The Primal Hunter 8: A LitRPG Adventure, page 38
And as usual, the process was straightforward. Perhaps a bit more challenging than usual, but not by much, and after only failing two brews, Jake succeeded.
*You have successfully crafted [Malefic Health Potion (Common)] – A new kind of creation has been made. Bonus experience earned*
Jake looked at the batch and bottled up some of the liquid. It was red, just like a normal health potion, but he did get a slight reaction from Sense of the Malefic Viper when looking at it, making it clear this was poisonous. Using Identify on the potion, though, he was surprised.
[Malefic Health Potion (Common)] - Restores 22,310 health when consumed. Will cause damage to anyone besides the creator if consumed.
Jake stared at it for a while. Everything was pretty much as expected, and what Jake had made was poison to anyone who was not him. The rarity was common as expected, too. Jake knew that rarity was based solely on the amount of resources a potion restored, and after entering the Academy, he had learned that the minimum for uncommon-rarity potions was a hundred thousand resources restored. Yet the number still stood out.
This was the first health potion Jake had ever made that restored over twenty thousand health, and it had instantly jumped to twenty-two thousand. It was about a twenty-five percent increase from his usual max… About the same as what his natural regeneration had increased by.
After putting all the liquid in bottles, Jake—once again—cut off his hand. With great expectations, he chugged the new health potion. It did not disappoint.
Blood vessels instantly sprang out into thin air, forming a red hand shape where it was supposed to be, and flesh grew on the bones within seconds. The red shape filled out, and skin grew over it all. Finally, with a simple mental command, Jake equipped the glove.
Seven seconds.
From drinking the potion to fully regenerating a hand, it had taken him seven seconds. Jake grinned from ear to ear to himself at the result, as one of his biggest weaknesses—amputation—had been significantly addressed. He was more than happy with the upgrade and also felt that the blood was now overall more potent in every way, which would empower all poisons he made by a little. All in all, great stuff.
With all of that done, Jake moved on to the final thing: his talk with Villy.
Chapter 43
The First Sage
He reached out and instantly felt the connection form. "Hey, Villy, I—"
"Jake, just know that Duskleaf and I are both here for you in your time of need,” Villy said, his voice descending with the fakest tone of concern Jake had ever heard. “You do not need to resort to self-harm like that, okay? We are willing to talk, so you can stop cutting your hand off. It has suffered enough… No, you have suffered enough."
"Ha, ha, very funny," Jake responded. Just because Jake had cut off his hand a hundred times or so over the last few days didn’t mean he was into self-harm.
Well, except if it was productive self-harm, in which case he was all for it.
"Heh, so, got a good upgrade this time around? From a cursory glance, it seems like you finally managed to upgrade Blood. I had quite honestly expected that to be one of the first ones, considering you stole a drop from me.”
"Yep, I got it, as well as a vision…"
"Spill it. What kind of embarrassing moment did it show you now? Oh, I know. Is it this time I filled an entire lake with my blood and turned it into a ‘healing potion’ to help the local wildlife, only to poison them all and end up killing off an entire army, to then just get pushed out of the area by a giant weasel that was immune to my toxins?"
"No, but I am sure there is an interesting story there. This vision was quite a bit more relaxed but far more intriguing. First of all… I didn’t know you once had someone you called Master?" Jake couldn’t help sounding somewhat teasing. "You seemed to respect him a lot, too. Truly a loyal disciple."
A few seconds passed. "I have had several people whom I would call Master throughout my life. But based on me actually showing genuine respect, only one comes to mind. The original owner of my Bloodline."
"That is the one," Jake said. "So, what is the story there? I have so many questions."
In a very out-of-character serious and melancholic tone, Villy said, "You know, Jake… you are the first one besides my wife to ever know about him. Not even the other Primordials are aware he existed.
"I never even learned his name, only knowing his title. He was simply known as the First Sage. For reference, the country he belonged to had sages as their elders, of sorts, and he was naturally the highest-ranked one. He, too, was alive when the system arrived, and was already an accomplished, if troubled man. I took quite a bit longer to progress through the grades than many others and, quite honestly, fell behind. The area of the planet I was from was considered weak and desolate, so by the time I reached C-grade, the world was already full of them. However, on my planet at the time, there was no doubt who the most powerful person was. He was a man who I believed I could fool, and I wanted to take advantage of him to teach me alchemy. The old man saw through my disguise like nothing and instantly knew I was the feared Wyvern of the Desolates. But what did he do? He invited me in for tea."
Villy spoke with far more emotion than Jake was used to, making him just shut up.
"He was intrigued by my skills and wanted to learn more about me,” Villy continued. “Tell me, Jake—from what you saw, did he strike you as a talented alchemist?"
"For sure," Jake said. The old man had been insanely talented and was no doubt—
"He wasn’t one. In fact, he never truly chose to specialize anywhere but always ended up pursuing new things. On top of that, he was not a fighter—not because he couldn’t fight, but because he chose not to. I understood why. There was not a single entity on our planet that stood a sliver of a chance against him."
