The Primal Hunter

Chapter 1008: Extreme Progress... Man, it felt like so long ago since Jake really dove into a field of alchemy that had nothing to do with poisons or curses. It was almost foreign that none of the energies he handled contained any harmful elements but that everything was just… nice.

Sure, the ingredients didn’t always agree with him, but the entire crafting process wasn’t one that could result in a large explosion capable of spreading a toxic cloud capable of killing a few nearby towns. Valhal had clearly expected Jake to be doing poison crafting, though, based on the lab they had assigned to him. It was within the classic large glass bubble that was effectively just a big bottle.

Actually, thinking about it, this was perhaps the most used clever use of system mechanics in the multiverse. It made use of the fact that the system allowed one to quite easily create bottles capable of storing pretty much any liquid or gas created using alchemy. One could make a poison so powerful that a single drop could turn a planet into a wasteland, and yet a simple bottle made by a common E-grade would be able to contain it without any problems. Of course, any normal person would put it in more secure storage than just its glass bottle, but the mere fact that the bottle could handle it was ridiculous.

The fact that the bottles were a borderline cheat when it came to containing poisons was then used to just make bigger bottles. House-sized potions and poison bottles with entire laboratories within. Jake had one in the Order, one on Earth, and now one here. Making these special laboratories was such basic knowledge that even Hank back on Earth knew about it – or one of the people he worked with had known – way back when the lab was made.

As Jake worked within the laboratory, he thought about other common exploits that had just become normal and were used daily. It was possible some had become so darn common that people didn’t even know it made use of what was effectively an exploit in the system.

Then again… was it really an exploit? If it was, couldn’t the system just shut it down any time it wanted? Based on everything Villy had said, the system was effectively omnipotent. It actively chose not to interfere in some matters, not because it couldn’t, but because it had decided to designate that thing as “outside the system.” It was that or something just being the way it was due to system-fuckery.

So maybe the big bubble laboratories had always been an intended system feature? Or was it just like those bugs in games before the system that the playerbase ended up finding fun to use, only to then see them turn into official features?

It would be funny if that were the case… but just before Jake’s mind wandered to the glorious history of bunny-hopping, his current brew was finished, drawing him fully back to the present. With a smile, he looked at the yellow-brownish liquid in the cauldron and, after bottling it up, used Identify.

[Body Potion (Common)] – Restores 41,222 health and 25,051 stamina when consumed.

Okay, the result was kind of shit, and he could get more resources from just creating a regular Malefic Health Potion, but he still wasn’t that sad about the outcome. It was better than the last batch by a fair margin, and he was still using pretty low-quality ingredients to make the crafting process easier.

Better ingredients naturally meant one could make a better product, but the reason the ingredients were better in the first place was because they contained more energy and energy of higher purity and potency. This made them harder to deal with without fucking up, and while Jake would gladly be selfishly reckless with the Order’s ingredient storage back in the first universe, that wasn’t really an option here.

Even if Valhal wanted Jake to take the best they had, they didn’t have that big of stock in the first place, as they couldn’t get stuff from other universes but only had what they could gather themselves. So, Jake decided to save some of the better stuff for when he got better at making these potions to go for that uncommon rarity push.

He also needed to add one more important aspect: making the potion truly his own. He considered if he could modify using either his arcane affinity or by attuning it to his own blood and adding the Malefic tag, and after very little consideration, he settled on the latter. The potion already restored health, so it was the most obvious choice in the first place. It didn’t really synergize with the stamina portion of the potion, though, but Jake saw that as a sacrifice he was willing to make, even if it would throw the balance off a little. He often needed more health points than stamina anyway, primarily because he had so much mana and that many of his skills used both mana and stamina at the same time, giving him a lot more longevity in fights compared to someone using purely one of the resources.

