The Primal Hunter

Chapter 968: Understanding the Scales of Desolation

A pulsing sensation echoed through Jake’s entire body and soul as waves of desolation were released from within himself, seeking to spread out from its containment. This situation was very different from the scenario with the Dark Witch. Back then, he had a volatile and explosive core, but the Half-a-Planetary Core Jake had eaten this time around was the exact opposite of volatile.

In many ways, it was far scarier than something that just went boom. Jake didn’t even feel any pressure on the inner walls of the Palate stomach, nor did he feel any pain. He just felt a sense of emptiness and numbness wherever the desolation passed. It was honestly soothing and relaxing, making Jake think that it was okay to just relax. Perhaps he should even take a nap.

However, he still knew his situation wasn’t good, and his survival instinct was fully engaged, as surrendering to the calmness and letting his consciousness fade away would mean he would never wake up again. He tried different methods to handle the desolation, but it quickly became clear there was simply too much energy to handle.

Palate of the Malefic Viper’s internal stomach was a separate space within Jake’s Soulspace, where anything he ate was sealed within and slowly extracted of energy and Records. Now, the walls were being made desolate faster than they could absorb the energy, which forced Jake to not try and supress all the energy of the core, but let some slip through and into his body.

To fight back, whenever desolation washed over him, a wave of destructive arcane energy followed, destroying and canceling out the energy of desolation. This did have the problem that Jake repeatedly hurt his own body, and things were far from ideal. He still had options if things continued like this… but just then, he felt something.

A warm flow of energy came over him, as he felt the parts he destroyed with his arcane energy be restored. He had been so focused on the fighting within himself that he hadn’t noticed the external world at all, nor the man who now stood in the chamber with him. Jake wanted to open his eyes, but he stopped when a message entered his mind.

“Focus on doing what you must do. I shall maintain the integrity of your body in the meantime,” Eron’s voice echoed in Jake’s mind. As he spoke, even more energy fell over Jake’s body as the desolation still lingering was rapidly pushed back by what felt like a tidal wave of pure vital energy.

The bane of desolation was something too powerful or too filled with energy to make desolate… and Eron was like an endless wellspring of pure vital energy. Jake truly didn’t know how much energy Eron had, but in that moment, he had an odd sense of confidence that should this be a battle of endurance between the consumed core and Eron, the healer wouldn’t be on the losing side.

That wasn’t what Jake wanted, though. He didn’t want the core “fixed” of its desolation, and every bit of energy that seeped out of the Palate’s stomach and into the rest of his being was a loss. Still, with Eron now watching over Jake, he could fully refocus on his internal realm without worrying about his body becoming an empty husk devoid of energy and life in the meantime.

Using Serene Soul Meditation, Jake let his consciousness enter his own Soulspace. Opening his eyes within the vast realm that was his soul, Jake took everything in. The shadowy figure representing Eternal Hunger, the single drop of blood floating in the middle of nothingness giving off extreme power, and the sky the color of his arcane affinity all struck his eye first, as he took in the world representing his own soul.

The stomach created by Palate wasn’t in this space, and yet it kind of was. It was like another layer of space, separated from the rest of his Soulspace. Perhaps this was by design to protect the user of the skill, but it was clearly still connected. If it was not, how else would the drop of blood from the Malefic Viper have ever appeared within his true Soulspace after he consumed it using Palate?

Focusing, he observed Palate’s stomach more closely than before. He was still purposefully allowing it to leak out energy to not flood the stomach. It was a bit like if the core constantly leaked water into a limited container, and if Jake didn’t allow some of it out, the Palate stomach would end up bursting. To stop that from happening, Jake would really only have one of five choices:

Firstly, he could purposefully explode the stomach and destroy the core while suffering a backlash. The second option was the simplest one, as he could always just spit out the core… though that would definitely turn the inside of the Prima Vessel into a permanent no-go zone, and Jake would probably have to ask Arnold to send the entire thing into empty space to avoid a disaster in the future. Option three was to not allow the stomach to leak into his body, but try and redirect everything into his real Soulspace, but Jake seriously didn’t know the consequences of that. Of course, besides these three options, he could also just try and hope things would eventually work out on their own as he let more and more desolation leak out into his body with expectations that Eron could keep it at bay until the core weakened enough for Jake to be able to handle it. Needless to say, this option was shit, and honestly, the other three weren’t exactly appealing either.

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His fifth and final option was one most others wouldn’t even consider. Not because it was a bad idea but because it wasn’t at all feasible, especially not in a situation like this.

The fundamental source of all Jake’s problems was that his Palate of the Malefic Viper couldn’t handle the core. Jake was the type who liked the easiest solutions to the most complicated of issues, and the easiest way to handle this was to simply make his Palate capable of withstanding the Desolation Core, as Jake had just impromptu decided to call it.

But… how would he do that?

Standing within his Soulspace, Jake honestly didn’t think that option three – to simply release the desolation into his Soulspace – would do him much harm, but he did fear that it would effectively waste all the desolation energy within the core.

