The Primal Hunter

Chapter 967: Advanced Meal Prepping

A C-grade eating a Planetary Core? Yeah, that was such a ridicouless notion it wasn’t even worth thinking about, even if it was a broken core. Jake had said it before, but there was no way for a C-grade to consume all the energy within a core, and besides, when the core was removed from a planet, it would lose connection and naturally grow far less powerful and lose many of its properties.

But… what if Jake didn’t try to eat the Planetary Core but just a little piece of it? Just a good chunk seeped in the potent C-grade desolation affinity energy. That couldn’t be too harmful, right? Yeah, it should be fine, what’s the worst that can happen?

Alright, the worst case was Jake accidentally killing himself, but he believed in the powers of the Malefic Viper. He wouldn’t eat this fragment of the core any normal way but store it within the internal stomach of Palate of the Malefic Viper to then slowly absorb the energy over a long period of time.

Even if it turned out Jake couldn’t handle eating the core fragment, he remained fairly confident he would get out of it alive. At least, he assumed so, remembering everything that had happened with the Dark Witch when he got his last skill upgrade. Recalling parts of the description, Jake felt pretty confident.

”Natural treasures can be swallowed… If the item is not a toxin, the item will still be refined but at a slower pace… allows the Alchemist to fully consume a swallowed item, destroying it in the process if possible. If the item cannot be destroyed or the result of its destruction is too violent, the Alchemist will suffer a backlash, and the internal space will be damaged.”

Clearly, the skill could absorb something like a fragment of the core. The only big questions were if the ”failsafe” of destroying the item for immediate consumption would even work, and if it did work, would the backlash potentially prove lethal? Even if it did… it wasn’t like Jake didn’t have more tricks up his sleeve.

Right now, he still just had a legendary Blightroot from the gifts the Risen gave him during the Chosen ceremony, but now he wanted to replace it with something even more dangerous than a root of pure death. As a legendary item, he naturally still had much to absorb from it, but a part of this core would be so much more valuable.

Well… as the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. One had to take big risks to get big rewards, and Jake had never been the risk-averse sort. With that in mind, Jake made himself commit by getting the Blightroot out of his Palate stomach and into his regular storage.

As a final precaution, Jake quickly entered the Prima Vessel and took out one of the devices given by Arnold to communicate with people back on Earth. However, it couldn’t reach all the way back to Arnold, and he wasn’t sure if it was because he was inside the Vessel or too far away, but he quickly got an idea.

Taking the device, Jake purposefully summoned his Alchemist’s Flame and destroyed it. He remembered Miranda had a skill to contact him that was tailormade for the task, and he gambled on that working… and considering he felt a telepathic prope not even two minutes later, he was indeed correct.

”What’s going on? Arnold reported one of your communication devices broke. Are you okay?” Miranda asked in a worried voice, which made Jake feel a bit bad as he quickly reassured her.

”I’m fine, no cause for concern, but I needed a way to quickly contact you. Can you make sure to clear out the Prima Vessel on Earth for me? I may bring something pretty dangerous back, and it would be best if there weren’t anyone around,”

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Jake asked quickly.

”Can’t we clear out the area around one of the other teleportation circles? The Sword Saint and Eron are still on Earth, so they could potentially render assistance,” Miranda asked, likely assuming Jake would drag back some monster.

”No, best to keep everything contained within the Prima Vessel… but having Eron around might be a good idea. Ask him to go to the Prima Vessel and be ready, but only if he is confident in handling the concept of desolation,” Jake said after some thought.

”I will… wait, why are you talking about the concept of desolation? What the hell are you doing?” Miranda asked, and Jake got the feeling much of her concern had now been replaced with an understanding of what Jake was up to – an understanding he gladly fully confirmed.

”Something very reckless and probably a little dumb,” Jake said, unable to hold back a small smile.

”Just don’t get yourself killed… and good luck,” Miranda sighed on the other end, not even arguing or asking for more details. Something Jake appreciated.

”Thanks. See you in not that long if things work out,” Jake finished the conversation as he returned his attention to the task at hand. He was even a bit proud of himself that he had the forethought to take precautions and clear out the Prima Vessel back on Earth. There was definitely a point in his life the thought wouldn’t have even crossed his mind.

