The Primal Hunter

Jake had never been a huge fan of salads. He could do cucumbers, tomatoes, and a bit of lettuce in a burger here and there, but the mere thought of living off salads was horrifying to him. One should understand why he didn't find his current meal the most pleasant with that in mind.

He was currently sitting in the library, with a bowl in front of him filled with water and moss. He had tried to eat the moss, but it was honestly disgusting. Not the taste, it was fine, but the texture and the aftertaste of dirt.

Instead, he plucked it, rinsed it with water, and used the cleaned mixing bowl to eat from. It was a rather disgusting looking soup. He didn’t even have a spoon, so he had to use his hands to eat out of it.

However, the torturous meal was made acceptable by the feeling of knowledge and improvement from eating it. It was the same as with the Flyeater Mushrooms, though he made sure to control himself and not overeat.

After his wonderful meal, it was back to making potions. He had started alternating between health and mana potions to break the monotony. Not that it mattered much. He was also considering if he should give making stamina potions a shot, but according to the books, it was quite a lot harder than both health and mana. And not by a little either.

Stamina potions were essentially a mix of health and mana from a methodological standpoint. Quite honestly, the book’s explanations were quite terrible, and Jake had no desire to attempt it currently.

One good thing about his improved wisdom was that he no longer needed to take notes. By now, he could easily remember everything. It was kind of weird and a bit scary when he thought about it more in-depth. He had not felt anything immediately, even when gaining a lot of wisdom at once, but it changed him without a doubt.

He already knew that the system could directly implant knowledge, and it could obviously also improve memory. Jake had always had a relatively good memory, but now he could verbatim recall the page-numbers of where everything stood in his alchemy books.

And if the system could implant both knowledge and make his memory that much better, what was to say it couldn’t change something more fundamental. His intelligence stat had also been improved quite a lot, but he hadn’t felt anything directly from that. Something that he was still unsure if that was assuring or concerning.

What was to say that his improved mental stats had not made some fundamental changes to who he was already. Would even be aware if it happened?

For some reason, he found his bloodline far less scary, even though it clearly was the thing introduced by the system that had affected him the most. But he was aware of it doing so. He had let his bloodline affect him; he had allowed his improved instincts to take charge during times of danger. In essence, he felt like his bloodline wasn’t changing him, but merely bringing forth who he was in a more primal and instinctual form.

But ultimately, did such existential worries even matter in the grand scheme of things? If he had been changed, he would have no way of knowing. He remembered Descartes saying: “Cogito, ergo sum; I think, therefore I am,” and he was undoubtedly thinking far too much, so he most certainly existed in his own mind. Also, damn the extra wisdom making him remember random quotes.

Nevermind that tangent, back to potions. Jake had needed to refill the barrels of purified water a few times already, but after his meal, he had to do so yet again. It was kind of insane that he could carry an entire barrel filled with water. It was with some difficulty, but it still clearly showed that his strength had reached superhuman levels. Especially considering the difficulty mainly stemmed from how unwieldy the barrels were.

After filling the barrels and cleaning the bowl after his mossy meal, he jumped right back into it - an entire day of mixing ahead of him.

William walked through the forest, alone as always. Richard had gotten a bit annoying the last few days, but it was not time yet. The man still had time to grow. William also still needed him, or more accurately, what his camp could offer.

The teenager smiled as he saw a group of big molerats. He knew these things had some annoying sound attack that hurt like shit, but they were pretty weak defensively.

He took out his wand, an item he had found within the first couple of hours after he got here. He had been with a group of nine others, just like everyone else apparently had.

He had no idea who any of them were. But then again, he didn’t really know that many people before the tutorial either. His parents and his psychiatrist mainly. Oh, and the workers in the center, but they were all massive assholes.

Though let’s be fair, pretty much everyone was a waste of space. Everyone was either obnoxious, pretentious, or just plain old annoying. So, William had always preferred activities where no one bothered him.

opportune time to strike. And strike hard he would. Admiring the wand that made this all possible once more, he only got

– A wand crafted by followers of Ferroras, God of Iron. The wand is made of a special kind of

in any class or race.

attached. He discovered a box when he was bathing in a lake after seeing something glitter at the bottom. Diving down, he had found this wand. He was a bit sad that he

(Uncommon)] – Allows for control of metallic objects by spending mana. This skill falls under elemental manipulation, a prevalent brand of magic throughout the multiverse.

daggers he carried in his robe, this skill allowed him to dominate pretty much everything he met. His only weakness was his lack of healing outside of health potions, which was why he

The molerats had jumped a

robe, towards the closest rat. Their speed and power were far more potent than

that had happened, the daggers spread out,

gurgling sounds as they charged towards him. Raising his wand, he cast a spell towards the ground as a metal board appeared before him, blocking the rat’s charge and obscuring their vision. At the same time, he lifted himself off the ground as he shot

a medium warrior, he had started wearing the chestpiece he had looted off the man. Hidden beneath his robe. While it was expensive as hell to lift his whole body off the ground, it gave him excellent mobility. As he dodged around, blocking off the rats with the metal barrier,

starting to get dangerously low, the last molerat fell to the ground, never to move again. Checking his

experience earned for killing an

[Molerat Screecher – lvl 16] – Bonus experience earned for killing an

experience earned for killing an enemy above your level. 2000 TP

slain [Molerat Screecher – lvl 15] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level.

reached level 17 - Stat points allocated, +1 free

his opinion. He had killed a good 20+ beasts above level 14 to get from level 16 to 17. Richard kept refusing

and at 15 [Metallic Sight (Uncommon)]. The Iron wall was the skill he had used in the battle before, and the metallic sight was the passive skill that made his entire style possible.

to ‘attune’ the metal he was manipulating. In other words, he had to fill any metal he wanted to control up with mana, linking it to him. This was done super easily with random unranked metal

in any way; it just sucked that he couldn’t make a warrior cut his own head off with his sword. Oh, or make an archer’s arrows do a 180

armor was challenging. By now, he could do seven daggers comfortably but could push it to 8 in a pinch, though it would hurt his versatility in using his iron wall

good in open combat, but he felt it worked even better at stealthily killing.

usual pieces of shit - pretentious idiots who kept talking about bullshit. None of them understood that things

made real. William had enjoyed games and books his entire life. He understood the genre. One had to embrace the system, game it where possible, but otherwise, follow its rules and abuse

humans, and finding somewhere to hunker down for the entire tutorial. Didn’t they understand this was a golden opportunity?

a delusional idiot who believed this world to be fake. It was obviously real. Real, and yet still a game. Which was why he had decided to think of it as an

group of ten quickly outlived their usefulness as the only useful person, a healer, ended up dying due to their own stupidity. A light warrior had also died, so William gracefully offered to carry his daggers if anyone needed them later. The first

dear William had been standing right beside the archer leading their group, so it couldn’t possibly have been him. With the seed of discord planted, he managed to easily split the group. A little word here and there about how the third caster had asked for one of the daggers

otherwise well-made game. It took him only a couple of hours to kill all of them; no one suspecting the small and scared teenager. Well, except the archer at the end, who in his very last moments seemed

a couple of vulgar

in William’s 19 years of life. Everyone had always treated him like shit his entire life, no one ever getting him. The worst part was that some of them even

had wished he could just get rid of that stupid teacher who kept pestering him in school. But he knew he couldn’t.

no shrinks or therapists, no drugs being pumped into your system day in and day out to try and

up from a long hazy dream. But now William was awake, and he was aware. He understood his new reality far more so than he ever had the old