Chapter 827 - Nevermore: A Black Heart (Patreon)

Submitting the acid was uneventful, which shouldn’t really surprise anyone, considering Jake and Nevermore had spoken only a few days prior.

By now, Jake just wanted to be done with the Challenge Dungeon and move on to the next. He didn’t like spending too much time in the laboratory as he had caught himself with less-than-pleasant thoughts more than once. Especially after one of his more focused crafting attempts, Jake exited it excitedly, and as he looked at his concoction, he briefly wondered why Temlat hadn’t come to ask him anything recently, only for realization to instantly set in right after.

There were just too many bad memories and reminders there, so without any unnecessary delays, he went to work on the final Creation.

The Hemonecrotic Poison, like the acid, had more or less already been completed before. In fact, he had already managed to create an improved version of the Potent Hemonecrotic Poison before, one that he nearly felt was good enough to submit.

[Heartrot Poison (Rare)] – The heart blackens as it rots away. Blood pumps throughout the body as every beat brings with it only death. Mixing potent Hemotoxin and Necrotic Poisons, a Hemonecrotic Poison has been made, capable of rotting your foe from the inside. If inflicted, the poison will spread throughout the bloodstream, binding itself to your foe’s vital energies and using it as a vehicle to spread necrotic toxins. This poison seeks toward the heart and binds itself to it, making it linger for far longer and spread faster. Wounds caused by necrotic poison are extremely difficult to heal. Cleansing the Hemonecrotic Poison from the bloodstream is extremely difficult.

This poison was an improvement over the general Hemonecrotic Poison in every way. Rather than simply infect the bloodstream, this one would seek out the heart and try to bind itself to it. This would not only make the poison a lot harder to heal, but effectively contaminate the vital energy of whoever Jake hit. Coupled with the stickiness of hemotoxins and the damaging aspects of necrotic poison, this poison would surely do a number on any vitality-based lifeform he hit it with.

What’s more, it was great at accumulating. As it all gathered in one spot, Jake would have an easier time controlling and amplifying it with Touch of the Malefic Viper, making it even better.

It was, without a doubt, Jake’s best poison to date, but he still decided to keep crafting more until he ran out of ingredients with the hope of making the best concoction he could.

Jake had asked the attendants, as he didn’t want to waste the time of Nevermore, what would happen to any excess Merit Points he had once he exited the Challenge Dungeon and had it confirmed he would lose them. He then considered just buying some rare stuff before leaving but was promptly informed that any materials he bought within the Challenge Dungeon would also be lost upon exiting. So Jake had to use everything, or it would go to waste. He couldn’t even bring any of what he had created out with him, but at least he could use the materials for a bit more crafting experience.

After Jake had crafted a particularly good Heartrot Poison, he considered calling it quits but saw he had materials for one more attempt. After that, he would be out of both Merit Points and ingredients, and Jake thought it would be cathartic to use this last batch. To have a clean break with the Challenge Dungeon to allow him to move on more easily.

Sitting with his cauldron, Jake first poured in some purified water, followed by some of his blood, naturally infused with Blood of the Malefic Viper. Mixing everything for a bit, Jake soon tossed in the epic rarity black moss he had bought, followed by a mix of mushrooms and roots that either contained hemotoxins or necrotic toxins, with a few also in there to serve as binding agents for the two, allowing them to work together. Finally, he just straight-up poured in two pre-crafted poisons of the hemotoxic and necrotic kind.

As Jake placed the last ingredients in the cauldron, he let his mind wander.

The House of the Architect had been a weird Challenge Dungeon for Jake. He had made some great progress in many aspects, especially his alchemy. Many things had begun to fall behind during these last many years doing Nevermore, and now he had time to finally play catch-up. Not only that, Jake had even managed to upgrade his stealth skill to legendary rarity, something he was incredibly happy about.

It did suck that he had to use what little Jake Juice he had managed to replenish, but he didn’t regret doing so. He believed it had been a good call.

Shit, Jake had even learned to craft a Grimoire. That was a great and invaluable experience, and he knew the next one he made would be even better. If he had a scribe produce the ink and make the book itself for him to use during the creation process, one that could make them to Jake’s exact specifications, things would only get better.

