Chapter 821: Nevermore: Checks & Balances

Chapter 821: Nevermore: Checks & Balances

Isnt it entirely expected a few of his Creations will be entirely hidden even from you? You know how the system is with Bloodlines, Natures Attendant spoke up within the divine watch party living room. If I am correct, little Dina must also have submitted some items that were restricted when she did the House of the Architect.

She did, the Wyrmgod confirmed. However, it is rare that Nevermore herself shows interest in a Creation. Much less several Creations within a short time span. My attention wasnt truly on the Chosen of the Lifesoul Daolord, as while his methods and Path are interesting, it isnt one I find particularly appealing. However, it seems there is more to him than I initially believed.

All Bloodlines have secrets and are irregular by definition, Vilastromoz shrugged, fine that the topic had switched away from Jake. For him to have his own special means is indeed only to be expected.

The Viper wouldnt say he was worried about how things would go in the House of the Architect for his Chosen. Both when it came to Jake doing well and regarding if he would reveal something, he probably shouldnt. The Bound God of the World Wonder was a quasi-system entity, making her subject to its rules. Even if she wanted to share all of Jakes secrets, she would be unable to.

It did annoy the Viper a bit that Nevermore knew more about Jake and his secrets than his Patron god, but there wasnt really anything to do about it.

When it came to the overall evaluation Jake would get, the Viper also had great confidence. Even without factoring in Jakes Bloodline, alchemists tended to do very well in this Challenge Dungeon. Statistics showed that of all the popular profession archetypes, alchemists were the overall top performers in this Challenge Dungeon simply due to how diverse of a craft it was. Poisons, potions, elixirs, pills, transmutation, magic circles, herbology, and many more disciplines were part of the art of alchemy. All very different, with the only truly common thing being their requirement for high-level mana control.

This also meant that his Order was one of the factions that had the best average performance. Alright, it also helped that the Order only tended to accept elites, but the fact it was an alchemy-focused faction was definitely the most important factor.

With all that in mind, Jake would likely get a decent evaluation even if he only had his alchemy to rely on. But Jake, of course, didnt only have his alchemy. Throwing in the Bloodline meant that Jake had a great whiff of uniqueness in there, and the Viper was sure Jake would pull off something impressive, bringing him from a decent to a great evaluation.

However, it was far from assured Jake would get a top-tier Grand Achievement.

Jake and even Dina would definitely have earned a top score if this was Nevermore back right after it got established, Natures Attendant shared with a nostalgic smile. It sure was interesting back then before all the checks and balances.

The Wyrmgod scoffed. Balance had to be achieved. With the further propagation of Bloodlines, something simply had to change. A Bloodline should not result in an automatic top-tier evaluation. At least Record inflation meant that the Leaderboards from back then are now useless.

I think we should give poor Jake a helping hand by allowing him full points even for stuff that is fully Bloodline-reliant. The guy is clearly starved of points, Minaga said in a fake sad tone.

I am sure hell be just fine, Natures Attendant chuckled.

The Viper smiled at the conversation, remembering how Nevermore changed and adapted with time. It was true that Nevermore once had far fewer balancing factors and far more things to exploit. There was quite a period where the evaluations in all these Challenge Dungeons were made entirely based on the Records contributed. This, in nearly all cases, resulted in anything using a Bloodline leading to an automatic top score, as few things could be more unique than a unique Bloodline. Well, besides maybe a Transcendant skill, something that would also automatically qualify someone to get a top-tier evaluation back then.

Now, things had changed significantly. No longer was a Bloodline an unsurmountable advantage, even if they were still a big bonus. It also mattered how well one used ones Bloodline now, and the overall quality of the items submitted using it.

Even so, the Viper was confident. As long as he remembered to submit a damn Grimoire, at least.

Ah, by the way, that human from your Chosens Planet just got done with the Challenge Dungeon. The one who walks a Path of the Void under the influence of Oras, the Wyrmgod shared with the room a bit about three months - later as he looked at Vilastromoz.

So? the Viper questioned, finding himself a bit intrigued but not overly interested. He already had a good idea of how that man would do.

