The Primal Hunter Volume 4

Slow And Steady Wins the Race J ake read the book in his bed as he went over the information in a crystal he had gained from the prior day’s lesson. Finding everything to be in order, he nodded along. Then, with a wave of his hand, he destroyed the crystal and scattered the dust with a blast of destructive arcane mana. After all, the fellow student he had gained it from had asked him to. Well over a month had passed since Jake had entered the Order of the Malefic Viper, and honestly? Things were going well. He had expected way more Bloodline trouble or people trying to start s**t with him, but so far, everyone had been perfectly civil. Okay, he’d had a run-in with one moron in a lesson where they had to spar. The dude had been an overly confident asshole when he was clearly wrong, but Jake had chosen to be gracious and not assume malice where it may just be ignorance. However, he wasn’t the one making the most progress. As he sat on the bed, he heard a knock on the door, and he opened it to a far more kept-together elf in a white dress. She slightly bowed. "Sir, I have brought the book you requested from the Order Library." "Thanks, Meira," Jake said with a smile as he got off the bed and went over to accept the book. Meira smiled in response as she gave it to him. "Any issues getting it?" "None. The librarian was very helpful there.” She bowed again. "I shall return to my studies if there is no other matter Sir needs me to take care of?" "There isn’t. How are the lessons going, by the way?" Jake already knew the answer for the most part. "I am doing my utmost and believe I am making acceptable progress," Meira answered with a small, embarrassed smile. Jake just smirked a bit in response as he finally allowed her to scurry away. Meira was surely embarrassed because a teacher had sent her back with a letter of recommendation to her "sponsor." It was a letter that would allow Meira to attend another lesson taught by the same teacher for a heavy discount. The letter was addressed to Jake and had some assumptions within he had cracked up over. However, the crux of it was that Meira was quite a talented healer and had a great talent for metaphysiology—the study of the metaphysical body. The letter had assumed Meira was an employee of Jake or perhaps just a follower of his. From what Jake had gathered, no one Meira had met during any lessons had even the slightest clue she was a slave or even a servant. As for the lesson, Jake had already allowed her to go; it wasn’t even a question to him. But that she had even asked and expressed interest was huge progress. Her coming out and saying she had a preference or a wish was something the Meira of one month ago would never have done. She would’ve just done whatever Jake wanted, never voicing her own thoughts. There was also the huge thing of her now calling him "Sir," and she didn’t stumble over her words to avoid calling him the banned M-word. It was slow but steady progress, and in the end, the best method to have her get more comfortable was simply time. She also smiled more and didn’t seem as nervous as before. The only place with absolutely no progress was in the department of randomly visiting gods, AKA Viper visits. The closest to progress there was her being able to leave the area whenever he visited without passing out. Half the time, at least. Jake himself had also made good progress. He had only gained a single level in his profession, bringing him to level 152, which came from him experimenting a bit in his own time. While that seemed slow—and was, compared to Jake’s old progress—it was considered good in the Order. In fact, Jake had come to learn that leveling fast was viewed as a fool’s game, and he kind of understood why. There was no reason to try and rush through D-grade in a handful of years when you had millennia. Not that Jake would ever take that long—not unless Villy came up with another practice lesson like with Shroud. As for what he had learned… Well, a lot, most of it the most basic there was in any subject. One such area was flasks, where Jake had finally made a few, even if they were quite honestly crap. [flask of Minor Poison Resistance (Inferior)] – A flask giving minor poison resistance against most forms of toxins for a duration of thirty (30) minutes. Requirements: D-grade [flask of Fortified Mana(Inferior)] – A flask increasing maximum mana by 50 for a duration of thirty (30) minutes. Requirements: D-grade The first gave so little poison resistance it was inconsequential, and it worked before his Palate, as they had overlapping effects. So unless Jake made a way better version, it did nothing for him besides preventing him from consuming another flask for a full day, as that was the cooldown. The flask of Fortified Mana was even worse, as there was once more overlap with his mask. As his mask increased mana by 25%, the flask served no purpose, since he had already reached the "cap" of how much he could increase it. He had considered making some for health, but that would take a while to learn. Overall, there were many different flasks Jake was working on, but he quickly concluded it would take a long time to learn to craft the useful ones. There was also the problem of Jake being unable to make any flasks for those below D-grade, no matter how s**t they were. This was what Villy had talked about when it came to Records, and apparently, his Myth Originator title just made it worse. So, yeah, he could make flasks no one wanted, not even himself. Not to misunderstand, flasks could be great. They fell into a category a bit like his own Arcane Awakening and functioned as temporary boosting items. The best ones came with drawbacks, especially those circumventing the equipment stat cap from gear. In fact, there was a lot of overlap between equipment and flasks. If Jake had a helm that granted him super fire magic resistance, he could not drink a flask giving him even more fire resistance. However, he could drink a flask that gave him general magic resistance or, instead of resisting fire magic, gave him a temporary anti-fire shield with a set absorption amount that didn’t take any advantage of his fire resistance. So, yeah, if you had the right flask for the right situation, they could be amazing. And this was a great segue, because the biggest competitor for flasks when it came to alchemical products were pills. Pills were actually a big competitor to, like… everything. Pills could take so many damn forms and do pretty much everything there was, for one simple reason that honestly sounded so dumb Jake hadn’t believed it when the teacher said it the first time: "Pills are just potions, elixirs, flasks, or whatever else liquid product condensed and turned into a solid form. The crafting method differs, but ultimately the same concepts apply, and the system recognizes them as equivalent. A healing pill will trigger the usual potion cooldown, a stat-increasing pill will count the same as any elixir, and a pill increasing your Strength temporarily will share all cooldowns and limits as a flask." So… yeah. This meant Jake had no interest in becoming a pill-focused alchemist, even if pills had some advantages, such as their smaller form factor and their far longer shelf life, but it often came at the cost of a near-negligible reduction in effect and a small increase in cost.