The Primal Hunter

”Good, now adjust the energy output… slowly… good, now do not forge- ah, you remembered, good. Alright… watch the outer circle, do not let the resonance fade. You need to maintain the equilibrium until a perfect balance is struck. Keep it up now… good, good… and the final part… perfect!” Grand Elder Duskleaf said in a proud voice as he inspected the magical formation.

Meira was covered in sweat and felt exhausted, yet proud, as she looked at her creation.

The large formation stretched out in front of her, lighting up with intense mana from the nine catalysts acting as batteries. In the center of it, energy gathered, and a small hole had already been pre-dug.

“Now for the seed to be planted,” Duskleaf said happily as Meira smiled and took out the tree seed from a lockbox she had left off to the side. It was a silverish seed, and she was excited to see it grow. Meira used mana to levitate it into the air and guided it into the hole. She proceeded to fill the hole with some special soil from afar, her Teacher standing encouragingly beside her. She then took out a watering can and took flight to get above the formation, and watered the entire thing. The formation responded to the magical water and pulsed with power as it fully activated and began feeding the seed energy.

“It’s done,” she smiled. She heard the sound of a notification as she gained a level, making her even more excited. One step closer to C-grade.

“Indeed it is,” Duskleaf nodded proudly. “The Silverpine Astral Tree should be able to reach at least ancient rarity with this formation, so it is something to be proud of.”

Meira smiled a bit and shook her head. “I am sure Teacher could do far better when he was my level.”

“Master used to slap me in the back of my head for failing to produce a single epic rarity plant while in D-grade,” the old god chuckled.

“That’s…” Meira said, fidgeting with her hands. She knew that her Teacher repeatedly said he wasn’t that good at lower grades, but… she had a hard time seeing it. Because today, no one would dispute he was one of the premier alchemists in the entire multiverse. How could he possibly have struggled to produce products at epic rarity?

Seeing her doubt, Teacher shook his head.

“I told you already, talent is a bonus, not a requirement, and that is only in cases where the talent does not become a handicap. The most important thing in the multiverse is work ethic. Nothing else matters if you do not have a good work ethic,” Duskleaf said. It was something Meira had heard many times before. She understood it from a logical perspective, but it was still hard to imagine. Could one really become a god just by working hard?

Everyone around her growing up had worked hard in the mines, day in and day out. They had toiled away endlessly to survive… but she did know why that didn’t count. One still had to challenge themselves. Something her Teacher could help her do.

“But you still need to know what to work on,” he continued, elaborating on her own thoughts. “If you decided to just replicate formation at or below your skill level over and over again, you will get nowhere. No, you need to constantly improve and challenge yourself. Without Master, I would have never even made it to C-grade. He was the one who guided me, gave me challenges, and whenever he felt I was stagnating, he gave me a push in the right direction. A guiding hand that made sure I would always face new challenges and be forced to improve. And I knew that he would have abandoned me without a second thought if I fell into complacency, for he did that with so many others who studied under him.”

“I understand, Teacher,” Meira said with a nod. She did not know if Grand Elder Duskleaf would also abandon her if he believed she was stagnating, and she did not intend to find out.

With Lord Thayne’s true identity as the Chosen of the Malefic One revealed to all, Teacher had finally taken her as an official disciple and even given her a Divine Blessing. He had gone so far as to allude to him not having a Chosen himself and hinted at her potentially getting her Blessing upgraded if she proved herself worthy. Meira couldn’t even think about becoming a Chosen as she was already overwhelmed by her current Blessing and elevated status.

No, no, she had something far less impactful she wanted to accomplish

Because… Meira had found her own goal. One separate from Lord Thayne and even her Teacher.

She wanted to free her clan.

knew that to do this, she would have to borrow the status of her Teacher, but she also wanted to go there with her head

on what Izil had told her, and while some would call it an infantile dream, Meira really wanted to be the one to go and “save” them. She wanted to bring them to the Order or perhaps even claim the entire clan as her own to protect it. Something she likely

longer a slave, her profession and class both bore marks of her being one. Both made

who she had become and not just her status as the student of the Grand

goal in the grand scheme of things… but it was perhaps the first

first goal

so

had eaten

moved from within the Order

begin to feel better after a few days, only to eat

loop of consumption due to all the evil people having given

was totally okay with the current

least most people seemed to think so. Not Jake,

the gym, drive home, and relax until he had to sleep to get up for work the next day. This constant flow of everyday life had helped keep Jake together during the nightmarish years before

years had passed, that Jake could truly understand how much life had sucked for him back then. How boring and meaningless the entire world had felt. Work had, ironically enough, allowed him to have something to focus

stuff, which was probably part of the reason he was good at alchemy. He still needed to always try and keep himself busy, and sitting still just never really worked for him. Jake would begin to feel restless if he did nothing for too long, so even when he was on “holiday” and

gave him some flashbacks to those calmer periods of his life, both before and after the integration. Life was incredibly simple here on the city floor, and the days blended together as the months passed. Jake just did alchemy day in and day out. Every “break” he took was going to one of the

had said, then one could fight there once a day versus monsters. One could also fight other people, but it

arena, and as long as you killed all that

the monsters you killed. Overall, Jake only saw this arena as some good exercise, and it helped him practice finishing foes faster. Sylphie and the Fallen King naturally went to this arena every day, and it had become their primary source of income. Both of them also sold stuff from within Nevermore to get more coins, as they were the slowest when

compared to those with professions. The two of them could still do other stuff besides the arena, but it gave little compared to just crafting. There were different facilities in the city that one could work for by assisting natives with

one out in their party. She did not have a profession, only her Dryad race and Druid class, but that did not make her any less of a crafter. It was only on this floor that Jake learned Dina had an amazing technique to make what was effectively genetically modified plants. She would communicate

crossbreeds. However, Jake and she quickly discovered that if they used

Jake had no idea why they bought stuff for what they did. These Brokers were all cloak-wearing humanoid creatures that dwelled within many near-identical shops spread throughout the city. These Brokers could be spoken to and negotiated with, and Jake did see some people get away with more Minaga Coins than he would expect by virtue of good

really work that well, though. Illusion magic or any kind of mental magic was also not an option, as these Brokers had one tiny little detail about them that made it unfeasible for

They were all A-grades.

to avoid people manipulating them with skills… so Jake guessed it made sense. Luckily for Jake, he never planned on manipulating them; he just sold his alchemical creations. Someone who could still kind of “manipulate” them was the final member of Jake’s party… because the old man had taken the coin lead by quite a margin through selling paintings. It turned out that creations with purely subjective values, such as works of

coins off seemed totally fair. That Jake, who had also worked his butt off, was still

Current Minaga Coins: 184,190/214,000

passed, so they weren’t gonna break that record that was mentioned to them, that is for sure. This meant they had spent well over two years within Nevermore so far, with nearly half the time spent on

that just grinding out alchemy products every day

of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 211

…