"I don’t understand… If he was this strong and talented, along with having a Bloodline, why didn’t he evolve into B-grade? Or did he end up evolving?"
"No, he died still in peak C-grade," Villy answered, exasperation clear in his voice. "To this day, it still troubles me. I actually think meeting him was one of the reasons I even managed to become a god. Jake, you are talented, but this man… was something more. Your talents are bizarre but specialized, while he was a universal genius. A jack of all trades, master of all. With no effort, any skill he had would reach legendary rarity and beyond. It was like he didn’t truly exist within the world like the rest of us. As if he stood above it and observed. By the time I was in peak C-grade, I knew I still would not have stood a chance against him. Not that I would have after just evolving to B-grade, either… He was a monster. Far more than I."
"I am just getting more and more confused here," Jake said. "Why not evolve, then? What stopped him?"
"Nothing except his own will. He… chose not to evolve. As I said, to this day, it still troubles and frustrates me. He could have evolved, and truthfully, I do not doubt he would have become a god. But he had no desire to be one. He had barely any desire at all. Like such desires were beneath him, or perhaps just not something he cared about. I partly understood why, for he was also pained. Tortured. He did not wish to keep living, and to him, perhaps immortality would have been a curse."
Jake’s frown only deepened, but he didn’t interrupt without getting asked.
"The First Sage taught me only for about a decade. During this time, I never left his side and took in everything like a sponge. My alchemy reached levels I had never even imagined, but more than that, he helped refine my mindset. If you haven’t noticed, I like to find ways to take advantage of the system. This man was the one who originally instilled those thoughts into me. He was also the first one to teach me what a Transcendent was. He was a premier scholar in all things system, and what he discovered back then is now common knowledge throughout the multiverse. The knowledge that man had was out of this world… and before you ask, yes, he was a Transcendent. Not just one, either… I learned of four Transcendent skills he possessed, but he might have had more I never knew about. Wanna hear the funniest thing? One of them was made with the express purpose of shortening his lifespan.
"If you think that one of the reasons for his blight was his Bloodline, then you would be entirely correct. I have told you it is not one that offers combat power, and that is true. In fact, many would call its effects rather mundane, if not useless. I have never told you what it does, and I guess it is about time I tell you, considering how much I know about yours."
Jake would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious. Especially after hearing so much about the original owner.
"Its name is short and sweet: Bloodline of the Immortal Mind. It gives no stats, no boosts to anything… besides one thing. It gives perfect memory." Villy left a pause, allowing Jake to predictably ask…
"But don’t you get that already with high enough stats?"
"You do, which is why many find the Bloodline useless and unnecessary. I will also admit that I was critical of it, as the First Sage explained, but I have come to believe it was a big contributor to his power. Allow me to explain. As I said, like me, he existed before the system arrived, and yet he had a Bloodline that allowed perfect memory, which makes me question if perhaps this allowed him to know and remember things the system never intended for anyone to be aware of."
"Is that why you wanted it? Wait, how did you even get it?" Jake asked, confused.
"As I said, I got it from a system event after becoming a god. It was a bit like your tutorial, and in the end, you could request a reward. I asked for the Bloodline of the First Sage, and to my surprise, the system gave it. Not cheaply, but cheaper than expected. Once more, I felt like the old man had expected this to someday happen.”
"I see. Why did you leave your first master? I cannot believe you learned everything from him in only a few years."
"I did not," Villy said, hesitant to continue.
"Then why?"
"I told you my first master was peculiar, and it was only at the end I realized his true purpose in making me his student. You see, he was obsessed with Records to a probably unhealthy level and wanted to ensure that even after death, they remained known. To him, they were the truly perfect form of memory. The memory of the world itself. I don’t know how or why, but he clearly believed that I would be able to reach the pinnacle and thus chose me. He wanted to immortalize his existence through me and through the system." Villy sighed, and with sadness in his voice, he continued, "The old man had only ever asked me one favor, and it came in those final days. The only thing he ever asked me was to remember him and absorb his Records once and for all. He asked me to kill him.
"It was also only then that I truly became aware of how much he suffered. You see, usually, memories are controlled. Your brain only pulls something up when you need to remember it, but for the First Sage, it wasn’t like this. He remembered everything all the time. Don’t even begin to think you can comprehend what that is like. He spent ages simply becoming able to function. But what truly made him suffer was remembering all that once was. Every little negative thing, every setback, every period of grief he experienced every day. Do you think negativity bias is bad for normal humans? For him, it was all-consuming. He never showed it, not truly, but after I got the Bloodline myself, I understood. It is said time heals all wounds, and trauma and grief eventually fade… To him, every second of every day was filled with those emotions, as though he’d experienced them mere moments before.”
