The Primal Hunter

As Jake was relaxing, he reflected on how weird stamina was. He was not tired per-se, as he did not feel like taking a nap, and his muscles did not ache or anything like that. He had not felt even a second of exhaustion during the fight itself, and yet the second the battle was done, he felt drained.

It was likely just mental exhaustion over physical exhaustion now that he was thinking about it. There was no stat for that. Or does willpower help with that? Naturally, he didn’t know, so he could only guess, but since he hadn't really felt less mentally taxed even with the stat increases, he felt like it didn’t.

It did kind of make sense that it was tiring to focus on interpreting the feelings from his Sphere of Perception all the time while also being under constant pressure. At the moment, it was still active, vaguely making him aware of everything within 8 meters or so, but he was not really directly using it. He couldn’t really put it into words, but he guessed one would say it had an ‘active’ and a ‘passive’ mode.

Not that he had any clue how it worked. He just knew what was within it. He did not expressly ‘see’ anything; he just knew the shapes and sizes of everything. It would take a lot of experimentation to truly figure it out if it was even possible ever to do so, and for some reason, Jake doubted he would get any answers from just sitting there. Instead, he decided to go through his system notifications and level-ups. And boy, were there notifications.

*You have slain [Human (G) - lvl 3 / Warrior (Light) - lvl 6] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level. 365 TP earned*

*You have slain [Human (G) - lvl 2 / Archer - lvl 5] – Experience earned. 243 TP earned*

*You have slain [Human (G) - lvl 3 / Warrior (Light) - lvl 7] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level. 471 TP earned*

*’DING!’ Class: [Archer] has reached level 6 - Stat points allocated, +1 free point*

*’DING!’ Race: [Human (G)] has reached level 3 - Stat points allocated, +1 free point*

*You have slain [Human (G) -lvl 3 / Warrior (Light) - lvl 6] – Experience earned. 394 TP earned*

*You have slain [Human (G) -lvl 3 / Archer - lvl 7] – A small amount of bonus experience earned for killing an enemy with a class above your class level. 654 TP earned*

*You have slain [Human (G) -lvl 4 / Archer - lvl 9] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level. 1167 TP earned*

*’DING!’ Class: [Archer] has reached level 7 - Stat points allocated, +1 free point*

The gains were good, and he was especially surprised to see that Nicholas had been level 9 with quite a lot of tutorial points too, indicating that he had indeed killed a lot of beasts. He was strong, after all. It made Jake wonder if Richard lied when he said that he was level 9, but it was honestly inconsequential for now.

He only had a single free point left from the last level-up, as he mid-way through the fight threw all his points into perception. Perception was, without a doubt, the stat that he liked the most, and he felt like it had great synergy with his bloodline ability. Based on that, he decided just to drop his one free point into perception, as he opened his newly upgraded status menu.

Status

Name: Jake Thayne

Race: [Human (G) – lvl 3]

Class: [Archer – lvl 7]

Profession: N/A

Health Points (HP): 257/340

Mana Points (MP): 88/140

Stamina: 151/210

Stats

Strength: 21

Agility: 22

Endurance: 21

Vitality: 34

Toughness: 13

Wisdom: 14

Intelligence: 14

Perception: 37

Willpower: 12

Free points: 0

by 40. Which ultimately led to him having more stamina than when he began the fight. He

Tutorial Panel

63 days &

Total Survivors Remaining: 987/1200

TP Collected: 4629

day has passed, he thought. 213 people dead. More than one-sixth of the total amount of those who had entered the tutorial. Not that Jake helped that statistic in any way, being

no clue if his TP was a lot or little, but according to the rules, he got half the TP of people he killed, so he assumed it had to be a lot. If Nicholas gave him 1167, he would have had double that at 2334 which was still only a bit

as Nicholas had been level 9, while Jake was only level 7. But it did kind of make sense, as he took the accumulated points of people who had killed plenty of enemies to get to their levels. He also had no clue exactly how much TP different enemies gave. He had gotten over 300 from the level 10 boar, and that had been a shared

level 4 one. The sample size was way too small, but maybe the points just doubled for every level? Though

1024, a level 12 2048, then 4096, and so on. It just seemed way too extreme to work like that. A level 20 beast would give a whopping 524.288 points, which was just absolutely

It was a waste of time to think about, and he would just have to go hunt beasts to find out how many points

only relaxing for ten minutes. He walked over to where he had fought Nicholas walking up to the dead man’s body. Jake could still see the unwillingness on his face, but nothing could be done about that. They had fought, and Jake had come out on

the man’s body for a bunch of overgrown badgers or deer to eat, so

one of the dead archers. It was in no way a glorious pyre, but it got the job done. He watched solemnly as the corpse burned, nodding towards what had

in the same place for a couple of hours while preparing and burning the body, no one showed up. Jakes guessed that Richard had decided not to send

and his cloak. He bathed in full clothes, his dress-shirt and pants still on. The only

brown than red, he decided to set out once more and finally get his solo-hunting underway. Excited to finally get started, he smiled and

the other fighters with the stealth skill off nearly an hour ago. They knew to return to their original camp once the job was done, and he had nearly expected to meet them there. It took a good 40 minutes to walk with the

talked to the young man named Jacob and found him to be rather competent. He was good at reading people, and his group of survivors clearly listened to him and respected him. He was protective

at was the lack of information he got on the archer he had sent

it. He seemed to barely know the guy. The only thing he knew was that he was good

he assumed he was. But the lack of the kill-squad who went after him returning made him worried. The young man had been self-confident to the level of being ridiculous, and Richard was starting to fear that it had not all been bravado. Most of it had been without a doubt as he was pretty sure he remembered one of his lines being from a

would be more than annoying. They had poured quite a few resources into them after all, raising them all to at least level

in fighting the man head-on. He was strong before the tutorial, and in here, he was only stronger. He did have a small fear that Nicholas would one day turn on him, but it did not seem too probable so far. Either way, he saw no scenario of

at the progress in his absence. The camp was basic, to say the least, but they had started constructing some make-shift huts using sticks and leaves, with some grander buildings already being planned. If they had to spend over

another quarter of an hour, he saw someone running towards the camp, and he didn’t immediately recognize him. A haggard teenager with cuts and bruises all over stumbled out the trees, making him get a better look. At first, Richard was happy as he recognized him as one of Nicholas’ men but soon frowned as he noticed

he saw the pure terror still present on the face of the youth. Richard instantly turned serious as several questions quickly popped up in his head. Could they have met a dangerous beast out

walk towards the kid, as he practically collided with him. Before the kid could open his mouth, Richard cut him