Out of any timespan Jake had spent focusing on his alchemy, this was definitely the most fruitful when it came to pure progress, only capable of being slightly rivaled by the time shortly after he went to the Order of the Malefic Viper. However, it was indisputable the gains of this Challenge Dungeon had been plentiful, and Jake had gotten a lot more done than he thought possible.

His only regret during the House of the Architect was how he had approached his first student. Jake was far from adequate to do anything like taking students yet and would need a lot of time to properly learn how to not suck ass at teaching. To be able to have at least some confidence in what he was doing. Even if he wanted to be a free-range teacher who fostered independence and self-study, he at least wanted to be good at doing that.

Jake wanted to, at the very least, be able to look at his students with a smile and feel like he didn’t let them down.

As Jake finished up the final batch of poison, he was barely paying attention to what he was doing and practically running on autopilot. Yet right then, something stirred him. He looked down, and his eyes narrowed as he felt the mixture between his hands near completion. It actually took him a millisecond to remember he was even crafting right now… which was why it didn’t make sense that what he saw felt like, by far, the best poison he had made in this dungeon so far.

Before he could even fully process why this particular concoction was so good, everything around him rumbled as a presence descended from above. Jake felt as if reality itself began to warp as what looked like a single scaled finger momentarily appeared from above, seemingly piercing through every layer of protection set by Nevermore and the system. At the tip of this finger, a small translucent drop of blood gathered before it fell right into the concoction.

The finger disappeared as fast as it had come, reality returning to normal, but Jake instantly knew what it was. He had felt it a few times before, after all, which also meant the notifications that came next didn’t surprise him.

*DING! *: [Malefic Viper’s Poison] has been activated! The transcendent power of the Malefic Viper has forcefully increased the rarity of your creation to ancient, increasing all effects substantially.

*You have successfully crafted [Malefic Blackheart Poison (Ancient)] – A new kind of creation has been made.*

It was the class-specific skill Malefic Viper’s Poison once again. This time, not forcibly triggered by using the venom from Felix’s statue, but through what Jake felt had to be sheer luck… though Jake doubted it was that simple. The skill always seemed to trigger at odd or highly impactful times, like when he helped create the core that gave birth to Sylphie or when he passed the Malefic Viper Challenge Dungeon all the way back in the Tutorial.

Jake looked down at his concoction and used Identify.

[Malefic Blackheart Poison (Ancient)] – Turn the heart of your foe black, as only death awaits them. Mixing potent Hemotoxin and Necrotic Poisons, a Hemonecrotic Poison has been made, capable of rotting your foe from the inside. If inflicted, this poison will merge with the heart, turning it black as death overtakes it, forcing it to pump out necrotic toxins into the body rather than vital energy. Wounds caused by necrotic poison are extremely difficult to heal. Cleansing the Blackheart Poison is impossible unless the heart is completely destroyed. Should the heart be destroyed, all the remaining necrotic energy within will instantly spread throughout the body.

It was just like his Heartrot Poison but improved in every single way. Seeing it, Jake honestly had some mixed emotions… and not just because of everything with his student and how his wayward thoughts regarding him had partly somehow led to this Creation.

No, what truly miffed him was that he couldn’t just keep the damn poison for himself and hand in the regular Heartrot Poison. Jake would very much like to just keep this one as an ace up his sleeves. Alas, that wasn’t possible, so Jake did the next best thing he could.

Bottling the poison up, he had five bottles total. Jake felt pretty darn certain submitting more or less of the poison wouldn’t matter for the evaluation, so he did what any reasonable person would do, which also happened to be the one way he knew for him to keep a part of the poison with him. Starting with the Heartrot Poison he had left over that wouldn’t make any sense to turn into Merit Points, Jake began to chug down his own poison.

It tasted like shit.

Drinking one’s own poison using Palate rarely had many benefits and honestly wasn’t worth it, but there were some minor gains, and Jake honestly had nothing better to do with it. However, something he did know was good to drink was whatever Malefic Viper’s Poison transformed.

Both the Unstable Amalgamation of Malefic Vitau he had made during the Tutorial and the poison he made during his fight with Minaga had been either partly or fully consumed by Jake. Especially the first poison had given Jake some great insights into vital energy and whatnot, with him sadly only passively absorbing a bit of the poison he used to kill Minaga. Well, a Minaga.

