The Primal Hunter's
The Impactful Choices

The next passageway was slightly longer than the previous one and there was no suspicious fungus. This meant that the narrow passage was covered entirely in darkness. Not that it mattered to Jake with the ball.

As he walked, he remembered that he had his skills back. He took out the dagger he had obtained during the second challenge room and identified it.

[Dagger of Bloodletting (Common)] – Daggers made by a long-dead ancient sect, made for the purpose of sacrifice. Charm: Any wound made with this knife bleeds more, lasts longer, and is harder to heal.

The witch explained why she bled so much when she hurt herself. He put down the dagger as he walked down the hall.

After walking for a few minutes, he turned the corner and saw a light source in the distance. But this is not the blue light he used to wear, but the 'normal'— light type orange/white. Well, technically, light is a combination of all the colors on the color spectrum. The important thing is that the light is bright with colors outside of blue.

He sped up his way and walked out of the hallway to find himself in a new room.

That's not what he expected. It looked like an old library or perhaps an office. There were bookshelves along the walls, filled with leather-bound old books. A chair and a table with several stationery were placed in the center of the room.

There was also an old wooden door on the wall right across from where he had entered. Having not seen any system messages yet, he walked up to one of the bookshelves and tried to pull out the book but met with some sort of invisible barrier.

He tried with several other bookshelves with the same result. He also attempted to move some paper and a small cup containing a pencil and pen on the table. Both of them he could not touch because of the same kind of barrier. Not finding anything else interesting, he passed through the only door in the room.

He met a small, relatively normal-looking hallway with five doors inside, two on each side of the corridor, and one at the end. The first door he opened led to a room that had a bed in it. The rest of the room was completely naked, with only a table and small wooden chairs as well as cabinets and cabinets. He was unable to open the cupboards and cabinets, meeting with other invisible barriers.

Leaving the room, he closed the door after her and opened the next one. This one can only be described as a medieval bathroom, which for some reason, has a modern shower and toilet placed inside. He went into the room and tried to flush the toilet, which worked. So, the ancient temple was forgotten in the dungeon with running water. Understood.

The third room he entered was at the end of the hall, and what he found was not what you could call a 'room'. It was more like a scene of hell in the form of a cave. Mushrooms. Anywhere. Not only the blue type that shines, but also other types that are not too evil.

The cave was also not closed and had another exit next to the wooden door. Jake walks out of the aforementioned exit and finds himself in a small, walled garden. Flowers grew everywhere, lots of strange-looking grasses and shrubs, many of which he had seen before outside in the tutorial forest. There was even a small pond with different water plants.

He called the garden walled, but the wall that did so seemed to extend to eternity. Hanging above the park was a mini version of the artificial sun that he saw outside in the forest, emitting warmth and light. He was briefly confused, as Jake recalled that it was late at night when he entered the challenge basement, and according to the countdown timer, only a few hours have passed since then.

Shaking his head in the strange garden, he returned through the cave and entered into the fourth chamber. This one's like an old lab. Not the modern kind, but the mad scientist type of the 1600s. It looked like a dream come true for a mad chemist.

There are mortar and pestle, alembic, and many other tools and materials. In the room there were also open vats with what looked like water. Beside him was a closed closet that could not be opened as there was a barrier.

As he walked out of the room towards the next room, he wondered what exactly the system wanted him to do. No challenge is represented, and no path forward makes itself known. This place looked more like a residence than any testing facility. Maybe the challenge is finding the challenge?

Opening the fifth door, he found himself inside another hall just like he had done before. In the middle of the room there is a pedestal. He moved there and found a handprint on it. He looked at his hand and quickly connected the dots.

He placed his hand on the trail, and instantly his sense of danger flared up as a black nail shot upwards, piercing through it before he could react. He screamed in pain and stumbled backwards, as the room began to rumble.

A new platform had begun to rise in front of the pedestal. However, Jake barely noticed it as he looked at the hole in his hand and saw fine black lines spreading through the veins in his hand. He suppressed his panic, rushing towards the newly standing platform. It doesn't take a genius to know that he's been poisoned.

On it is a book. The book was huge, much larger than any book Jake had ever seen before. On the cover is a depiction of a small snake. The same snake he saw in the symbols and wall paintings. He tried to open the book, because the system ended up doing something.

