The Primal Hunter

The darkness permeated his entire being as he sat in meditation. His regeneration was far higher than it had ever been before as the mana poured into him. Meanwhile, tendrils of dark mana spread throughout the hallway, making him look like some eldritch octopus with tiny arms.

Occasionally his entire body would turn into a shadowy ethereal figure for a few moments until it returned to being flesh and blood once more.

Three whole days had passed without Jake moving a single finger. The tendrils of dark mana were, however, more active than ever before. They wrapped themselves into different shapes and sizes as they reached further and further away from him.

Jake opened his eyes once more as he looked forward. Yes, he looked. The darkness that had blinded him now only seemed like a mist, slightly obscuring everything. At the same time, his sphere expanded back to its usual 30 meters, functioning nearly the same as outside the dungeon.

Everything had finally clicked as he began to comprehend the mana around him better. Unlike the mana he was used to, this mana was oppressive and consuming, far less accommodating to whoever or whatever resided within it.

Raising his hand, he tried gathering the mana into the shape of a ball. Strings of mana sprung up in his palm as they wrung around each other, forming his desired shape a few moments later. Throwing it at the wall, he smiled as the ball persisted even after losing contact with him. It did start fading, but it existed long enough to strike the wall and dissolve into a puff of smoke. Inspecting it further, he felt it had left a small mark, meaning it hadn’t been entirely harmless.

While it was useless in combat, it did mark him passing a huge milestone. He had tried to imitate the Mana Bolt he remembered the casters making and had succeeded somewhat. Which had, in turn, helped prove his theory he could make things from mana even without a skill.

The fact that he could make dark mana wasn’t to say that he couldn’t make normal mana anymore. His mana was still innately the same pure mana; he had just found a way to change its affinity. And it wasn’t like the transformation was seamless.

He had the tendrils of darkness active all the time because of the time-consuming process involved in changing the affinity of his mana. It wasn’t as quickly done as just thinking about it. It was more akin to doing alchemy, where he had to change the energy’s nature to either restore health or stamina.

Of course, there were differences, but his starting point had been that thought. And it appeared that by understanding the mana, he could better adapt his body and senses to it. Naturally, it also helped that the mana was passive, merely existing in the atmosphere.

It didn’t have any intent baked into it, unlike what would happen if someone used a skill with dark mana. If, for example, someone made an area filled with dark mana like the dungeon Jake was in, it would still blind and affect him. It would be less than a few days ago, but it would still work.

As the mana was passive, it also meant that it didn’t fight back when Jake tried to consume it to regenerate his mana pool faster. In fact, the dark mana was even more comfortable to absorb than the mana outside. His fastest regeneration had still been while he was in the Challenge Dungeon, though, and he was starting to suspect that it had something to do with the affinity of the atmospheric mana.

The mana in the sewers was made up nearly entirely of the dark-affinity, and whatever wasn’t would quickly be consumed by it. Jake had observed the mana in his Alchemical Flame be consumed, as well as the light stones he tested out a few days prior.

It reminded him of what he had read and encountered during all his practice for alchemy. The reason why one had to use Purified Water while making potions was twofold. First of all, one purified it to eliminate any impurities, and second of all to remove whatever affinity the mana in the water held. Which, pretty much always meant removing any water mana within.

Water inherently holds water mana, and a fire had fire mana, and so on and so forth. This didn’t mean all the mana in those objects was of that affinity, but some of it would often be. Most mana everywhere was still pure mana, and the mana in the air was ordinarily just pure affinity-less mana.

That the forest outside would hold mana other than just pure mana was just a logical conclusion. But it likely wasn’t as pervasive as the dark mana and didn’t have the nature of consuming light and other kinds of mana. But it did mean that if the mana weren’t compatible with him, he wouldn’t be able to absorb it, hence regenerating mana slower.

The mana outside was clearly less compatible with him than the mana in here. Luckily the vast majority was still pure making it only a slight annoyance in retrospect. If he had to guess, then he would say a lot of the mana outside was nature-affinity. It would make sense with him not able to use the Greatsword of Nature and the description he had gotten from the Nature Affinity skill.

resulted in Jake concluding that he had the darkness-affinity. At least manipulating dark mana was something he could

and attached several strings of mana to the walls around him. By now, hundreds of strands of mana

on the wall or floor. He didn’t run as he still focused

minutes, such a change occurred as one of his strings moved unexpectedly. He kept track of it as he felt it move around, suddenly appearing somewhere entirely

said solid, he meant solid. Their thickness was more than his sphere, meaning they

walked, he felt more and more strings move. It was the earliest ones he had placed, and it was almost like they were following him. Like the dungeon moved together with him as

tried backtracking, the strings mana didn’t move but stayed where they were. But this didn’t mean he could just start walking back the way he came and end up at the entrance. He felt his strings mana not just move straight towards him but also shift slightly in height and verticality, which meant that

he could potentially randomly reach the exit by just wandering around? He doubted it, but he couldn’t rule it

the tunnel. They all fell quickly, as Jake didn’t pay them much attention. He had no interest in prolonged fights, as it would only make it harder to maintain

one with his sphere and found it continuing into the wall more than he could see. Jake stood in front of one for a while but decided to not climb in one just yet. Instead, he placed a

reaction from the string on the pipe. It suddenly started vibrating as he felt his string of mana snap

an idea but decided to continue forward, and to no

all-encompassing dark mana around it. If it weren’t because of him spending three days focusing solely on feeling his own mana, he would

there’s only a single pipe? he asked himself as

into the dumb pipe. It was small and dirty, and he quite frankly didn’t want to, but it was the only thing that seemed to act differently than everything else.

The bottom of it was covered in a steady stream of water, with the entire thing being perfectly circular. It was difficult to move through as getting a grip on the sides was hard, and he could barely crawl on his hands and knees while within

10 meters in, and none of them had reacted, the same with 20 and 30 meters. When he was

his dagger before the rat reached him, mouth

below. At the same time, he

more. However, it didn’t miss as Jake felt its

pushed a leg forward as he pushed himself upwards, pressing the beast into the top of the pipe, pinning it. Its mouth was still open and its teeth deep in his shoulder, resulting

that wasn’t hanging limp from the bite. It tried to retaliate with its claws, but they were too short and weak to land anything more than a few

appeared. He released the pressure on his leg as he collapsed to the side. The damn rat was still stuck in his shoulder, so he lifted it out, seeing the teeth slowly exit his deep

Drinking a healing potion, he felt

one rat could come through the pipe, who was to say there couldn’t come more? In the enclosed space, he didn’t even feel confident in escaping if he

pipe was broad. Meaning he couldn’t use it in

but he managed to suppress the pain. The damn rats also had some kind of magic imbued in their bites. It wasn’t poison, but something else - Possibly a curse

attacked again before he saw the end of the pipe. He quickly

attached on the other side of the pipe, which meant this new area wasn’t merely

Jake cursed as he began attaching even more strings of mana to the

for a while as he noticed a change. On the ceiling