The Primal Hunter

Jake stood on the small island of clouds with Hawkie still at his side. The hawk had been giving him inquisitive looks for the last few hours as Jake had just been standing there, staring at the giant creature in the distance while recovering his resources.

[Storm Elemental – lvl ???]

Can I?

He honestly wasn’t sure. The Thunder Roc had been far easier to take down than expected, but he was well-matched against it. His poisons worked wonders as it was flesh and blood, its defenses were weak, and it had been barely D-grade.

The Storm Elemental gave him the feeling that it was slightly stronger… and that was ignoring how bad of a matchup it was for him. His poisons were borderline useless. Even the poison mist from his wings would be ineffective, as there was a constant current of air surrounded the elementals, blowing away the poison.

Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter was still useful, but it could only be used once as it simply took too long to summon another arrow. He had thought of having Hawkie join him, but… without sounding rude, the bird would only get in the way.

He doubted the bird’s attacks would do much harm to the Storm Elemental and instead just end up getting fried by the streaming bolts of lightning within its body. It would only distract Jake, making him worried about the bird throughout it all.

Jake’s mana bolts would do damage, but far from enough to bring down the massive elemental. Sure, if he could just bombard it constantly from far away without it fighting back, he could maybe… wait a second.

Why couldn’t he just do that?

Cloud Elementals were slow as hell, and he assumed the Storm Elemental to be no different. He saw it mulling about close to the massive tree at the center of the cloud continent, and its movements were slow. Sure, due to its enormous size, it still traveled tens of meters a second, but to Jake… that was actually pretty damn unimpressive.

Can I?

What if he just stayed… tens of kilometers… no… even further away. Finally, put his massive perception and range to good use by being a true sniper.

Hawkie kept looking at him, and as it saw determination begin to form in Jake’s eyes, it gave him an encouraging call.

Jake looked up at the hawk as he remembered something. “You collect those beads from the Cloud Elementals… could it be you want the one from that one?”

It gave him another encouraging sound, pretty much confirming it to Jake.

“Why do you need them, anyway?”

Hawkie looked a bit hesitant before finally motioning for him to follow. Jake was still unsure why he should follow, but he was still low on resources from the Thunder Roc fight, so it wasn’t liked he planned on fighting right away.

Spreading his wings, he glided down after the hawk as he soon noticed the direction they were heading. Hawkie tended to leave nearly every day for a few to over a dozen hours. Jake had tried to follow on prior occasions, but every time the bird rebuffed him.

Yet this time, it wanted him to follow.

Without questioning it, he flew down towards the forest below together with Hawkie. They kept flying at their high speed as Jake noted exactly where they were going.

The forest was absolutely massive, larger than most major continents on the old planet if he had to guess. He saw only trees from far up in the air, some even being at eye-level with him ten kilometers up in the air. He knew that D-grade beasts roamed deeper within. And at the moment, they were going deeper.

already hundreds of kilometers away, towards the outside of the forest, yet they kept flying. Deeper

beast at the top of one of the trees at level 73, higher than

began flying downwards. They were still not in the deeper parts quite yet, but the average level of beasts around there was

going on this far in? Jake

had been heading towards the cloud continent when it saw him,

deeper inside… no… one was close. Straight ahead of them, where

D-grade, and on the way, he had chugged another stamina potion, meaning

told him that the hawk didn’t wish to cause him any

Hawkie didn’t feel the D-grade ahead either. It was practically projecting its aura

as Jake felt the aura come down on him. He scoffed as he countered with his own, utterly rebuffing it. He didn’t fear the presence or aura of the Malefic Viper, and

wasn’t affected by the aura at all, or maybe it was just used to it.

the focus on him intensify, making him fully aware that the beast had some kind of perception skill to zone in

reached a barrier of some kind. It blocked both vision and sound, only allowing the aura of the beast within

as what was within came

a flash of colors and light before a beast emerged. A small figure with blue mana flashing around it came towards them, stopping only a few meters before him and Hawkie. Hawkie had landed to his side and was already

quick Identify, he identified this was indeed the D-grade. Well,

–

as Hawkie, aka not that much larger than a regular hawk. But while Hawkie was brown, this bird was nearly entirely light blue with deep blue rune-like markings all over its

agreement. Jake smiled a bit

admit that he wasn’t even sure if Hawkie was a he or she, but it didn’t matter. A score is a score; either way, it was

the family drama, but what’s the deal?” Jake finally asked after more than a minute of intelligible bird-talk. Wasn’t he

of eyes turned to him because the shiny bird

inside that barrier you really

just completely ignored it. A few quick sounds from Hawkie made it look over before looking back

barrier?” Jake asked again, seriously considering

the Mystsong Hawk did what Jake could only interpret as a sigh before turning around and flying back into the barrier. Conveniently leaving a hole more than large

didn’t need a bird-translator to get that one, as he

still see out but not into it. It was a bit like the barrier around the Pylon, albeit far weaker

was certainly not as he had expected. A constant white mist covered the entire area, and Jake

“Screech!”

Jake got the message as he stopped breathing in the mana. His mana pool was already full anyway; he just

only forty or so meters across, more than large enough to house the two hawks and the human, but also small

the ground was entirely bare of plants. It had all been replaced with intricate markings and runes, glowing a faint sheen of mana. Specific gathering

– A cloud orb dropped by an E-grade Cloud Elemental. Contains highly concentrated

clearly powering or amplifying the formation and the source of the abundance of mana in the air. It also explained why it was so

and water based on the knowledge his Sagacity of the Malefic Viper provided, but the white clouds leaned far more towards the air-affinity. Why it

formation and the two birds still making sounds at each other were interesting, he saw one thing that gave him pause. The formation was clearly

a kid?” Jake asked, his voice actually a bit surprised. He didn’t even think about how a D-grade and an E-grade had ‘gotten it on’ but was genuinely happy for the two hawks. Sure, it was a bit of a fucked up world, but he