The Primal Hunter

The vision quickly materialized as Jake found himself in a large cave. Extremely dense mana dominated the area, with the source being a humanoid figure sitting in the center. It was naturally the Malefic Viper as he looked to be doing alchemy. The black cauldron in front of him was giving off a faint mist, and the would-be Primordial looked to be focusing deeply.

Yet after a dozen seconds, Jake noticed the mist change color, and he instantly knew: the creation was ruined.

”Pathetic!” the Viper cursed as he slapped the cauldron away, making the rancid failed brew spill all over the cavern. ”Absolutely pathetic.”

His anger was palpable, though the only one he was angry at was himself. Thinking back, Jake had never seen the Viper actually do alchemy normally, making him more than interested in seeing his methodology. With it being part of a vision, the insight Jake got would also be far more substantial.

After a few moments, the Viper sighed and, with a wave of his hand, had the cauldron float over again. A bit of cleaning later, he tried once more, Jake feeling the entire process from the beginning this time around. As he did this, Jake also got a far better feel for the Viper’s level.

Barely C-grade.

Jake did not know if it was a pattern, but he felt like the visions got closer and closer to Jake’s own level with every passing one. While it could be argued that seeing a vision from Villy’s later years would be more beneficial as he would experience higher-level concepts and more advanced skills, the opposite was also true. Seeing lower-leveled skills made it easier for Jake to pick up insights and comprehend what the Viper did.

In this case, Jake could actually understand what the Viper did quite easily. Primarily because of how pathetically simple his work was… because what the Viper was trying to make wasn’t anything complicated but just a normal health potion. So, yeah, Villy talking about how his failure was pathetic was kind of on-point.

He also noticed how the cauldron wasn’t anything special. Jake could not Identify it but guessed that it was common or uncommon rarity at most. Seeing these things, Jake became more and more sure exactly when in the timeline this was.

This was just after the Viper learned to take human form and wanted to learn more regular alchemy. As a snake or even winged snake, the Viper did not do alchemy the conventional way as far as Jake had gathered. Rather than crafting using mana, it was more like using internal energy to hone and store toxins. In humanoid form, the Viper had to switch it up and learn to do alchemy the same way humans did, which was an entirely different approach. An approach he clearly struggled with.

The Viper kept cursing as he failed another crafting attempt, time now being sped up in Jake’s vision. Having experienced these visions so many times before, Jake knew what he was waiting for: the moment of the Viper’s epiphany. Jake didn’t believe the skill would show him the Viper just failing over and over again… though that would be quite funny.

A few more failures happened, all with sped-up time. The level of frustration of the Viper grew with every second, and he even began to take out different booklets to skim through. Basic crafting books about potions.

Jake’s sense of schadenfreude from the Viper sucking so much at potions eventually turned to confusion. Even if the Viper failed a few times, it didn’t make sense he kept failing. He was C-grade, and Jake could see Villy’s level of mana control was far beyond the required level to craft a simple healing potion.

Clearly, Villy also realized this problem as he scanned the books one by one. Sometimes he took out the cauldron and tried again, but the process just kept failing. Jake watched on as his frown deepened and noticed something. There were small flaws… small oversights in the Viper’s base brew that Jake had never encountered before when he made potions. As time passed, the Viper also noticed this issue and was as stumped as Jake was.

However, another disparity became clear between Jake and the Viper… a disparity Jake had never imagined. He failed to hold back a smile at the realization.

He had more Perception than the Malefic Viper.

Not the real one, obviously, but he had more than this newly evolved C-grade version of Villy. Villy also didn’t have Jake’s Bloodline or his basic crafting skills, much less a proper cauldron, making it even harder for him to discover whatever stumped him. He truly was like those alchemists at the Court.

As for what Villy lacked, Jake also discovered it quite easily.

All alchemists – those with the profession, that is – possessed crafting skills. Brew Potion was the applicable skill in this instance. However, as a beast, Villy did not have such a crafting skill and was trying to one-hundred percent freeform magic the alchemy.

The reason why the method failed was that the books expected the Viper to have the required skills. Those skills helped one with so many different things, including automation of certain minor aspects that the Viper was now missing.

With the lacking Perception, it also looked like Villy wouldn’t be able to figure it out. The fast-forwarding of the vision soon stopped having as many pauses as Jake felt time pass. Days turned to weeks as weeks turned to months. The Viper kept trying to craft basic potions, sometimes getting closer but always failing.

