Zogarth
patreon
Chapter 1161 - Laying Much Groundwork
🕑 Added 2025-06-18 11:23:59 +0000 UTCThe pile of gemstones was perfectly balanced on top of the intricate magic circle that had been painstakingly carved beneath it. This was but one of over fifty piles that served as focal points for the massive formation that had been constructed in a vast cavern beneath a certain palace within the territory of the Pantheon of Life.
It had been about a year and a half since Jake had agreed with Jasper that he would help the little fella evolve, and after spending the first three months researching, Jake had begun constructing the ritual circle.
As for the cavern, well, Jasper preferred to be underground, and seeing as the cellar wasn’t big enough for what Jake was planning, he decided to do a minor home makeover by adding a cellar to the cellar.
With permission, of course... though in truth, Artemis sounded like she didn’t give a shit even if Jake blew up the entire palace and constructed a magic circle on the bare mountaintop.
The ritual was still not done yet, but Jake had made great progress and was quite confident in the design he’d gone for. The entire thing was a lot more personalized than when Jake had helped birth Vesperia or even helped the Demon Prince. He even had Jasper deciding where to play his piles of loot, and Jake then carving the focal points of the ritual circle beneath them.
Was he confident it would work? Kind of. The thing is, there didn’t exist any ritual to do exactly what Jake was planning, as nobody else had his Primeval Origin Energy. He was limited in the wisdom he could borrow from the previous generations, but that didn’t mean he was entirely empty-handed. In fact, he’d based this entire ritual circle around two existing ones he’d haphazardly merged through the guidance of his gut feelings.
The first one was a ritual circle used by Shimmerfur Warpsnatchers and the other variants of the species. More accurately, it was the ritual circle of a slightly weaker variant than Jasper that wasn’t able to as easily absorb the Records and energy from the collected loot, requiring them to construct an actual magic circle to assist.
Second was a magic circle used by the Order of the Malefic Viper to try to pour Records into others. It was, to be perfectly honest, a really fucked up ritual. Its most common use case was to try to force Records into slaves or prisoners just to see the results. Forceful Record infusion wasn’t really a thing in the multiverse, as it always led to horrible results and ruined people’s Paths when it was done. A bit similar to when Jake had the “opportunity” to turn into a Malefic Dragonkin back in the day, or even the Demon Prince.
In those instances, it had worked out, but that was the exception, not the rule. Of course, Jake wouldn’t try to force a bunch of Records into Jasper, but just needed aspects of this ritual to allow himself to infuse the loot piles spread out in the place.
That’s right, Jake wasn’t actually planning on injecting Jasper with the Primeval Origin Energy directly. Instead, he wanted to funnel it through the loot piles, absorb the energies and Records from those, and then allow Jasper to absorb it.
He’d even talked with the little bugger about this after the Warpsnatcher reached peak C-grade and finally got his evolution quest. The quest had been exactly as expected, and honestly... it was a slam dunk for what Jake was trying to do.
Jasper’s evolution quest required him to gather a sufficient treasure hoard and absorb all the energy and Records from what was gathered. Apparently, this kind of evolution quest wasn’t all that uncommon, especially not for monsters walking a Path like Jasper or Sandy, who were all about natural treasures rather than fighting.
This being the evolution quest meant Jake would effectively just be adding his own flavor to the entire process. It truly was lucky, seeing as this was Jake’s first attempt at trying to infuse energy into a monster semi-directly.
It was kind of a middle step between infusing a core with Primeval Origin Energy and having the monster absorb it and infusing the energy directly into their bodies. If this ritual went well, an even more direct infusion would be next.
However, there was one problem... Jasper wasn’t ready to evolve yet. Due to the Warpsnatcher mainly chilling after getting to Jake’s place and being from a less-than-ideal Hunting Ground before that, the accumulated hoard wasn’t good enough yet. At least Jasper wasn’t satisfied.
That’s why the Warpsnatcher had spent nearly a year coming and going with new treasures. Artemis had kindly provided Jake with a token for the little guy, and once more, Jasper had shown that while he still wasn’t super good at talking, he wasn’t stupid.
He instantly understood how the teleportation gateways worked and, with an information crystal outlining the general geography and power levels of the Great Planet, began to actively use them to jump around it to find suitable loot-gathering spots.