Anyway, with that handled, now he just also had to figure out how to break a part of the core off. Normally, Jake wouldn’t even have considered it an option, but this was a very special case. The core was already cracked in many places due to the powerful energy of desolation, making it far less durable. Secondly, one of the properties of desolation was that even things that hadn’t turned completely desolate yet became a lot more brittle.

The Prima Vessel was a good example of that, and Jake even tested his theory after leaving the Prima Vessel again by taking out Eternal Hunger, and with some struggle, he could leave cutting marks on its surface. There was no way he could do the same back on Earth, but simply being in this environment, the Vessel’s durability had been significantly reduced. He did notice after cutting it that it seemed to have an even tougher inner shell, but with time, chances are the desolation would still manage to seep through.

Jake wasn’t sure that would ever happen, though. It would take a lot of time, after all, and he didn’t believe this core chamber had a lot of time left. The core would naturally break far before the Prima Vessel would, and even if it didn’t, Jake was about to break stuff all on his own.

Looking at the core more closely, using both his eyes and his sphere, he circled around a bit, trying to find the best weak point. Soon enough, he found somewhere the crack went deep and had a good angle for what Jake was planning.

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He did a bit more testing to see if what he wanted to do was viable, and he quickly hit some problems. As getting close to the core wasn’t the healthiest, Jake wanted to shoot a Protean Arrow designed to function as a wedge to break apart the core.

However, when he tried to test by channeling an Arcane Powershot, he quickly found the first issue. The arcane energy Jake gave off actively fought and was supressed by the environment, and what’s more, even the bow began to take in some energy of desolation. Not a lot, and it wasn’t a problem, but it was concerning.

He also began to question if the arrow would even remain stable for long enough. Even if it didn’t outright get dismantled, would it work properly as a wedge? It would turn brittle, especially that close to the core.

Quickly, he put away his bow, shelving that plan. Instead, he took out the one weapon he knew would be fine even in this environment. As expected, Eternal Hunger didn’t – to put it politely – give a flying fuck about some C-grade desolation energy being pumped out by a corrupted Planetary Core.

Jake did feel an innate sense of disgust from the weapon, though. The concept of desolation was nearly the exact opposite of the sin curse of hunger. Desolation didn’t consume anything. It just removed energy and did so no energy could ever return. If desolation won, there would be nothing to eat, something the curse innately felt and couldn’t accept.

Trying to absorb any of this energy of desolation would also be incredibly stupid, as all it would do was slightly weaken the energy of the curse. On a funny side note, using the concept of desolation was one of the most effective methods of getting rid of curses or safely destroying cursed objects. Normally, if you destroyed something like Eternal Hunger, you would just let all the curse energy loose, but if you forcefully filled it with the energy of desolation, it would kill the curse until the weapon turned into dust.

To clarify, this wasn’t a risk here. Even if Eternal Hunger somehow managed to absorb this entire Planetary Core, it wouldn’t have much of an adverse effect on the curse. There was simply a far too big difference in power between the two.

Either way, with archery out of the question, Jake had to stick with Eternal Hunger. Luckily, the weapon had some very useful properties for this type of scenario. Continuing to inspect the cracks in the core, Jake began to slowly change the shape of Eternal Hunger to something more suitable for the job.

Once he was done, he mentally and physically prepared himself. Having to enter melee, Jake would take a far higher risk as he would have to get right up to the large Planetary Core and try to break a good part of it off.

Focusing more on his Scales of the Malefic Viper, he pushed the skill as far as he could. While he would have loved some fortunate moment of enlightenment and an upgrade, he wasn’t quite there yet. Finally, before it was go-time, Jake held nothing back as Arcane Awakening activated fully and wings sprung from his back.

Here goes nothing, Jake thought as he flew forward, the powerful energy of desolation washing over him the closer he got to the core. Dozens of arcane barriers were summoned to take off some of the heat, but they would only do this much in an environment where summoning anything outside his body was borderline impossible. His scales struggled, some of them cracking as Jake quickly summoned new ones, and he felt some of the energy begin to enter his body, his destructive energy rushing to cancel out the desolation.

