The Primal Hunter

Phillip frowned as he yelled to the snipers to take down one of the bulls leading the charge. He used a skill of his to mark it, making everyone under his leadership instinctually aware of which one he was talking about - an instrumental skill for this kind of fighting style.

Four loud bangs sounded out as the bull was hit, two bullets hitting its head, one its body, and one its leg. It immediately stumbled and fell, getting trampled by its comrades. Those that trampled it also ended up falling with the sudden obstacle in their way, creating a domino-effect of cows tumbling over each other.

The one saving grace of this entire shitshow was that the beasts in the daily attacks were stupid and didn’t have any proper fighting tactics. They would just charge until they got killed, only the Herd Leaders showing even a modicum of tactical prowess.

Yet even their tactic didn’t go beyond having the weaker beasts make a ramp with their corpses. Phillip could already imagine tens of ways they could do it better, but he was just thankful for their stupidity.

When the Herd Leader enraged the bovines, he ordered their group’s mages to push back the beasts. The wall itself seemed to come alive as the outer layer got pushed out. A grating sound was heard as the massive pile of corpses were slowly being pushed back, and Phillip saw earth mages all sweating buckets as they exhausted their entire mana pools to pull off that one trick.

But the trick worked, as they had now effectively created a second layer of walls. A practical method of constructing fortified cities or castles in medieval times revived to face huge magic cows.

Of course… this plan didn’t come without cost. The fort’s wall had lost around a third of its thickness to create the second wall. This wasn’t the first time Phillip had done this, though, and they would get to reconstructing the wall as soon as the fighting was over.

He couldn’t help but look up back towards Miranda but found her gone. Just as he was about to question someone, he looked up and saw her floating a few hundred meters above the fort. She and her assistant appeared to be floating while the masked man stood in the air. He felt his eyes momentarily meet his, and Phillip shuddered.

Is he truly human?

Miranda had assured him this city owner was human… but Phillip still felt some doubt deep in his mind. His eyes were that of a beast, his entire body and face covered, and his power far above anyone Phillip had ever seen. He even had a D-grade monster willingly following him around…

Phillip felt like he had done all he could to adapt to this new world. He had entered a tutorial with around five thousand others. It was a survival-type, and he had quickly taken charge and ensured as many people survived as possible.

He had entered with a few of his fellow veterans who had helped assist him. He had recruited people, negotiated with other minor factions, and eventually managed to ensure that nine out of ten survived. He had gotten rewarded for this and was even recognized with the Lord title. Putting it all together… he had already guessed what this masked ‘owner’ owned.

A Pylon of Civilization.

Phillip had planned on claiming one himself after he got the title and had even used one of his five purchases to buy information on Pylons, as well as the location of the one closest to him. He had gained plenty of information, but the only thing he had gained concerning the location was a vague “go north.”

But… what he had learned did raise some questions. Many questions, in fact. The first was related to claiming a Pylon… as one had to slay the D-grade tied to it.

He hadn’t disclosed to Miranda that he knew these things, so when she told him that the owner had claimed the area weeks ago, he was shocked. Had he killed it shortly after exiting the tutorial? Or maybe… during the tutorial?

impossible… but if all her claims were

the D-grade beast following him around was the actual owner of the Pylon… but that also didn’t really hold water. Why would it then

details about the Pylon were off, though. Miranda said that no beast ever entered the area, but Pylons didn’t have that effect. It could be a lie, or

could get some influence that way. It

bored down at a horde of beasts… who was he to question his methods? Clearly, it was working

he returned his full attention

him. They wanted to make a more mortar-like version of those,

fireballs fell on the approaching bulls, injuring all

hands slightly trembling as they kept shooting.

but his pride didn’t allow it. Not if it wasn’t strictly necessary. He felt like he had already

launcher as he knelt and began channeling his strongest attack: the epic-rarity skill he had bought

magic as he saw the shape of what looked like a rocket appear in his hands. It reminded him a lot of his own Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter but was instead a rocket.

took nearly two

Just a worse way of firing it than a bow, he scoffed. The only advantage was that the entire process was purely magical, meaning you didn’t really need any physical stats worth

bit of everything. The issue Jake saw with being too focused on mental stats was… what the hell was your plan when a person

than Jake would spend in stamina by dodging. Teleporting away yourself? It could work, but once more, way more resource-heavy than just leaning to

Jake had fought of somewhat high power were Abby and the King of the Forest. Abby was weak defensively, and that was even while using space magic, a type of magic offering excellent

Forest… Jake was unsure if that monster could even be called a mage. His physical defenses and stats were utterly insane, surviving having a mini-nuke of dark and light

Elemental had taught him that focusing purely on physical combat wasn’t the way either, as

one went far enough on any path, those shortcomings would disappear. Jake’s current Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter was in the realm of physical combat, but one just had to ask the Storm Elemental if it wasn’t effective. He also reckoned that just progressing far enough in anything would make you

it could be argued all this only really matters when fighting alone. When fighting in a large

this. Christen was tough and could handle most hits and intercept enemies. But she couldn’t protect herself against everything or heal herself, so Silas

Levi and, to some extent, Eleanor came in to provide the firepower while themselves being defended. Eleanor was

and even had several offensive options.

of fighting at a time. Jake was pretty sure that nearly all the gunmen had invested all their free points into intelligence and wisdom to increase their damage output and how many shots they could

wrong… he just felt like it wasn’t sustainable in the long run. At some point, the walls would no longer provide an effective defense. The soldiers would have to team up with an army of builders and trappers to

scenario of the fort being attacked by progressively stronger beasts all the time just seemed… implausible. That it happened only about once a day, even more so.

It felt… designed.

towards the Herd Leader. The beast reacted too slowly as it

the man who’d fired it wave his hands as the rocket