To start this new and exciting project, Jake had first needed to make two powerful poisons to merge. One Hemotoxin and one Necrotic Poison, both firmly in the rare rarity, to then hopefully merge them even an even better rare rarity poison.

Once more, it had to be reiterated that poison rarities were quite a bit different from many other types. A bit like potions. The rarity was a lot more set than in other things, and even just making rare poisons in C-grade was considered pretty damn good. In fact, Jake had been told by Villy that should he manage to create an epic rarity poison and upgrade the skill to epic while still in C-grade, it would be very impressive.

Shit, it wasnt uncommon for some alchemists to never even reach rare rarity with their poison crafting while in C-grade.

One of the reasons why the rarities for these crafting skills were a bit different was because they were never downgraded. Every evolution from now on B, A, and S-grade would result in every single skill getting evaluated and potentially downgraded. The only ones immune to this were Jakes unique skills and his crafting skills. Elixir making, potion brewing, and poison concocting to be more accurate. So, if one wanted to look at Jakes rare poison skill in a more arrogant and definitely not accurate light, one could imagine it was actually meant to be three rarities higher as it would dodge three downgrades, making it already a legendary skill.

Yeah, alright, that wasnt how it worked, but Jake liked to imagine it was. Anyway, this peculiar nature of the crafting skills also resulted in the spectrum within each rarity being far, far wider. Jake could make a rare rarity poison that was dozens of times more powerful than another and still stay within the same rarity, while if he did that with most other projects, the sheer power difference would result in a rarity difference also showing up. It did feel a bit weird that Jake could toss a dozen legendary rarity ingredients together and end up with a rare poison, but what can you do.

All of this is to say that despite Jake only aiming to craft another rare rarity poison, it didnt make the final result any less impressive. He didnt even consider making an epic rarity poison, as he knew it wasnt going to happen. In fact, he had a way higher chance of making one of ancient rarity due to Malefic Vipers Poison proccing. Something he seriously doubted would happen due to how damn low its proc rate was.

Jake even regretted using that Venom from the horrible statue Felix made, but then again, it would probably have counted as a crafting ingredient and not something Jake could use during the Challenge Dungeon.

Back on the topic of this poison in question, Jake had rapidly made progress over the last many months, and when he transitioned into only focusing on this specific one, things only picked up further.

Before he began, Jake had been quite a bit better at making Hemotoxins compared to Necrotic Poison, but he quickly shored that up and got them to just about the same level. That was necessary if he wanted to merge them and create something new. Something Jake had come across that had a damn impressive and highly innovative name:

Hemonecrotic Poison.

Alright, it was just a combination of the words hemotoxin and necrotic. But the poison itself was actually pretty damn good.

One of Necrotic Poisons biggest weaknesses was how effective it was. It sounded counterproductive, but it tended to simply rot away the area it affected too quickly and ran itself dry of energy. This even happened with the higher-quality Necrotic Poisons that released necrotic light into their surroundings. The result was that anyone who was inflicted could more accurately target the poison with their vital energies or even just cut off the affected area.

Some enemies Jake had faced on the different Nevermore floors even sealed off the area he had affected and let it rot away until the necrotic energy ran out to then swoop in and cut off the very small affected area. This could result in a potent Necrotic Poison doing nothing more than rotting away a thumb-sized hole around where his arrow had struck, doing far less damage than he would have liked.

In many ways, Necrotic Poison was the most straightforward kind of poison there was, with no real hidden tricks. Just a shitload of death-affinity energy trying to make stuff die. It was both its biggest strength and biggest weakness.

However, what if the Necrotic Poison, with its incredibly potent death-affinity energy, was allowed to spread throughout the body? If it rapidly began to affect several places in the body at once instead of just one localized area?

To then make matters worse, this necrotic energy would be merged with a Hemotoxin one of the notoriously most difficult poisons to get rid of as it bonded to the blood and vital energy of the infected person. It was a real double-whammy of damage that would create a high-damage, high-resistance poison. The kind Jake could confidently build up throughout a long fight.

The kind of poison he would happily use on his prey.

Jake was excited about finally getting it done, and as he researched, what he had hoped would happen even ended up happening. He found something else that seemed interesting to craft he found what could very well become his tenth and final Creation.