The Primal Hunter

Jake cursed under his breath as he walked through the narrow cave. He had totally forgotten the shitty location of the challenge dungeon. At least he could walk out a lot faster than he had gotten in.

He was also happy to finally get his weapons back. He had missed his bow. It would have been a great stress-reliever in the dungeon to do some target practice. The quiver had naturally also come back with the bow.

One of the two daggers he had were now redundant after having gotten the Dagger of Bloodletting. It was common-rarity, and despite being made of bone, it was far sharper and far more durable than his steel knives. And that was ignoring the enchant to make things bleed more.

Another absolute positive was how damn comfortable his new boots were. It was utterly illogical how some old worn leather boots could feel like walking on clouds while simultaneously getting your feet massaged. He feared that he would never be able to go back to regular footwear.

The winding tunnel took him only half an hour to go through this time, though he purposefully ignored all the blue mushrooms in his path. He had had enough of those, for now, and with his bow in hand, he felt himself become slightly restless. He hadn’t fought anything for thirty days after just getting a taste of it.

He had briefly considered seeking out his colleagues. But he was afraid that he was not powerful enough. He had minimal information and had no idea what kind of growth all the other survivors had gone through.

Professions are inherently not combat-focused, while classes are. Jake’s class only at level 9 meant that he had fewer combat skills. His strength, agility, and endurance were his three lowest stats by quite a bit too. The stats that also happened to be the most important, along with perception, for archers.

Reaching the end of the cavern, he once more found himself at the foot of the hill. He couldn’t help but take a deep breath as he looked around and took in everything within his Sphere of Perception. He had been confined for a month, either in small halls or the cave and garden. While the garden was spacious, it was nothing compared to the vast forest.

His sphere instantly picked something up that put a smile on his face. A small group of deer was on the hill above him. They were a bit larger than he remembered but based on the one evolved stag among them, it seemed like the same group he had chosen to avoid before entering the dungeon. Must be fate, he joked to himself.

There were five of them: one stag and four deer.

Making his way up the hill, he could only describe his feelings as childish anticipation. He had grown stronger in so many ways, his stats increasing manifold, and yet he had no outlet in the dungeon. He had nothing to test himself against.

He was more powerful than he had ever been now, and he had far more methods than ever before. At the top of the hill, he finally saw the beasts. The stag’s antlers were glowing a faint white light, while both the deer and stag had rune-like motifs covering their hides. They weren’t even trying to hide that the beasts were magical in some way or another.

Using Identify on the stag, he was happy that the now upgraded skill showed the beast’s name and level.

[Lucenti Stag – lvl 24]

Identifying the other ones, he found them all in the low 20’s, the weakest only 19.

[Lucenti Deer – lvl 19]

Despite their levels being literally twice that of his class, he felt not a shred of threat from them. This meant that he, with no hesitation, took out his bow while at the same time taking out a hemotoxin of inferior quality that he had stored in the necklace.

He dipped five arrows in the concoction, one for each beast. He had absolute confidence in winning, but not in killing them quickly without the use of poison. He still remembered his quite horrible damage output before he entered, and even with the overall stat growth, it likely still sucked.

But a poison would make up for that. The hemotoxin would increase the bleeding from any wounds Jake made and, of course, deal damage in general. Toxins were most commonly cured by merely having your vital energy overpower and wash it out.

This naturally consumed health points. Some intelligent beings would simply allow a poison like a hemotoxin to remain in their system until it naturally dissipated as its effect was relatively harmless as long as you didn’t take any hits.

but intelligent. They seemed to function off pure aggression and instinct. And trying to get rid of the poison in your system seemed like a somewhat instinctual thing to Jake. He would know; his instincts were quite something if his

would lose its potency fast. Unlike normal pre-system poisons, the mana within concocted poisons would become ineffective within ten minutes or so of leaving the bottle. His Malefic Viper's Poison did extend that duration, allowing it to stay toxic for

helped anyway, as the 'duration' of the poison still decreased despite the temporal suspension in the necklace. He tried it with a dagger by coating it

The arrow was loosed with great speed and power as it flew true and hit the stag in the neck, only penetrating with the arrowhead - more than enough to deliver the

the rest of its group, for that matter, were obviously taken by surprise. None of the deer

he hit the last deer just as they had located him and started charging. Deep trails of blood were left after

it. A second deer was stuck in the eye and was now lying and spasming on the ground, likely only waiting to bleed out. Which left Jake with only three beasts to deal with in melee as the

daggers, one of bone and one of steel. Just as they got close,

spilled blood like a waterfall. The second deer was not

With the four others down for the count, he didn’t see much threat from a logical standpoint. Something that was a mistake, as he failed

the wound as ‘nasty’,

as he used Touch of the Malefic Viper on full power, throwing away all subtlety the skill allowed. Instantly the effects were made clear. The flesh his hand touched started rotting, showing clear signs of necrosis, as the deer let out

either dead or in their final moments. Taking the dagger, he made a quick round and

had been a fruitful hunt. Quite honestly, him being level 9 at the beginning was just sad in a way. His stats were clearly not that of a

month. It felt incredibly satisfying. One could argue it was a bit sad that the first living things he met he had killed. Discounting the Malefic Viper himself, of course.

lvl 24]

have slain [Lucenti Deer – lvl 20] – Experience earned.

have slain [Lucenti Deer – lvl

Deer – lvl 21]

Deer – lvl 22] – Experience earned. 3500

he had gotten quite a bit in that

has reached level 10 - Stat points allocated,

…

reached level 13 - Stat points

27

(E)] has reached level 28 - Stat points

only a few minutes. The bonus experience from killing higher-leveled enemies sure did its work. While the kill notifications didn’t explicitly state that he got any bonus experience, he clearly did. If he had to guess, then classes and

value lay. Whenever Jake got a level in his class, he got a measly 5 stats and 1 free point. On the other hand, his race levels gave 2 in all stats, or 18 in total, and 5 free points. So,

and a variant. Plus, it took two levels in either profession or class to get a single race level. It had at least

level 10 in his class naturally

*Archer class skills available*

had to mentally prepare himself after getting skills from his profession. He couldn’t expect a random rare or even epic skill from a basic starting class after all. So, with little expectations, he went through the list, the first one being

never-ending; a single arrow becomes two. Allows the Archer to shoot an arrow that splits into

But the thing he was most concerned about was how exactly a splitting arrow would work with his poisons. Would both have it? None of them have it? Or only the ‘original’ one. Or did the skill just conjure new arrows entirely? He just felt there were so many unknowns.

divided the poison between the two split arrows, it would be worse than not splitting at all. It is far better to deliver one strong dose to one area than two

excitement for the