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.

magic. Jake even tried to cut off some scales but saw that it didn’t do shit as new ones automatically regrew, the old charge within.

Jake instead focused his attention on the corpse of the eel. He felt something within it, and with his

Lord Heart (Rare)] – The heart of a Giant Fulgarian Eel Lord. This heart has potent lightning-affinity energy within and will passively generate electricity if infused

of Jake’s entire body, and when Jake infused some mana into it, it beat like the eel was still alive. Very freaky. He tossed it in his

any of the others, and coming out of it, he

unable to absorb electricity? Jake asked himself. He quickly tested it as he fired a crystalline arcane bolt

Moving on.

on the other side. Instead, he found air. As he had just hurried through,

same time, he actively pumped mana out, not only due to his scales but also just from his constant cycle of

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

was in was quite small compared to any of the others but was far cleaner and well-maintained. Instruments lined the wall, a single bookshelf with books on it that looked unaffected by the moisture, and overall there was a lot of stuff that looked to be worth swiping. 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 large bowl of water placed on a pedestal. He noticed that some of the water from above had dripped down as he fell and landed in the bowl of water – clearly by

lifted himself off the floor as he walked closer to the bowl and looked within. There, he saw a stone no larger than a child’s fist at the bottom

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,

some random stone found anywhere.

had yet to be fully affected. Thus, he decided to not touch the bowl quite yet but moved to the

when he got his profession for the first time and the other after he killed the Great White Stag. Identify confirmed it truly was such an

(Unique)] – Allows the user to acquire the class Fulgarian Depthcaller

99-199 in

However, they did still take significant investment, meaning all of them were considered very valuable.

was an orb that clearly

to assist a Fulgarian Depthcaller, including equipment and guidance. This orb is near-indestructible by anyone below A-grade, and any item within

Requirements: Fulgarian Depthcaller

a bit excessive. Jake himself didn’t have any use for it, but it would probably fetch a pretty penny in the big auction after the Hunt. Surely there would be a bonus for having a set, right? Package deal

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

around thirty books, all of them seemingly related to the class, the Vault, and generally just stuff about water magic and such. Jake

basic knowledge of the class. He came to learn that the class had once belonged to an A-class vampire King of Yalsten,

how the King got his class after training for many years underwater. There, he had battled and trained with eels learning from their powers and

generations should say something. Jake put all of the books and the bookshelf in the Hunter Insignia. Some of

condition than anywhere else. A bit like