The Primal Hunter

By now, the entire valley was thoroughly cleaned up. Herbs, lockboxes, even beasts were all gone. It had taken hours, and the sun had gone down quite a while ago, but Jake was more than satisfied. While he had managed to get another level, it was the loot that made him most pleased.

For herbs, he had found a bunch he couldn’t recognize at all; however, his Sense of the Malefic Viper told him that they were useful, and using Identify on them confirmed that they were indeed magical herbs. All of them had been inferior or common-rarity except for a bush with berries in the middle of the valley.

[Soothing Bellberry Bush (Uncommon)] – A bush of Soothing Bellberries. The berries growing on this bush are known to have a soothing effect on the mind.

He quite frankly wasn’t sure if this was something he needed… but he took it anyway. His spatial necklace could allow herbs to survive within it, making it a suitable place to store the bush.

So, he did as any reasonable person would do, aka dug it up and threw it in said storage. He could always find out what to do with it at a later point.

Looking at one of the few berries that had already grown on the bush, he decided to at least give it a bite.

[Soothing Bellberry (Uncommon)] – A berry that provides a soothing effect to whoever consumes it.

Even if it somehow turned out to be poisonous, he was confident that his Palate of the Malefic Viper would nullify it. Even if it didn’t, he doubted the berry was able to do him much harm.

Popping the thing into this mouth, Jake did feel a cold feeling spread out from his stomach as he became a bit clearer in his head… but otherwise, he didn’t really notice anything. Then again, he was already pretty calm currently.

Of course, the bush and other herbs weren’t the loot he cared most about. No, it came from the haul he had gotten from a total of five lockboxes, six in total when you counted the one he found the ring in.

Three of common-rarity and two of uncommon-rarity had been found.

The common-rarity ones didn’t matter much, but he did find a dagger among them. The others were a pair of boots granting a bit of endurance, which weren’t exactly useful considering his rare Boots of the Wandering Alchemist, with the last one being a necklace made similar to the Ring of the Jade-eye Tiger. He put it all in his storage, but overall it was a bit disappointing.

The uncommon-rarity ones were, of course, the token as well as something he could actually use.

[Shortsword of Icy Winds (Uncommon)] – A Sword made out of Froststeel and amplified with Ice-affinity mana over a long time. Due to the material used, the blade afflicts anyone it hits with the elemental energy of frost. Enchantments: Invading Chill.

Requirements: Lvl 35+ in any class.

Well, he thought he could use it, but it required his class to be level 35… so in two levels. He also didn’t know if it worked properly with his Twin Fang Style. It wasn’t a weapon made of bone, so that bonus obviously didn’t apply, but he also didn’t know if it counted as a ‘shorter’ weapon or not. He felt like it should, considering it was a shortsword and all, but who knows?

And lastly was the aforementioned upgrade token.

[Tutorial equipment upgrade token (Uncommon)] – Upgrade any common rarity starting item from the tutorial to uncommon rarity.

This was where the real good stuff was at. Jake had been annoyed at his weak arrows for far too long. They simply broke far too easily, lessening the power of his Powershots by quite a lot, and he often found them unable to penetrate as deeply as he wanted to inflict his poisons better.

Early on, he had learned to increase his bow’s durability with mana, making even the inferior-rarity one manageable. After getting the upgraded common-rarity bow from the archer who had been in the party with the Blade of Nature warrior, he hadn’t had a single issue with it. At least not for now.

the bow, but as he had his hands on it at all times, it didn’t really matter. He naturally couldn’t do the same with arrows as they would kind of lose their purpose if he started stabbing people with

his quiver, he reminded himself

the ability to conjure common-rarity

upgrade it. Taking the token, he used it on the quiver as light enveloped it for

quiver looked pretty much identical to the old one. The only difference was the slightly more delicate feathers on

Quiver (Uncommon)] - A quiver enchanted with the ability

description hadn’t really changed at all. But then again, all Jake had hoped for was just to get arrows that were of

the upgrade, the expected five dozen, or sixty arrows, were already conjured in the quiver. Jake took them out and examined them closely. The shaft was still made of wood, but Jake couldn’t even

of broadhead but had changed to a curved broadhead type. The difference was also that the cross-shaped tip had been altered to be

his life doing archery, Jake had mostly used bullet-type arrows, where the shape of the arrowhead

penetrative force, but the injury would be small, and blood-loss lessened as the arrow itself would plug up

and less likely to bend and break when striking something. Against armor, it was also often the best type, unless

possessed the opposite problem. The arrowhead on those would often break as the arrow attempted to create a too big wound, which

they were often worse as the small tip was thin and sharp, making it easily deflected

arrowheads was a middle-point between these. It was single-sided, making it much like stabbing someone with a knife. The tips were also razor-sharp, easily cutting into Jake’s

had to put a bit of pressure on his hand while grasping the arrows to draw blood. Now he only had to press a tiny bit before it penetrated the skin. This would make

what he wanted. It was a tool for cutting, not a tool for substantial impacts. The

His main goal was to draw blood to inflict opponents with

the hemotoxins against more powerful opponents. His necrotic type poisons were clearly the deadliest; however, he had

the poison, it quickly regenerated as the beast charged him. He had to channel Touch of the Malefic Viper for well over

draining his opponent of vital energy. Most beasts didn’t have

over his shoulder. It was like getting a new

chose the closest one. It was hard to climb these hollow mountains from the valley's mountainous paths surrounding it, but they were quite

of the volcanos. The closest one also happened to be the smallest one,

in the middle was far more giant compared to the other two he could see. As he ran up from the valley, he didn’t encounter any beasts for a bit, until he finally met a small group of

showed that they were only in their mid-forties. Lower level than many of the badgers, and far lower than the buffalo, which had been well

was red, one of them brown, and the last one blue. They possessed the fire element, the earth element, and

far too weak in Jake’s opinion to pose any threat. But they were perfect as targets to test out his

to

strategy as he charged up a Powershot. He decided to go for a powerful one to test the durability of the arrows. After nearly ten seconds of charging, he released the arrow to the usual explosion

don’t break, Jake prayed as the

arrow smashed into the midsection of the Redhide Raptor. The arrow cut into its flesh like it was nothing,

into the soil for nearly three meters before it stopped. The creature

turned their heads towards Jake as they screeched. Elemental energy gathered in their mouths as one of them spit out a shard of ice while the other

time, far too slow for Jake as he quickly dodged the assault from the two beasts with a quick sidestep as he counterattacked. His arm did itch a bit from the Powershot, but he nevertheless returned fire

bow as it mid-flight split into four, with three of them hitting