The Primal Hunter

It had been a while since the last time he used Touch of the Malefic Viper on an item to transmute it. The last item he had transformed was his bow. Actually, that one could have gone better. Sure, the bow got better overall, but the change from Windsoar Bow to Windsorrow Bow made him feel a bit like a baddie.

Before he began the process, he took out the notes Arnold had made on the gloves and read them over. It was a meticulous list of how they had been crafted. What items had been used, what methods were applied, and which people had been involved.

Jake skimmed it mainly for fun but had to stop as he saw the sheer amount of ingredients that went into them. Three different types of spider silk, a couple of uncommon or rare-rarity metals turned to dust and sprinkled in, crystals containing mana, and even a Beastcore from a D-grade beast.

And that was just for the gloves themselves before Arnold really went ham.

After that, Arnold had infused it with some filtered version of Jake’s arcane mana. To store it, he had made use of an epic-rarity… oh shit, it was a Crystalized Essence? An unattuned version? Jake had encountered a Crystalized Essence once before during the Valley of Tusk’s dungeon. It had been the cause of all the Soilwater in that pool, and that one back then had only been rare-rarity.

How exactly a big crystal had been merged with those small and thin gloves, Jake didn’t get, but somehow it had.

Jake couldn’t help but think that shit had really been wasted. He didn’t understand how they could only be rare-rarity with so many great materials in them. Natural treasure even. Who the hell would waste a Crystalized Essence on a pair of gloves?

But… was it really all that bad? Because when Jake inspected the gloves and bound them to him, he felt the energy within them. So much untapped potential for him to exploit. So much fuel to burn and transform and bend to his will.

The last time he had met a Crystalized Essence, it had resulted in his Touch of the Malefic Viper upgrading to epic-rarity. The first time he encountered massive success with his transmutation, he upgraded Touch to ancient-rarity.

What was more fitting than then using both those experiences to possibly make his best transmutation ever?

He knew the Crystalized Essence was key. It was a powerful natural treasure with the ability to absorb and transform energy. To use one on some gloves was a waste, hence why the effects were wasted. Jake reckoned Arnold had gotten the deal of a lifetime on the Essence, yet he also understood why the man had been so unwilling to part with it.

It hadn’t been cheap to make. However, chances are the man could still salvage them and make them useful down the line, so giving them to Jake like this was a risk. Well, in the end, the machinist still won out as the Altmar Census Golem was quite the find.

Jake sat down in the room he had found, and with the assumption that no one would come to bother him, he entered meditation and went to work. Thoughtful Meditation activated its effects, making him even more focused than before as he dove in headfirst without any more preparations.

He felt the gloves in his hands. They felt thin and frail to his touch, but when he dove his mind into the connection he had to them, he felt something entirely different. A directionless space of energy was within, a metaphysical crystal floating in the middle. At least that’s how he interpreted it.

It needed direction. Stability.

and attempted to make the crystal serve as its guide to make it stable. Yet, he couldn’t. He had tried to make the Crystalized Essence into that of the arcane-affinity, possibly to get a source of arcane energy himself to craft orbs without needing Jake or to keep the spheres

still understood why he had done it.

fire-affinity or water-affinity or even more advanced ones like space or time. All of those were natural. Jake’s wasn’t. The only natural

as Jake took control of all

the gloves had torn, yet thin strings still held them together. They pulsed with

up the work. One would think it should be difficult, but it was actually surprisingly smooth. The groundwork had all been laid, the ingredients supplied, and all preparations carefully made. All it took was for Jake to do the legwork and give the entire thing direction. Time-consuming, yes, but not particularly hard. Naturally, he still had

process still ended up taking him nearly thirteen hours. He had to chug down three mana potions during the process and

of Quintessential Arcane Manifestation (Epic)] – A

DING!’ Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 108

was still happy about it. With the materials put into the gloves, them only

cloth. These gloves are incredibly thin, nearly unnoticeable, and are incredibly resilient against all attacks. Will become immensely more durable if infused with arcane energy. The Crystalized Essence has been fully integrated. All constructs using your arcane-affinity and your hands will last longer and be more potent. The gloves can store a large amount of arcane energy that can be released immediately. Channeling unattuned energy

115+ humanoid race.

happy that someone else had majorly fucked up when crafting an item. Arnold had tried to make the item Jake just had. But as always, it had the issue of being Quasi-Soulbound, making it useless to anyone but

the mana blast ability. The 35 intelligence were replaced with 125, so still a gain of 90, plus of course, the 75 wisdom and 50 willpower. As for the mana blast? Jake could do that shit easily himself by now. The gloves made it easier and a

and he couldn’t hold himself back from instantly experimenting with the Quintessential Arcane Manifestation part of the gloves. First, Jake summoned an arcane bolt to float above him. He felt it was exactly the

time, he felt it coalesce a bit faster than before, and upon closer inspection, it even felt a bit more potent and stable. It was just a small amount, but it was

Arrow. To his disappointment, he felt that it was the same as before, with the gloves doing nothing. He frowned and tried again. It

not allowing their effect to work. Jake kept trying a few more times but kept failing. He found that the issue was in how the arrow instantly appeared. He couldn’t hold onto anything and channel it. The automatic parts of the

trying. The gloves said it would be all constructs, so what was he missing? Closing his eyes, he considered what he was doing wrong as he held out his hand and summoned arrow after arrow. That is when he got an

drew his bow. Not to shoot anything, but to make it feel right. He moved his hand as if he drew an arrow from the quiver. He imagined feeling the arrow be drawn as he pinched it with his

he didn’t summon it in his hand before as an outgrowth of his hand? It all felt so arbitrary, and quite frankly, Jake didn’t

the effectiveness of the enchantment. He concluded the increased effectiveness was small but noticeable. A few percentage points

work as he hoped. In the process, he also experimented with channeling mana into the gloves to make them more durable. This was clearly from the stability-focused part of his arcane-affinity,

he kept supplying a stable source of mana. Jake was already imagining dozens of ways this could become useful in the

He had been so engrossed in his practice session he hadn’t noticed the people walking down the hall outside towards the meeting room he was in. He recognized Hank with

the moment. Not just because of his presence there, but because of what he had done to

It was overwhelming. He considered for