The initial stats on the hydra looked discouraging at best, with its level alone enough to make me wary of even attempting to fight it.

  Adaptive Jungle Hydra, Level 32, 20,000/20,000hp

  Considering that I was still stuck at level 16, I was looking at picking a fight with a beast that was double my level. Under other circumstances, I would have just thrown in the towel right then and there, accepting that this jungle clearing would serve as our home from now on until we painstakingly leveled up enough to escape.

  Thankfully, God’s Eye wasn’t finished yet, offering me one key piece of information buried in the boss’s lore.

  The result of a long-forgotten beast tamer’s experiment, the Adaptive Jungle Hydra is the answer to the question “what happens when you combine the natural ferocity and regenerative prowess of a hydra with enough poison to swallow a village?”

  This toxic monstrosity is a natural mutation of the basic Adaptive Hydra, a highly sought-after beast that can take on properties of its environment. Hoping to automate the fulfillment of the creature’s intensive care requirements, the original prospective owner crafted and animated the surrounding junglings. Through their constant ministrations, the hydra has grown far stronger than its original would have ever imagined.

  With each of the five heads constrained to their own separate diets, the hydra maintains a full five different poisons it can use at will.

  The text was an interesting read for me, clearing up some of the questions I’d had earlier. I hadn’t been certain exactly what the junglings’ role was until now, but it seemed that they were some sort of specialized golems with the express purpose of feeding the hydra.

  And, of course, once again, I became curious as to just how much of the text was factually true and just how much was window dressing created by the dungeon itself. Had there actually been a real beast tamer once upon a time, or was the entire story a fabrication?

  All of that paled in comparison to the one standout fact presented in the boss’s lore. Its poison. More importantly, its poison’s origin.

  It gets its poison from its diet.

  If that was all I was working against, finishing our quest would be a breeze.

  Paralysis Antidote

  When imbibed, negates the paralyzing effects of poisons. All effects are dependent on both antidote and poison tier and strength.

  I hefted up a large bowl of my latest creation, the result of another day of gathering and brewing.

  In general, this wasn’t a recipe I usually went for. After all, if I was paralyzed, how was I supposed to bring the antidote to my mouth?

  In this case, however, that requirement was sidestepped completely. This antidote wasn’t for me at all.

  The plan was fairly simple. If the hydra only had poison powers because it kept eating poison, what would happen if we took the poison out of its diet? Or more precisely, what would happen if we counteracted it? I wasn’t entirely sure how long it would take, but theoretically, we could take out half its skill set just by altering its food.

  With the potion in hand, I went off to grab Cal, entrusting it to her. From everything I’d seen, the junglings wouldn’t care even if I walked up to one of their cauldrons and dumped it in, but I figured it was better to do it stealthily just in case.

  “This it? You just want me to dump the entire thing into that cauldron over there, yeah?” After receiving a confirmation from me, Cal winked out of existence.

  With my attention glued to the pot in question, I just barely caught the exact moment the antidote left the bowl and stopped benefiting from Apex Shroud, a trickle of liquid appearing out of thin air. When no jungle-themed alarms started blaring, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Cal returned moments later, hitting me with a double thumbs up. “Easy. Can you tell if it worked?”

  Considering that no one had stopped me from tasting the soup in the first place, I figured I’d just go over and have another sip. If it didn’t paralyze me, then everything was in order.

  Before I could take a single step, however, one of the jungling chefs neared the pot. Rather than pass it by or add new ingredients, she froze then slowly cocked her head to the side. A single finger entered the cauldron, scooping up a dab of the soup to her mask-like face. The moment the liquid touched her mouth, the jungling recoiled.

  She then proceeded to heft the cauldron upwards, carry it to the treeline, and unceremoniously dump its entire contents onto the ground.

  No. Would they really not let me change the hydra’s food? Would they instantly trash anything I altered? I ambled over to the vestiges of the soup on the dirt, Cal close in tow.

  “Huh. In fairness, I kind of get it. Doesn’t smell very appetizing, does it?” Cal leaned over the remnants of the stew as I stood there stewing.

  Wait. Is that it? She was right. It didn’t smell particularly pleasant. Throwing propriety to the wind, I bent down and grabbed a chunk of vegetable, popping it into my mouth.

  As soon as it touched my tongue, I had to force myself not to wretch. The paralysis antidote hadn’t been particularly pleasant in the first place, but it seemed like it had reacted with something in the soup. True, I hadn’t gotten a paralysis notification, which meant I’d at least been somewhat successful, but that was only half the battle.

  No wonder they dumped it. The hydra’s never going to eat something that tastes this awful.

  I briefly wondered if that was actually a positive. What would happen if I just sabotaged every cauldron one after another and got them all dumped until the hydra starved? Hell, I wouldn’t even need to put antidotes in them; I could just tip them over before the junglings delivered them.

