The Primal Hunter

The figure leaped from atop the tree as it flew several hundred meters through the air, landing on another crown before swiftly taking off once more. A few beasts below considered attacking, but once they felt the difference in grade and power, they swiftly changed their minds.

It was far over three hundred kilometers from Haven, and the density of trees was only increasing, as well as many of the beasts now reaching around level 80. It was a bit deeper in than where Mystie and Hawkie had placed their nest back before they relocated to the city.

The figure was naturally Jake, who had decided to ditch the wings and do some tree-hopping instead. Would flying be faster? Most definitely, but making massive leaps from tree to tree just felt awesome.

One Step Mile wasn’t that useable due to the sheer density of trees making it hard to travel in a straight line on the ground. The trunks could be many meters in radius and reach hundreds of meters into the air, reminding him a bit of the outer area of the tutorial.

Thinking about it, perhaps the tutorial forest was inspired by the true forest here on the reformed planet, or was it the other way around? Maybe a bit of both? Either way, it wasn’t the first time he had noted the familiarity. It was quite certain this wasn’t the same thing, though…

Because sadly, no lockboxes.

Jake would really like some new gear soon. His whole getup was beginning to feel a bit dated, even if it had only been a few months. The only great gear he really had were his necklace, mask, new scimitar, and surprisingly enough, boots.

Were those boots the ones with the lowest required level and still only rare-rarity? Sure, but they were also still the toughest damn things he had besides his mask, which he still hadn’t managed to put even a slight scratch on.

He doubted he would find anything within this forest, but one can always be hopeful. Even if he couldn’t find a lockbox, maybe he could find some good materials to use in the future.

One might wonder why Jake didn’t use his newly upgraded Touch of the Malefic Viper to transmute his current gear, and the reason for that was quite simple… because he was 90% sure it would end up making the majority of his gear worse than it currently was.

Jake’s version had to rely on the existing enchants, and as his many tests had shown, using Touch would ruin what was already placed on the gear. A lot of his gear had stat-giving effects, and Jake honestly had no idea how to replicate that. The only thing he would do was turn those stats into possibly making the armor poison people touching it or maybe use his arcane-affinity to make the armor a lot more durable. Oh, or he could make it self-destruct by transmuting it with a shitload of the destructive part of his arcane mana.

Quite honestly, he would prefer just to have stats over that.

The only item he was considering actually transmuting was his Windsoar Bow. It wasn’t because he didn’t want or like the enchant on it; in fact, he found its ability to remove wind resistance and even turn the wind into an assisting force as damn good. No, the issue was that he feared it would break if he didn’t.

Arcane Powershot was not a gentle skill, far from it. While he charged the attack, the bow and his body would both be put under considerable strain, and the bow would be forced to absorb obscene amounts of energy and have the highly destructive mana also coat its exterior.

He could handle his body breaking a bit; that would heal by itself, but he couldn’t handle his weapon suddenly exploding in the middle of a fight. He still vividly remembered how the first Infused Powershot he ever used absolutely destroyed the tutorial starting bow.

Without a new bow or transmuting his current one, he feared that could happen in not that long. For now, it was fine as the bow still held up, but as time went on, it would surely become an issue. Not just because he gained levels or more stats, but also just because he would get better at using the skill and pour more mana into it.

Actually… can it handle a full-throttle Arcane Powershot with Limit Break active at 20% as it is? he suddenly wondered, remembering that he had never used Arcane Powershot while using his Limit Break… yeah, I really don’t know.

just transmute the damn bow already, but he really didn’t want to. His entire body felt restless, and he really needed a fight. He had yet to truly battle anything after

he needed to test out his Scimitar of Cursed Hunger, too, didn’t he? It would be a shame if he just one-shot

and ran away, but some of them acted a bit more suspiciously as they began following him. They were these monkey-like creatures with an extremely long tail that they used to swing from tree to tree. They were also surprisingly small for beasts at their level, being only about the

–

didn’t refer to light magic but was more related to their low weight. He noticed how even the small branches they used to swing from didn’t even budge and how

only a strong sense of curiosity. There were more than a dozen on his tail

area of a decent level. Honestly…

also made him believe they weren’t happy with him being there. It was a little rude, actually, and woe would he be if security showed up with a

Jake felt the entire atmosphere of the area change. It reminded Jake a bit of the mana released by his Pylon, but it was clearly different… actually… wasn’t it a bit closer to the energy released by the giant lightning tree? Not as in it being lightning-affinity, but by

were able to evolve as they did… the very

were ripe yet, and he suspected the monkeys ate them as soon as they were, but he believed every one of those fruits on the trees were considered

he felt the first aura lock onto him. A few seconds later, a second and a third joined the first one. A small smile crept onto his lips as

he was still in the outer parts of

the same moment they laid their eyes on him. They all looked a lot like their E-grade brethren, but they were slightly larger and had two additional

Monkey –

Monkey – lvl

–

in all the trees surrounding the one he was standing on. He was standing on a branch nearly 100 meters in the air, with the three D-grades

quite a lot stronger than

Crusher

a bit buffer than the three others, but not much was different from that. It was likely just a more powerful variant of the other three.

Gravity?

saw it as a sign of aggression and

his sphere, he saw the regular E-grade Lighttail Monkeys begin condensing some kind of substance in their hands that they promptly threw after Jake. He had a bad feeling instantly when he noticed

the tree and made a dent in the supremely robust bark, showing that clearly some magic had been used on it. It was more condensed, heavier, and more robust than it

throw

own shit as their chosen weapon… making Jake’s next move completely and

an arcane arrow. The monkey in his crosshairs didn’t even have time to adequately

[Lighttail

and on the lack of any experience earned. Seems like my theory of only earning experience from higher-leveled or at least equal-leveled opponents is true, he thought, as he dodged a pile of poo and retaliated by firing a Splitting