The Primal Hunter

Jake raised his arms as the thunderbolt hit him, sending him tumbling back. His entire body was smoking, but his Scales of the Malefic Viper had nullified most of the attack. He took out his bow again as he side-stepped a massive blade of wind coming towards him.

The wind blade tore into the clouds below, cutting off a huge part of it and sending all the surrounding birds and elementals scurrying even further away. Jake smiled a bit as he fired a Splitting Arrow towards the small bird that was his opponent.

It dodged all of them easily as the hawk zoomed through the air, far faster than any opponent Jake had ever fought before. Simultaneously, a constant stream of attacks headed for him, but he was no slouch when it came to speed and avoiding blows either. Jake was enjoying the small bout quite a lot, and his opponent also seemed to enjoy being able to let loose its power and practice its newfound strength.

Hawkie had gotten a lot faster and stronger after his evolution.

And while the power-dynamic had changed slightly, with Hawkie no longer utterly outmatched… it still wasn’t the superior predator.

Jake flapped his wings as he chased after the far-faster bird while shooting the occasional arrow. One would assume it could get away… but Jake had quite a few tricks up his sleeve. His gaze landed on the hawk, making it freeze up momentarily, and at the same time, solidified the mana under his foot as he took a step.

He appeared right above the hawk, stepping on an arrow he had fired just beforehand. He was now right above Hawkie and within range of the bird. Jake reached down and pulled the bird towards him with a hastily constructed web of mana strings.

Hawkie had only been frozen for a moment, but it was enough for Jake to land his hand on the hawk and grasp the wings that were already crackling with electricity to get him off.

“Won’t work,” Jake snickered as he dragged the hawk down and smashed it into the cloud.

Size had some strengths and some weaknesses. Being large made you immune to some physical attacks from smaller forms, such as pretty much making it impossible for them to tackle you. But it made you slower and a far easier target.

In the same vein, being small made you susceptible to being wrestled around by a larger opponent. This was especially true for the Stormsong Hawk that relied on speed and high damage output to fight. In summary… Hawkie was screwed if Jake got hold of him.

“I win again,” Jake said with a big grin as the hawk pecked his hand in annoyance.

“Don’t be a sore loser; it’s just sparring. Besides, I doubt I could catch you if you decided to just bail from the fight,” Jake shrugged.

Hawkie, of course, knew this but was still a bit sour. Today was far from the first time the two had fought, as it was just one of many bouts. It was great practice for both of them, and Jake had learned a lot about magic combat from it.

It was rare to find an opponent that could shoot lightning bolts at you to practice making a mana barrier.

“Aight, let’s head back,” he said, motioning for the hawk to follow. It happily did so as Jake threw one last glance towards the massive tree on the cloud continent. Jake could feel that this is where Hawkie and Mystie had gone when they were gone for over three weeks. They were doing as the Thunder Roc and Storm Elemental had done before and claimed the massive tree for themselves. With Mystie putting down formations to increase the absorption rate and Hawkie already at 99 when they left, the hawk had achieved D-grade pretty quickly.

It did help that Jake had killed all other powerful contenders for the tree, making Mystie able to easily handle any other bird or elemental that decided to get in the way of Hawkie’s evolution. He did see that many other birds and elementals now swarmed the tree, and it was just a matter of time before a new D-grade would appear.

Arriving back at the lodge, Jake touched down on the ground, and instantly a tiny goofball of a hawk jumped out of the lodge and ran up to him.

“Chirp! Chirp!”

her up and placed her on his shoulder. She had begun getting a bit big for his head, even if she did occasionally climb there anyway. He kept

in his evolved form, and Jake had made plenty of progress in that time on his newest crafting projects. He

he had also gained another five levels in his profession, getting him to 89. Just one more level and he would get the final skill in the stat-granting “of the Malefic Viper” skills. Hopefully, today would be that day, as

he did a bit of counting and concluded that he only had enough for a total of twenty attempts or

Lesser Ethwood. Used in a myriad of recipes related

A berry that provides a

experiments with the samples he took from the Indigo Fungus. He had already used a bit of the ash in prior concoctions as he had enough of it to do that. He patted himself on

was a bit like mana, but not entirely. Jake was sure it still actually was mana; it just acted so differently. So ethereal. He had trouble controlling it within the concoction but found that his Pride of the Malefic Viper and the whole “imposing your will upon the world”-thing also applied in alchemy. It was small, subtle things, like

else was around, but he still felt stupid for doing it. Naturally, it hadn’t done jack-shit, and the only real feedback he got was Villy sending a divine message that was

by saying that he had sure as hell had never seen anyone using Words of Power while doing

he never tried that again but returned to the methods he knew

to her parents – much to her displeasure – he finally went out onto his porch, where he sat down on a

the liquid would stem from his own blood and the juices inside the berries. He still needed a bit of Purified Water for when he mixed in the ash, as

moss was normally a common-rarity herb used in nearly all kinds of poisons, but this moss was a bit different. He had several batches he had taken out daily to use Cultivate Toxin on to prepare them for these concoctions. It was far from enough to bring them to

not rushing anything. He wanted to make the most potent toxin possible, not create a lot of

liquid from a pre-prepared common-rarity fungicide. It wasn’t more than a few droplets, but it was enough to throw the entire mix for a loop for a few moments, with Jake working to stabilize it. It was an easy task for him now, but a few months ago, he would have had all the

diluted into the mix, and Jake had a strong feeling that if he finished up now, he would have just made a large batch of inferior-rarity fungicide. With this method, he could easily turn one bottle of common-rarity fungicide into a dozen inferior-rarity ones… but of course, that

threw it into the cauldron before quickly placing the lid back on. The expert craftsmanship behind the cauldron completely sealed in all the energies, including the mysterious ethereal energy that the ash released when Jake directed his mana to

used all his willpower and mana control to try and integrate it… and eventually, he did. It was incredibly inefficient, but he breathed out a sigh of relief anyway. This part he had even trained before, and

a very low intensity. He would slowly bring up the entire concoction's toxicity without accidentally overwhelming the oh-so-feeble energy from the

between the poison not being toxic enough to reach the threshold of uncommon-rarity

careful

And it’s gone.

slipped up for only a moment, and instantly all the soul-affecting mana was gone. Consumed by the poison around

cleaned up the cauldron, downed a mana potion, and started

ruined because

attempt failed when he used Touch of the Malefic Viper at a too high level of intensity and completely overwhelmed the other toxins in

got further than ever before. He had managed to raise the toxicity level adequately. However, the ethereal energy from the ash still wasn’t ‘active.’ It was more a catalyst than anything else,

clash with everything else in the concoction. Jake already knew this would happen, as the berry wasn’t considered a toxin at all. Far from it. It had the gentlest energy one could imagine within it and held purely

those beneficial effects of soothing the mind into instead soothing the experienced effect

Lifevine of an Indigo Fungus Mycorrhiza. The Lifevine is a part of the main body of the fungus. Contains intense amounts of vital

entire Lifevine, but a small part of it. This was another reason he had limited attempts… because he, of course, had pieces