The Primal Hunter

Chapter 967: Advanced Meal Prepping Chapter 967: Advanced Meal Prepping

A C-grade eating a Planetary Core? Yeah, that was such a ridicouless notion it wasn’t even worth thinking about, even if it was a broken core. Jake had said it before, but there was no way for a C-grade to consume all the energy within a core, and besides, when the core was removed from a planet, it would lose connection and naturally grow far less powerful and lose many of its properties.

But… what if Jake didn’t try to eat the Planetary Core but just a little piece of it? Just a good chunk seeped in the potent C-grade desolation affinity energy. That couldn’t be too harmful, right? Yeah, it should be fine, what’s the worst that can happen?

Alright, the worst case was Jake accidentally killing himself, but he believed in the powers of the Malefic Viper. He wouldn’t eat this fragment of the core any normal way but store it within the internal stomach of Palate of the Malefic Viper to then slowly absorb the energy over a long period of time.

Even if it turned out Jake couldn’t handle eating the core fragment, he remained fairly confident he would get out of it alive. At least, he assumed so, remembering everything that had happened with the Dark Witch when he got his last skill upgrade. Recalling parts of the description, Jake felt pretty confident.

”Natural treasures can be swallowed… If the item is not a toxin, the item will still be refined but at a slower pace… allows the Alchemist to fully consume a swallowed item, destroying it in the process if possible. If the item cannot be destroyed or the result of its destruction is too violent, the Alchemist will suffer a backlash, and the internal space will be damaged.”

Clearly, the skill could absorb something like a fragment of the core. The only big questions were if the ”failsafe” of destroying the item for immediate consumption would even work, and if it did work, would the backlash potentially prove lethal? Even if it did… it wasn’t like Jake didn’t have more tricks up his sleeve.

Right now, he still just had a legendary Blightroot from the gifts the Risen gave him during the Chosen ceremony, but now he wanted to replace it with something even more dangerous than a root of pure death. As a legendary item, he naturally still had much to absorb from it, but a part of this core would be so much more valuable.

Well… as the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. One had to take big risks to get big rewards, and Jake had never been the risk-averse sort. With that in mind, Jake made himself commit by getting the Blightroot out of his Palate stomach and into his regular storage.

As a final precaution, Jake quickly entered the Prima Vessel and took out one of the devices given by Arnold to communicate with people back on Earth. However, it couldn’t reach all the way back to Arnold, and he wasn’t sure if it was because he was inside the Vessel or too far away, but he quickly got an idea.

Taking the device, Jake purposefully summoned his Alchemist’s Flame and destroyed it. He remembered Miranda had a skill to contact him that was tailormade for the task, and he gambled on that working… and considering he felt a telepathic prope not even two minutes later, he was indeed correct.

”What’s going on? Arnold reported one of your communication devices broke. Are you okay?” Miranda asked in a worried voice, which made Jake feel a bit bad as he quickly reassured her.

”I’m fine, no cause for concern, but I needed a way to quickly contact you. Can you make sure to clear out the Prima Vessel on Earth for me? I may bring something pretty dangerous back, and it would be best if there weren’t anyone around,” Jake asked quickly.

”Can’t we clear out the area around one of the other teleportation circles? The Sword Saint and Eron are still on Earth, so they could potentially render assistance,” Miranda asked, likely assuming Jake would drag back some monster.

”No, best to keep everything contained within the Prima Vessel… but having Eron around might be a good idea. Ask him to go to the Prima Vessel and be ready, but only if he is confident in handling the concept of desolation,” Jake said after some thought.

you talking about the concept of desolation? What the hell are you doing?” Miranda asked, and Jake got the feeling much of her concern had now been replaced with

probably a little dumb,” Jake

sighed on the other end, not even arguing or

was even a bit proud of himself that he had the forethought to take precautions and clear out the Prima Vessel back on Earth. There was definitely a point in his life the

even have considered it an option, but this was a very special case. The core was already cracked in many places due

do the same back on Earth, but simply being in this environment, the Vessel’s durability had been significantly reduced. He did notice after cutting it that it seemed to have an even tougher inner shell, but with time, chances

all, and he didn’t believe this core chamber had a lot of time left. The core would naturally break far before the Prima Vessel would, and even if it didn’t, Jake was about to

to find the best weak point. Soon enough, he found somewhere the crack went deep and had a good

been taken

quickly hit some problems. As getting close to the core wasn’t the healthiest, Jake wanted to shoot a Protean Arrow designed to function as a

gave off actively fought and was supressed by the environment, and what’s more, even the bow

outright get dismantled, would it work properly as a wedge? It would turn brittle, especially that close to

expected, Eternal Hunger didn’t – to

curse of hunger. Desolation didn’t consume anything. It just removed energy and did so no energy could ever return. If desolation won, there would be nothing to eat, something

of the curse. On a funny side note, using the concept of desolation was one of the most effective methods of getting rid of curses or safely destroying cursed objects. Normally, if you destroyed something like Eternal Hunger,

a risk here. Even if Eternal Hunger somehow managed to absorb this entire Planetary Core, it wouldn’t have much of an adverse effect on the curse. There was simply a far too big

the question, Jake had to stick with Eternal Hunger. Luckily, the weapon had some very useful properties for this type of scenario. Continuing to inspect the cracks in the core, Jake began to slowly change the shape of Eternal Hunger to something more

higher risk as he would have to get right up to the large Planetary

far as he could. While he would have loved some fortunate moment of enlightenment and an upgrade, he wasn’t quite there yet. Finally, before it was go-time, Jake held nothing back as Arcane Awakening activated fully and wings sprung from his

summoned to take off some of the heat, but they would only do this much in an environment where summoning anything outside his body was borderline impossible. His scales struggled, some of them cracking as Jake quickly summoned

long… but he held on, and soon, he was right in front of the core. He lifted the weapon he would use to break this core right open as quite an odd sight played out that would definitely have

the simulacrum from another system-created reality, and undoubtedly one of, if not the most powerful weapons in the

strength on the crowbar to try and pry the huge core of desolation open, yet it remained stuck in the crack.

had wanted to avoid directly touching the core, but he saw no other choice as he stepped down on the core for increased leverage. Instantly, he felt