  Feels doomed to go wrong, honestly. I somehow doubted the hydra would just chill there until it died from starvation. A hungry rampaging hydra was the last thing I wanted. If it still had its poison skills and broke free from the temple and started chasing us, I didn’t like our odds.

  No. I’m on the right path. I just can’t use an antidote that tastes this bad.

  With that realization, suddenly everything clicked into place.

  Trying to fix this with alchemy had failed because this wasn’t an alchemy problem in the first place.

  The junglings weren’t brewing potions. They were making soup. If I wanted to change the recipe, there was only one skill I could rely on.

  Guess it’s time to cook a little, then.

  The first step in taking cooking lessons was donning the proper garb. With a thought, I summoned up my battle apron. Suds had given it to me mostly as a joke, but I had to admit I’d grown fonder of it over time. With that out of the way, I dove into the world of jungle cooking.

  If the junglings were capable teachers for both Herbalism and Alchemy, then that was equally if not more so true for Cooking. For a full day, I didn’t even try to add anything to their cauldrons. In fact, I wasn’t even thinking about all five recipes yet: For now, I was just focused on the paralysis soup.

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  Rather than directly interfere, I mostly just watched, occasionally replicating their steps with my own set of ingredients. When I didn’t understand exactly why they were doing something, I’d often sneak a taste from their workstations just to see how the flavors evolved step by step.

  Eventually, I was able to muddle through everything, recreating their paralysis stew from scratch. That, however, was the easy part.

  Over the course of my harvesting extravaganza, I’d chanced upon an entire 30 separate ingredients with properties directly related to paralysis resistance. Another few dozen had strengthening effects that could magnify the effects of the other 30 if paired properly.

  Just about any of them could be tossed together for a basic antidote, barring any odd reactions to one another. The real question was how their flavors would interact.

  Sadly, it wasn’t as simple as biting into all of them -- each had different usable portions and waste products that required me to do a good deal of prep work. Once that was all done, though, I went through a taste test, further narrowing down my options.

  Ten. Ten options that won’t make the entire thing taste like roadkill. Of those, a few were inoffensive and bland, while others had interesting flavor profiles that could theoretically add to the soup if used sparingly.

  In a strange way, the experimentation that followed might have been even more strenuous than it had been for alchemy. Hours were spent with the powdered reagents alone, trying to get the ratio of my anti-paralysis spice blend just right. And after that, when did I apply it? Did I throw it directly into the pot? Did I sear the other vegetables in it?

  The answer ended up being a bit of all of the above, though I found that soaking the most poisonous of the ingredients in an antidote brine often had the best results without negatively impacting taste.

  Then, all that was left was to-

  “Tess! Hey. Tess. You okay?” A hand appeared before my face, snapping a few times until I pulled myself from my work, finding Cal by my side.

  “Yes?” I thought I was, at least. “Why?”

  “You’ve been cooking for like, four days straight. And you’ve spent the last hour around this pot walking around in circles and mumbling to yourself.”

  That couldn’t have been right, right? With God’s Mind bolstering my memories, I replayed the last hour, and then the past few days before that.

  Any way I swung it, maybe I’d gotten a little carried away.

  But it was okay! Because I was almost done!

  “Sorry. You’re right. But taste this!” Before Cal could move a muscle, I summoned a spoon from my storage and swiped it into the cauldron. Even as it was moving, I cast Chill to get it to a reasonable temperature before I shoved the spoonful right into Cal’s mouth. She spluttered in protest before suddenly calming down.

  “Huh. No poison. And hey, that’s not half bad! Could maybe use a little salt, though.”

  Salt. Duh. The junglings never added any for obvious reasons, so it had completely slipped my mind. I’d amassed a pretty solid stash by now, making it a simple matter of summoning the proper amount directly from my storage. In the salt went, and with another stir and another taste, I cut the fire and backed away from the pot with a sense of finality.

  “It’s done.”

  The very moment I said those words, the system reacted.

  Cooking has reached level 20!

  Congratulations! You have reached the Apprentice rank in Cooking!

  Based on your skill usage, you have been granted a skill augment for achieving a new skill rank.

  Augment of Supreme Dungeon Connoisseur

  +10 to Cooking while using ingredients primarily harvested from dungeons

  You gain a keener insight into how to make use of unconventional dungeon ingredients in your cooking. Amplifies any buffs or stat boosts conferred from cooked dishes.

  NOTE: Cooking is not considered class-aligned for the Arcane Arsenal class. As Cooking was already not class-aligned for the previous rank, leveling speed will be further reduced.

  The augment boost was unexpectedly large, but then again, the conditions to acquire it were probably pretty tough for most people. I doubted the average chef worked through the Initiate rank while living in a dungeon, after all.