Needless the say, the resources on a Great Planet were vastly superior to a Hunting Ground, and while it was certainly also more dangerous, Warpsnatchers were notoriously elusive and good at running away. Every time Jasper returned, Jake would hear stories from the little thief, the most impressive ones being when Jasper managed to steal a treasure from under the nose of two mid-tier B-grades fighting.
Also, no, Jake or others couldn’t help Jasper by donating to the loot piles. In the same vein that Jake would get nothing out of Villy or Artemis bringing him a half-dead B-grade for him to kill, Jasper would get nothing out of having loot handed to him.
Anyhow, that was the state of Jake’s ritual circle project, and he was confident about being done with it before Jasper was ready. As for his other projects, things were also steadily progressing there.
The bow was growing with every passing day, and Jake was working hard on creating his first epic rarity poison... well, his first one that didn’t appear only due to Malefic Viper’s Poison, anyway.
Jake also already knew what kind of poison he wanted to make, and it was one unlike anything he’d made before. Actually, that wasn’t entirely accurate. Jake had made something similar once, though it had been with the help of Malefic Viper’s Poison and had happened during his fight with Minaga in Nevermore.
There, he’d impromptu created the kind of poison he now wanted to purposefully make. As for the one he’d made back then?
[Volatile Malefic Soulbane Poison (Ancient)]
Nothing in the name mattered besides the “bane” portion, because it was that kind of poison Jake wanted to create. To clarify, bane poisons were an entire classification of poison, and the name bane was always paired with something else. Back in Nevermore, he had made a Soulbane poison, which was admittedly one as broad as could possibly be made.
Bane poisons were toxins aimed at very specific things, or more accurately, at very specific Records. A bane poison would be far more effective than a regular toxin on its specified target, while it would have zero effect on anything else. In simpler terms, it was a way to focus all the energy of the poison.
In some ways, it was a bit akin to the entire concept of scale and intensity. Rather than have the poison work on every target, one could empower it by having it only work on very specific ones.
It wasn’t hard to guess, but Jake’s ultimate goal with working on this type of toxin was to create something he’d dreamed of making ever since he learned what bane poisons even were:
Dragonbane.
If Jake, being a poison archer, wanted to hunt down a dragon, he would naturally need his very own Dragonbane poison to go along with it. Of course, the process of actually making a bane poison wasn’t easy at all.
First of all, it required materials from the monster in question. To put it another way, Jake needed parts of a dragon. Luckily, all of that could be purchased, much of it even from the Dragonflights themselves.
Dragons were fully aware of just how overpowered they were as a species and actively capitalized on it by selling their bodies. They would purposefully infuse scales, blood, and even bones with their own Records and sell them off. Especially the Wildflight, which fortunately had a significant presence on the Great Planet, was well known for this.
Sadly, there was one other minor issue with Jake’s plan… the difficulty of a bane poison tended to correspond to the power of the target. This is to say, if Jake wanted to make a Dragonbane poison, he would need to be quite decent at making bane poisons in the first place, and there was no shot his first bane ever could be Dragonbane.
On the lucky side, Jake didn’t need to make a Dragonbane poison to upgrade his Concoct Poison skill to epic rarity. All bane poisons were epic rarity by default, so as long as he could make any version of it, he would be good.
As for what bane poison Jake would make first, he’d already decided. All the books made two things clear, which both played into why he’d chosen this kind of bane. The first one was that the more familiar one was with the set of Records one wanted to target, the easier it was to make a bane poison for it.
The second one was that it was universally agreed there was one bane poison easier to make than any others throughout the whole multiverse… Humanbane.
Did learning that suck? Yes. Did it make sense that it was the easiest? Also yes. Oh, and to Jake’s relief, humanbane poison tended to kinda suck in its raw form, as it was still considered a very broad kind of toxin. Beastbane and Elementalbane were also both super easy, but even less effective than Humanbane poison. Oh yeah, Elfbane, Dwarfbane, and such were also considered on the easier side, but seeing as humans remained the most numerous of all the enlightened species, it was the easiest.
This, combined with Jake being a, well, human, this option made the most sense for him to start out by making a Humanbane poison. Now, as for how it was going to actually make one… work in progress. Jake still had a lot of groundwork he had to get done before he could even begin his crafting attempts.
Besides, he also had to dedicate a lot of time to meditating and reading the tome left by the First Sage, with the goal of upgrading his meditation skill while hopefully killing two birds with one stone by also fixing his Palate.
