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.

was emanated from every orifice of the Deepdweller as if

rolled around on the ground in pain. Jake wasn’t entirely clear about what had happened… it didn’t look to have taken any physical damage at

the second Deepdweller that had been heavily damaged and activated its Mark, too, focusing more on the process this time. When it activated, Jake felt the arcane energy attack the exact same

the way back in the Badger’s Den, Jake had discovered that his Mark of the Ambitious Hunter’s amplified damage just functioned as direct damage to the health pool of his foes. The same was true for the upgraded

attacked the fourth layer of the soul. It damaged their health points for any vitality-based lifeform, but as it also worked on things like elementals, he assumed it only worked on consuming mana if that is

health points of the foe with arcane energy. It was entirely unexpected, and it made him wonder if

order, he thought. He even got a few ideas related

like he was a western superpower and the Deepdweller village was a poor but oil-rich country. He primarily focused on the marks and how they did their damage, and

He even allowed it to absorb the Golden Mushroom to infuse it, as well

charge just 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 his level

perception builds were truly

it tried to 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

happy was that the skill worked well with even his stable arcane arrows. Not the piercing of the arrows or the physical damage they caused, but the direct damage inflicted based on range

arcane-affinity. At least his new Mark recognized it to be. To say he was pleased to learn that was an understatement as it meant

helpless Warlord 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 arcane energy

the entire fight activate. Due to the sheer magnitude of it, he expected something more than what happened with

than a quarter of a second within the Warlord before being turned off again. The entire Deepdweller just flashed in a pink-purple light through

shitloads of damage… but the Warlord just had an insanely high health pool and

up with poisoned arrows using

have slain [Deepdweller Warlord – lvl 147] – Bonus experience earned

Hunter] has reached level 121 -

has reached level 114 - Stat points allocated,

out the now Infused Golden Mushroom from the corpse and tossed it in

happened to be incredibly effective against these life-affinity foes. He had powerful poison that was insanely effective at draining health points,

burst-damage to nearly instantly finish off the Fungalmancers

ideal hunting ground. So on a hunt he went. The first Deepdweller

have slain [Deepdweller Shroomguard – lvl 145] – Bonus experience earned for

No level this time, so he moved on

lvl 148] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy