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.

yet they kept flying. Deeper and deeper they went, and Jake began noticing the level

of one of the trees at level 73, higher than the Mole Lord that had dominated the area of the forest where his

deeper parts quite yet,

on this far

had already guessed that the reason why he met Hawkie, to begin with, was that it had been heading towards the cloud continent when it saw him, but he hadn’t thought that it lived this deep

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

he wasn’t that afraid. He felt confident in escaping from an early-stage D-grade, and on the way, he had chugged another stamina potion,

that the hawk didn’t wish to cause

ahead either. It was

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 this D-rank beast

affected by the aura at all, or maybe it was just used to it. At least that is what he

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

kept following Hawkie confidently as they reached a barrier of some kind. It blocked both vision and sound, only allowing the aura of the

he needed it as what was

of colors and light before a beast emerged. A small figure with blue mana flashing

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

Hawk – lvl

was about the same size 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 body.

were now chirping back and forth, clearly not quite in agreement. Jake smiled a bit to himself as he

help but mentally give the bird a fistbump. He had to admit that he wasn’t even sure if Hawkie was a he or she, but it didn’t matter.

after more than a minute of intelligible bird-talk. Wasn’t he supposed to have some kind of overpowered

to him because the shiny bird screeched madly,

no. Anyway, what’s inside that barrier you really don’t want

A few quick sounds from Hawkie made it look over before

asked again, seriously considering just

looks yet another time, Hawkie made a few more sounds before 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

to get that one, as he and Hawkie went through

in the barrier closed right away. Jake noticed that you could still see out but not into it. It was a bit like the barrier around the Pylon, albeit far weaker from what he

the entire area, and Jake instantly felt his mana regeneration spike. The mana

“Screech!”

him to cut it out. Jake got the message as he stopped breathing in the mana. His mana pool was already full anyway; he just wanted to test it

more sounds towards its mate, Jake just looking around. The spherical space within the barrier was only forty or so meters across, more than large enough to house the two hawks

his sphere and saw that 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 points with piles of small orbs were also found around the pattern, and Jake identified one of the

an E-grade

he thought. They were clearly powering or amplifying the formation and the source of the abundance of mana in the air. It also explained why it was so misty, as it stemmed from

on the knowledge his Sagacity of the Malefic Viper provided, but the white clouds leaned far more towards the air-affinity. Why it worked like that, he didn’t know, but he reckoned the

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 built with a center, and in that center was a small nest. And in that

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 was happy that his buddy