Occasionally he would make a poison, almost as if he was testing if he still had his touch. Whenever he made poison, he added a bit of his own blood or venom, and he even tried this with potions, naturally failing. Jake had tried that one, and it wasn’t that easy.

After the eighth month of fast-forwarding, the Viper stopped. Villy simply sat there and stared at the cauldron for the longest time, sometimes glancing at the massive pit he had made of failed potions. He looked lost, but not like he had given up.

”What is wrong?” Villy asked himself. ”It should work, but it doesn’t. Are monsters just not meant to do alchemy? No… I can do it; I am just missing something.”

The Viper stood up and went over to the pit of health potions he had failed to make. He knelt down and scooped up some of it to drink, sneering at the horrible taste. Jake himself also faintly tasted it in his mouth, though he wasn’t sure if it was due to shared senses or if he just remembered the time he tried to taste that rancid crap himself.

”Nothing,” the Viper mulled to himself after a few moments, Jake knowing he had used Palate.

Falling onto his back, the Viper stared at the cave’s ceiling. After a few moments, he sat up and, to Jake’s surprise, spat some liquid into the palm of his hand. Jake saw the liquid and felt its toxic properties. Yet he also felt the vitality-based properties and the similarity to the failed health potions. The Viper had consumed some of it and refined it into a potent toxin using his own body.

The Viper shook his head again as he tossed the liquid away. A few more moments passed as slowly a frown formed on his brows. The frown soon changed into a look of realization as his eyes shot open.

”Maybe…” the Viper muttered as he quickly ran over to the cauldron.

Jake was unsure what Villy had realized and observed intently. His intuition told him what he had been waiting for was about to happen.

Villy picked up the cauldron and sat with both of his hands on it as he usually did, but then did something unexpected. His hands began to faintly glow with energy as mana was infused into the cauldron, far more than usual. Sharp fingernails dug into the metal as Jake felt it slowly change - Touch of the Malefic Viper active. Yet he was not transmuting it or even corrupting it, simply… attuning it?

That is when Jake’s point of view changed, and the best part of the vision began. He merged with Villy as the senses of the Viper fully became his own. On top of his usual ones, of course. The moment the merge happened, Jake felt a connection with the cauldron in front of him, and Jake soon realized what the Viper was doing.

He was forcefully soul-binding the cauldron.

It was something that was honestly a bad idea in nearly all cases, but Jake soon came to understand. Because as he Soulbound it, he also slowly emerged a small part of his soul into the cauldron, something he could only do if a proper connection was formed with his soul first.

With both hands still on the cauldron, he summoned the ingredients. Water, flowers, grass, it was all slowly deposited into the cauldron, and it did not take long for Jake to feel a difference. He could detect what was going on inside the cauldron so intimately that it just felt… odd. It was as if the cauldron was actually part of his body, like a second stomach.

A metaphor Jake came to learn in the very next moment was very apt.

Because another skill also responded at that moment. During all crafts, some vapor would be released while the desired energies got extracted, and some minor parts would always go to waste. This just always happened, and there was no way around it. The loss was often negligible, and the lost parts were undesirable, but it was there. There to be consumed.

Palate of the Malefic Viper thrummed to life as the Viper absorbed these unwanted parts of the brew while it was still ongoing. He then did something else unexpected – he directly absorbed parts of the brew through the cauldron walls like it was the walls of his stomach.

Jake felt his own Soulshape – one that was now merged fully with the Viper – and saw that it looked different. The cauldron had become a part of his Soulspace in a similar fashion to a phantasmal limb, and Jake also knew that this technique was insanely risky. Risky… but effective.

For the Viper, it had one especially effective feature. Because Jake, sharing senses with the Viper, instantly felt an aspect of Sense of the Malefic Viper he did not possess. Not because it was a potent application, but because it simply wasn’t one Jake needed: it allowed the Viper to far better sense anything alchemical inside of his body.

In fact, it was probably a pretty normal skill for most beasts to have. Sandy clearly had a skill similar to it so they could absorb natural treasures eaten, and Jake guessed many other monsters did too. How else would they analyze and break down natural treasures they ate if they could not properly sense them?