The Challenge of the Underground Prison: Become an Alchemist of the Malefic Viper and heal yourself of the toxins that flow through your veins before it ignites and kills you. The poison will remain inactive for 30 days, not affecting the challenger in any way during the period.

Refusing the profession will result in the challenger being fully reinstated and returned to the tutorial area. All prizes will be retained, and all items returned.

Heal yourself from poison 0/1

Time remaining: 30 Days.

Being an Alchemist of the Malefic Viper?

Y/T

He was surprised by the message. A profession? The N/A on his status page had long since annoyed him, but he had not expected to get an offer like this. It was the first choice to get the profession he had seen since being introduced to the system, and he doubted it was an ordinary profession. Alchemy though? It's not something he's had any experience at all outside of the game.

He was pretty good at the equivalent of modern lessons, chemistry, in school, but he never did it at a higher level. He also strongly doubted that knowledge of chemical compounds would be of much use with magic being something and everything.

The time limit is 30 days as well. Looking at his hand that had just been pierced, it was rather clear where the poison came from. His wounds had already peeled off due to his high vitality, and he did not feel any different.

Jake also has the option to stop now and return to the woods. That must be a safe choice. He will be healed, walking away with a new dagger and a bonus of determination. Oh, and a bunch of annoying blue mushrooms, along with ten slightly nicer silver mushrooms.

He didn't spend much time getting everything.

But he was nothing if not someone who welcomed the challenge. He wanted a profession, and if this profession had anything to do with that heaven-shattering dragon, then that profession had to be powerful. Fantasy books and games have long conditioned him to believe that dragons are top creatures.

Without any hesitation, he accepted the challenge.

And with that message, everything went dark for a moment. Jake's head feels like it's being split as information comes to his mind, far more so than when he got his archer class.

It was only a few seconds, but it felt like hours before it finally stopped, making it a great headache and plenty of system messages. He took a few more seconds to gather his thoughts; the headache was also gone. When she felt better, she finally opened up a description of her new profession.

Alchemist of the Malefic Viper – Alchemist of the Malefic Viper can combine the natural treasures of the world, and make potions, pills, transmute one ingredient into another, with many other mystical ways to discover. This rare type of alchemist specialized in poison potions. From crafts that classically bring recovery and improvement, the Alchemist of the Malefic Viper carries pain, damage, and death. Stat bonus per level: +2 Vit +2 Wis +1 Will be +1 Tough +2 Points Free.

The description of an alchemist was very similar to the one he had imagined. He has assumed the ability to make potions based on his experience playing certain online games during university. Transmutation was also an allusion to the extremely classical alchemists. Maybe I'll even make the Philosopher's Stone one day, she chanted to herself.

But this is where familiarity ends; the last part of the description is a little different. This variant of the alchemist profession focused on poison. The whole description was ominous, but then again, it was clearly modeled or at least heavily inspired by a snake. To be more precise, a small mushroom-eating snake, he thought of it as the Malefic Viper.

The profession also provided more stat bonuses than its archer class, providing two more stats per level overall. However, nothing directly affected the battle, and he was a little saddened at not seeing the perception bonus. But what he has done is done, he has accepted it, and there is no turning back.

He knew that the decision to choose the profession was not small. Probably just as important as the class choice. If not more, this one is definitely not a basic profession that is shared left and right. At last... Jake had to admit that the thought of doing alchemy was rather cool.

With that, he went on to the next part: Skills. With a quick skim, he saw that he had obtained five and started passing them one by one.

*Acquired expertise*: [Herbology (General)] – Provides knowledge of herbs found throughout the multiverse The most abundant sources of natural treasures come in the form of herbs found throughout existence. Therefore, knowledge of plants and their influence was very important to any alchemist. An alchemist must know what he is working on to create his product. Provides the ability to recognize herbs at a glance, and correctly identify their properties

The skill was relatively clear enough, and one of the reasons for the sudden influx of information he had gained after receiving the profession. He now knew many different plants that he had not previously known existed. The thought is frightening that a system can directly instill knowledge in a person's head.

The way knowledge works is strange. It was not direct knowledge, like how he knew how to use his bow from his previous training. It was the kind of knowledge that felt like it had gradually appeared if he thought of something relevant to that skill. As if he thought he needed a plant that had healing properties, a large number of potential potions suddenly appeared in his mind.

