The Primal Hunter

Felix walked out of his small treehouse and took in a deep breath, enjoying the refreshing air of Haven. One would think that having a city inside a forest would get annoying, but Felix enjoyed it quite a lot. It did help a lot that no beasts were wandering about, and the number of insects was also far fewer than one would expect.

The builders even had an enchantment of sorts that made all those small lvl 0 insects avoid people’s homes, which did wonders for having the windows open even during the night. Anyone who had ever lived close to any kind of greenery knew the pain of having mosquitos and a whole slew of other annoying tiny pests enter just because you felt warm during a hot summer day.

Felix was thrown out of his thoughts when he heard his neighbor already out on her porch in another tree nearby, working on her tailoring.

“Good morning, any good progress lately?” he asked with a smile on his face, getting a nod and an answer in a stern tone in return.

“Not bad, but yarn and wool supply is getting scarce; I hope those merchants will soon return with a good batch,” the middle-aged woman answered, reminding Felix of that group that had come by earlier in the week.

They had come from some city down south. It was some religious city or something, but they hadn’t been overbearing, so that was fine. They had asked some questions about the city, but every new arrival did that, so nothing weird in that.

Felix himself had bought some special clay to practice his profession with along with some glass to shape, also for his profession.

Felix had entered the tutorial full of hope. A struggling artist before the system, he had been a failure both by his own metrics and the metrics of his parents and peers, so when the system arrived, he suddenly felt hopeful. He felt like it was his second chance. This time he couldn’t fail.

He felt like he had done everything right in the old world. He had gone to university, gotten a degree, but yet he failed to find any success. He tried to do some sculptures – his specialization – as a freelance artist, but all he got from that was being lowballed by people who thought you could make marble bust for five bucks or people who wanted things done for “exposure”. Fuck those people.

This resulted in him falling into what he would describe as a deep depression even if his parents kept telling him he was just lazy. Every day was spent laying in his bed, staring into the ceiling hopelessly. The only thing that managed to get him up every day was his computer and video games.

Felix immersed himself in the online world, made friends, and finally felt like he had a place he belonged. He was great at games, and his creative mind allowed him to excel in most scenarios, earning the respect of his fellow players. Sadly, it wasn’t to the level of earning any money, so his peers in real life still saw him as an utter failure. This only brought him closer to his online friends, as that was the only place he could find comfort.

Back then, he had always played a mage because can you ever go wrong with magic?

So, of course, when he was asked to pick a class, he went with being a caster. The tutorial itself had been somewhat relaxing, at least to begin with, and the enemies they faced were these half-robot things. It was really like a video game, and Felix went with his preferred school of magic: fire. Again, how can you go wrong with burning your enemies?

Once more, he found himself excelling. He joined a group of the peers that used to shun him, who now looked at him with awe and respect as he weaved his fire magic. It felt damn great.

to 25, he upgraded it to become a proper fire mage, and that was supposed to be when

fought at that point was those robots. Tin cans that moved like living things, but they weren’t actually alive. It was a game to Felix, a game he was good at. He loved melting his foes and seeing the levels just roll in, but sadly he would soon

four people: a girl and two other guys, and he had to be honest that he crushed on the girl in his party quite a bit. She was

night, Felix had been trying to sleep when he heard some noise from another room – the one his crush was in. A bit groggily, he

his two male “teammates” press down on her with a dagger to her throat, their clothes already halfway off. She had been injured and nearly out of mana when they stopped to rest, and he saw the despair in her eyes as she couldn’t get free. Felix didn’t think as he yelled

other warrior spoke up and said that it wasn’t like Felix couldn’t stay and wait his

tumbling down. The second warrior cursed as he ran at Felix with his broadsword and swung. Felix didn’t know how to

yelled while he threw fireballs after the warrior he had blown away, and he didn’t stop until he got the notification of killing the man half a dozen levels lower than himself. Standing there heaving, he only

stairs and stabbed him in the back. He was far from durable as a fire mage, but he still managed to stumble back and turn around as he was wrestled to the ground, the warrior trying to stab him through

with the dagger as Felix exploded with fire mana. A torrent of flames sprung from his

fire magic had always been cool. It was destructive and good against nearly all enemies… but that was precisely also why it was so gruesome when it consumed an enemy. It was one thing to

flesh popping as blood poured out. The flayed skin melted and stuck together as the eyes looking down on Felix slowly liquified,

A small barrier to hide him had been set up, and he knew It had been done by the woman without a doubt, but she was nowhere to be found. Both corpses of the men were long gone too, and Felix even thought the entire thing had been a dream

floor as he sat there shaking and heaving for

the small apartment rooms. He didn’t see the woman again before returning to Earth, where they only exchanged a single

mere thought of using his fire magic on another living thing made him nauseous as it brought memories to his mind he would prefer

day when they returned from

as good as here, Felix thought as he slid down the rope that led up to his treehouse as he hit the ground, landing softly on the

having several rooms and built around the trunks of the trees, often fifteen or so meters up into the air,

pathways built around non-residential trees, making it possible to walk from house to house without ever touching the ground. The way to get up to the treehouses themselves was decided by the people who lived there, with Felix having just decided on a simple rope to hoist himself up. Another thing that would be impossible before the system, but now many people could even just jump

quests. He had worked on a glassware commission over the last two weeks, putting his sculpting skills and magic to use. He refused to use his fire magic to burn anyone, but he had found other

over the many quests, one

Open Quest: Sculptor Needed

under-construction temple. The sculptor must be at least level 60 in their profession and possess the ability to adequately shape both metals and stone. The Statues

Credits per hour, extra

for a while before smiling. This

were now far more tangible entities and that some could even communicate directly with them. He felt like he was more than suited for the job, his profession at level 67. Also… that reward was way above the usual. The average for a job was around 100 Credits per hour if the job paid hourly, though most trading was done just by selling or bartering products without having anyone pay you directly. He heard that