The Primal Hunter 8: A LitRPG Adventure, page 5
Or had friends at all, really.
About five minutes later, a gate opened, and out stepped Izil. The elf instantly saw Meira and smiled.
"Thank you for the invitation," she said courteously as she took out a small basket with flowers in it. "A token of my appreciation to you and the lord of the mansion. Native flowers of the Altmar Empire, all with their roots intact for potential planting."
Meira was surprised at seeing the gift, but she quickly understood. It wasn’t that odd to bring something for her master, considering he was far above the four of them in status as a black token. Ah, Meira had told them her master had a black token, as he had allowed her to do so.
"Thank you," Meira said, bowing as she accepted it. "I am sure my lord will appreciate it."
"Is he present?" Izil asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Sadly not. My lord had other engagements." Meira would not have dared to invite them if her master was there… She barely dared to when he was not.
Izil just nodded and followed Meira as they entered the mansion to place the basket of flowers. Just as they entered the house, and after she had stored the basket properly, Meira saw that the gate outside activated again, with Nella and Utmal stepping through.
Meira hurriedly ran outside to greet them and got a disapproving look from Nella as she approached. "I hope you treat your owner better than guests," she scoffed once Meira got close. "Or maybe you just consider it acceptable to not greet guests?"
"I apologize!" Meira said with a bow. She really didn’t want to be a bad host, especially not if it would reflect badly on her master.
"She was just inviting me inside," Izil said as she walked out of the mansion, glaring daggers at Nella. "And if you two had been here on the agreed-upon time, there would be no issue."
"Relax, I was just joking around," Nella said dismissively, Meira now feeling even more awkward as she had apologized. She still wasn’t good at jokes or that sarcasm thing… or was it called irony? She really didn’t quite know the difference.
"Nice place your master’s got," Utmal then spoke, throwing Meira out of her thoughts. "You didn’t lie about him being a black token, it seems. Where is he?"
"He is busy elsewhere," Meira once more explained apologetically.
"Oh? That is unfortunate," Nella said with a smile. "I would have loved to meet him. Now, if he is not here, let’s just get going. Where is the library?"
"Right this way," Meira said, motioning towards the large mansion. The three of them followed. Meira wanted to keep the mood good, but Izil and Nella had been less and less friendly recently, and Meira really hoped they could get along better.
As they walked through the mansion, Izil asked, "Are there no other servants or occupants?"
"There is—" Meira began, but she quickly cut herself off. The Grand Elder had been staying there most of the time, but he wasn’t there now and wasn’t truly living there. Also, she shouldn’t share he was there at all. "There is currently only me here. My lord doesn’t have any other servants or slaves residing within the Order of the Malefic Viper, as far as I am aware."
Meira saw Utmal and Nella both frown a bit as Izil just nodded. "I see."
Then, suddenly, Meira felt a mental probing from Izil. She was confused and accepted it as a telepathic connection was formed. "Meira… I didn’t want to ask before, but are you a slave of the owner of this mansion?"
Now Meira was even more confused. "Yes?" she answered instantly, using the connection. Didn’t they already know that by now?
Izil frowned even more than before. "If possible, can I meet the owner of your contract?"
"I can maybe ask…" Meira answered, more than a little unsure. She didn’t want to bother her master needlessly with matters that were clearly her own to deal with.
"That is all I can ask," Izil responded as she smiled again. Just as they entered the library, she spoke out loud, "What an incredible library. Could you point me towards the tomes you spoke of?"
Meira responded positively, but she was still not sure what Izil had actually wanted… but what she did know was that Utmal and Nella were both looking at her quite a bit differently than before. It should be fine, though. They were friends, right?
A great wrong had been set right. The abominable mushrooms were now dead, slain by the two heroes as their bounty had been harvested. Jake and Draskil had disengaged after a good period of fighting to collect materials from the areas they had cleared of mushroom men and then taken a small break.
