The Primal Hunter

Sometimes, it was good to take a little break to take your mind off things and just chill. And Jake’s ultimate method of taking his mind off things was to really dive into doing some alchemy… so that was precisely what he did. Plus, being at Valhal, this was a great opportunity.

Different factions all had varying methodologies for their Professions and crafting in general. Their Legacies were based on prior heroes of the faction and what they passed down to the next generation through knowledge in the form of books, recipes, and still-living teachers, but also – and perhaps far more importantly – Records and skills.

The Order of the Malefic Viper was a good example of this. The Order was filled with alchemists because the Malefic Viper had been hailed as the greatest alchemist in the multiverse when it came to making poisons and certain branches of transmutation. The Records of the Viper was naturally passed down to the next generation, who often relied on skills granted by the Legacy, such as Palate of the Malefic Viper, and any research they conducted ended up with certain assumptions and lack of exploration in certain areas. The easiest example of this was how the Order didn’t really have any methods to lessen the expulsion of toxic fumes during crafting, but instead even had ways to amplify it, as to them, these fumes just helped better understand what one was crafting. There were countless more examples, but it all boiled down to the same thing: how Legacies colored one’s thought process and approach to something.

Valhal was the same. They had a lot of brewers because of Valdemar and his love of alcohol, and culturally, it was viewed as one of the “cool” professions to have. Valhal also had a lot more cooks than organizations like the Order or nearly any other faction, as they naturally needed good food with the booze. With how much they broke stuff, those focused on construction were also a must, and none of this mentioned their many special professions, such as the one Carmen had that revolved around making effigies and offerings to the warriors of old.

However, in the same vein that the Order also had builders, cooks, smiths, and all other professions, Valhal also had their fair share of alchemists. Alchemists who had built knowledge over dozens of eras and developed their own approaches to the profession. They didn’t have Palate; thus no natural poison resistance, and Valhal also didn’t really do poisons in the first place.

Neither did they do much transmutation, acids, classical formations, or much of what Jake had learned a lot about. Instead, they focused on the far more classical alchemical creations: potions, flasks, and elixirs. To Valhal, potions were perhaps the most important as they were supportive tools to help you last longer in a fight or to boost yourself before it. Elixirs were pretty much mandatory for one to fill up those extra potential stat points one could get, though there were many other ways to get those permanent bonuses than alchemy. Shit, on Valhal’s planet in the Milky Way Galaxy, they had what Jake could only describe as a large gym filled with odd formations and training machines with the ability to permanently increase stats the same way as elixirs.

Anyway, the point was, while Valhal was far worse at alchemy in general than a place such as the Order of the Malefic Viper, they did have a different perspective and methodology on how to best use the profession. Having been told several times to broaden his horizons more to get new inspiration, Jake decided to take his time in Valhal to truly experience their alchemy.

With the help of Bobby, Jake got access to a lot of otherwise confidential material and, with a bit of pressure from Carmen, the ingredients he would need to do his experimentation. Jake had considered how to spend his time at Valhal the best and only really boiled it down to two options of what to focus on:

Potions or flasks.

Not to say they were useless, far from it.

Firstly, they were supremely useful for people who didn’t have a proper boosting skill. While Jake kind of took it for granted as every one of his pals had one, they were far from universal. Boosting skills also came with a high risk as they effectively put you on a timer when used in nearly all cases, and overstraining the body for too long could be very unhealthy. Flasks did tend to be more gentle and perhaps more importantly, did not always make you consume more resources for the temporary power increase.

Secondly, they could be far more specialized. Jake had a boosting skill that increased all his stats, in part because he used all of them while fighting due to his style. However, others had more specialized ones. Carmen’s boosting skill increased her melee combat power by boosting her physical stats, but it naturally didn’t give her more Wisdom or Intelligence. While it probably wasn’t relevant to her, having a flask in a situation where boosting one of the skills her normal boosting skill didn’t affect could be incredibly useful.

Their third major use was in a form Jake hadn’t ever encountered, though he had read about it. Valhal had some books that spoke about it, though. It was a form of flask Valhal called “Berserker’s Boon,” and while It definitely had another name in other places, they tended to have the same effect:

Allowing you to overdraft on your own potential without the same massive risk of blowing yourself up afterward… something that did tend to be quite the negative for people who weren’t like Jake and had insane energy control.