With the Viper, there was also the aspect of him honing his poison. Scarlett already mentioned how she effectively cultivated to improve her own venom internally, and Jake also knew the Viper could do something similar. In other words, the best kind of alchemy the Viper was capable of in this vision was essentially a form of internal alchemy. A skill he now found a way to transfer to the outer world through the insane idea of partly merging with a cauldron.

Jake felt how the Viper now finally noticed these small missing pieces and nearly instantly put two and two together. The first attempt at crafting failed, and a booklet appeared in front of his head. Villy looked at it as new words were burned into the paper as he added personal notes.

Four crafting attempts later, the Viper had created a new crafting method for healing potions. Jake had been merged with the Viper throughout and focused intensely on how the Viper had managed to fuse with the cauldron.

He felt parts akin to his upgraded Fang there, the part where a weapon effectively became an extension of his body. In fact, it was nearly identical. Aspects from Touch of the Malefic Viper were also present. All in all, Jake began to wonder if maybe a reason he had only gotten this vision now was that he needed to see the others first…

Not that it mattered now.

Jake understood the concept and was confident. The final part of the vision showed the Viper stopping the use of the skill as he unfused from the cauldron.

This resulted in the cauldron crumbling into ash the very next moment. As it did so, Villy felt a wave of exhaustion that Jake shared as the soul energy had effectively been discarded. The lost mental energy was also immense, and Jake felt how the Viper’s natural regeneration had faintly slowed due to his strained soul.

This was what Jake meant when he said risky. It was kind of like using a boosting skill during combat, just for alchemy. There would be a backlash, and so would there for Jake if he used this new application. The thing is… did he really have to go as far as the Viper did? Just with it being Soulbound and some of the concepts Villy applied should yield some results…

Just as he thought that, time rewound, and he started over from when the Viper had his epiphany. Without having to focus on anything else, Jake felt everything. He tried to truly be one with the Viper and experienced what Villy experienced.

It only took one more rewind before he fully got it.

[Sense of the Malefic Viper (Ancient)] – The Malefic Viper’s greed for natural treasures is neverending. You are following his path for your senses to see all that you desire. Your desire to know the suffering you bring upon your foes has brought you even further down this path. Gives a passive ability to detect herbs and poisons in different forms and a strong feeling of their properties and affinities. Allows the alchemist to far more easily detect affinities in the environment and detect areas optimal for cultivating herbs. Massively improves your ability to sense the poison you have inflicted and its effects on any inflicted entities. Adds an increase to the effectiveness of Sense of the Malefic Viper based on Perception. Passively provides 1 Perception per level in Prodigious Alchemist of the Malefic Viper. May your gaze scour the multiverse for all that is rightfully yours.

-->

[Sense of the Malefic Viper (Legendary)] – The Malefic Viper’s greed for natural treasures is neverending; his desire to discover all the world has to offer ceaseless. Gives a passive ability to detect herbs and poisons in different forms and a strong feeling of their properties and affinities. Allows the alchemist to far more easily detect affinities in the environment and detect areas optimal for cultivating herbs. Massively improves your ability to sense the poison you have inflicted and its effects on any inflicted entities. Allows you to temporarily merge a part of your soul into a Soulbound cauldron or similar crafting device, making it effectively act as part of your body. Even without fully merging your soul, you will still receive all sensory benefits from using a Soulbound cauldron or similar crafting device. Adds an increase to the effectiveness of Sense of the Malefic Viper based on Perception. All effects of Sense of the Malefic Viper are further improved within the body of the alchemist. Passively provides 3 Perception per level in Alchemist of the Malefic Viper. May your gaze scour the multiverse for all that is rightfully yours; may all truths lay bare before you.

As always, a bit of flavor text had changed, but it mostly remained the same. The changes were as expected, with it now adding the part about merging a part of his soul with a Soulbound cauldron, but he was happy to see that it still retained all sensory benefits even without merging himself with it. Jake innately felt that the only reason to merge with the cauldron was for Palate absorption.

Finally, it also had an increased effect within his body now. Jake didn’t really see this part be that useful to him, but hey, it was there and was kind of another argument for merging with a cauldron. Oh, and of course, the expected bonus to Perception from upgrading the skill, and with his level, it was a lot of Perception. 200 Perception, to be exact, and that was before all percentage bonuses, meaning it was, in reality, 350.

Of course, this was only the math because of one more detail…

Jake had finally reached level 199 in his profession – the peak of D-grade.