By now, Jake was sitting at the exit of the ninth floor together with Reika, trying to figure out a solution. Both of them had their crafting equipment out, Jake using his cauldron and Reika having a far more advanced setup with several flasks, bottles, filters, and whatnot… still surrounding a cauldron, though.
It had been over two days since they entered the floor, and Jake and Reika had been busy as hell. Jake was eating and experimenting at all times with the different materials on the floor, but making the required poison wasn’t as straightforward as one could hope.
Draskil was off hunting alone again, and the alchemists worked while Bastilla dismantled corpses, having Irin protect her.
During this time, Jake decided to experimentally enter Serene Soul Meditation to check in on a certain someone.
"Could you do me a favor and spend less time sitting hunched over a cauldron and more time watching that dragonkin fight?" sim-Jake asked the moment Jake popped into his Soulspace.
"What?" Jake asked, confused as he oriented himself. He saw that sim-Jake had resealed the Eternal Hunger chimera using some kind of shadow barrier, standing impatiently and waiting for Jake to enter.
"I just want you to reflect on what you gave up on," sim-Jake said, shrugging. "I would have one hundred percent chosen to become a Malefic Dragonkin. And no, giving up on alchemy would not be a loss."
"Oh, are you getting jealous you can’t be a scaly boy? I thought you wanted to learn from his fighting style or something." Jake smirked.
"Heh," sim-Jake scoffed. "Not much to learn there. His style is simple and effective but far below what I am aiming for."
"But you are jealous of the claws," Jake still pointed out.
"Fuck yeah, you bet I am! Those things are insane.” Sim-Jake grinned. "Now I will excuse myself and allow you to do your alchemy… but just one quick question. If you want the life-affinity energy to be more volatile, isn’t it enough to just mix in a bit of our arcane affinity? Just the destructive aspect. If not the affinity, then at least the concept you know?"
Jake shook his head. "Thank you for pointing out your utter lack of knowledge when it comes to alchemy. Won’t work. We need it volatile but still with a direction to cause harm using the life-affinity energy. Life affinity does not deal damage by destroying… It is more like it grows stuff wrong."
Sim-Jake nodded. "Yeah, I have no idea what the fuck I am talking about. I am gonna play some more with the chimera. Now that thing is a good example of a bundle of energy turned very antagonistic and full of life, even when getting smacked around!"
"See you arou—" Jake stopped, having gotten an idea. An idea he had not even considered before now, and it was an incredibly novel one.
Curses were all about emotions… powerful emotions… so what if they could add some of that to the mix? Make a curse poison? One making use of an emotion Jake had plenty of:
Hatred for mushrooms.
Chapter 5
United in Hatred
Jake didn’t really know all that much about curses. But he did know a bit. He’d had the Root of Eternal Resentment in his Palate for a long-ass time, and it had housed a shitload of curse energy. Now, as for infusing that concept into a poison? Well, that was something entirely different.
He shared his idea with Reika and got a very skeptical response initially. She did point out some rather glaring issues. Curses tended to be born from strong emotions, yes, but they were also extremely hard to control, as they were essentially emotions so strong they had tangible effects on the world. To contain a curse within a poison should not be easy, especially while avoiding it overpowering the life-affinity aspect of the finished product. So that would be a bit of a challenge, but at least he was a bit better at another aspect of the task.
Jake had some experience with something that was kind of a life-affinity poison. Well, one real experience—all the way back in the Challenge Dungeon where he had created his Unstable Amalgamation of Malefic Vitau. He now knew in retrospect that it was pretty much just a Vitality-increasing elixir on crack and made unstable as fuck, but he also knew that this wasn’t possible to do with the materials he currently had available.
Firstly, the amalgamation had not been made from life-affinity energy but more a vital affinity. They were closely related but not exactly the same, and changing it into a Vitality-increasing energy type would likely result in it no longer counting as truly life-affinity.
