The Primal Hunter

Jake focused on the threads of mana as he supplied mana through every one of them. One of them reached towards his battered cloak, which had been nearly completely destroyed, again, after the latest fight where he finally took down the last of the badger groups, leaving only the Alpha left.

The self-repair enchant on the cloak would repair it entirely over time, but if one were injecting mana, it would significantly speed up the process.

The second string went to his bracers that had taken quite the beating too. He had used them to block quite liberally, making them well and truly scratched up. One of them even had several bite holes in them from the two times he had been bitten.

The third string went to the empty quiver as he supplied mana to conjure more arrows. Yet another two were currently picking up a blue mushroom each as they slowly put it into the mixing bowl he was holding with his two hands.

If he was doing relatively easy concoctions or brews, he could do it with only one hand on the bowl, but it was more comfortable with two hands if he needed a bit finer control. And as he was currently making more Necrotic Poison, he needed both hands.

Of course, he made it a bit harder for himself by deploying mana strings and charging up or repairing his stuff.

But in the end, it turned out successful as he was met by the beautiful message confirming his successful concoction and finally getting that level-up.

*’DING!’ Profession: [Prodigious Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 47 - Stat points allocated, +5 free points*

*’DING!’ Race: [Human (E)] has reached level 43 - Stat points allocated, +5 free points*

Along with that level, he had already gotten quite the gains from the dungeon. Jake had been there for 10 hours by now, as he had to take a break before fighting the second to last and final group of badgers.

He quickly burned through all 60 arrows in every one of those fights, as the damn things were relatively resilient and good at avoiding fatal injuries.

As it took a bit of time to reconjure the arrows, he also spent the time concocting a bit. He had decided to go all out against the Alpha Badger and use some of his limited supply of Necrotic Poison.

He was starting to run a bit low on blue mushrooms by now. He cursed himself for casually eating them out of habit in the period after leaving the challenge dungeon, but not as much as he cursed himself for not clearing out the long tunnel filled with them after exiting the challenge dungeon.

It was unlikely that he would return for them as… well… he kind of didn’t know the way back. He was a hunter, sure, but that didn’t mean that his sense of direction was that powerful. Besides, the damn forest in the outer zone looked the same all over, with nearly no discernable landmarks. At least the inner area had huge mountains of different heights to orientate oneself quickly.

At least the dungeon was straight-forward. Quite literally, as there was only an opening at each end of the cave.

After he finished most of his preparations, he meditated for a few hours to fully restore himself. Only a single enemy remained in front of him, and from the feeling it gave off, the thing was stronger than anything he had ever faced before.

Exiting meditation, he took out the newly concocted bottle of Necrotic Poison, as he started dipping his arrows in it one by one. Leaving nothing up to chance, he dipped all sixty of them, making sure that he could give the beast a sufficient dosage of death.

After he was done, he put on the now fully repaired cloak and bracers. It was a bit weird how he retained the stats from the bracers even after removing them. Though his connection to them slowly worsened when he didn’t have them on, so he assumed that if he took them off for too long, the stats would disappear.

Shifting his focus back on the huge Alpha Venomfang Badger, he noted that he still couldn’t see its level even after his level-ups.

The Alpha was no longer sleeping but sitting on the ground, almost as if it was waiting for him. The moment he defeated the group with six badgers in it, the beast had woken up and moved to the position it was currently in. Likely by design, Jake noted.

meters away from

was true for all the badgers. Jake could attack one group without any of the others bothering. They should clearly be

roaming more, and while their range of perception was limited, the mere fact that they moved around made it more likely for

around as he usually did and accidentally moved too close to a bunch of the small buggers. The fact that their range

of a bit

worked to his advantage, though, so he wasn’t going

he stared down the giant badger in the distance, he took out an arrow from his quiver, nocked it, and took aim at the beast. It still didn’t react as he started charging Powershot. He couldn’t overdo it, as he doubted the creature would die

After 8 or so seconds, as Jake started to feel the soreness set in, he released the arrow to the usual explosion

hope that was quickly snuffed out as the beast reacted the moment he released the arrow. The otherwise dull eyes turned sharp, and the beast sprung into motion as it dodged to the side far

initial blow, Jake didn’t get disappointed but instead felt excitement. This one was a worthy opponent. A

arrow, he fired a Splitting Arrow

it dodged. But notably, it clearly

this beast, despite its prior demeanor, had sharp

passed the 100-meter gap in only three or

before the beast was upon him once more. His tactic of briefly confusing his enemy by vaulting clearly not working on this

land any poisoned arrows on the beast, as he was forced to block a swipe of its claws. Its strength outclassed Jake by far, and right before it hit him, he

the claw still tore into his bracers and arms, but besides that, he handled the blow relatively well. He felt his

to land an arrow on the beast, though not hitting any critical areas, but it was

its entire arrowhead into the hide of the beast, notably less than with the normal Venomfang badgers, where they either went straight through or only

long as the arrow could penetrate the tough hide of the beast,

ears were ringing, and he felt his vision go black for a second. However, his danger sense still warned him of the maw of

of the venom of the smaller ones, so he

noticed the beast behind him scratching at the wound he had inflicted. To his horror, he saw it

blood… it broke down the flesh and

out a poison he had barely used. The very first

Increases bleeding on infected entities and makes any injuries harder to heal. The poison must be introduced

of a lower rarity and effect… but it would likely do well against this type of foe. It already had several bleeding wounds, including the one it had just given

as it visibly started healing, so he had no time to

he took out an arrow and swiftly cleaned as much of the necrotic poison

arrow in the poison, he just poured it out over the arrow swiftly as he briefly made

the bottle towards the beast. Luckily the creature decided that the empty bottle was a major threat as it jumped to the side to avoid it, buying Jake

he didn’t know if he would get time to make another. He had no confidence in facing the beast in a melee brawl. Not yet, at least. If he could weaken it significantly first,

this shot. Splitting Arrow had proved not to work, and a regular shot had a big chance of being dodged… he

speed had been gradual. He could slightly do it now… but he didn’t exactly have a tremendous rate of success. Either it was negligible, or it just made the skill fail as all the stored inner

times call for tough decisions, he thought as he took the gamble. What better

he decided to take advantage of the beast’s fear of bottles. He had thousands of empty bottles for poison and potions still in his