The Primal Hunter

”Message received, over,” Jake responded mentally to Miranda. “Another merchant god? How many damn merchant gods are there?” Jake also asked Chris as they stood before an overly gaudy statue made of what looked like gold.

“Finally, I was beginning to think the skill didn’t work… Anyway, hey Jake, I evolved to D-grade and upgraded my profession, which got me a skill to contact you through some formation for communication. I was lucky I had the ingredients required on hand. It isn’t cheap, but I wanted to test out if it worked,” Miranda explained through the odd telepathic connection. A bit of karmic magic in there, too, Jake reckoned.

“For some reason, there seems to be a buttload of gods who do trade and money stuff. I heard from some people it has something to do with faith, but I’m not sure. All I know is that, yeah, there are so many. Maybe it’s because they’re more into investing in young talents? That’s business-like, right?” Chris answered Jake.

Holding two conversations at once was a bit weird. Especially as one was in Jake’s head and the other with the young man beside him. It was some next-level multitasking, and Jake couldn’t help but try. He found it challenging to do… which was reason enough for him to do it.

“You forgot the ‘over’, over,” Jake responded, teasing Miranda. “That makes sense, I guess. Our world revolved a lot around economics before; it makes sense gods who focus on it found many worth investing in here,” he also answered Chris.

He kept up this dual-conversation, neither of the two people he spoke to wiser to that fact. It did help that Miranda only spoke a few more times, though. She quickly gave a rundown on things and said she would be by the lodge the next day, which left Jake plenty of time to continue wandering about and even throw in a visit to the Fort.

“The range of this skill should be quite extensive. It’s rare-rarity and only works on you, so it has to be decent. I can’t even contact Lillian with it, though she already has a skill to do that, so it isn’t a problem. Also, I’ll be sure to bring some food from this new place when I visit. The System Store having foodstuff has added to the palate of the restaurants even more than before the dungeon. Anyway, see you then… over,” Miranda had finished, making Jake able to focus all his attention on Chris. Jake felt Miranda would have to cut off soon anyway as her voice was beginning to feel a bit faint, making him guess there was a limit to the skill on communication time.

“Wanna go to the east wing now? There are a few infused statues there. They have this insane aura, and people can even pray to them and get temporary bonuses… I even heard someone got a profession-upgrade due to one of the statues as well as a blessing,” Chris explained, as they were about done in the west wing.

The west wing had only non-infused statues. Quite a lot of them, even. Jake also noticed they all had some similar aspects, so he couldn’t help but ask: “Are all these made by the same sculptor?”

“Yes! They’re all made by Felix, a really great dude if a bit weird. He spends all his time making statues and has a backlog of ones to create even now, as far as I know. He even evolved his profession at level 100 and made the statue in the innermost chamber after that. The one with the Ladies of the Verdant Lagoon,” Chris said, delivering some nice exposition.

The two of them walked through the crowd and entered the east wing. While the west wing did have some people in it, it wasn’t that many. The east wing, on the other hand, was absolutely packed. Jake easily saw the reason why.

At the end of the room were eight statues giving off powerful auras. Divine auras. Jake saw Chris beside him unconsciously lower his head a bit as he entered the room. Most of the people in there were praying and stuff like that, but there was one group that stood out.

Over to the side of the chamber was an area with what looked like yoga mats. Around 20 people sat on their own respective mat with their eyes closed and sweaty brows. Most of their heads were held high, but they looked to be struggling.

Finally, one of them breathed out heavily, opened his eyes, and lowered his head. After a bit of labored breathing, he walked out of the room with unsteady steps. People made way and gave him a fast lane to get out, making Jake think it was a usual occurrence. On closer inspection… Jake was pretty sure two of the nineteen left on the mats weren’t conscious.

“What’s up with that?” Jake asked, nodding towards them.

Chris looked up at Jake, a bit confused, before answering: “They’re training their resistance to auras. Mental states or something. They try to resist the aura to build up a tolerance when it’s easier just to let it affect you.”

“I see,” Jake nodded. Well, he understood what they were doing even if he couldn’t relate. The auras weren’t an issue for him at all. Heck, Villy couldn’t bring him down with his aura, so how could a bunch of statues from weaker gods.

of influence around them roughly based on their level of power as far as Jake could tell. Some statues had auras extending further than others. It could also have something to do with the one

higher the rarity of the blessing, the more ‘juice’ is packed into the statue, while the god is the quality of the juice. By the

of one or more people?” Jake asked

one will get hurt permanently. But it will be funny and

planning. Jake wasn’t sure it was a good idea; in fact, he was quite sure it was a bad idea, but he was curious. He wanted

“Deal.”

a bad decision… but… a

eight statues were suppressed, and every single person – except Jake – fell to their knees and couldn’t raise

disappeared as if it had never been there. It took another ten seconds before the statues began exuding an aura once more and nearly half a minute before people began standing up, looking around confused and afraid. Some didn’t get

still awake before on the yoga mats were all

wing as people began yelling and looking around. A few gazes landed on Jake, but with how many wore robes or cloaks in there and

of that?” Jake asked the

Those gods all felt it on their end. Just wanted to take a good wee all over my – well, our – territory to make them clear that while they got statues here, they ain’t

was that?” Chris muttered, having managed to stay conscious and relatively put together. He did look a bit wobbly on his feet, but otherwise, he took it well. Jake was a bit proud of that; Villy’s aura was quite

aura. Jake remembered feeling it back then in Villy’s realm and back during the evolution of his profession. What had just been done felt like…

me a percentage. How much ‘juice,’ as

points yet. I can’t really unleash it all even if I wanted to. Well, I could still pour in enough for me to kill anyone, not at least in D-grade within a few hundred meters of you, but it really isn’t worth it. It’s tiring as fuck to do, and anyone it has

you tell me about them?” Jake said,

was just them… I don’t really get how

all. Of course, to the populace of Haven, any god was an absolutely insurmountable existence. It kind of made sense. To a regular human. It didn’t matter if a black hole was small or large; it could rip you apart atom by atom no

you like to go pray at one? It offers a temporary buff to your status menu… it’s quite

got a blessing,”

sense; I heard the best got them offered… I’ll be right back, okay?” he asked Jake, waving him off to go get his blessing. Chris was clearly anxious Jake would leave while he was gone. An unfounded fear

trick. Have the kid come back,” Villy butted in unprompted. “Those stupid gods aren’t the only ones who can play…

back here,” Jake said just as Chris had taken a single

and was already back before Jake again before Jake even had a chance to

on the guy’s shoulder or

hand

temporary blessing and pour in a bit

of mana, and he felt Villy also pour in something. Chris

real!?” he asked,

smiling beneath his mask. Villy thought he was pulling a fast one but didn’t know that Jake already knew what he was doing. He had seen it mentioned in Jacob’s