On that front, Jake had a hard time saying how close he was to upgrading the skill. If he wanted to, upgrading Meditate to legendary rarity would be a breeze, but he was still reluctant to go ahead and just do it. He wanted it to at least be mythical right off the bat and to ensure that the version he created was future-proof. Also, there was a good chance that he would need it to be at least mythical if he wanted to use it to fix his Palate of the Malefic Viper.
In all honesty, Jake kind of hoped he would just one day know he was ready to finally synthesize and combine all the knowledge he’d gained from the First Sage’s tome into a singular skill upgrade. Trusting his gut and doing things when it felt right to do so had rarely turned out badly, so the hope was he could just do that again.
Now, if it wasn’t already clear, Jake was right now in a state of studying and not really creating. He did craft a little here and there when he wanted to test something for his poison research, but it was very little. That’s also why it had taken him more than one and a half years to get a single level in his profession.
’DING!’ Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 319 - Stat points allocated, +35 Free Points
Compared to setting up and blasting a B-grade or two from orbit, leveling his profession was a lot harder and took a lot more time. There were bursts of experience here and there, but the most reliable and best way to level was still the slow and steady approach.
Besides, Jake wasn’t actually annoyed at not having gained more levels. One more and he would reach level 320, which would grant him another skill selection. The more research and the more Records Jake gathered before then, the better the options would be.
Additionally, while experience points were low now, Jake was planting the seeds for a lot of levels once it was time to reap. Upon executing the Jasper ritual, he would definitely gain a lot. When he finally succeeded in creating his first bane poison and subsequently mass-produced it, he would more easily learn to make the other easy bane poisons, resulting in a significant increase in levels.
Finally, there was one other thing Jake had wanted to do during this year and a half that he sadly didn’t get the opportunity to do… and that was actually to spend some quality time with Artemis.
Seeing her was half the reason Jake had gone to the Pantheon of Life in the first place, so it sucked a bit that she only occasionally sent an avatar to talk or bring Jake somewhere. Even when she did that, it was clear she was distracted and her mind was somewhere entirely different when she was with Jake.
Ultimately, Jake hadn’t addressed it, though. He respected that Artemis was busy dealing with her own stuff, and he even had a pretty good idea of what she was doing. Nature’s Attendant had also given a few scarce context clues here and there that made Jake more confident in his guess.
If Jake was right, Artemis was currently preparing for a breakthrough of some kind. Likely to Godqueen. He already knew that whatever Villy had given him as a gift for Artemis was far from simple, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if that item was what she was currently busy assimilating with her true body. If that was indeed the case, it would make a lot of sense why she couldn’t dedicate a lot of mental energy to anything else.
She was still around now and then, though, and she remained insistent on wanting some level of involvement with Jasper’s ritual. Her level of involvement likely wouldn’t go beyond being present for it, but she seemed happy enough with that.
So… yeah, Jake had a generally calm time studying, only occasionally interrupted by Miranda telling him about what sounded like a much more stressful situation back on Earth.
Comments
Tony Belfer
Thank you for the chapter
Chloe
Tyftc
Stoney
Might just be me but I get the feeling that there's probably going to be an increase in timeskips going forward. especially how it's stated that some tasks/levels can take centuries/millennia to do.
Troy Telford
Hmm...maybe I'm a warpsnatcher? If junk = power...yup. That's plausible. 😄
islandcastle11
I would appreciate this. Switching between 10-15 chapters of slice of life to 5 chapters of times skipping/world building stuff will be VERY necessary and won’t take away from the story. If anything I would enjoy it more
Azazel
You merely adopted the poison, I was born in it. Moulded by it.
Mike
M P0
Bushninja
I was wondering the same thing, didn’t think there would be a year+ timeskip before he cashed on that dinner invite.
John Durrett
tyftc. Reading Jakes preparations for everything was super easy, barely an inconvenience!
Nikita Becker
Had jake alteady used the zoken from keerla and Solana? He met the two saving the fortuna ferret from the simvitas
James Lucas
Oh he will notice... He just won't care more than to congratulate her lol
ABTelford
I enjoyed this relaxing chapter. Wish there was more doing instead of telling but oh well
JJB4345_80_815
☝️ Yes! You are awesome Zogarth!
JJB4345_80_815
Yes, thank you for the chappy Zogarth!