This was likely because it included insights directly from the Viper himself and not just Jake. It was effectively a way for Jake to absorb Records of an extremely powerful poison while at the same time having the benefits of being recognized as the crafter of it. Actually, thinking about it, Jake wouldn’t be surprised if this skill was another attempt from Villy to exploit some loophole in the system…

Anyway, when Jake was done with the Heartrot Poison, it was time to move on to the main course. Jake was a bit more careful with this one as he only dripped a few drops of the poison on his tongue at first. As it entered his stomach, Jake felt the energy it gave off was far more potent than the regular poison, but it was still more than manageable. Drinking the rest of the first of four bottles he was to consume, Jake meditated as he slowly absorbed the poison into his body.

Jake opened his eyes not long after, frowning a bit. It’s not quite enough…

That is when he got a brilliant idea as he took out his katar. Coating his weapon, he not only made the effect of it more powerful through his passive skills, but he could even consume the poison in a far more effective way. Turning the weapon on himself, he stabbed himself in the arm, allowing the poison to fully infect him and his bloodstream.

Feeling the poison worm its way to his heart felt a bit icky, but he soon realized there had been a bit of a lie in the description, or perhaps Jake had just misunderstood a word. While it was true the poison could not be cleansed from the heart, Jake sure as hell could absorb it. It probably made sense, as Jake was sure there was no such thing as something being ”impossible,” and maybe to cleanse something had a special meaning. Who knows? What mattered was that Jake got far more out of the second bottle than the first.

For the third bottle, Jake felt a bit more frisky as he stabbed himself in the stomach, allowing more of the poison to affect him faster. When it was time for the fourth and final bottle, Jake felt confident enough to get the full Malefic Blackheart experience as he stabbed himself right in his own heart.

It hurt like hell and definitely couldn’t be recommended, but Jake gritted his teeth as his heart turned black. Hemonecrotic toxins were pumped through his veins and spread throughout his entire body as his veins turned black, and dark spots began to appear on his skin before it started to rot shortly after.

His extremities were hit first as his fingers began to fully blacken, and his toes went entirely numb. Yet Jake did nothing but rotate the poison, even reining in Palate a bit for the poison to really do its thing. Only after a few minutes did Jake decide it was enough as he actively worked to eliminate all the poison.

Fifteen minutes later, Jake opened his eyes, the black spots gone. He did end up losing two toes and a pinky finger, but that wasn’t anything a quick health potion couldn’t fix. After properly regenerating and making himself look just semi-representable by not being covered in rotten flesh and blood, Jake headed toward the Architect to submit his final Creation and finally get the hell out of the Challenge Dungeon.

With this Malefic Blackheart Poison, Jake felt a lot better about his final submission, and he hoped it would help contribute to the final evaluation. Though, if he was being perfectly honest, Jake didn’t know how much impact a single item would have.

Jake had thought a lot about how this evaluation would work. Nevermore had said that it was an overall evaluation of all items, which made Jake think that one couldn’t get the top score by submitting one top-tier Creation and a load of shit afterward. Instead, everything you submitted had to be at least decent, with a few top-tier products in there.

In Jake’s opinion, he had three top-tier submissions. The Grimoire, the legendary stealth skill, and finally, the poison he had just made. Meanwhile, the arcane marble and his horrible attempt at being a teacher were extreme wild cards. There was also Jake’s very first submission, which was just a conversation... yeah, Jake had no idea how good or bad that was, but hey, at least it was very different from everything else, so it should get some bonus points for that.

Arriving in front of the Architect’s door, it opened by itself as always as the woman within raised her gaze upon his entry.

”Here with my final Creation to submit,” Jake said as he took out the poison bottle. ”I want to submit this Malefic Blackheart Poison. Also, I hope the skill I triggered didn’t cause too much of a disturbance.”

”It’s not anything for you to worry about,” the Architect said as the bottle in Jake’s hand disappeared. Nevermore’s eyes glowed for a second as she looked at Jake.

”With the tenth submission, it is time for the final evaluation. Shall we proceed now, or do you have unfinished business within the House of the Architect you want to finish first?”

”No, let’s just get this over with,” Jake sighed as he began to feel a bit nervous. He felt like he was doing an exam back in university all of a sudden… and Jake had never been a big fan of exams. Well, except for those multiple-choice ones, as he could often just rely on his guts on those ones, effectively cheating.

”In that case, let us begin,” Nevermore said with a smile as the door behind Jake closed, and the final evaluation began.