The Primal Hunter

Time passed by as the Treasure Hunt was in full swing. Everyone chased for Vaults all over the place, many finding more than they bargained for as they got trapped or were faced with foes far above what they could handle.

Jake was naturally one of these people. Not the trapped and in over his head part, but the chasing Vaults part. He went from Vault to Vault and did as any reasonable person would do: looted everything.

On his way, he encountered plenty of people who tried to argue with him or put up resistance, but none willing to actually fight. Jake himself tried to be accommodating and diplomatic but seeing a party struggle with a single level 130 vampire just made him so darn impatient. If they were that weak, how the hell did they expect to actually claim a Vault?

Word of his encounter with the independent factions hadn’t really spread in the first day since he split up with Roman and the others, but on the second and especially third day, he began to realize many were more apprehensive. Some even just bolted if they noticed him.

Finding out exactly which faction people belonged to was difficult. It wasn’t like everyone had matching uniforms, and many had only joined a faction partly, functioning more as temporary members. Especially the Holy Church and the Noboru clan had many of these, simply due to their sizes and influence.

However, what Jake did become relatively sure of was that the majority of humanity still wasn’t associated with any of the larger and well-known factions. It was just that the large factions were always at the forefront, dominating events and the political arena, pushing the smaller ones to the side. Also, while they may not dominate in numbers, the larger factions dominated in strength.

The people who had ambushed Jake were an excellent example of this. The healer had been level 130, but the vast majority of those levels came from him being a City Lord. His class had been low, and Jake even suspected the guy hadn’t gone for a Perfect Evolution either.

Yet, he had been a significant leader of the independent factions. A bit disappointing, really. Sure, he had no doubt been one of the more powerful people on Earth, maybe even in the top 1% among D-grades, but compared to the top elites of Valhal, the Noboru Clan, or the Holy Church, he wasn’t worth much. In level, maybe, but not strength.

In fact, Jake was fully aware his own level wasn’t that high. The same was true for many others of the top elites or even just those slightly below the top elite. Jake reckoned Neil and all of those in his party could be five to ten levels higher if they had just ignored the Perfect Evolution, if not even more. If Jake chose to neglect his profession and just grind class levels, he would also gain far more levels faster.

The problem with that was how much it would fuck one up further down the line. Villy had told Jake that while leveling fast was all fine and dandy, then it wasn’t something one should actively pursue. The path to godhood wasn’t a sprint, after all. Better to take it slow and steady and do everything well than just rush along. Rushing would mean missing out on many potential titles and Records. Heck, if Jake had just rushed to D-grade, he likely wouldn’t have gained his arcane-affinity and the Arcane Prodigy title.

Jake was thrown out of his thoughts as he exited meditation, sitting in the midst of what could only be described as the scene of a slaughter. Piles of dead vampires littered the valley. All of them had been on the weaker side. However, once they were all dead and he tried to open the actual Vault – which was concealed within a very out-of-place pond – he ended up summoning a damn golem.

So then he had to kill that one too. It wasn’t all bad, though, as Jake finally got a level.

*You have slain [Jadewater Guardian Elemental of Yalsten – Lvl 145] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level*

Hunter] has reached level 138 - Stat points allocated, +10

reached level 134 - Stat points allocated,

days since he split up with the group from the Rubik’s cube puzzle, and Jake had to admit they hadn’t been as eventful as he had hoped. A lot of time had been spent just running between Vaults as the space between them only widened. He even tried running towards a certain Vault for hours only to see the red

about a single

from his mediation as he headed towards the pond again. It was now glowing after the Guardian Elemental was dead – the elemental itself having been a water elemental. The fight with it hadn’t been that interesting

last Vaults, three had teleported him away, while one had been like the

Treasure Hunt had some agenda to teach everyone magic theory. Not that he was complaining, he had learned a lot, but he did prefer simply killing stuff. The one Vault requiring him to actually kill stuff had been the best, though, netting him a level in his class and being the fastest

became clear the more he got. The first Vault had been a puzzle and had transported him into what seemed like a smithy. He had to get some machine working there. He fucked it up a few times too many and ended up fighting an army of war golems. That probably only sped up the entire challenge as Jake killed them

fire-affinity mana. The concept of embers burns strongly within this stone,

how to use it, but he reckoned a blacksmith or someone like that would really appreciate the stone. Besides that one, he didn’t even get any

out the correct path of all the celestial objects, and only then did he complete the puzzle

any gods during his life but only viewed the celestial concept as worthy of being recognized as divine. This orrery will passively map out all nearby celestial objects and give insight

Jake wasn’t even going to waste his time thinking

Instead, the entire area around him had changed and warped into an odd illusion of how Yalsten had likely once been. There, he had

goal. It still ended up taking a while as he had to figure out what the fuck to do first. In the illusion, he met several people who talked about some weird stuff until he finally figured out he just had to find a special tree. Locating the tree was probably meant to be difficult, but the moment

On to the loot.

All paintings or illustrations made by this brush will hold significantly

in any humanoid

and placed his hand upon it as it transformed from a tree into a single small wooden brush along with an ancient-level

alone. Instead, he ended up working with a bunch of random people – nearly a hundred or so. It was all about crafting and creating weapons to fulfill some quota, and there Jake noticed the system only really cared about the rarity and level requirements of

weapons with his arcane-affinity, making them useless quasi-Soulbound items, before feeding them to the mechanism to unlock the Vault. It had sped up the process significantly, and

the best reward for him personally,

bond and mix with most other materials in existence, making it incredibly potent as a catalyst in most crafting endeavors. This Carbonic Focusing Catalyst is of extremely high quality and has absorbed affinity-less mana to allow itself to grow for countless years, making it reach legendary-rarity. Has a wide variety of uses in alchemical creations and will increase the power of most crafts

and the sort of things half his alchemist skills talked about when they mentioned how a Catalyst could enhance the final product. The Catalyst itself was just a small, perfectly black marble-like ball that was incredibly durable. Yet as he held it, Jake was acutely aware it would easily melt to Alchemical Flame. He wasn’t sure what he would use it for, but this was the one he

all the legendary-rarity items he achieved so far. He had shared some loot at other places if others had helped, and also at one point because he felt sorry for others. There had been a party trapped in the illusory space with the tree since the first day