The Primal Hunter

Jake sat on a small cloud away from the large continent. The bird perched in a tree beside him. He was breathing heavily still from his nearly empty pool of mana and low stamina. Even his health was only at around half.

The cloud elemental was far harder to deal with than he had predicted. Luckily the hawk did wonders against it. Its blades of wind cut off parts of the cloud elemental, with another blast of wind dispersing the cut-off part into nothing.

Even then, it took the two of them nearly half an hour before the elemental became unable to regenerate parts of its body and finally died. Or dispersed… or whatever elementals do.

Jake felt pretty damn fucking useless after the long fight. All he could really do was toss weak bolts of dark mana at the elemental to distract it while dodging its blows. If the elemental hadn’t been so stupid as to focus on him over the hawk, he wasn’t even sure they would have won.

He did throw a mana potion to the hawk during the fight, so he had made some kind of contribution. The hawk didn’t even seem very condescending after the battle. Maybe surprised at Jake’s many means to stay alive.

It made him reflect on the massive skill disparity between beasts and humans once more. Even the dungeon bosses he fought never had more than a handful of skills he was aware of. Humans, on the other hand, had so many.

Granted, many skills of beasts you never discovered. So maybe beasts just had a lot more passive skills or skills that buffed other parts of them. Or perhaps they just had fewer skills and more stats. Maybe they were slightly inferior in the skill department by the system’s design. Who knows?

Probably Villy. Gotta ask him next time. Or maybe he could just ask out loud, and the scaly god would hear him. He had been spying on him at random times these days, after all. At least he had been nice enough not to have any more viewing parties.

“Hawkie, let’s just stick to hunting birds and leave those damn clouds alone for now, yeah?” he asked, looking up at the bird.

He was pretty sure it understood him as it blinked its eyes a few times in a row in response. At least he believed it understood as it was clearly brilliant. The only question was if it understood him due to its intelligence or if the translation skill he got worked with birds. Though he doubted it as he had yet to hear anything speak that wasn’t humanoid.

As for why he called it Hawkie… well, he just got tired of thinking of it as ‘the hawk,’ or when he occasionally talked to it, he wanted to give it some kind of name. Granted, Hawkie was a shitty name, but he had never claimed to be good at naming things.

Closing his eyes while sitting and resting on the cloud, he entered meditation. But this time, he didn’t focus on pure recovery or summoned his usual strings of mana, but instead, he cupped his hands in front of him.

Despite his plan to avoid the elementals, it didn’t mean that he was satisfied with the situation. He wanted to create a tool to fight them.

He had Sagacity of the Malefic Viper that helped him. He had been practicing controlling and using mana continuously ever since he got the ability to sense it. Yet, he found himself so disappointingly useless when he had to use it in combat.

Looking back, he was beginning to regret not just picking up the Dark Bolt skill at some point. Maybe instead of the still useless Hunter’s Tracking skill. Not because of the Dark Bolt itself, but because of what he could potentially learn from it.

Something was missing from his mana attacks. He knew that his spells had to be more powerful even without a skill being used. He saw the many birds fire off basic-looking bolts of mana to kill the elementals, and he, for the life of him, didn’t understand what separated his from theirs.

wasn’t the issue. Even when Jake used more, it barely did anything. When

way of attacking with pure mana. The enchantment on his gloves fired off a melee blast of mana. But even that was useless with his current predicament. What he

didn’t serve to help him either. He understood how that skill worked, and it was clearly fundamentally different. It didn’t use mana

if he could somehow pour the effects of Touch of the Malefic Viper into a ball of mana and throw it, which is when he learned how futile that thought was. Unless the skill changed entirely, that would never

target, the poisoned. Not that he knew how to in any way replicate the effects of the skill without actually using it. He was fully aware of how far above his understanding it was, being a part

strings. Practiced lifting stones and other objects through mana and otherwise just used it to

had attached himself to a ceiling during the Forgotten Sewers dungeon. How he could cover his feet in mana to walk on water. He was proud of those achievements, but was his philosophy behind doing so flawed in some

mind as he sat in meditation. The effect of increased concentration from the skill upgrade was doing as

genuinely sure of? He knew that even when the system gave a skill, it didn’t necessarily mean one was on the right track. When he failed and exploded his own arm by overloading it with stamina, he was rewarded with a

doing it, and he had gotten a strong profession-upgrade. He could make powerful potions and had acquired so many powerful skills. Even if his path in that regard was suboptimal, it was

Brewing potions and concocting poisons were reliant on the skills associated

the Malefic Viper

the Malefic Viper helped him understand some things better, but it didn’t come with any knowledge or sudden enlightenment on how to use mana offensively. It would help him,

also just far too

didn’t really provide any hints either. Even the ability to burn the blood in the wings was entirely based on Blood of the

might long ago, and it was pretty much non-existent. The flame produced heat, which could be viewed

it was far too

Palate of the Malefic Viper. It was a skill associated with knowledge of alchemical ingredients he consumed while also amplifying the effects

wandered to the Trial of Myriad Poisons. When he was within the vat of poisons, they invaded his body repeatedly - to the point that he struggled with the pain and staying conscious.

ingredients. Rip them apart with his mana to absorb them easier. He had tapped into the natural effects of the skill and helped it make the process go faster. A process that was innately

formed his bolts with. If his normal mana was like a serene lake normally, this mana had been a roaring maelstrom. Both were mana in its purest form, but one was peaceful while the

lifted his hand and formed a ball of mana. He felt its serenity. He understood

world would fall apart. It dominated the atmosphere and the air around him - the many affinities not changing that at all. To put it in other words… mana didn’t have any

was true for the mana he formed. The only difference being that it carried his own signature. His own ‘Jake-affinity’ if one will. When he threw a bolt of mana on anyone, all it did was

not because that was a proper attack either, but because of the innate qualities of dark mana and its ability to

been crude and borderline

a bolt once more. He remembered the first time he saw a mana bolt being used during the tutorial’s first day. He remembered how it

into a blueish color. Had the other mana bolts ever been

mind had just clicked. Was it truly this simple? He wasn’t even sure exactly how he had made the mana in his hand change. He just tried to mimic the feeling he got when he sought to destroy and refine the poison in his body and directed his mana into the structure it had been

mana into the blue bolt in his hand. Its color remained unchanged, but he felt its power increase, and he knew it would explode upon impact with something. As a mana