Shaking his head at the blatantly disturbing phenomenon, he continued.

*Acquired expertise*: [Brew Potion (Common)] – Potion making is the thing most alchemists love. Potions can be a lifesaver in times of need, or an extra push to defeat your opponent. Allows the manufacture of potions with general rarity and under it. Must have the appropriate materials and equipment to make the potion. Adding a slight improvement to the effectiveness of the herb made based on wisdom.

*Acquired Expertise*: [Toxic Poison (General)] – While most focus on the life-giving aspect through their expertise, others prefer to take it. Allows for a general-scarcity poison potion and below. Must have the appropriate materials and equipment to make the poison. Adding a slight increase to the effectiveness of poisons made based on wisdom.

These two skills are very similar in design, but very different in terms of the outcome. It also does not come with a lot of knowledge instilled. He had some new understanding of how to use the tools he had found in the lab before, but it didn't feel foreign at all. It was more like he had been watching a video tutorial online, introducing him to the basics of making potions and poisons.

Rethinking his conversation with Casper, who had gained the Basic Archery skill with no prior experience using a bow, he had told Jake of a similar thing. He knew how to hold a bow and shoot arrows, but nothing more. Although he and Jake both have similar skills, and at the same rarity, Jake is far superior in his ability to use them.

He got a rare improvement to his skills after recalling his training, but his ranking did not come with any knowledge.

The only difference between skills seems to be rare. Without an existing skill level, Jake has the theory that the effectiveness of a skill is purely dependent on the user of the skill. There might be some sort of line where the skill would get a rare improvement based on how good you are, but he doubted it would be that simple. Take the archery skill example.

Jake is a rather experienced archer. Theoretically, his knowledge of how to use the bow approached the level of an athlete. Maybe even higher because he has taken a lot of time to figure it out himself because he doesn't have a coach to do things like that for him. But he only had rare archery skills. Something else must be needed to upgrade to a higher rank. It may just take some time, or perhaps some qualitative threshold must be reached.

In other words, a skill provides the basic instinctual ability to use it, but anything more than that has to be learned. And if you want your skills to get better, you should try to improve them. At least that's what Jake believes, based on the evidence so far.

Having no way of confirming or refuting his hypothesis, he proceeded to the last two skills.

*Acquired expertise*: [Toxicology (Rarely)] – Knowledge of all that is toxic. Able to recognize toxic substances at a glance and correctly identify their properties. In order to concoct the most deadly poison, we must know what to mix.

This one was exactly the same as the Herbology skill, only with poisonous and unusual materials, instead of being rare. However, it is not limited to herbs. For example, if he thought of the water that almost killed him earlier, he now knew that it was a type of poisonous liquid with necrotic properties. He didn't know the details of the water, just the basics.

Moving on to the final skill, he was surprised to see the Rare rarity tag.

*Acquired expertise*: [Malefic Viper's Poison (Rare)] – Malefic Viper stalk its prey and only need to attack once as the poison devours its prey. Increase the potency of all toxins made. Provides the ability to create poisons with scarcity on top of your Poison Poison skill if certain conditions are met. The most poison can be increased to the rarity of the Poison Malefic Viper skill (General -> Rare). Allows the poison not to lose efficiency for a short time after being applied to the weapon.

This skill was the namesake of the entire profession he took. The more powerful poison and the chance to create a poison with a higher rarity, both seemed fine, although he could not compare them. However, the final effect was very attractive to him.

This skill opened up the possibility of using his profession more actively in battle. What's more dangerous than an arrow to the face? A poisoned arrow to the face.

He had one more notification left, which was another pleasant surprise.

*Increased Skills*: [Identify (Inferior --> Common)] - Identification Skills, known to all children except the smallest of various races. This skill allows you to try to identify any object or creature you are focusing on.

The only difference in the description of the skill was the 'basic' that was removed, so now just refer to it as 'identification skill'. Not much to see there, really. But Jake is still a bit excited to see what he can now identify. Maybe he could even identify another human?

He suspected the increase had something to do with having a profession and a class or perhaps because the two skills, Herbology and Toxicology, gave him more knowledge. Looking back, those two skills included a sentence about being able to identify herbs and poisons.

Closing all his windows, he looked down at his hands that were still healing. After scanning the room once more, not finding anything interesting, he turned around and headed straight for the garden area to test his new skill.