Chapter 1145 – Two Small Sprouts

As the gods were discussing the future of the very multiverse itself, one of the people at the center of it all was busy doing something far more important. At least from his perspective.

“Five of them,” Jake insisted, a severe look on his face.

“No!” the person he was doing business with rejected his offer. “Two!”

“Only two? Now that’s just ripping me off. Four should be fair, and honestly, even then, I feel like I’m taking a loss,” Jake crossed his arms.

The other party looked in thought for a moment before coming up with a counteroffer. “Eleven for four!”

“Eleven rather than ten? Hm… alright, that seems doable, but know that you definitely won this exchange,” Jake sighed as he took out eleven of the beast cores he’d collected and traded them for four pieces of amber.

The Warpsnatcher seemed happy enough with the trade and went to put its new loot in its rightful pile as Jake said his goodbyes and went towards his alchemy lab. The pieces of amber were worth a lot more to Jake than the beast cores, as he could melt down the amber and use it to create what would hopefully be an improved rejuvenation potion.

Amber was, essentially, the crystallized blood of trees. When it was first formed from resin, it had been filled with life energy, but after entering the waters around the Grand Lakes, it had been further infused with powerful water affinity mana. Water and life affinity often went hand in hand and complemented one another nicely, and combined with other regular herbs, which were also filled with life energy, this amber was a great catalyst.

Entering his alchemy lab not too far from where the Warpsnatcher had set up its lair, Jake got to work. With his class now a fair deal ahead of his profession, Jake wanted to get his alchemy up to speed. He also still had one more skill selection remaining in this grade, and being the greedy boy he was, Jake wanted to see it sooner rather than later.

Of course, one way to get levels was to upgrade his Malefic Viper Legacy skills, and Jake did plan on doing that, too. In fact, working on this rejuvenation potion was part of it. Jake only had Blood and Fangs of the Malefic Viper left to upgrade, and while he already had some thoughts about how he could upgrade Fangs, he was honestly a bit stuck with Blood.

Checking out the skill, it did a lot, just like all the other Legacy skills, but that was part of the issue with upgrading these.

[Blood of the Malefic Viper (Legendary)] – The blood of the Malefic Viper is a toxin more deadly than most poisons and the lifeblood of an immortal being. Allows the Alchemist to infuse their blood with energy to turn their blood poisonous, imitating their Patron and even carrying traces of the True Blood of the Malefic One within. The blood can be used as an ingredient in alchemy or as a deadly weapon against your foes. The nature of the poison is determined based on the Records of the Alchemist. Allows your blood to carry more energy than usual, including vital energy, passively speeding up regeneration. This effect is further amplified when consuming a health potion or other sources of beneficial vital energy. The blood’s toxicity level is based primarily on Vitality and Wisdom but receives an increase from all physical stats. Increase in natural regeneration based on the total health pool. Passively provides 3 Vitality per level in Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper. May your blood be forever the bane of all that wishes you harm, and that which brings you eternal life.

As the skill was right now, it had three core components. The first and definitely most important one was to turn his blood toxic. Jake’s blood was a decent enough poison in its own right, and sometimes he did use it when he wanted to avoid “wasting” any of his crafted ones, but the true value of his blood came during crafting.

Jake’s blood was a brilliant ingredient in pretty much anything he made outside of potions. Even with these, he used his blood in his Malefic Potions, but as Jake was the only one who could use those, he also crafted other variants that others could use here and there.

For poisons, his own blood had pretty much replaced the use of water. Which, yes, did mean Jake could easily bleed out several liters every crafting session, but he was kind of used to it by now.

The two other functions of the skill were an increase in regeneration and the ability to make health potions better. Not in that they restored more, but in that they did their thing faster and more efficiently. These two functions definitely did go hand in hand.

Finally, there was technically also the passive stats given by the skill – perhaps its most overpowered aspect – but Jake didn’t need to consider that part when working on an upgrade. It was just part of the deal.