  As for the buff amplification, it sounded exciting, but my dishes didn’t tend to have buffs in the first place. That was probably from some combination of my low Cooking level and my ingredients, or possibly my lack of a cooking-related class. Maybe now that I was in the Apprentice tier, that would change.

  My ruminations were cut short by one of the junglings passing by. Much like the first time, he froze right beside my cauldron, and for a moment, I thought he was about to dump it again.

  And briefly, it looked like he would. The jungling lifted up my pot, and I nearly stopped him to prevent my hard work from being wasted.

  Instead of walking over to the vine wall, however, he began walking in the other direction.

  To the temple.

  Mute, I followed him, step after step. When at last he reached the proper hole, he presented his offering, and the vines accepted the fresh new meal. The cauldron disappeared from view, and it was only belatedly that it hit me.

  “It worked! My recipe worked!”

  A hand grabbed mine in a firm grip, pulling me away from the ruins. “That’s great Tess. Let’s have you take a break, though. Sleep. Maybe make something for Verin to eat so she stops complaining about eating leftovers. Play a game or two with us before you do this all again, okay?”

  Do it again? That was right! I had an entire four more recipes to figure out!

  Even as Cal pulled me away, my mind was racing with ways to negate the other four poisons. It continued to race all the way until Cal physically picked me up and placed me onto one of our mattresses, tucking me in.

  Within moments, I was out cold.

  The following days contained cooking and only cooking from dawn till dusk -- or, not actually considering the dungeon had no sun, but the general idea was the same. The second recipe fell to my culinary might much like the first did, and then the third, fourth, and fifth soon after. Knowing that one batch would hardly be enough to affect the hydra in any way, I had to repeat each recipe over and over, often relying on the junglings to help with the standard steps.

  To my great shock, even after all that cooking, I didn’t gain another level in the skill, although I did grab another in both Alchemy and Herbalism. Evidently, the system hadn’t been kidding when it had noted that my leveling speed would be even more slowed down. I once again felt thankful that my class seemed to encompass such a disparate set of skills, as I might otherwise feel a lot more pigeonholed.

  With all my cooking behind me, however, now was the time for the big test.

  I’d made my meals.

  I’d fed the hydra.

  Only one thing remained.

  Making our way into the ruins and down the once-trapped tunnel, the three of us came to rest at the entrance to the hydra’s root-covered lair. Just as before, the colossal creature lay sleeping.

  The main goal of this excursion was to check if my plan had worked, and if it hadn’t, we would back off and try again later. Even so, there was no reason to let the hydra wake naturally. Perfectly willing to get a free shot in, I summoned my bow, overcharging an arrow with fire and death mana.

  As the area around me pulsed with waves of sterile heat, Cal vanished while Verin backed off. Unsure if we’d be fighting or running, she hadn’t activated her glacier yet, leaving her shying away from the intensity of my impending attack.

  Only when I could feel my fingers start to simultaneously burn and necrotize did I release the bowstring. The arrow, transformed into a veritable missile, tore through the chamber. Missing the five heads, it instead struck the hydra’s massive form.

  For the briefest of moments, it seemed like its serpentine scales might deflect the blow, but whatever defensive skills the hydra had, they weren’t enough. With a deafening boom, the arrow carved out a giant chunk of flesh before continuing to burrow inwards, cauterizing as it continued on.

  Needless to say, the hydra awoke very quickly after that. Wasting no time at all, it threw its five heads back, and half in fury, half in pain, it roared with all its might.

  Or more specifically, it howled.

  You have been hit with Noxious Howl.

  You have been poisoned!

  As the battle notifications flashed across my vision, my heart sank into my chest.

  It didn’t work. It wasn’t enough.

  Only a split second later, though, a new set of notifications joined the first.

  You have partially resisted a poison. Poison duration and strength greatly lessened.

  Five times, the notification arrived, and scanning my status, I realized that I was poisoned in name only. A quick glance towards Verin revealed that she was slightly worse off, but as I looked at her health, it was clear she wouldn’t be dying, even if I didn’t heal her.

  Which I did, naturally. A single Cure was all it took to completely flush the poison from her system. That, more than anything else, was what truly convinced me.

  It worked! Day after day of cooking for an ungrateful giant beast, and my bizarre plan had actually done just what I’d hoped it would!

  It was possible that if we backed off and waited another week or two, we could entirely neuter the boss, fully ridding it of even the tiniest traces of poison. In the end, though, I’d seen enough. As the hydra reeled from its burning blackened wound, I made the call, shouting out.

  “Good enough! We can take it. Fight!”

  Ready for our resounding victory and a nice flight back to the cabin, I burst into motion, repositioning and nocking another arrow. Charging it to the brim once more, I aimed it carefully, having a wealth of targets to choose from.

  Five good options. Now, which head to take out first?

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