Secondly, the only reason it had worked back then was due to Malefic Viper’s Poison triggering and upgrading the poison to above what it would usually be. It had been a direct impartment of Records by the Viper himself and not something Jake could replicate even if he wanted to.
Jake thus spent a good while considering how to make it, and Reika also came with plenty of input. One thing quickly became clear: if he wanted to use his curse energy, they would have to find a way to infuse it without overpowering and dominating any other part of the concoction. Transmutation was quickly ruled out, as its transformative effect likely wouldn’t work well with the curse energy.
There was the possibility of infusing a catalyst, but there tended to be rather stringent requirements before one could infuse an object with curse energy. One requirement tended to be time and connection to the curse. Infusing a mushroom with a curse related to hating mushrooms sounded like a good way to just make it implode. The same was true for doing it to a Lifecore.
Yet this did not deter Jake or Reika as they began working on another way: ritualism. And for this, Jake had a skill that he hadn’t really used much but would no doubt prove useful.
[Soul Ritualism of the Heretic-Chosen Alchemist (Ancient)] – As a master of your own path, the power of your Soulspace and authority of self is unquestionable. Grants knowledge of, and allows the Heretic-Chosen Alchemist to perform rituals pertaining to, the soul. Soul Rituals must be performed both within the Soulspace and the real world. As a forger of your own path, Records infused during any soul ritual will hold more weight. Effects of the ritual are based on the nature of the ritual performed as well as the materials used during the ritual. All rituals will scale with Willpower in addition to other stat bonuses applied according to the nature of the ritual performed.
While this skill primarily revolved around souls, it also gave some general knowledge about rituals. Curses were also deeply related to the soul anyway, as they were born from it. Most curses came into being when someone died, as they were the remnant emotions in one of the layers of the soul that managed to collect and take a form with intent. Most often, it was due to a lot of people dying with similar grievances and thus empowering each other. However, the part of the soul that would turn into a curse upon death could also be focused on and extracted to forcefully make a curse. An oversimplification, sure, but this was effectively it.
This is what Casper did. He focused, extracted, and infused his own emotions into vessels that he then used as weapons. That he could also mix it with mana was the kind of technique that Jake was still very unsure about. Anyway, none of this was that important, as Jake didn’t plan on making a truly cursed item but just a poison with a bit of curse energy mixed in to give it direction.
It didn’t take him long to figure out how he wanted to infuse the energy. He was limited to materials from the dungeon, but as he’d discovered earlier, he could also use his blood. He could naturally also use his own mana and energy, as that was just a part of the crafting process, and one could argue Jake was technically part of the dungeon since he was within it, so his plan should work.
With enough focus and a ritual to further amplify the effects, Jake believed he could essentially make his blood into a cursed liquid that would mix with an otherwise non-damaging life-affinity item. Life affinity was by itself not damaging unless made volatile or, as Jake hoped to do, self-destructive.
Because yes… when Jake considered earlier how infusing a curse would just make the life-affinity item self-implode, Jake saw that as an opportunity.
What he wanted to do was to make the life affinity latch onto the vital energy of the mushroom man, making it self-implode in self-hatred upon entering the body out of pure disgust, turning it into poison. Would this work? Maybe. Was Jake going to try, hoping to see a mushroom man consume itself and effectively commit suicide? Fuck yeah, he was.
Reika was supportive of his idea, and the two of them began experimenting in this direction. He had decided to begin by just making a highly dense life-affinity liquid using the mushroom juices of slain foes and further infusing that with Lifecores. He also had to remind himself that the final concoction would require the Lifecore of the General, which actually worked out perfectly with his plans. He wanted it to be a controlled self-implosion, after all.
It was one of the most ambitious things Jake had ever done, but he felt confident, and he really wanted to do it.
Hours passed as iteration after iteration was made. Soon they settled on a stable version of highly focused life energy in the form of a flask. Reika was the one who crafted it using her skills and managed to create several common-rarity flasks for Jake to experiment with. She added that when it came to the real thing, she should be able to make an uncommon flask using the best materials they had.