Anyway, Berserker’s Boons were liquid versions of Jake bringing his boosting skill above the safe limit, where it would begin to actively destroy his own body. These flasks that Valhal made were a bit different, though. They leaned into the concept of equivalent exchange, where one could trade one thing for another in order to gain more power with less cost. As the name Berserker’s Boon indicated, it was a potion that also used the concept of Berserkers and effectively allowed any warrior who consumed it to turn into one… at the cost of also having the mind of a Berserker.

Jake had read about this kind of flask and after asking Bobby, gone to an alchemy lab where people from Valhal worked. There, he met the best alchemist Valhal had in the entire Milky Way Galaxy, who gladly showed off her magnum opus to Jake:

[Berserker’s Boon (Ancient)] – A flask created by an extremely talented alchemist from Valhal. Allows the user to temporarily enter a Berserker’s Rage, increasing all physical stats while lowering mental ones. +50% Strength, Agility, Toughness, Endurance, and Vitality. The effectiveness of Intelligence, Wisdom, and Perception is significantly decreased. All mental faculties are additionally reduced. During Berserker’s Rage, natural regeneration is significantly improved the lower the user’s health is, all pain is ignored, and the user can keep moving for a short period of time even if Health Points reach 0. This flask lasts for a maximum duration of thirty (30) minutes. Duration is reduced based on the actions of the consumer. After expiration, the user may suffer significant backlash that could prove fatal, dependent on the user’s health points.

Jake inspected the flask with interest as he scratched his chin. “Pretty good… but not sure how useful it is and if the tradeoff is worth the extra stats provided. Not being in your right mind can easily prove fatal to a warrior, and with the bonus being what it is…”

Stolen novel; please report.

The alchemist who’d made it clearly took offense as she crossed her arms. “You say a 50% increase in stats isn’t worth it? It makes any warrior who consumes it become a powerhouse instantly, and sure, they might not act the smartest during it, but with the pain immunity and increased regeneration, taking one down won’t be easy at all.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s bad, just not sure about the actual use case,” Jake tried to clarify. “Seeing as it’s ancient rarity, I doubt they are cheap or easy to make, so it’s not like you can give these to every warrior and turn them all into powerhouses, right?”

“Naturally not,” the alchemist answered, motioning Jake to proceed and get to his point.

“So the ones who would usually use something like this are already pretty damn strong in the first place to be worth the investment… which means they likely already have a boosting skill able to compete with it. One I doubt has the same drawbacks,” Jake laid out his argument.

The alchemist stared at Jake for a moment, genuinely confused. “What in the nine hells are you talking about? This is a 50% increase. 5 and 0.”

That’s when Jake was once more reminded he had an overpowered boosting skill, and that he could take a far higher level of stat increase than the regular person. As he used his own arcane affinity for his boosting skill, he naturally had a high level of resistance to it. His arcane affinity also just seemed fit for boosting him in the first place. Finally, Arcane Supremacy had only made the boosting skill even better.

Still, even with all that, Jake could only boost all his stats by 60% for a pretty limited amount of time, and even then, he would be taking damage throughout. He could boost his offensive or defensive skills by 50% without any real backlash, so his boosting skill was definitely better than this flask, but it wasn’t actually that far off.

This was what ultimately led Jake to not use his time trying to study flasks more deeply, though he did find it useful to learn more about them. Alas, he wouldn’t be able to make anything that could actually help him compared to his boosting skills, and he was a selfish bastard who didn’t want to spend a long time learning how to craft something he would never personally be able to benefit from. And, again, all his friends already had banger boosting skills, so they didn’t need it either. Oh, and if they didn’t have a great boosting skill… well, that was literally just a skill issue and something for them to fix themselves.

After apologizing to the alchemist and encouraging her to keep working hard on her berserk flasks, Jake went to visit some other alchemist to study something that would definitely help him as he chugged those down more often than an overworked salary worker consumed coffee: potions.

To be clear, Jake was already really fucking good at making potions. He could make better ones than any of the alchemists at Valhal, though that was in part due to his far superior stats compared to everyone else. Higher stats just made crafting easier, thus allowing one to faster improve one’s technique, and stats also just helped add to the final product, making Jake overpowered just from that alone. Coupled with his skills in crafting potions… yeah, he was pretty damn good, and one would be hard-pressed to find other alchemists at his level capable of crafting equally as good potions. They could still be more skilled than him, though it was hard to determine.

