The Primal Hunter

Jake had seen a more nervous than usual Meira off as she went to one of her classes. He knew it was because she wouldn’t be returning alone but had agreed to bring her friends along. It would be a lie if he said he didn’t find it endearing and waited expectantly as he also worked on his own progress in the meantime.

He had appropriately begun scouring the library for books related to the Legacy of the Malefic Viper and had also searched for lessons related to the skills but quickly found a rather glaring issue on both these fronts. There were no books directly about the Legacy skills, only legacies in general, and on the lesson front, there were only really some related to Palate of the Malefic Viper. Jake did stumble across a scarce few related to Sense and Blood too, but both of these were incredibly low-level ones and seemed to be more about how one could obtain the skills. Quite a bit away from finding a way to upgrade it to legendary rarity.

So rather than looking for direct sources on how to upgrade his skills, he began researching the more general methods of upgrading Legacy skills and ways of upgrading skills close to what Jake had. Perception-based sensing skills to find herbs or toxic materials and whatnot were extremely common and well-researched, so Jake happily dove in and began reading. He decided to first focus on ways to improve the far less impressive Poison Sense Jake had merged into Sense of the Malefic Viper, hoping to find some inspiration.

His enthusiasm quickly dwindled as Jake went into the section on practice methods. As with most things, the best advice given was just to get practical experience. However, the books heavily advised against the alchemist trying to test and improve sensing skills during combat for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it was overly risky to try and focus on it during a fight. Secondly, you wouldn’t know your opponent properly and what skills they had to avoid your senses and their poison resistance, making progress far less reliable. Third, it was just hard to properly focus and think logically and analytically while in a battle. Using the poison on someone far weaker than yourself wasn’t as helpful when researching as using it against someone of equal or superior power, which is why the alchemists who had written the book recommended the same thing: living test subjects.

They suggested ”investing” preferably in a slave or a bound creature to do this with. As you needed someone or something stronger than yourself, it even mentioned that renting one was possible, but emphasized that another great benefit of living subjects was the ability to use the same one and track the progress that way. It reduced the number of factors that came into place with using new test subjects every time, and if one got a sapient slave that was professionally trained, they could even have skills to convey the effects of the toxins – something especially useful when experimenting with mind affinity poisons.

As Jake read all this, he was a bit taken aback. Not by what it said, but by how it was written. It was clearly considered normal and not at all something anyone would question. It mentioned using these subjects with the same phrasing as one would use about any other type of tool like a cauldron.

Needless to say, Jake was not going to get any test subjects, and the more he read about it, the more he understood why Meira had kind of assumed that would be part of her job when she first met Jake. It was, in the eyes of the Order, considered a task akin to tending the gardens or any other service the slave could offer.

Jake still wanted practical experience with his Sense of the Malefic Viper and ended up finding some good things. There was a training dungeon set up by the Order that one could spend AC to enter that housed a lot of different toxins with innate properties to hide as well as some beasts and monsters to practice on. Making a mental note, he decided to visit one of these places.

On the subject of Blood of the Malefic Viper, it was a bit of a dead-end as the lessons were either about how one could possibly gain the skill or how to use the skill in alchemy. There was one lesson that seemed worth checking, and Jake also mentally noted that.

As Jake was still researching and doing some light alchemy, whenever he got bursts of inspiration, he felt movement within his sphere. In the entrance hall of the mansion, four figures stepped out. One of them was naturally Meira, with the three others an elf, a scalekin, and a very tall dwarf or small ogre. Half-ogre, Jake guessed.

He didn’t move to greet them as they all headed to the library as expected. Jake saw them all walk and talk, and everything seemed nice. A cursory look made it clear the half-ogre was primarily a close friend of the scalekin while the other elf stuck closely with Meira. Meira did seem a bit out of place, but Jake saw her smile whenever she answered, making him a bit happy.

They entered the library, and Meira began finding some books as the other elf helped. The scalekin and half-ogre just sat down at a table as they waited. It almost looked as if they hurried Meira, but he wasn’t sure, considering he could only see and not hear anything happening.

After locating the books, they took their seats and began discussing things. Jake simply looked on as nothing noteworthy happened for the next fifteen or so minutes. Finally, Meira said something to the other elf, her customary nervous face on full display. The other elf nodded as the two of them left the library, the scalekin seemingly yelling something after them.

At that moment, Jake cursed the ever-present enchantments on all the doors and walls that isolated sound, effectively making every room the inside of an isolation barrier. Meira and the other elf headed straight for Jake’s laboratory, where he had spent the last few days. They talked a bit more, and just before Meira could knock on the door, Jake made it open telekinetically.

to show off a bit

saw him. Jake was sitting in a rather comfortable chair behind a table,

couldn’t really see as Jake had chosen to keep his mask

confirmed as he bowed slightly. ”Indeed. It is a

simply answered. He honestly couldn’t be arsed trying to conceal his real

looked back towards Meira and then back

what she wanted and really hoped it wasn’t something weird. Chances are she wanted to take

he still answered. ”Meira, if

and likely had some of the

on the two of them anymore. With great

[Elf – lvl 141]

you are a busy individual,” Izil said courteously, but Jake already knew there was a ”but” coming down the line. ”I am Izil,

having already introduced himself before. He didn’t see any need to explain he had a black token, as she clearly knew, though he was a

already have an inkling as to why I

was there.

is related to Meira,

be. She was the only commonality

then Meira is a slave which you own or at least have

Jake nodded.

done, then you have a backer making you able to afford some splurging when it comes to Academy Credits, but even so. What

Jake dismissively said. ”You do not need to know what I intend, but if you are worried, then I can at the

you do not know this, but the Altmar Empire has a standing order in place to free and help return elves

it further, it made sense. The Altmar Empire was an empire of elves, and according to what he knew, a bit, eh… ”judgemental” towards those who were not elves. For a race believing themselves superior to not want their brethren to be slaves or maybe even viewing it as an insult if some were wasn’t surprising. It did raise some questions as to why there clearly were many elven slaves around, but that wasn’t a discussion he wanted to start. However, even if such a standing order was in place

do not see what that has to do with me,” Jake

you is backed and supported by the Empire, and so will any eventual compensation. In essence,

he wanted her to become a fully-fledged member of the Order by herself, but if there were alternatives, he

that Jake was not entirely against