Blutako
For real, not to mention the Hawks and sylphs that will just cause havoc too
brjenness
Artemis will show up in a couple chapters and be disappointed that Jake doesn't notice she is a godqueen
Corvid
Ding heretic chosen alchemist has gained 8 levels. You're a heretic working on bane poisons, don't make me say what you just concocted to get that many levels at once out loud please
Corvid
numbers go up good
Devillelouch
Dang I was really hoping Artemis was learning naming or doing something silly. I wonder why to move Artemis to Godqueen now?
Ty Cooper
You are probably right. She is just about there going crazy that it was so close and the ritual bumps her over.
brjenness
I caution myself that Jasper is already pretty awesome.
Yahyo Malikov
The seat of the exalted prima is gonna be one. Jake will probably claim the world wonder. There is a hard requirement of being B grade to hold a seat. Jake also will be using his full bloodline and I hope zoggy gives him room to improve it too instead of being to overpowered
ThatGuy
Any ideas on what the main arc of B Grade is going to be about? First we had the tutorial, then we had the integration to the multiverse, and we just wrapped up EH. What’s next?
Brody Stafford
I think he just said he was the first human not the first overall.
Thenais
well, at least irin would be happy, once Jake get tired of being fridged
Darshar Griffonmane
Man I am super excited to see where Jasper's evolution goes. Every other evolution Jake has aided in has led to the development of some seriously weird but awesome friends. tyftc!
Nate Green
I bet Artemis will ascend as soon as Jasper does due to the infusion of records
Keeb
iirc ol' valde' was the first primordial to rise to godhood, I'm pretty sure it was villy who mentioned it in conversation
Matthew
Hope Artemis doesn’t take a millennium to get to godqueen.
Anonymous
POV: *ding you have crafted holybane
Thenais
HMS Jartemis is sinking a little bit
Arieh Sochaczevski
Thanks for the chapter!
Daniel Hamilton
where to play his piles Where to place his piles
Hayden Leech
I bet she’s doing awesome stuff. I’m picturing a Tyranid Hive Fleet from Warhammer 40k swarming over planets. But waspy. But they would use massive wasp hives acting as spaceships just dropping millions of wasp drones in the planet from space.
Takoda Heitz
Hey Zog. Tftc. I also just want you to know that I (and I think we all) deeply appreciate everything you’re doing. It’s clear that you work as hard as Jake does to make sure we have these chapters everyday. I’m sure it can’t be easy so I truly thank you.
joel southard
Thank you for the chapter
John Pfeffer
That would probably not be very effective. Too broad. More like “How to make flame lightning 1st circle dragon godbane poison…”
Jan
Just a thought: might the „at least mythical“ identify skill let Jake see the origin (aka the original records or path) of whatever or whoever he tries to identify? I mean Jake is all about origins and the first sage’s skill is also the origin of today’s identify
MrEM4N
Jake's search history when he finally makes it to S-grade: "How to make godsbane poison..."
Vega
Thanks for the chapter!
Kaladin
They still need a focus for the ritual or rather a special monster core right?
Kaladin
Didn't Vladimir kill a god when he was b grade? Thought I remember reading that.
brjenness
in 100 billion years people will fear crossing the primal hunter. not because he will kill you, but because he has armies of space worms and porcucats traveling with minaga clones that will steal. all your stuff
brjenness
anybody else want to see kindroth and rainbow chicken meet
Jeremiah Lambert
Ding! You have successfully created: Bane of the Primordial. Ect...
TKOva
Yea dude that book from the first sage is the basis of the skill. Or the legitimate baseline records of the skill. Aka the first sages original records for it.
WhiteLeeopard
Yes to all of that, but fingers crossed B Nevermore is a glorious time skip of gain 80 levels and read it in a single paragraph XD While it was fun while it was happening there are too many other interesting things to see in the multiverse. Still need to visit Valhal and become an honorary member, and the lands of the Risen and many other fun places!
Lemonsqueezy
TYFC. I am liking the story progressing into another arc. The time-skips are very necessary at this point considering how long advancing in grade gets exponentially as you get higher.
Jan Backhaus
"at least mythical"?!?!
