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 playing with her a bit as he made

returned in his evolved form, and Jake had made plenty of progress in that time on his newest crafting projects. He had already made plenty of common-rarity fungicides that were all far better than what he had used on the

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

materials he would use, he did a bit of counting and concluded that he only had enough for a total of twenty attempts or so. It sounded like a lot… but this was also his first time truly trying to concoct

– The ashes left behind by burnt Lesser Ethwood. Used in a myriad

that provides a soothing effect

and done many 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

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

done so when no one else was around, but he still felt stupid for doing it. Naturally, it hadn’t done jack-shit, and

Viper did finish off by saying that he had sure as hell had never seen anyone using Words of Power

that again but returned to the methods he knew

he sat down

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 otherwise the entire concoction would become way

different. He had several batches he had taken out daily to use Cultivate Toxin on to prepare them for these concoctions. It

process, not rushing anything. He wanted to make the most potent toxin possible, not create a lot of it – his only goal was

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

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…

craftsmanship behind the cauldron completely sealed in all the energies, including the mysterious ethereal energy

He 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

of the Malefic Viper to mimic the poison found in the fungicide, but at a very low intensity. He would slowly bring up the entire concoction's toxicity without accidentally overwhelming the oh-so-feeble energy

walk a very narrow line between the poison not being toxic enough to reach the threshold of uncommon-rarity and have

took careful control

And it’s gone.

mana was gone. Consumed by the poison

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

entire concoction was ruined because he added too

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

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, and the Soothing

as the berry wasn’t considered a toxin at all. Far from it. It had the gentlest energy one could imagine

the experienced effect of the fungicide for the Indigo Fungus. To that end, he also added one final

body of the fungus. Contains intense

Lifevine, but a small part of it. This was another reason he had limited attempts… because he, of course, had pieces of Lifevine to make the concoction’s