Jake, on the other hand, focused entirely on the poison aspect of the creation. He planned on making a ritual where he would infuse his own blood into the Lifecore using a ritual. However, as he attempted to do this several times, he repeatedly failed to actually create a curse. He didn’t understand why, so he kept trying until a realization struck him. One he never thought possible.
My hatred isn’t strong enough…
How it was even possible, Jake didn’t know. He did hate mushrooms; of that, there was no doubt. But… he had to admit his hatred was not as strong as the level he had seen from others. It wasn’t like mushrooms had killed his family, cut off his Path, or removed his freedom. They had just made Jake mad and annoyed, and there was that one time where it had tied him to a toilet for far too long.
Casper had an extreme natural affinity to curses and had initially channeled his anger toward those who killed his now-ghost-girlfriend Lyra. That was some real anger, and Jake knew that while Casper was a very introverted person, he was also the sort of person go to all in when he felt something.
Jake could not claim his hatred of mushrooms was at that level. Feeling a bit distressed at the thought of failing, Jake remembered: he was not alone in his hatred.
"I need Draskil," Jake spoke. "I need his hate."
Reika raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn’t it be best if we all joined in and contributed to the ritual?"
"On a scale of one to ten, how much do you hate mushrooms?" Jake asked.
"Well, I guess it depends on the type of—"
"Already disqualified by not instantly saying eleven," Jake said, shooting her down.
"Now you are just being unreasonable," Reika argued with a sigh. "It is utterly illogical to hold such a level of hatred towards fungi."
"Hate is illogical by nature. And it is in my nature to hate mushrooms. Always has been. From the time I was a kid, and my mom tried to make me eat those shitty white button mushrooms or whatever the fuck they are called, I have despised them. They bring nothing good to the world, and their only use is when they are destroyed and their juices are squeezed out to kill things. Because even in death, mushrooms bring only suffering.” As Jake spoke, he got a bit flared up and felt like he was already a step closer to successfully creating the curse.
"Okay…" Reika said, shaking her head as she went off to contact Draskil while Jake made modifications to the ritual.
He needed to bring Draskil into the fold and not just make his hate part of the curse. Curses were naturally inclined to combine similar negative emotions, so it wasn’t a difficult adaptation.
A few minutes later, Draskil appeared together with Reika.
Jake looked at him and asked, "On a scale of one to ten, how much do you hate mushrooms?"
"Not worth giving number, not deserving of the thought energy to consider," Draskil sneered.
Jake looked at Reika, who reluctantly resigned herself and went back to making a flask good enough to use in the final concoction, or at least in one of their four available test concoctions using the Lifecores of Mushroom Man Commanders.
"Draskil, our plan is to—"
"I don’t care," Draskil said, cutting him off.
"Fair.” Shortening his speech down to only what the dragonkin needed to do, he explained, “I need you to pour all your hate into your Blood of the Malefic Viper, put it in my cauldron, and then join me in my hatred of mushrooms for the ritual.”
"Make curse?" Draskil asked, clearly a little interested even if he said he wasn’t. Jake understood. It was about hating mushrooms, after all.
"Yep." Jake nodded.
Draskil nodded back, fully understanding without needing any more explanation. Jake began the ritual without further ado, mixing his blood with Draskil’s along with the Lifecore of a dead mushroom man—and by now, Jake was beginning to realize that he was pretty much doing a blood ritual with what was effectively the heart of a monster.
It was a bit morbid… but nothing was off the table when it came to slaying mushrooms.
Jake instantly felt the difference, as he realized that Draskil’s hatred for mushrooms seemed to rival or even surpass his own. That, and Jake also ran into the issue of Draskil’s blood being far more potent than Jake’s. And it wasn’t just due to the level disparity—clearly, Draskil had Blood of the Malefic Viper at a higher rarity than himself.