That didn’t mean he didn’t have room for improvement. And while flasks only ended up being a novelty, Jake definitely had something to learn when it came to making potions. While Jake wouldn’t say Valhal had a better Legacy when it came to making potions compared to the Order of the Malefic Viper, they weren’t that far off. Only when it came to potions restoring stamina and health, though. Their methodology for making mana potions was the most basic of basic, with their primary approach to “just buy some if you really need it.”

Either way, during Nevermore, Jake had continually improved his Brew Potion skill and gotten it to uncommon rarity when he crafted his first potion capable of restoring over 100,000 mana. However, even now, he still wasn’t able to make a health potion capable of restoring the same amount… which probably shouldn’t be that surprising, considering he still only had a bit over 200,000 health points total. Meanwhile, he had around 220,000 stamina and nearly 450,000 mana.

Jake being able to craft a potion capable of restoring 100,000 of any resource was already damn impressive, and many viewed it as a goal of C-grade to upgrade the Brew Potion skill – a goal many didn’t meet. Jake wasn’t satisfied with just making the easiest mana potion but also wanted to make uncommon health potions, and he wasn’t super far off.

One had to remember Jake was helped along by making Arcane Mana Potions and Malefic Health Potions, both specifically suited to him and him alone. These potions did have the massive drawback of not being usable by other people, but again, Jake was a selfish bastard. It wasn’t like he couldn’t make the regular kind for others either – something his entire Nevermore party who he’d been consistently providing potions for during their decades there, would gladly attest to.

Meeting the alchemists who specialized in potions, Jake expected to see their methods of crafting health and stamina potions, but instead, he saw something else… because they weren’t making a lot of those. Instead, they made what Jake first suspected to be rejuvenation potions, which confused him as they didn’t need mana, so why would they make a potion capable of restoring all resources?

However, after seeing the final product, Jake understood. They were making a potion assumed would be possible but had never really come across. One that did restore multiple resources at once but focused only on the physical side of things.

[Body Potion (Common)] – Restores 21,222 health and 16,051 stamina when consumed.

The potion itself looked brownish-yellow, being a mix between the green from stamina and red from health potions. Being able to make mixed potions like this in the first place really wasn’t that surprising, but what did surprise Jake was the efficiency. Rejuvenation potions were known for restoring more resources in total than if you consumed individual potions, but it wasn’t that much more. However, when Jake spoke to the alchemists who mass-produced potions for Valhal, he learned that these Body Potions tended to restore between seventy to eighty percent in a resource of what regular potions would have restored to it. In other words, if one just counted the total resources restored, these potions tended to restore fifty or so percent more.

Instantly, Jake’s interest was piqued. Due to Jake’s insanely high mana pool, he often ended up having to pick between stamina and health potions while out hunting, so being able to consume one that did both things at once would be awesome. Moreover, with how much they restored, Jake instantly saw potential in making an uncommon rarity version. As long as the combined restored resources were above a hundred thousand, the final product should be uncommon.

Overcoming that barrier and making more uncommon potions was big, not just because it was useful, but it was also damn good for levels. Potions had always been a bit weird with how they upgraded, so every time one managed to do a jump in rarity, it came with a lot of Records and experience for the first crafts.

Of course, with only a few different kinds of potions available, Jake wasn’t going to have a lot of experience to farm… that’s until he was introduced to another product.

Jake had known about regeneration potions for a long time but never bothered with them. They were mostly made for people to recover after fights and not during a fight and tended to just give a percentage increase, which synergized well with meditation skills and whatnot that also sped up recovery.

What Valhal showed to him wasn’t that, but something he instantly saw massive potential in… something called a Restoration Potion.

[Body Restoration Potion (Common] – Restores 17,315 health and 14,972 stamina. Increases health and stamina regeneration significantly for the next sixty (60) minutes, or until an additional 17,315 health and 14,972 stamina has been restored.

Less immediate regeneration than the regular version but more restored over an hour. Considering the cooldown of potions was also an hour… these were just pure efficiency. Now, the extra regeneration only counted for half toward the uncommon rarity upgrade requirement – meaning it had to restore 150,000 total at a minimum – but that didn’t seem impossible at all… especially not if he found a way to combine these new kinds of potions with his unique modifiers. Turning them Malefic should be possible as that mainly relied on his blood, right?

It definitely should be… and if it was, it meant he had a lot of new kinds of potions to craft at uncommon rarity, which meant a lot of potential experience to earn while he had to wait for Yip of Yore to stop stalling and finally get his shit together and fight Villy. Alas, no matter what, Jake being at a higher level when that time came would only be better, so for now, it was time for a slight Valhal alchemy intermission.