The Primal Hunter

In a small corner of the tutorial forest, a very peculiar thing was happening. A man was repeatably jumping around, more times than not, finding himself smashing face-first into a tree. He seemed to turn into something resembling a shadow, quickly moving forward and then turn back to his normal tangible form with every jump.

This weird man was naturally Jake testing out his newly acquired Basic Shadow Vault of Umbra. The skill took quite a bit getting used to, which was the reason why he needed to practice it as much as he did.

The skill was quite simple, actually. With little to no warning or preparation, Jake could speed up his movement in any direction he was currently moving, turning into a shadow-like substance, and then appear once more whenever he reached his designated target, or the uptime of the skill ran out.

When he was a shadow, no physical object could touch him, instantly making Jake want to try phasing through walls. Sadly, that hope was quickly squashed. While he could phase through small things, he had no way of getting through a tree, for example. If he thought back to his fight with that caster William, he also doubted he could get past the wall of iron. He found that objects with a high mana density were harder to phase through, and a conjured wall had to be very mana-dense.

He could, however, phase through smaller objects. So, dodging through the swing of a sword, a thrown dagger, or an arrow was entirely possible. Though he did notice, it increased mana consumption when he did so.

The reason why he kept crashing into things was due to the speed increase and the disorientating effect of suddenly accelerating. It was like suddenly stepping on an escalator going far above what any safety standard would ever permit.

One moment he would move normally, and the next suddenly accelerate several times that speed for less than a second. The skill itself wasn’t teleportation, but just swift movement after all. However, it could easily appear as if he had just teleported to the untrained eye when he used the skill at maximum output.

The fact that he took on the characteristics of a shadow only made it more challenging to use. It was like suddenly becoming weightless, and everything just felt… off. The fact that it moved in a direct line also made it even more confusing.

So, he trained. As one says, practice makes perfect. While he wasn’t exactly aiming for perfection on his first day with the skill, he needed to be at least able to use it without accidentally getting himself killed during combat. He could totally see himself crash into something far more dangerous than a tree.

The damage he took to both his health and mana pools when he crashed into objects like trees was already quite insane, to begin with. The sudden momentum coming to an instant stop as he hit the tree made his mana instantly drain by several hundred points, and his health points drop even more.

One lucky thing with the skill was that it also phased all his equipment. Even if he had a bow in his hand, it too took on a shadowy look. He tried it with a couple of different things and found that pretty much anything he touched would get Shadow Vaulted with him. It did increase both mana and stamina consumption of the skill, though.

He also discovered with some experimenting that the enchant with his boots did indeed reduce stamina expenditure. And despite it saying it was only by a “small” amount, it turned out to be quite significant. It wasn’t just a straight-up percentage decrease but had some more advanced math behind it.

got reduced by a whopping 3 points. In other words, a 60% reduction. However, if he did a more extended vault, consuming 30 stamina, the boots

a single vault so far had been 78 stamina, and then it had reduced cost by 17, which was a weird 22% or so reduction.

be entirely random. Jake just didn’t see the value in crunching the math and trying to discover the formula. Without it, he already had a good

the reduction. The mana expenditure got a lot higher, however, if he phased through objects of

The mana consumption would drain him in only a few vaults, leaving him with a dead skill. But with his

a few hours, he had gotten the short jumps down and was quickly able to move a few meters back and forth in quite fluid movements. The long vaults were still quite hard, but that too was improving

too. His sphere was utterly unaffected by him turning all shadowy and kept him completely aware of his surroundings. He ‘knew’ when he was about to hit something, and he seemed to slowly be able to train his instinct to

moving on instinct and moving deliberately with thoughts behind every action. If Jake tried to dodge a sword swing intentionally, he had first to register the weapon approaching, then he had to decide to evade, and then the method he would use to avoid. If he decided to use Shadow Vault, he

then, he simply had to not fight

someone throws something at you, you lift your hand to block instinctively. Jake just took the entire concept to another

If he was attacked by a skill he could in no way understand, his instinct wouldn’t know how to respond appropriately either. His

showered with pieces of metal and shot back, taking a lot of damage.

that William controlled to attack him with. Their ethereal movements were hard to understand, making his instinct only able to try and keep up with their attack-pattern. His danger perception made him aware of them at all times but felt more like a constant buzzing

thing to do, so his instinct naturally screamed at him to do so. Instead, he had chosen to ignore the attacks and get hit, ultimately gaining an opening

chance to land a hit before either he or the caster ran out of resources. While he would undoubtedly have won that

centimeters into his flesh, dealing barely any real damage. With his high vitality, he could have taken dozens

is just the body’s way of saying: “dude, you should

his instincts were only a guide or an emergency tool for when his thoughts couldn’t keep up. It did also have aspects he couldn’t at all understand, however. It seemed to, at times, make him aware of things. It allowed him to get vague feelings around things, such as how strong a beast was compared

the multiverse likely could do many of these things. Sensing the power-level of others wasn’t a new concept at all. Learning how much damage something would do also seemed like a relatively simple ability if one

of them avoid the more damaging attacks while just tanking the weaker ones. Of course, it depended entirely

end, he could only sigh at how many unknowns there were. Bloodlines and their associated abilities were only for the holder of the bloodline to truly understand. The system offered no advice, only a simple explanation of the bloodline. And even that had many examples of holding minor flaws or