If Jake was dealing with any other kind of extremely dense energy source, he would be afraid of it exploding or something like that, but desolation didn’t work like that. Jake imagined it would just flood his Soulspace, wake up an annoyed Eternal Hunger, or even encounter the droplet of blood from the Viper and end up being erased entirely. Of course, that assumed it even got that far and wasn’t annihilated by the passive environment within Jake’s soul.

Also, as to why he was currently leaking desolation energy into his body to lessen the pressure and not into his soul… well, Jake didn’t know how to only pour a little into his Soulspace. He was only confident in effectively breaking down the wall and letting it all in, which, again, wouldn’t lead to anything productive or good.

However, Jake was convinced he still needed to break down that wall. He just had to do so very purposefully and with proper preparation. The problem was that right now, the stomach created by Palate only relied on the Records of Palate itself, which limited it far too much. If Jake wanted it to be able to withstand something like half a Planetary Core, he needed it to fully rely on Jake’s overpowered soul. At least, that’s what he believed.

As mentioned, he couldn’t just let everything flood into the Soulspace, though. He would need for it to be far more controlled, and as Jake considered what to do, he got an idea. However, he wasn’t sure how feasible it was nor how time-consuming it would be.

Without waiting around just theorizing, Jake planned to test out what he was thinking. While still within his Soulspace, he activated Scales of the Malefic Viper on his manifested form. The scales appeared, and Jake watched them closely as he tried to pry one off. Once he did, it turned into energy, disappearing instantly. Frowning, Jake tried something else. With his arcane energy, he formed a barrier and tried to make a scale appear on the barrier, but it didn’t work either.

Undeterred, Jake tried several more things until finally, he reached some level of success by doing something a bit brutal. Scraping off a sheet of his own flesh, Jake purposefully didn’t let it disappear as he made it float in the air. With focus, he then made scales grow on the flesh as Jake nodded, satisfied.

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This… can work. But it will not be fast… and Scales isn’t good enough yet either, I think.

He had ideas, but none of them were fast. They all required time, and Jake didn’t know how much time he had. It was all dependent on his current healer, and rather than wonder on his own, Jake dedicated some of his attention to reaching out telepathically to Eron, communicating his intentions. The response he got was instant.

“Dispel all worry; I shall provide you all the time you desire. In fact, I implore you to not be too fast. An opportunity to encounter a C-grade version of desolation is a valuable experience, and it would sadden me to have this fortunate moment be too short,” Eron answered, sounding like he very much enjoyed healing Jake’s body, which was constantly in a state of being made desolate.

With a go-ahead from the local medical team, Jake didn’t hesitate any longer as he began to put his plan into motion. As to what his bat-shit plan was?

Well… he wanted to effectively create a “vessel” within his Soulspace for the Palate stomach to occupy. That was the oversimplification, anyway. The space within the stomach of Palate was integral and not anything he could afford to mess with. Anything swallowed wasn’t just slowly being consumed but also refined by Touch of the Malefic Viper at an accelerated pace, and that wasn’t something he could afford to lose.

So, Jake would need the stomach to exist within his Soulspace, yet still not be entirely within his Soulspace. His solution? An actual physical barrier within the metaphysical realm of his soul. A wall made of something with the innate properties of absorbing any energy it encountered and feeding it back to Palate. A wall made of scales from Scales of the Malefic Viper.

To clarify, Jake definitely didn’t actually know what he was doing or if this would at all work how he expected… but he sure as hell hoped it would. If he could connect his Palate more closely with the rest of his Soulspace, he could rely on the full power of his soul with Scales and create a feedback loop even when he ate things too powerful. Based on the power of his soul, Jake even theorized that should he succeed, having eaten the full Desolation Core wouldn’t have been impossible.

All things in good time, though. For now, Jake had to deal with the most pressing issues: his scales simply not being good enough for what he wanted to do in their current form. Right now, they had a lot of waste and Jake also wasn’t sure if his silly plan would work if Palate was at a higher level than Scales.

Plus, Jake had already commented before how he felt close to an upgrade with Scales. He didn’t really have the time back then to truly focus on improving the skill, though, but now he most certainly did. Finally, the circumstances for working on the upgrade were great, as Jake could really experiment with what he wanted to do.

Splitting his focus between his internal world and the external one, he covered his body with scales in the real world, allowing some of the desolation to seep all the way through and into the scales. Eron got massive credit as he noticed Jake purposefully led some of the desolation to his scales, and didn’t interfere but just healed everything Jake dragged the desolate energy through on the way.

Jake observed closely how the desolation didn’t affect the scales like it did everything else. His scales were the only thing Jake had seen that wasn’t outright made desolate when encountering the energy, and as he observed them… he understood why, and he couldn’t help but smile a bit at the explanation.

Had it all backward…

From the get-go, Jake had assumed the scales were just supremely resistant to the concept of desolation, however, he now realized that he had it wrong from the beginning. It wasn’t because the scales weren’t made desolate… it was that they already were desolate from the very beginning.

All the scales encountering desolation did was activate the inherent concept already existing within them and empowered it until the concept of desolation became too strong and overwhelmed everything else within the scale. From the outside, it looked and felt the same, but the difference was far from negligible.

