The Primal Hunter

As with all new skills – or in this case, upgraded skill – it took a bit of experimenting and testing to fully understand his newfound capabilities. It had gone up two entire rarities, with many newly added functionalities. The first he tested was how many marks he could place in total.

Before, it had only been one, and that was quite frankly annoying. It was fine against singular, powerful enemies like the Prima, but it sucked against crowds of Deepdwellers. He would also like to test the subtlety of applying the Mark… but he hadn’t found anything that noticed him placing it so far. Maybe the King knew? Though to be fair, back then, the Mark just expired damn fast due to the level disparity.

Anyway, Jake currently stood staring down on the next unsuspecting village of Deepdwellers. He began marking them all from highest to lowest and instantly felt a difference. Every single Mark gave a far more distinct feeling compared to before, and it no longer just made him aware of their position – it even made him aware of how they looked.

It was like a general outline of their bodies appeared in his mind. At least parts of it, as he saw that it was more focused on the center of their body and their heads, while the limbs were barely visible in the outline. It was better than before, but not perfect. Back then, it felt more like he had a small dot on a radar and nothing else.

Next came the number of marks. Jake continued his marking strategy and was surprised when he passed 10. Even more so when he surpassed 20, then 30, and finally 40. Mark 41 and 42 also went through, but he innately felt that it would remove the first one he had put when he tried to use another Mark.

Jake frowned as the number was oddly specific. While 42 was indeed the meaning of life, he doubted it was related to that fact. He knew it was based on perception, and a quick peek at his stats made him quite sure what the explanation was: one Mark per 100 perception.

With a current perception stat at 4290, he was close to getting another mark available. Not that he believed he needed 42… it already felt unnecessary. Or was it? Just as the thought appeared, he began to consider the whole arcane charge aspect. With that, it made a lot more sense, and he already had a tactic for how he would handle the next village.

Overwhelming arcane airstrikes.

Well, it wasn’t that different from all the villages prior, but this time he would have extra explosions.

Jake focused as he began conjuring orbs of arcane mana. It had been a small surprise he hadn’t been offered a skill related to these orbs, but he assumed they more or less were just off-shoots of Arcane Bolts that Jake had changed a little to focus more on scope rather than potency.

They were just bombs that aimed to destroy the geography and buildings, not to actually harm the Deepdwellers severely. It would help him to better understand the arcane charge thing, though. It was a bit cruel, but this village would become his testing ground. Their deaths would be his test results.

With his eyes closed, he focused as the orbs condensed around him one by one. Each of them crackled with energy as they were made with very unstable arcane mana, which also meant very destructive mana. Once he had summoned 11, he felt himself begin to lose control, so he sent them down.

At the same time, he took out his bow as an explosive arcane arrow appeared in his hand. Due to the faster travel speed of arrows compared to his orbs, everything arrived at once.

Four arcane arrows exploded in different parts of the village, causing a chain reaction as the blasts hit the orbs that had also descended. Once more, the Deepdwellers had been unprepared as a couple of the regular ones took heavy injuries in the first salvo. Additionally, Jake had made sure to aim his initial attacks in an area where nearly all the Deepdwellers were marked, and he instantly saw and felt the effects.

Those with marks now looked far more substantial to him, and even their limbs were lit up. He now realized it was the arcane energies in their body he could see. Jake also felt that at any moment, he could detonate the marks if he so wanted. Of course, it only worked on those who had taken a bit of damage, and the explosions would do little to no harm on most of them… except two.

Two of the Deepdwellers were hurt pretty badly as they had both been hit directly by an arcane arrow each. Jake felt the arcane energy that had invaded and was now nestled within the Mark. Where exactly this Mark was on their bodies, he didn’t know… or if it even was on their bodies. He knew there was plenty of metaphysical stuff going on with many energy types. Well, the only way to find out where the energy was to see where it would come from.

mental command, he activated one of the arcane charges. A part of him had expected a giant arcane explosion, but what he got instead was way more… subtle. A faint purple-pink light was emanated from every orifice of the Deepdweller as if something had flashed a powerful light within it, and it screamed out in pain. It was only a brief flash that caused no explosion or had any effect on

about what had happened… it didn’t look to have taken any physical damage at all from the arcane charge being activated. Yet it

the process this time. When it activated, Jake felt the

had discovered that his Mark of the Ambitious Hunter’s amplified damage just functioned as direct damage to the health pool of his

as it also worked

energy. It was entirely unexpected, and it made him wonder if it was because it was his arcane energy that made it possible or if it was solely the skill. It had many implications

a few ideas related to alchemy… but those were for later, as in after

did their damage, and he even found that his Sense of the

resident Warlord was an especially great test subject as Jake allowed it to push itself all the way. He even allowed it to absorb the Golden Mushroom to infuse it, as well as absorb plenty of its brethren, for him to keep building up an arcane charge larger than any

got bigger and bigger, making it easier and easier to feel. As the arcane charge wasn’t considered a poison, it didn’t count for Jake’s Sense of the Malefic Viper, only allowing him to rely on the affinity-sensing part of the skill - a part that was primarily aimed towards identifying affinities in the environment. Luckily for him, he had such insanely high perception he could feel far more than anyone

perception builds were truly

kill him, but in its mutated hulking form, it simply had no way to fight back. Shit, it was more of a threat before its transformation due to its speed, while Jake could just

arrows. Not the piercing of the arrows or the physical damage

like that of his Mark, but Jake had never noticed that the damage was actually of his arcane-affinity. At least his new Mark recognized

several levels above himself. Jake kited it and kept damaging it slowly until he felt the arcane charge on the Mark begin losing energy. It appeared there was a maximum duration for the stored

charge that had been building up through the entire fight activate. Due to the sheer magnitude of it, he expected something more than what happened with

was turned on for less than a quarter of a second within the Warlord before being turned off again. The entire Deepdweller just

shitloads of damage… but the Warlord just had an insanely high health pool and healed incredibly fast from any damage

the fight the usual way. Aka by blowing it up with poisoned arrows using Arcane Powershots before moving in with Touch of the Malefic

Warlord – lvl 147] – Bonus experience earned for killing an

[Avaricious Arcane Hunter] has reached level 121 - Stat points allocated,

level 114 -

the now Infused Golden Mushroom from the corpse and tossed it in his inventory as always.

a lot. Jake was fully aware that his skillset happened to be incredibly effective against these life-affinity foes. He had powerful poison that was insanely effective at draining health points,

for someone like Jake. He could see Neil’s party struggling with these foes as they didn’t have the burst-damage to nearly instantly finish off the Fungalmancers who could heal others or the poison to inhibit the natural

So on a hunt he went. The first Deepdweller village was reached around 30 minutes later, around 250

Shroomguard – lvl 145] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy

easily as all others, and he claimed another mushroom. No level this time, so he moved on swiftly after a brief round of

Shroomguard – lvl 148] – Bonus experience earned for killing an