The Primal Hunter

Throughout the multiverse, different species and races were famous for different things. Humans were famed for their diversity and their ability to become nearly everything. You could meet humans as strong and tough as the most powerful beasts or mages with magic and skills that employ concepts in line with the most powerful elementals or spirits.

A cat-like monster would often be agile and fast. A fish would excel underwater and have skills well-suited for underwater combat. Among all these species, some were more famous than others. Not only for their relative strength but that it simply was a powerful race.

Unique Lifeforms, beings that were not truly a race in themselves, stood at the pinnacle of this. Any Unique Lifeform was an existence that all knew were powerful solely by hearing what they were, but this was far from limited to only them. Some races existed out there that fell under other archetypes but were nevertheless extremely powerful simply due to the subcategory their race fell into.

The most famous of these were what humans before the system often referred to as mythical beasts. A phoenix, no matter what, would be a powerful beast by courtesy of being a phoenix. The krakens, champions of the sea, chimeras, beings that could adapt to nearly any foe and had oh-so-many abilities. Yet, one creature was more known than any of these: dragons.

There did not exist a creature with the word dragon in its name that was weak. Dragons naturally also had subcategories, but all of them were powerful. There were lesser types of dragon-like monsters, also known as wyverns, land drakes, or such things, but these were not True Dragons.

The word dragon also came with certain expectations. Assumed abilities that one would be correct about, for all dragons had at least two skills.

Dragon’s Breath was a destructive weapon heightened to a concept in itself. The form these breaths took could vary widely. A blue frost dragon would, as expected, spew something ice-related, while the classical red dragons would no doubt release fire. Yet all of these breaths had one thing in common: their unimaginable power.

Jake had read in a book that the weakest Dragon’s Breath ever recorded was of legendary-rarity, which means most were above even that. He had seen the Viper release his breath and seen the power therein. This would be enough for most to fear dragons, but their other trait made them absolute nightmares to deal with if you attempted to slay one.

Dragon Scales. Known as the bane of all magic, these scales would make any mage grit their teeth in anger. More often than not, it would be useless to try and cast magic on a similarly leveled dragon unless you yourself were also a supreme genius.

Naturally, the nature of these scales also varied. Many simply provided ridiculous defense and magic nullification, and the scales always resisted magic more effective based on the dragon’s own affinity. That is to say, using frost magic against a blue dragon was double stupid.

What Jake acquired wasn’t true dragon scales. He wasn’t a dragon, so it would be very weird if he did. However, if he had picked the Malefic Dragonkin race back then, there actually was a chance he could have gotten them by now.

Instead, what he had was imitations of dragon scales. They served much the same function but weren’t simply a passive ability he had at all times. Jake had a feeling he could take his scales in that direction if he wanted, one day making them a permanent fixture, but he really didn’t want to as he would rather upgrade them in other ways.

Also, Jake’s version of the scales did have one small drawback.

“Holy fucking shit, it hurts,” Jake said, it naturally just coming out as water bubbles as he floated there, the massive frame of the dead Eel Lord beneath him. The scales on his body were all supercharged with energy, slowly being refined, but a lot of it couldn’t be. So what did this energy do?

It directly damaged his own health pool, which was essentially a minor soul attack. It fucking hurt, to put it mildly. His decision of simply tanking all the power the eel had at once hadn’t been the smartest and was honestly risky as hell, but hey, he got the job done.

but saw that it didn’t do shit as new ones automatically regrew, the

He felt something within it,

Lord Heart (Rare)] – The heart of a Giant Fulgarian Eel Lord. This heart has

beat like the eel was still alive. Very freaky.

encountered yet another opening, this one larger than any of the others, and coming out of it, he saw

I have broken the cables to make the eel unable to absorb electricity? Jake asked himself. He quickly tested it as he fired a crystalline arcane bolt into a

Moving on.

his surprise, found that when he went through the barrier, he did not find water on the other side. Instead, he found air. As he had just hurried through, his entire body

it suddenly felt like it weighed a ton. He fell straight down onto the floor, bracing himself. At the same time, he actively pumped mana out, not only due to his scales but also just from his constant cycle of water mana to adapt. It felt weird as hell to suddenly leave

things to focus on, including expanding his sphere a bit to get a look at the room he was

Especially two things stood out. One was an altar with a large tome placed on it with an orb right next to it, while the other was a

stone no larger than a child’s fist at the bottom of the newly-fallen water. Jake focused on the stone as he

(Legendary)] – A small stone created by the combined effort of a group of water nymphs to help heal a close friend. This stone was eventually acquired by a powerful vampire and brought to Yalsten, where it has been ever since. Will passively transform surrounding water by infusing the power of serenity into it. Effect lessens, and the transformation process becomes

is interesting, Jake thought as he looked at the stone. It looked simple and non-descript, and if it didn’t give off the aura it did, he would easily mistake it for some

had yet to be fully affected. Thus, he decided to not touch

once when he got his profession for the

Depthcaller (Unique)] – Allows the

Lvl 99-199 in any class. Compatible

Jake had done, Akashic tomes were quite rare but not impossible to create. However, they did

item on the altar was an orb

storage orb containing items to assist a Fulgarian Depthcaller, including equipment and guidance.

Requirements: Fulgarian Depthcaller

bit surprising. Would one just be handed the class a full set of equipment and supportive items or something? That seemed a bit excessive. Jake himself didn’t have any use for it, but it would probably fetch a pretty

had a feeling the bookshelf would help him answer that. Jake waltzed up to it, his scales disappearing one by one meanwhile. By now,

thirty books, all of them seemingly related to the class, the Vault, and generally just stuff about water magic and such. Jake didn’t

a few pages to get some basic knowledge of the class. He came to learn that the class had once belonged to an A-class vampire King of Yalsten, and

class as well as a damn history lesson about how the King got his class after training for many years underwater. There, he had battled

and leave behind for future generations should say something. Jake put all of the books

better condition than anywhere else. A bit like a Count’s chamber. Considering that… wouldn’t it be a shame to just leave it