The Primal Hunter

Jake read the book in his bed as he went over the information in a crystal he had gained from a lesson he had taken the day prior. He nodded along as he found everything to be in order, and with a wave of his hand, he destroyed the crystal and scattered the dust with a blast of destructive arcane mana. After all, the fellow student he had gained it from had asked him to.

Well over a month had passed since Jake had entered the Order of the Malefic Viper, and honestly? Things were going well. He had expected way more Bloodline trouble or people trying to start shit with him, but so far, everyone was perfectly civil. Okay, he did have a run-in with one moron in a lesson where they had to spar. The dude had been an overly confident asshole when he was clearly wrong, but Jake chose to be gracious and not assume malice where it may just be ignorance.

However, where there had been most progress wasn’t with him. As he was on his bed, he heard a knock on the door, and he opened it to a far more kept-together elf in a white dress as she slightly bowed. “Sir, I have brought the book you requested from the Order Library.”

“Thanks, Meira,” Jake said with a smile as he got off the bed and went over to accept the book. Meira smiled in response as she gave it to him. “Any issues getting it?”

“None. The librarian was very helpful there,” she answered as she bowed again. “I shall return to my studies if there is no other matter Sir needs me to take care of?”

“There isn’t. How are the lessons going, by the way?” Jake asked, already knowing the answer for the most part.

“I am doing my utmost and believe I am making acceptable progress,” Meira answered with a small embarrassed smile. Jake just smirked a bit in response as he finally allowed her to leave as she scurried away.

Meira felt embarrassed because a teacher had sent her back with a letter of recommendation to her “sponsor.” It was a letter that would allow Meira to attend another lesson taught by the same teacher for a heavy discount. The letter was addressed to Jake and had some assumptions within he had cracked up over. However, the crux of it was that Meira was quite a talented healer and had a great talent for metaphysiology – the study of the metaphysical body.

The letter had assumed Meira was an employee of Jake or perhaps just a follower of his. From what Jake had gathered, no one Meira had met during any lessons had even the slightest clue she was a slave or even a servant. As for the lesson, Jake had already allowed her to go; it wasn’t even a question to him. But that she had even asked and expressed interest was huge progress.

Her coming out and saying she had a preference or a wish was something the Meira of one month ago would never do. She would just do whatever Jake wanted her to and not even voice her own thoughts. There was also the huge thing she now called him “Sir” and didn’t stumble over her words to avoid calling him the banned m-word.

It was slow but steady progress, and in the end, the best method to have her get more comfortable was simply time. She also smiled more and didn’t seem as nervous as before.

The only place with absolutely no progress was in the department of randomly visiting gods, AKA Viper visits. The closest to progress there was her being able to leave the area whenever he visited without passing out. Half the time, at least.

Jake himself had also made good progress. He had only gained a single level in his profession, bringing him to level 152, which came from him experimenting a bit in his own time. While that seemed slow – and was compared to Jake’s old progress – it was considered good in the Order. In fact, Jake had come to learn that leveling fast was viewed as a fool’s game, and he kind of understood why. There was no reason to try and rush through D-grade in a handful of years when you had millennia. Not that Jake would ever take that long, not unless Villy came up with another practice lesson like with Shroud.

in any subject. One such area was

Minor Poison Resistance (Inferior)] – A flask giving minor poison resistance against most forms of

Requirements: D-grade

Fortified Mana(Inferior)] – A increasing maximum mana by 50 for a

Requirements: D-grade

overlapping effects. So unless Jake made a way better

had already reached the “cap” of how much he could increase it. He had considered making some for health, but that would take a while to learn. Overall, there were many different flasks Jake was working on, but he quickly concluded it would take a long time to learn to craft the

matter how shit they were. This was what Villy had talked about when it came to Records, and apparently, his

misunderstand, Flasks could be great. They fell into a category a bit like his own Arcane Awakening and functioned as temporary boosting items. The best ones came with drawbacks, especially those circumventing the equipment stat cap from gear. In fact, there was a lot of overlap between equipment and Flasks. If Jake had a helm that granted him super fire magic resistance, he could not drink a Flask giving him even more fire resistance. However, he could drink a Flask giving him general magic resistance, or instead of resisting fire magic, gave him a temporary

because the biggest competitor for Flasks when it came to alchemical products were pills. Pills were actually a big competitor to like… everything. Pills could take so many damn forms and do pretty much everything there was, for one simple reason that honestly sounded so dumb Jake didn’t

Potions, Elixirs, Flasks, or whatever else liquid product condensed and turned into a solid form. The crafting method differs, but ultimately the same concepts apply, and the system recognizes them as equivalent. A healing pill will trigger the usual potion cooldown, a stat-increasing pill will count the same as any elixir, and a pill increasing your Strength temporarily will

yeah. This meant Jake had no interest in becoming a pill-focused alchemist even if pills had some advantages such as their smaller form-factor and their far longer shelf-life, but it often came at the

Neurotoxins were, of course, something he researched, but he also learned to make poison of different affinities, and he had especially two new types of

first of which was one making full use of Jake’s

corroding the energies of the target. Any target infected by Dark Shade Venom will suffer reduced Perception and damage. This poison is incredibly difficult to detect and heal but deals nearly no damage and

was incredibly valuable in prolonged battles and against certain foes. It was an insidious poison that would dig deep and slip into every bit of the target and, most importantly, was incredibly difficult to get rid of once infected. This did have some hidden benefits that were a primary reason

infected within someone. This poison would function as a scanner of sorts and allow Jake to easily keep track of a foe even if they didn’t notice they were infected. He was already theorizing an even better version made solely as a tracking poison, but that was

type of poison Jake dearly

of any entity it comes into contact with. This poison is incredibly fast-acting and will often expend

he had been utterly embarrassed by what was quite honestly a weak elemental and been forced to learn some basic magic to have a fighting chance. Back then, none of his poison had worked as he only knew hemotoxin and necrotic

changed in the least, and even after Fangs upgraded and he got the better venom, it was still ultimately reliant on his blood. If Jake met an elemental or even something like the Altmar Census

did know that Caleb’s dark

barriers and elementals alike. Of course, if he faced a lightning elemental, he would still be in for a bad time, but he was confident in working up another poison to

also dabbled in many other areas to shore up weaknesses, and he was still in the

had made no progress. There was a type of poison Jake had wanted to make for a good while, and he