The Primal Hunter

Jake kept his promise of being on the lookout for the rest of the night. It turned out to only be a couple of uneventful hours until the artificial sun rose once more. Looking on as the scrambling group got up and gathered their things, he seriously doubted they had gotten any sleep at all.

Their current campsite was compromised, and they had no clue if more enemies would come, so they needed to find somewhere new. Their entire initial plan of finding water and food and all the usual survival crap turned out to be a damn waste of time. While they still needed food and water, they needed levels far more, so sitting in one spot was just stupid.

They got packed up, and Jake was surprised to see even Joanne up and about with a makeshift wooden leg. It was essentially just a big stick of wood bound to her thigh and what was left of her leg. It looked uncomfortable and certainly not fit for any big movements, but he saw determination and grit to keep going on her face. Jake felt respect for the woman, as she refused help, and they started walking.

They started moving further away from the huge wall in the distance. Jake had a theory based on where the pillars had been and the wall only being visible behind them, that this entire place had a spherical design. The fake celestial bodies also indicated a dome-shape. Moving inwards toward the center of the dome would hopefully allow them to find more beasts. They had been very sparse in the outer area, after all.

It took little time before they came across another group of beasts. This time it was a group of deer-like creatures, the very same that the badgers had been eating on the first day. There were seven of them total, and after using Identify, he found them to be between level 2 and 4, with the biggest among them at level 5.

Jake decided not to interfere, first of all, because he was not sure how much experience killing lower-leveled enemies would give, and because the entire purpose of this exercise was for everyone to build fighting experience. They started once more laying a long, elaborate plan, but Jake shut them down real hard and told them to get their shit together and move.

They had three casters and an archer; plenty of ranged firepower to take down some of them before the fight would even truly begin. Jake had given them all the potions he had looted the day before, so they were more than covered in that department. He did keep the stamina potions, though, as they were rather unnecessary for his colleagues at this point, and Jake had a theory he wanted to test out. Something for a more opportune time.

The fight went rather easy, as Jake had predicted. Bertram easily tanked the biggest deer and even an additional one, while Theodore, Jacob, and Dennis took on one each. The final two deer-like things had already been killed or disabled by the initial barrage, making the fight effectively five versus nine, with Jake not participating.

Theodore managed to kill his deer quite easily as it was only level 2 by landing a swipe on its neck, cutting it open. His style was a bit reserved and defensive, but he had a good build and didn’t lack confidence. He was also rather good in spotting openings, and Jake was even fairly sure he saw him throw in a feint.

Dennis took a bit longer with his two daggers cutting away at the beast. He was by far the fastest in the group besides Jake, and he also used his active ability, which allowed him to have small bursts of speed here and there. He did hesitate a bit and clearly didn’t like fighting, but he got the job done nevertheless.

In Jakes's honest opinion, Jacob was the worst combatant in their group by quite a margin. He panicked nearly instantly when the beast got close and just swung his sword back and forth. The casters did decently, Joanna having the worst accuracy, which Jake could honestly not blame her for considering her circumstances. Ahmed was by far the best, having quite the accuracy and aiming for vital spots, with Lina falling somewhere in between.

Caroline had little to do during the actual fight as her healing skill was touch-based, but she was fast to call out potential dangers and even went and healed Jacob mid-combat at one point. She was actually surprisingly good.

Casper was also decent, but Jake was kind of biased when it came to archery. His results did speak for themselves though, as he did get in some good shots, even taking down one of the deer solo when they first engaged.

opponents to die being the big deer that slowly got whittled down by Bertram taking its

to do damage or contribute in some way in order to

level-ups, also resulting in race level-ups. This

groups of beasts over the next couple of hours. Jake only had to step in once when a quite big level 7 badger ran past Bertram, heading straight for Lina. However, it was easily killed by Jake with an arrow to one of its legs followed by another

and had to drink a healing potion. The minor injuries, like scratches and such, were healed by Caroline after every fight. While she could not do much in combat, her healing was invaluable as it allowed them to always stay in top condition, and healing also seemed to remove any chance of infection in the wound. Assuming that

in general, worked way faster, they seemed to have some kind of cooldown. If you drank one, you couldn't drink one for the next hour. Why this was, they didn’t know. Heck, they didn’t even know why they knew. Theodore just said that he did right

the morning. The last group they killed was a small group of

their relation to daily necessities. He wanted to see if potions, primarily stamina potions,

bit better than badger meat. It was short-lived, however, as their peaceful break was interrupted when Jake heard what sounded like metal rubbing against

as out of the bushes walked a large man in full metal armor identical to Bertram’s, also carrying a shield and sword. He was on the older side, in his late forties to early fifties, but

potentially hiding in the dense foliage behind them. There were mainly warriors which made sense as half of the basic classes were variants of the class.

their group when it came to combat, he was likely the weakest when it came to negotiation. And while Jacob sucked in combat, he was top tier when it came to social

first one to speak was not Jacob but the middle-aged

voice as he looked over their group, his eyes stopping on Caroline for a second, as he continued. “We saw the smoke from your fire and decided to investigate - no need to worry. We have no intention of

group had them outnumbered by quite a margin. Jake had no confidence in fighting so many enemies whatsoever if things turned for the worse. If a fight did happen, it would either be a one-sided slaughter or him and his colleagues scattering like the wind, with likely only Jake making

humans at last!” Jacob smiled brightly at the man as he stepped forward. “My name is Jacob, and these are my colleagues from before this

turn serious. “Mine and two other groups, much like yours, have decided to team up in order to get through this purgatory that refers to itself as a tutorial. Of course, we need all the people we can have, so we would love

genius to see that only a single leader existed in the

to hear that other groups are also doing well out there.

Richard agreed though Jacob was quite clear it was just words. They had to find a solution

all, Jake kept an eye on the other group in case they tried something. Richard shot a glance at the archer that had been

addressed them. “What do you guys think of them? A

as he looked around and saw that