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 and deeper they went, and Jake began noticing

beast at the top of one of the trees at level 73, higher than the Mole Lord that had dominated the area

They were still not in the deeper parts quite yet, but the average level of beasts

you have going on this

with, was that it had been heading towards the cloud continent when it saw

Straight ahead of them, where Hawkie was heading. Is it leading me into a trap? Why would

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

him that the hawk didn’t

It was practically projecting its aura in the

on him. He scoffed as he

or maybe it was just used to it.

that the beast had some kind of perception skill

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

it as what was within came out

it coming as he landed on the ground. Out of the barrier first came a flash of colors and light before a beast emerged. A small figure with blue mana flashing around it came towards them, stopping

this was indeed the D-grade. Well, the

– lvl

rune-like markings all over its body. It actually reminded him a bit of the Great

birds were now chirping back and forth, clearly not quite in agreement. Jake smiled

couldn’t 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. A score

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

him because the shiny bird

what’s inside that barrier you really don’t want me to

baffled at the human who just completely ignored it. A few quick sounds from Hawkie made it

again, seriously considering just trying

a sigh before turning

to get that one, as he and

hole in the barrier closed right away. Jake noticed that you could still see out but not into it. It was

the entire area, and Jake instantly felt his mana

“Screech!”

a mad screech from the Mystsong Hawk, clearly telling him to cut it out. Jake got the message as he stopped breathing in the mana. His

some 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 and the

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

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

them, 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

more towards the air-affinity. Why it worked like that, he didn’t know, but he reckoned the darker clouds leaned closer to

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

expecting 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,