Jake got an odd feeling from that, as though he was not only talking about his old master, but himse—
"Before you say it… Yes, I experience this negative downside too. However, there is a stark difference between him and me. First of all, I got the Bloodline after becoming a god and can handle all this far better. Second of all, I was not born with it and thus had ways to still separate it from the core of my being. Thirdly, and perhaps most important, his mindset differed from mine. He was more emotional on a base level, and he grieved more than I ever did. Even when I suffer, my first thought is not to grieve, but to try and fix the problem. I comfort myself with pretty lies of being able to find a solution. And I can admit that even if the Bloodline has downsides, the benefits it brings are also exemplary. I wanted it for a reason.”
"Did you… you know?" Jake asked.
"Yes. How could I not fulfill the one request my master ever made of me? I did not want to, but I respected him too much to refuse. However, as I said, I like my pretty little lies. He wanted to be immortal but not alive, and he found his Path through me. Today, he is forever immortalized through the Records of the multiverse, and to him, dying was simply a form of transcending above the mundane world. Transcending through me. I still remember his smile as his life faded, and that is the memory I choose to see over his times of suffering.”
Jake practically saw his sad smile on the other end. He just sat silently, not saying anything. He had never heard Villy speak this highly of anyone before, not even his fellow Primordials. There was always a quip in there, a joke about their shortcomings… but with this First Sage, there was only sad recognition.
Neither of them spoke for a while, even as the telepathic connection remained. Jake did not ask any of his usual questions, like if the Viper thought Jake would be able to match the old man if they were the same level or anything like that. Jake already knew that the answer wouldn’t be one he wanted to hear—not necessarily because it would be a no, but because of how pointless it was.
A minute or so more passed before Villy sighed. "The First Sage is the apex of why motivation and drive are important. He had the talent of a thousand geniuses but the will to claim power of none. There was no passion in anything he did, and he truly never cared to get stronger. There was only a sense of hopelessness, like the Path he once followed was impossible. Or perhaps, in death, he got exactly what he wanted. I truly don’t know, as even now, his mentality and mind are above my level of comprehension. All I know is that he was perhaps someone that was never meant to have existed, but I am glad that he did.”
"Next time we meet," Jake said with a smile, “let’s share a toast for the old man. While it was brief, I also learned some good stuff from him, and you are not the only one grateful he lived."
"Let’s do that," Villy said on the other side with a smile.
No more words were necessary, as the connection was cut off soon after that, leaving Jake alone inside the stomach of Sandy. His mind was still filled with thoughts as he considered everything. While Jake had to recognize the old man had him beaten in energy control… Jake was not aiming to be the best at everything.
He was fine with just being the best at killing things.
Feeling his distance from Sylphie and Haven, Jake triangulated it and concluded he would soon reach his goal. The mountains the Fallen King had made his home were close to the ocean, and they would get there as long as they continued straight ahead.
But before he reached his destination, he had some alchemy to do in preparation.
Villy cut off with the connection with Jake and smiled a bit to himself. Parts of his memory he had sealed away were now unleashed and flooded him as he remembered times he had chosen to forget. There were many things he did not tell Jake this time around, and he truly believed that was for the better.
Knowing of the First Sage was not necessarily a good thing. The comment about him perhaps being someone that never meant to exist was not just an offhand one. It wasn’t that it was bad he’d existed, but that his existence had never been intended.
Because something he had not told Jake was that the day he had killed the old man was not the final time he had seen him. The system took many forms when it appeared in front of people… Jake had described it as a monotone, humanoid figure. Some had described the system as a giant floating orb, others as winged beings, and others still as humanoid forms reminiscent of their own races.
As for Villy? Every time he saw the system appear in any form, he met his first master. If it was truly him, Villy did not know, as it didn’t act differently from any other system entity.
But he liked to think that the old man had achieved his goal. His own form of immortality.
Chapter 44
Annoyingly Complicated
As Jake and Sandy continued their journey over the ocean, Jake worked on the upcoming battle. His talk with Villy about the First Sage had been enlightening, and the upgraded Blood of the Malefic Viper would surely help with what he wanted to do. However, it was far from enough.
Unique Lifeforms were annoying opponents; Jake had no doubt about that. This particular Unique Lifeform he would encounter was one of ash and space magic, as far as he could tell. It did not have a physical body but was more like a living domain. The domain was its Soulshape and seemed to encompass a large area, allowing the Ashen Phantom Devourer to move its body—ash—anywhere within it. The domain itself could also move at a fast speed if it so desired, making it a truly nightmarish being to face.
There was probably more to its abilities, but Jake got enough of an idea of what he was facing just from what he had heard so far. What he was facing would effectively be a giant elemental without many of the usual weaknesses of elementals. It would be a master at fleeing, too, according to the information Miranda had given him, so simply attacking it would not end well, even if Jake and the King somehow got it in an ambush and went all out.
The plan Jake had formed was not to fight Ell’Hakan, but instead to kill the Ashen Phantom Devourer by teaming up with the Fallen King. However, to do this, they needed to make sure they could actually kill the damn thing. Jake did not know how strong Ell’Hakan truly was or if he would even be able to successfully kill him, as he was an annoying bastard who relied on more than just fighting. He had a nagging gut feeling that even if he, the King, and the Sword Saint went after the orange guy together, they would fail in killing him.
