The Primal Hunter

The two hawks sat within the protective sphere while the one Jake had named ‘Hawkie” helped its mate with the ritual. Its mate, the Mystsong Hawk, was still skeptical but had agreed to the modifications anyway.

Hawkie needed to stabilize the entire formation while the Mystsong Hawk redrew the markings on the ground carefully. It was intricate work that took a lot of concentration from both of them for something they weren’t even sure would have any point.

If the human failed to kill the elemental or didn’t want to give the Orb, it would all amount to nothing.

Now, why would the hawks make this large formation and spend more than 1½ month feeding it energy as their egg slowly grew? The answer was simple: Records.

They wanted their chick to start out with as large an advantage as possible, hopefully even getting a powerful race. As a Galesong Hawk and a Mystsong Hawk, the race of their chick was already unpredictable to begin with, and while this entire ritual would make it even more so, it could only lead to positives.

As a D-grade, the Mystsong Hawk was already placed highly on the planet’s hierarchy, and they both also believed that the Galesong Hawk could reach D-grade… but to reach C-grade or above was a massive uncertainty.

As beasts, their natural instincts were, of course, for both themselves and their offspring to become as strong and healthy as possible. They had made this entire formation to make sure of that, collected hundreds of the cloud elemental orbs… but they needed more.

That is when that weird human suddenly appeared. At first, he was just a shitty flyer that the Galesong Hawk took pity on, and a few of its fatherly instincts influenced it to give some pointers. It wasn’t with any specific goal in mind; it just found the human amusing.

But then it saw the human fight. It saw the man annihilate the souls of an entire flock of birds with a look and for him to improve at a ridiculous speed as he hunted down beasts many levels above himself. It saw him kill beasts the Galesong Hawk wasn’t confident in facing with a single arrow…

It saw him kill a D-grade that even its D-grade mate couldn’t beat.

That is when the Galesong Hawk realized that it had met a monster.

To see him stand atop the Thunder Roc with a disappointed look in his eyes was what made the Galesong Hawk resolve itself and convince its mate to ask his assistance. The Mystsong was still reluctant but agreed nevertheless. It had tried to pressure the human with its aura but instead found itself suppressed.

22 hours after the human left, the Mystsong Hawk detected him within its projected aura.

A small hole in the barrier opened as the human flew inside, landing on the ground with far more grace than the Galesong had expected the human ever to be able to when it met him only a few weeks ago.

“Well, that was fucking annoying,” the human said as he suddenly began rambling. “Seriously, I kill the stupid elemental, and then everything just goes to shit and...”

However, both of them had already begun filtering out his rant on disrespectful thieving birds after hearing the first part. Besides, they didn’t fully understand his words, just the general sentiment behind them.

The Galesong Hawk made some noises towards him, and the human looked over. “Oh yeah, the orb is right here.”

He took out the Orb and displayed it to the two birds.

[Storm Elemental Orb (D-grade)] – Contains strong storm-affinity mana and the remnant Records of a Storm Elemental

rather relaxing. After recuperating a bit, Jake went to inspect the center of the cloud continent, aka the massive crystal tree. Upon further inspection… he was surprised to learn it wasn’t alive. Or at least it didn’t have a

to it or move it. So he decided just to let it be… perhaps he could find a use for it in the future, and if

barrier but felt quite a bit better after ranting at the two birds. He had, of course, been attacked on the way back by a bunch of ignorant vultures that hadn’t seen him earlier. He was happy that his hawk-buddy wasn’t an asshole that just attacked him at first sight. These two hawks at least seemed somewhat polite, and he did consider Hawkie a friend of sorts, and

now 100% sure that Hawkie was the guy and the Mystsong Hawk, the girl.

thought, looking at the Mystsong Hawk. The bird looked back at him with confusion as Jake stood

actually delusional enough to think that those names were in any way good, but quite frankly, he didn’t care. Even if other people heard them, who would disrespect a

the entire concept of naming things novel. Hawkie had already gotten used to the weird human long ago,

is the Orb,” Jake said as he tossed the Orb to Mystie, who easily caught it with some kind of magic

working after both giving a thankful screech. The human wondered what to do as he looked at the magic circle being redrawn in new patterns. It

you also use the Beastcore?” he asked as he

Mystsong looked at him and the orb for a bit before sadly shaking its

energy like the orbs?” he asked, pointing between the orbs and the

got him a

what if I somehow mess with it a bit and make it more like an orb?

some bird noises that made the hawk look at

just going to take that

on doing? Something he had no idea if he could even do. A bit of a

much all humans on Earth, a D-grade Beastcore had to be a priceless treasure, but to Jake, it really wasn’t.

into something useful. And what better way to

he wanted to do it in a bit of a unique way. So the cauldron he had taken out

Essences (Epic)] – A cauldron made by infusing a vast array of essences within it, granting it the ability to far easier and more efficiently transform mana affinities. Allows the user to change affinities to elemental affinities the user doesn’t

50+ in any alchemy-related

wasn’t quite ready yet, though. While this was a mad experiment, he still needed at least some kind of plan or approach. Closing his eyes, he entered meditation as he dove into

the Malefic Viper that Jake could dive into and explore with his Sagacity of the Malefic Viper. Naturally, it wasn’t all the mighty god’s Records but a mere fraction of a fragment, but that in itself

As he dove into it, he felt like he got some kind of response as he briefly felt the influence of Villy himself come down and give him a nudge in the direction he was going

about Records and, more importantly, the evolution of beasts and how to support them in their evolutions. He didn’t look for a recipe or anything like that,

idea he got… but surprisingly, it wasn’t from what was

into a drop of blood like this… can’t

in his own little world - didn’t every part of him already contain a part of

thoughts, he opened the lid of the cauldron and, without any hesitation, poured in his own blood, infused with Blood of the Malefic Viper. Nonchalantly he threw in the Beastcore and began focusing everything he had on the

the core fight back. This was the reason why he used this cauldron. The mana he infused into the Beastcore was

to dig into

destroy the mana of what was within what it hit. This also meant that if you used lightning magic on a person, it would drain some of their mana along with their

from the Beastcore eliminated the mana in the blood around it. Draining its toxicity at a rapid pace as Jake allowed it to win out. He wasn’t sure exactly how long it took, but soon the blood was entirely drained of all

knew it wasn’t… because it still contained some elements of Jake that the lightning couldn’t destroy. Because while the lightning could destroy all the mana-based poison, it failed to destroy

time he consumed the amalgamation to pass the challenge dungeon where he encountered his first real vitality-based poison. During the Trial of Myriad Toxins, he had been inflicted with even more types of vitality-based toxins as well as countless other kinds. He had learned from it,