Jake couldn’t do this for long… but he held on, and soon, he was right in front of the core. He lifted the weapon he would use to break this core right open as quite an odd sight played out that would definitely have made any observers have a second take.

Eternal Hunger, a mythical weapon born from an ancient curse from a long-forgotten vampiric land, fused with the simulacrum from another system-created reality, and undoubtedly one of, if not the most powerful weapons in the entire ninety-third universe, was currently transformed into an oversized crowbar that Jake slammed into the crack in the Planetary Core.

With a subdued yell, as he really didn’t want to open his mouth, he used all his strength on the crowbar to try and pry the huge core of desolation open, yet it remained stuck in the crack. Feeling the pressure only mounting more, Jake did something even more risky, as he trusted the one thing he could always trust: his boots.

He had wanted to avoid directly touching the core, but he saw no other choice as he stepped down on the core for increased leverage. Instantly, he felt the rush of energy trying to invade his body, with its first target being the boots it directly touched.

The foolish concept did not know the foe it had encountered. The Best Boots proved far more resilient to desolation than even his scales, shrugging it off entirely. This looked like a good thing on the surface, except the boots didn’t really stop the energy from attacking Jake, and while it was nice enough to have his feet mostly spared, his legs remained open season.

Not that Jake planned on standing on the core for long. With increased leverage and a good yank, Jake felt the core give way. With another good pull, he finally managed to crack the whole core wide open and break it apart… but…

Fuck.

Jake had wanted to split a good piece off, and the way it was cracked, Jake hoped to only eat about a fifth of the entire core. Maybe a quarter. What Jake had instead done was break the core infuriatingly cleanly in half, leaving two giant halves of the core slowly floating apart as a torrent of desolate energy rushed over Jake, forcing him to retreat. Even so, he was still heavily inflicted as a lot of energy got through his scales, making his skin and much of his flesh turn gray.

Eating half a core was way too much… way more than he had planned.

He had to make a decision here and now. The entire core room was shaking as it was about to collapse with the core no longer keeping it together, and the rush of desolation making all the cave walls so much more brittle, making much of it crumble on its own.

His gaze darted to the Prima Vessel and back to the two halves of the core floating apart as he cursed internally at his own reckless stupidity and refusal to give up.

Fuuuck!

Opening his mouth, Jake’s stubbornness had won out. One of the two halves – the ever-so-slightly smaller one – began to shrink as it flew toward Jake and straight into his Palate of the Malefic Viper’s stomach. Before he could even register it was fully in there, he moved.

Flying toward the Prima Vessel, he saw the barrier blocking the entrance fading away as he entered the hallway of the Vessel, the barrier fully fading behind him when he passed it. Desolation invaded the Vessel as Jake flew for the teleportation room as quickly as he could, with the only signs of the desolation following him that the hallway turned entirely gray in his wake.

Inside him, he felt the consumed half of the Planetary Core settle as it pumped out vast amounts of desolation, Jake gritting his teeth as he focused as best he could to keep it contained until he was in relative safety.

Arriving at the teleporter, Jake didn’t hesitate a single moment before he activated it to teleport back to Earth. The entire Vessel was shaking, and through his sphere, he knew it was currently in movement and falling, the ground it had been standing on having given out due to the instability of the entire core room.

With everything shaking and the desolation flooding toward the chamber, the teleporter couldn’t activate fast enough. Jake’s eyes were wide as the colorless presence entered the chamber, but just before it reached the edge of the teleportation circle and destroyed it, Jake’s vision turned black as he was whisked away.

He appeared within the Prima Vessel back on Earth near-instantly, but he didn’t have any time to think about how much better this teleportation was than Arnold’s. The moment he returned, Jake sat down in meditation and closed his eyes, as one thing was clear…

Jake had bitten off a lot more than he could chew. Scratch that, he hadn’t even tried to chew it but swallowed the damn thing whole, and he was now in for perhaps the worst case of food poisoning imaginable… likely even worse than the result of eating supermarket sushi on its last best-by date.