A. B. Edwards
So close to the next major revels. I have a feeling Zogarth is about to spoil us. I think it will be in this order: Jasper (have a feeling the ritual will do something insane and Artemis becomes a Godqueen at that moment), Arnold nukes the moon, meditation, palate, dragonsbane, dragon hunt, B-Grade (new classes!). Then the new arc. I think it will revolve around the unknown God blessing beings on earth and I have a feeling it is not Gods (plural) but a singular God and they have little if anything to do with Yip of Yore. And if not a new God then the next arc will be that weird mushroom world wonder. And then a little later B-GRADE NEVERMORE! ANOTHER 500 CHAPTERS OF NEVERMORE!
Sylas Varga
The term primordial bane will definitely come eventually. Jake has probably the most experience with primordials out of any non-primordial
Jack Dawson
That's very Jake though, getting so into whatever he's doing at the moment that he forgets everything else he had going on. I think this might be the most things he's ever worked on at the same time.
Eric Shivak
TFTC - One Edit He even had Jasper deciding where to (play) place his piles of loot
Jabirttok
I bet he makes a cauldron out of a planet
Tom
Could the stuff on earth be building up to the next court or shadows attempt on Jake, or related to whomever hired the court to kill Jake
Rewdan
That is going to be hilarious
Namorat
This made me realise that I miss Vesperia chapters
Rewdan
Thanks Zogarth had to check that today is Wednesday and not Thursday.
Namorat
So looking forward to the ritual and its result
Alejandro Piña
I’ve been wandering tho, how would Jake go about presenting Artemis to his family later on?
RnR_ RnR
B is what 350?
Jelani Willock
Perhaps theyre wondering why you would shoot a dragon before dropping it out of a plane
Ty Cooper
Thanks for the time skip catch-up. Looking forward to all the things coming to fruition. Sadly my hope of Jake absorbing his soulflame before b-grade is dying. Doesn't seem to be on the radar at all before b-grade. Hasn't even checked it since getting to the Pantheon of Life. Tftc!
Spencer Wilson
finally caught up with the patreon chapters. loving the series zogarth.
Kaktus
The only correct way of saying it
Joshua Little
Thanks for the chapter.
Talmadge Hires
Tftc!!
Kt-x
Thanks for the chapter
Fdrugc
Tftc
Eden
tftc
IntenseSushi
Tftc
Hmmm... okay
TYFTC
eatingpitza314
Straight to the first empyrean step
Sean
where to play his piles of loot I think you meant where to place his piles of loot.
dash w
Thanks for the chappy
Cory wilson
Very good chapter like the updates and the small time skip
eatingpitza314
*Primeval Origin Energy* --> *Jake juice*
Unwillingmainer
Can't wait to see what madness that ritual requires Jake to do and what kind of consequences it will kick off. The more he makes high grade variants, the more the various factions will want him to make some for them.
Kristoffer
I also thought that
Xander
TFTC :) Suggested edits: "deciding where to *play* his piles of" should be "place" "to *as easily* absorb the Records and energy from the collected loot" the "as easily" should come after loot "as for how *it* was going to actually" should be "he" surely?
Jordan Rogers
So Jake’s gonna Jake juice Artemis too? In the middle of his ritual for the warpsnatcher, sending her into a more exalted primal version of godqueen, awesome.
Austin Barton
Tftc
Was geht sie dass an
I just had the idea when Jake reaches godhood he'll sit on a planet with his cauldron and think" still to weak" a bunch of dead god dragons behind him
John Burton
Was anyone else expecting him to make a mushroombane poison or was it just me?
Phoenixdrop
Okay sounds like everything is going as planned also now I have the thought of a “Jakebane” poison like a poison designed to literally only kill a single person like if Jake could make a poison targeted at literally only the thing he is hunting and then put into his super arrow it would be insane how powerful it would be
BenjiVoid
to play his piles > place
LemonPerson
cliffhanger could be skill selection maybe
LemonPerson
😏😏
Maxime
if Jake's ritual ends up being significant in Artemis' ascension to Godqueen, I can't imagine the benefits it'd bring to Jake.. 😳
Loststar7
I get the feeling that this is a buildup to a truly heinous Friday cliffhanger. Thank you Zogarth for the pain.
Jabirttok
We're so close to a big update!!! I'm so excited to see Jake hit b grade! Tyftc!
Blutako
Thank you for the chapter zogarth 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
C0bra$
Thank u for the story
Blutako
Snacks for you *gives snackies*
Sorrow
Tftc
Sylphie
REE!!!
Overlord1993
Tftc
Beemoss
Tftc
TDMC
Tftc
Mohammed Sheekh
First
