The Primal Hunter

The life of a Cloud Elemental was truly sad. Their only comfort being low intelligence, making them unable to comprehend exactly how much it sucks. For them, living more than a dozen hours was an outstanding achievement. Managing to actually fight back and slay an attacker even more so.

Birds hunted them every hour of the day. All of them long familiar with the elemental’s attack methods and defensive measures. And now, even a winged human had joined the fray to hunt down the poor elementals.

Jake fired off the bolts of mana like never before. But not from floating orbs above him. Instead, he stood with his bow held high as he shot an arrow that exploded with the power of dozens of the old mana bolts.

Hawkie had been gone for nearly half a day. He wasn’t sure what his feathered friend was doing, but Jake hadn't been idle during that time. With only himself and weak Cloud Elementals to fight, he had plenty of time to reflect on his method of attack.

He had come to realize that not using his archery was a real waste. So he came up with a new plan. To combine the two somehow. And after only a few hours of testing, he had come up with the current attack.

Taking out an arrow, he formed the shape of the mana bolt around it. He poured mana into and around it, making it crackle with energy - to call it a normal mana bolt was no longer accurate. After he had formed the bolt entirely, he channeled Infused Powershot and fired it.

It all added up to a mighty explosion of mana as the arrow pierced into the cloud elemental. Just in time, too, as the arrow was just about to break apart from the excess mana. The elemental that had been the target nearly broke entirely apart as it struggled to reassemble itself again.

He didn’t wait as he nocked another arrow and began creating another mana bolt around the arrow. It took a few seconds to form it entirely, drew the string, and fired it off, resulting in another explosion.

In retrospect, it wasn’t actually that much more useful than just firing off pure mana bolts. Jake could make more and fire them faster without first forming them around an arrow and firing them. Overall damage per second would likely even be higher just firing pure mana bolts.

But for the first arrow, it was well worth it to form it and use Infused Powershot to improve it further. Only against elementals, though, due to one fatal flaw with the method.

It didn’t work with his poison. He had tried first to coat it in his blood and then form a bolt of mana around it but found that the poison eroded the mana. He then tried just using a poison he had concocted, but this time the mana interfered and made the poison less effective.

He then had the brilliant idea of using Touch of the Malefic Viper on an arrow to infuse it with poison. He even mentally slapped himself for not doing it earlier. That is until he actually tried to do it. The arrow barely made contact with his hand before it just broke apart and turned to ambient mana.

In essence, it didn’t work. Besides, when Jake turned an arrow into a mana bolt, it exploded on impact due to how unstable it was. This wasn’t exactly a good way to poison anyone and would instead just ruin the arrow's poison even if it worked.

So he decided to use his mana bolt arrows against elementals and poisoned arrows on everything else. Of course, he hoped to one day combine the two, but it seemed far away and something the system didn’t particularly like. Maybe he could get a skill at 90.

He felt a bit in a hurry to level up, but on the other hand, he wanted to keep pushing the still unexplored potential of his newfound proficiency in utilizing mana in combat. At least until his current rapid progression petered off.

Also, he kind of didn’t want to engage too powerful Cloud Elementals without Hawkie. He needed the bird to ensure he could actually kill them, considering his still lackluster damage output. He was an archer and not a mage, even with his mana bolts. It could get a bit dicey, and he had missed out on a few kills due to other birds swooping in and interfering.

Luckily Hawkie had returned when he made his way back to the cloud island. It was perched on the tree impatiently staring at Jake as he arrived.

With a slightly apologetic nod, he sat down and entered meditation to top himself off right away so they could return to their hunt. He didn’t need more than half an hour to get back in top form once more. Mainly because of the potion he drank, but excessive consumption of alchemical products was a hallmark of his recovery process by now.

They killed Cloud Elementals, fought off asshole groups of birds trying to take advantage of them, acted like assholes by taking advantage of other groups of birds, and so on

with mana or solo hunting a bit. He was lucky that he had stocked up on so many potions

bolts of mana had improved hour by hour, and by now were far more potent than the ones he started with. Their shape now resembled small lightning bolts as

killing did unavoidably result in a lot of experience earned. Jake ended up gaining another three levels

has reached level 87 - Stat

…

89 - Stat

(E)] has reached level 79 - Stat points

expectant, of course. Two days ago, his progress in the mana bolts significantly

first mana bolt he threw with his hand like a plebian, he now shot off crackling bolts of pure unadulterated pain like a true mage. The

like that; they just were. Perhaps it was due to his desire to continually pack more power and destructibility in

always had more focus on improving destructibility over stability. Not that he held any regrets towards that. That path felt more natural for him to begin with. The mana closer aligned to his

that had begun appearing in his bolts… the same kind that emerged during the Trial of Myriad Poisons when he sought to destroy and break down the poison in his body. Each of them far too minute for him or anyone but the

though. He didn’t see any notable improvements in his hawk’s fighting abilities, but it had gotten faster and a bit stronger. The underlying toolkit remained the

The only ones that really had a right to complain were the cloud elementals, whose sole existence was to

there wasn’t

Using Identify on it didn’t yield any result, meaning it likely wasn’t

was enough for the two of them to keep a safe distance, though. Neither of them interested in getting hit by a wayward bolt of

have the same reservations. But upon further inspection, he came to understand why. They were monsters of the lightning-affinity and thrived in an environment filled with volatile

from other monsters trying to monopolize the powers found there. A few

giant bird, a commercial airliner's size - a wingspan tens of meters wide. Its body covered in feathers colored a deep black with small blue patterns here and there. Lightning crackled in its wake when it moved, as it

[Thunder Roc - ???]

Cloud Elemental, but instead of the fluffy white body, this one had a dark gray one with thunder crackling within. Its body flashed with electricity every few seconds as it sat on one of the tree's larger branches.

Roc - a

[Storm Elemental - ???]

times, but they appeared unable

balance as they kept to each side of the tree. Other birds and elementals were competing below, sometimes trying in vain to reach for the crown where most of the

time they saw the two of them. Hinting if they should give it a shot sometime soon. To which he got a bewildered look back as if he was the biggest idiot the

he didn’t understand why. The two of them were clearly far above their level. They should still both be in the early D-tier, but of course, that didn’t mean they were something the two

the King of the Forest. He imagined how the King would fare against these creatures. The version of the

reached was the mental image of the Roc being torn apart by the golden claw. The elemental ripped into countless pieces by telepathy as a shockwave of mental energy

perfectly aware that he had never truly seen the King in his prime; all the extraordinary items weakened him to a ridiculous degree. What he did remember, however, was his fully powered Infused Powershot being blocked like it was

little cloud island once more for a round of meditation and drinking potions. Their daily routine became