Jake made full use of his high Perception as he dove into the inner workings of his scales as best he could to really understand them more. As he did so, he realized just how complex those small dark green things really were. They were like marvels of magical engineering, perfectly evolved and improved over time as the Viper grew in power. From the time he was a small snake to a wyvern and finally a dragon… but that understanding wasn’t entirely accurate either, as Jake realized something the more he looked at the scales.

He had already thought of Scales of the Malefic Viper as being the scales of a dragon. Why wouldn’t he? Dragon scales were known as one of the most powerful natural defenses any race had in the entire multiverse.

However, the more closely he looked at his scales now, the more he realized they weren’t truly the scales of a dragon, even if they looked and felt incredibly similar. They weren’t made to simply resist magic but to absorb and consume it, and their form was… off. They were too thin and weren’t hard and tough like dragon scales tended to be.

Jake once more could only sigh at his own lack of understanding. His Patron wasn’t the Malefic Dragon, now was he? He was the Malefic Viper. The forefather of all snakes. Why would his legacy skill include dragon scales and not something that evolved beyond that? They were snake scales and had always been.

Actively pushing, Jake began to try and manipulate his scales even as desolation kept pouring into them. He felt the process during which the desolation within them was activated when encountering the concept and remembered that sensation. He still had fuck-all understanding of desolation as a concept, but his scales clearly knew it very well.

Minutes turned to hours as time passed, and Jake kept exploring the sensation of his scales. How they absorbed the energy, the connection with Palate, their inner workings as best he could… and the more he explored them, the more he realized how much he had yet to uncover. He had put off truly trying to understand his scales for too long and could only marvel at their ingenuity and infinite complexity. It was like he had just climbed out of a pit and saw an entire world before him, yet to explore.

However, what he did find and was able to awaken was enough for the system to recognize his efforts and reward him with an upgrade that was perhaps long overdue. There was nothing flashy about the upgrade, which shouldn’t be surprising, as desolation tended not to be.

[Scales of the Malefic Viper (Legendary)] --> [Scales of the Malefic Viper (Legendary)] (Rarity Unchanged)

[Scales of the Malefic Viper (Legendary)] – The Malefic Viper’s scales are the first, and often the only required, line of defense. These scales harken back to the days the Malefic Viper lived as a dragon and retain many of these draconic properties… but the Malefic Viper is far more than just a dragon. Allows the Alchemist of the Malefic Viper to turn parts of his skin into scales, vastly increasing the effect of Toughness and adding a certain damage threshold. All damage below the threshold is nullified. You have further awakened inherent concepts within the scales, making them more durable and allowing you to turn a portion of all damage taken desolate while making your scales poisonous to the touch when they are infused with mana. The scales are legendarily resistant to magic and will store excess mana from any magical attacks that would have otherwise damaged you. If the damage taken by the scales is above the threshold of the scales, take it directly with a portion made desolate or dispersed into your immediate surroundings. Otherwise, this mana will be slowly refined and absorbed using your current level of Palate of the Malefic Viper (Legendary) if possible. Passively provides 9 Toughness per level in Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper (C-grade version). May your scales be as perennial as the Malefic One, those foolish enough to touch them waste away, and the very sight of your scales let all know that resistance is futile.

As always, these damn descriptions of the Viper’s Legacy skills only got longer and longer with every upgrade. But to highlight the changes… Jake had successfully managed to unlock some of the concepts within the scales, more accurately, some of their inherent desolation that was part of the malefic affinity. This resulted in even better defenses against both magical and physical attacks, though the actual effectiveness of this was yet to be determined.

One other thing was that his scales were now poisonous to the touch when infused with mana. In all honesty, Jake hadn’t even actively tried to awaken this part, it was just something he stumbled upon when exploring the scales.

Finally, the description now also directly specified it absorbed energy using Palate of the Malefic Viper. Oh yeah, there was also the fact he now got more Toughness from the skill, but that was the most expected outcome.

With the upgrade done, Jake quickly took status of himself. In the outside world, Eron still looked like he was having a swell time healing Jake, which made Jake decide to continue with his plan.

Using these empowered scales, Jake wanted to build a cocoon or a sphere or something within his Soulspace to contain the Palate stomach within. Something he promptly started doing as sheets of human skin began floating off his body with scales growing on them, as a massive sphere was slowly being formed. He had to make sure it was perfectly made, but even so, doubt remained.

Jake was far from certain this idea would work with his current version of Palate. There was a good reason not a single one of Jake’s skills was fully represented within his Soulspace, outside of maybe Eternal Shadow, but that was bound to his mythical weapon.

To allow the skill to manifest within his Soulspace would be to integrate it far more deeply with Jake than anything else, and Jake honestly had no idea how to do that. He could temporarily manifest a skill within his Soulspace, but this wouldn’t be that.

But… he still wanted to give it a try, though he had a feeling he would need something more than just time and hard work to get any kind of result. Which did make him wonder…

What would happen if Jake Juice was used within his own Soulspace, and what would its effects be when interacting with a skill where its Origin was his good friend Villy?