The Primal Hunter

Jake’s bloodline had been with him from the very first day of the system; heck, it had since his birth. It had saved his life more times than he could remember and been the catalyst that made his rise to power possible. But one had to remember that while a bloodline could most certainly be helpful, it wasn’t always.

It wasn’t a skill, and it wasn’t regulated and controlled by the omnipotent system to make sure it wouldn’t cause unnecessary harm to the user. Even the skills that could do so carried warnings such as Jake’s own Limit Break.

So when Jake appeared back in his lodge, nothing was stopping his Sphere of Perception from feeding him everything within its influence – nothing but Jake and the other aspects of his bloodline.

Its range had expanded manifold after his evolution. Before D-grade, it had a radius of around 30 meters, but it was north of 200 meters after his evolution. He saw the entire valley and its surroundings; he saw beneath the earth to a small cave-system running approximately 140 meters below him, and so much more.

All of these stimuli drilled themselves into his mind as he felt sick to his stomach from the sensory overload. It was far too much for him to handle, and his mind simply couldn’t filter through it all. In the void where he evolved, his sphere had already expanded, but as it didn’t really see anything, he hadn’t taken notice of it.

Jake grit his teeth as he tried to comprehend everything and control his sphere. Even when it was only 30 meters, it was a bit much for him at times, and he rarely took notice of everything at once, but now after it had evolved, he had lost control of it.

He knew this was a horrible development, and he was utterly paralyzed as he tried to get his head under control. The first thing he did was enter meditation to cut off all his non-bloodline-related senses. He had long ago figured out how to make his sphere way more “passive” during meditation, and he tried to replicate that once more.

It helped a bit, but the influx of information was just too much. It was like a thousand pictures flashed before Jake’s eyes at every moment in a nauseating fashion. To make it worse, every small swaying blade of grass or rustle of a leaf was picked up double as he had trained himself and his sphere to take extra notice of movement before this evolution – a decision that had now come back to bite him in the ass.

Jake knew the pain he was experiencing wasn’t really in his head but in his soul. If it weren’t, he would have already plunged a dagger into his brain to make it stop and wait for his head to regenerate, but this wasn’t that kind of pain. He did everything he could to try and filter through everything, but it was slow.

There was one saving grace, however. Ever-so-slowly he began adapting as he subconsciously began filtering out the useless information in his head, and he knew that his own instinct of self-preservation kicked in – without a doubt the most prominent and influential part of his bloodline.

Like when he was meditating, he stopped picking up everything but only the most important. Smaller movements were filtered out, and ever-so-slowly, his headache lessened, and he became able to get at least a semblance of bearings.

It still took him over an hour before he got up and stood wobbling on the floor. He… he hadn’t expected the effects to be so extreme, even if a part of him had hoped for the bloodline to improve. Jake stood within his lodge as he closed his eyes and tried to focus a bit on the sphere again, and he felt a lot better about it already.

Perception skills were standard for most combat classes and even the ones that allowed some kind of spherical vision weren’t that rare. In fact, Jake was beginning to suspect that the system hadn’t offered him any from his class due to his bloodline, but that was a theory of his because he would sure as hell take one just to see how his bloodline would affect it.

Not that he needed a better sphere… because it was honestly just insane. When he closed his eyes, he could see everything around 200 meters in a radius around him. Perhaps a bit longer if he focused on perceiving something in a specific direction.

I guess I’ll be pretty hard to sneak up on… even more than before, he internally joked as he rubbed his temple, still feeling the remnants of a killer-headache.

He took a seat in a chair as he relaxed his mind and got a good feel of his body for the first time. He felt overflowing with strength, but he also felt different on a qualitative level. It was like every single stat point mattered slightly more than before after his body had been reforged. He would compare it to having a hidden bonus increasing the effectiveness of all his stats, but by how much he didn’t know, all he knew was that after the evolution, he felt nearly twice as strong overall… maybe even more. If Jake had to hypothesize, then those 200 to 220 in all stats from the title was just to set some kind of baseline of stats, even for those with weak classes and professions.

Jake was confident the evolution’s effects would be more prominent in someone without his titles and high stats before evolving, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a humongous gain for him.

His internals were still the same for the most part, with blood pumping through his veins and his heart beating in his chest… but he also got the feeling that a lot of it was for show. Many organs were gone and replaced with muscle or other fleshy

feel, but the rest were just… there. He felt like he could punch just as hard even if every single muscle in his arm were gone, even if it would expend a lot more stamina

with a large part of his brain missing, he had been able to escape from the Indigo Fungus. At least

and he would be able to regenerate as long as just the smallest part of his body remained – assuming he had the health points, of course. Maybe he could even stay alive

his ever-the-more-useless muscles flex. He opened his hand and closed it a few times, feeling the power in it. If he had met himself of a day ago… it would be

truly

and instantly saw only Sylphie sitting there looking at him from on top of one of the trees. Sylphie flew down – yes, flew – and landed on his shoulder. Well, it was more gliding, but with a bit

of the mask during the evolution. How

but it didn’t give him any more stats. It did keep giving 25% mana, which was great, as he knew some of these percentage amplifiers could get weaker

it

one once known as the King of the Forest; a mighty Unique Lifeform that died just as its path began. The mask is made of a wood-like material unique to the

Requirements: Soulbound

King slumbers within… Jake thought, rechecking it a few times. Five words had been added that held a lot of meaning, and Jake’s intuition practically screamed at him that this wasn’t something he could just

simple: perhaps the King of the Forest wasn’t

head. It was fine… even if the King returned or the Unique Lifeform within the mask tried taking over his mind or something… he

evolutions to

all encounter that insurmountable wall one day,” Jacob said as he placed his hand on the shoulder of

best materials I can find, but I just get nowhere! What am I doing wrong!” the older-looking man said as he

looked at the smith and understood his reluctance. To come to terms with your own shortcomings was difficult. The man had appeared like a promising smith, having worked in the profession before the system, and had quickly leveled

level 60 in his profession, he had begun slowing down, and now he had been stuck at 68 for three weeks. Jacob knew the man had reached the end of his potential, and he needed to do something drastic to break

he had done his best, but the issue was that he needed to do better than his best. His forty years of experience before the system had brought him to his current

what one does right or wrong; things just are as they are. You talk as if your creations have gotten worse, that you are no longer the smith you once were… but you are. Without you, how many people would still lack a roof over their heads? How many families would still feel unsafe without you helping build the wall? You have done so many things for us already. You

I go further? What am I lacking?” the smith asked, still

You will need sacrifice… but is that truly what you want? There are more ways to progress than simple levels, my friend,”

priceless to countless aspiring smiths. This isn’t to say your own craftsmanship isn’t needed anymore. Weapons will always be in demand, the city will keep expanding for a long time to come, and it isn’t like your commissions have reduced over these last few weeks, have

at Jacob, still a bit unsure, before

next generation,

door. “If you ever feel troubled, just come by the church. I am sure

as he returned the bow, looking quite a bit more at

by a few guards who all bowed towards him. They used the word guard, but they were more of a police force than anything else, but thinking about it, weren’t guards of old

and observed the city, he took in the atmosphere and enjoyed the progress they had made over the last few months. After taking down the guarding D-grade, Jacob had claimed the Pylon and gained the Pioneering City Lord