Jake had put a lot of thought into how he could upgrade Blood of the Malefic Viper, and he saw one of two directions to take the skill. One was to make it better at creating blood to use in alchemy, while the other was to further pursue its ability to increase regeneration, or perhaps even tag on an additional ability to the skill.

Deciding on a direction wasn’t easy, though. There were pros and cons to both, and even if Jake did choose to focus on regeneration, the toxic blood would become more potent simply due to the skill upgrading. Of course, so would the regeneration if he focused on toxic blood.

Either way, Jake decided that the best approach would be to become more familiar with both aspects of the skill before he would fully decide. Creating and fully understanding rejuvenation potions was just one part of that, and one of the most approachable things Jake could work on right away.

Compared to other potions, rejuvenation potions were rather unique in that they needed far more balance than any of the others. If one simply mixed a healing and a mana potion, one would end up with a really shitty-tasting drink that didn’t restore either resource. Jake knew this from personal experiments.

Yet with rejuvenation potions, all three energies could exist in harmony within the same bottle, and once consumed, would restore all resources equally. Of course, it would restore a lot less than a dedicated potion for any of the individual resources, but overall would give more.

The reason Jake believed understanding rejuvenation potions was important was to comprehend the nature and concepts behind this balance. Because there was another thing that was capable of containing all three energies at once, all in harmony:

His own body.

As well as his blood.

Jake’s blood naturally contained vital energy, as all blood tended to. However, when he infused it with mana through Blood of the Malefic Viper, that didn’t mess up the vital energies within at all. If Jake wished for it to retain its Vitality-based properties, he totally could, which was a big part of why Malefic Health Potions were a thing.

Finally, seeing as inner energy – also known as Stamina – constantly coursed through his body, it too was seamlessly merged with his blood. Understanding how his own blood worked seemed like the most straightforward way to learn how a skill called Blood also worked.

That’s why Jake got to work with his usual way of learning how to craft things properly: being an utterly wasteful rich kid with more money than sense. Rather than waste time on theory and all that jazz, Jake just tossed in the ingredients and tried with no regard to how much he wasted.

Like that, Jake worked for the next couple of days, sometimes taking breaks in between to meditate and continue studying the tome left by the First Sage. Upgrading his Meditate skill was also something on his to-do list, but it wasn’t something he could force. He still had plenty more time before he evolved to B-grade anyhow.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Jake also dedicated some time to check in on the Cradle to see the progress with his Soulflame, and things were looking better than ever. There were several powerful Arcane Soulflames within, and while the appearance of a Supreme Soulflame was never guaranteed, Jake held hope.

After a full week of wasting ingredients and studying, Jake was close to success with the rejuvenation potion, but that was when Artemis returned. She had been gone for longer than Jake had expected, and when he went to greet her after finishing his craft, he felt that she seemed slightly… different. It was subtle, but something about her demeanor had definitely shifted.

“Hey, welcome back,” Jake said, walking into the living room where Artemis had decided to read a book while waiting for him.

“Well, thank you,” she smiled. “Though, sadly, we’ll have to leave again shortly. Nature’s Attendant needs your input to get the process of creating that bow of yours going.”

“Already? That’s pretty fast. I thought he would need more time to prepare things, considering the raw materials involved,” Jake commented.

“I do want to remind you that he’s an existence second only to the Mother Tree herself,” Artemis pointed out. “This also isn’t the first time he’s used materials provided by the Mother Tree for his crafting.”

“Is that flower staff he carries around made with her assistance?” Jake asked curiously. Nature’s Attendant always walked around with the same staff, and Jake could definitely feel it was no ordinary weapon. In fact, it felt more like it was its own separate living entity.

“No, it’s an artifact he obtained a very long time ago,” Artemis shook her head. “I’m not really certain about its origins or how powerful the staff is, but what I do know is that its sentient and has enough power even without a wielder to kill someone at my level.”

“So a scary flower staff,” Jake nodded. “Anyhow, we should get going, shouldn’t we?”