiger – the kind of beast that had nearly killed her, Hank, Louise,

tigers, one of them was special. It had a small mark on it that it could neither detect with its mana sense nor see with its eyes. It was a green sigil depicting a circular mark, looking a lot like a green lagoon. It was the

magic, flinging fire and ice like any other caster, their specialty lay in mysticism and ritual magic. Such as the ritual she was currently

formation. Among these items were the heart of an Oakwood Tiger she had killed days prior, leaves from the forest, bark from many

the Verdant Mark, she weaved her spell,

the items placed around the circle began burning with green fire as the spell

Feast Of the

the bark of the magical tree. It was a natural treasure that served as a natural gathering point for all the Oakwood Tigers in the area. It was their domain, and no other beast had been able to go near for months without being torn

– this one included - functioned better for some beasts than others. This tree was highly beneficial to the tigers but

them knew that today would be their doom and that this haven they

in the air as a green wind seemed to sweep through, with even less noticing the green grass below them growing

anything was wrong,

the ground and grabbed hold of the leg of one of the tigers. It struggled, but another arm came up, followed by a dozen

tiger was assaulted at once by the greedy hands that sought to bring them down, and no matter how they

stopped simply looking like water as it actually turned swampy, and the hands began succeeding in dragging the tigers down. The first to be grabbed was also

in on it. They were all half-corporeal but physical enough to bite and tear into the tiger as it struggled. As a monster growing

of the creatures trying to devour them, but there were just too many. They did notice that these creatures didn’t respawn and no new ones appeared… so if they could somehow defeat them

lasting for nearly half an hour before the depths below became calm, with only

the grass turned back to its old color as the aura from the ritual faded. Not a single trace of what had happened or a single body left over. All had been devoured at

she breathed heavily. A bit of blood even flowed out her mouth as she had taken a bit of damage towards the end

an expensive one, and it had taken quite a bit of work to set it all up and make all the preparations, but it had