Anyhow, Jake crafted a few more mixtures of the regular Body Potion after that before he switched gears and tried experimenting by mixing in his blood and attuning the potions to his own body. From there, he tried many different things, with the mixture failing every time as he couldn’t quite get the balance right. He’d only learned about Body Potions ten days earlier, so it was natural he still wasn’t that good at making them. Alas, it wasn’t like they were ultimately that hard, and after only three days, he found the right equilibrium and got a successful craft.

You have successfully crafted [Malefic Body Potion (Common)] – A new kind of creation has been made. Bonus experience earned

’DING!’ Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 281 - Stat points allocated, +35 Free Points

Jake smiled at his success as well as the gained level. It was frankly a bit overdue, and it had been way too long since he’d made some real progress due to all the damn soul damage and whatnot. Now that he was picking up steam again, though, he had a feeling he would begin to see a lot more progress.

its yellowish brown to a very deep red with a tinge of green in there, with the entire thing looking very toxic to consume. Nevertheless, Jake happily bottled it up and looked at his creation with

59,920 health and 27,711 stamina when consumed. Will cause damage to anyone

technically better purely numbers-wise. Sure, it gave quite a lot less health in exchange for the stamina, but overall, it was an improvement for sure.

the wider multiverse yet, making him return to his alchemy as he began to mass-produce Malefic Body Potions with a focus on improving the process. He ended up failing about a third of all crafts, primarily because he tried something new that

high-value ingredients offered to him, and if he had more shame, Jake would probably have felt guilty for robbing them, but he was too busy crafting to worry about stuff like that. Plus, it wasn’t as if Valhal didn’t benefit as he, at times, had other alchemists come

illicitly lifted; should you spot it on

really began to feel the benefits of his improvement in mana control from practicing so much with the Puzzle Box of the Seeker, as it allowed him to pick up on any flaws far more quickly than usual,

flaws in what he was doing and adjust on the fly far more effectively than pretty much anyone his level. Perception was an important stat for pretty much all crafting professions, after all, and Jake had a lot

because they had been designed to be made by Valhal alchemists, who didn’t really have any Legacy classes or professions that focused a lot on Perception or alchemy in the first place. This was at least why Jake guessed it didn’t even take him a week to have another

– A new kind of creation has

the Malefic Viper] has reached level 282 - Stat points allocated, +35

289 -

feelings of even more levels as he checked

29,631 stamina when consumed. Will cause damage to anyone besides

thus in the realm of uncommon potions. Due to promises he’d made, he went to the other alchemists – who were also the ones who restocked him with ingredients – and showed off his newest creation. This was the first uncommon potion any of them had ever seen crafted by a native of the universe, and besides the Malefic tag excusing why it was so much better

unique crafting methods or even that he made something better than them. That was only to be expected, as even if he was on his way to being a Usurper, he was still the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, and the fact he wanted to usurp the Path of the Malefic Viper was proof he genuinely cared about

had seen his first Malefic Body Potion and could now see how much better Jake had gotten in less than a week. One of them couldn’t

such rapid improvement? How do you eliminate flaws in the crafting process and increase

to get from elixirs, which made him

on Earth, but it appeared that their strategy for the Milky Way Galaxy had worked out well, as nothing much was really happening everywhere. Stuff had stabilized as everyone

would net him not only new kinds of creations but it would also be his first time properly making any kind of regeneration-style potion at all. If he even managed to

than expected, and not just when it came to making potions. His experience gain was honestly extreme, and Jake was astonished at the effects of not having crafted for a while and making new stuff… at least, he assumed

succeeded in most of his goals. On the forty-eighth day since he made his first uncommon Malefic Body Potion, Jake succeeded in making a

(Uncommon)] – A new kind of creation has been

regular Body Restoration potion with his blood, with the end result

sixty (60) minutes, or until an additional 61,099 health and

regular Body Restoration Potion at uncommon rarity yet, though he was close. So, in that sense, it wasn’t surprising to see the Malefic version of the potion get over the threshold, but just

over the hour only counted half, this one landed at 128,603 resources restored according to the uncommon rarity upgrade requirement