The Primal Hunter

A bolt of black lightning struck from a clear sky. It impacted the ground, leaving a crater smoking with dark mana. As the dust settled, a single figure could be seen kneeling within the crater, holding his shoulder as blood dripped down on the ground beneath him.

Caleb slowly got up, breathing heavily as he felt exhausted from using the skill. It had drained a good ninety-five percent of his mana pool, making him not worth much at the current time. He took out a mana potion to at least be functional as he reflected on mistakes made.

It turns out being a shadowy organization had quite a number of challenges, especially if they had a lot of enemies due to the nature of their trade. It made everyone an enemy and forced you to look out for more threats than you possibly could.

The Court of Shadows had faced quite the challenges trying to mobilize themselves and secure their position. Not with getting the loot, that part went relatively easily; the issue was keeping ahold of it. Most assassins operated alone or in very small teams of a maximum of three, so facing a large group was difficult. Hit and run was the name of the game.

Stealth was their only true weapon to hold onto the loot they obtained. Against the usual enemy of independent factions, lone individuals, and small parties, that was all fine and dandy, but they began having issues when all their couriers or smaller groups got hit repeatedly. They then tried to centralize the loot with the stronger people in the Court, but then the couriers just got ambushed during transport.

Their ambushers? The Holy Church.

To hide from someone with the ability to divine the future and peer into fate became a challenge they honestly should have predicted. The Holy Church discovered that there was a lot to be gained by stealing from the thieves, and they could even claim the moral high ground while doing so, making it a purely win-win situation for the religious fanatics.

This forced the Court to pool the loot more on people who were either strong enough to defend it or good enough at hiding. The Augur seemed to know who was worth hitting at all times, and the Court of Shadows took more and more precautions. In the end, they began having a large central group, with the majority of loot being carried by Caleb. He and others could veil them all constantly to keep them hidden, and they escaped the Church and went on with their business without any major issues for a few days.

Keeping an eye on other notable figures was something they also did. Eron had disappeared, so that made them worry a bit. The people of Valhal seemed to just take the losses from the occasional assassin, seeing it as simply a sign of weakness and a teaching moment for those hit. The undead were rarely targeted as they moved in big groups, and they had shown no signs of significant movements against other factions. The people from Haven? They were naturally left alone, and besides, they had been stuck in the massive maze-like Vault for a long time. A few from the Court had also been trapped in there too, as well as over a thousand others.

As for the Noboru Clan? Their notable members were either trapped in the big maze or moved around in one large group these days. The Sword Saint was spotted often with the group, so the Court followed it to keep an eye on him. The man himself disappeared occasionally, but he never strayed too far from the central base of his faction.

Until he did.

Out of nowhere, he was suddenly just there, right in front of their temporary base, one hidden behind endless barriers that had primarily focused on obscuring divination and hiding them. The Sword Saint had cut through them all, and the Court had reacted too slow.

He was just a single man, and in all their arrogance, they had believed he wouldn’t be able to break them himself. They had a few hundred people there. Barriers. Traps. Caleb himself, as well as Matteo, Nadia, and a few others of the most powerful assassins. Even Caleb had believed the man was arrogant for truly believing he could defeat them all alone.

How wrong they had been. Caleb had faced the Sword Saint with all the others… the result?

to flee, fourteen dead, and one-hundred and ninety-one forced to leave the Hunt, including Nadia and Matteo, who had both tried to hold him off. Those who died were

with the highest level of confidence in retreating due to his near-immunity to divination and

known Jake was monstrously strong before, and him having even trounced all of those independent factions once

was also

to become a sadistic slaver to telling someone they should really consider getting a proper arcane barrier skill. Or, as it most often ended up doing, just giving Jake ideas on how to improve his existing freeform

at least something so darn complicated or weird he

skill was neither

A hunter must always adapt to the environment in which they hunt. Allows the hunter to acclimate to new environments more easily and grants resistance against neutral mana you do not possess

skill was just the system going: “Oh hey there, I saw you just experienced something new! Here, let me give you a skill retroactively after you already figured out how to deal with it. Sure would have been nice to

being offered skill that would allow them to avoid that death. Sure, he got how the system couldn’t just give skills

it. It was uncommon-rarity too, which was just icky. Moving

mana at a target location within your range

own skill, so that was

explode where he summoned them. A bit of a by-product of his Pride of the Malefic Viper upgrade and his infused presence, making mana control more straightforward in his surrounding area. There was just something about summoning bombs in mid-air

not skip it,

mimic a weapon of old? Allows the hunter to fire off shards of highly stable arcane mana, functioning as a shotgun. These shards will pierce and deal significant damage at close range while becoming less effective at long distances. Adds

he kept making against the fish, and

pick. So far, this skill selection had been a case of “see what you have done in the past in the form of uncommon and rare skills,” which wasn’t very interesting. At least the next one was Epic-rarity

to summon armaments of stable Arcane mana. The shape of the weapons or equipment is determined by the summoner. Armaments can be given to others. The duration and durability of all equipment summoned are based on mana expended.

the one… if Jake wanted to become an arms dealer. If he read it right, he could create weapons others could temporarily use with his arcane mana. It was an upgraded version of the Spectral Weaponry he had seen oh-so-long ago. Back then, he had skipped it as he believed it was something he could do himself with freeform magic, and

thing that could make him pick the skill was how it explicitly stated others could use what he created. Not because he wanted to have others use it, but because it could possibly give him some inspiration when it came to

up a legendary

your accuracy. Allows the hunter to significantly heighten his focus when the bowstring is fully pulled, tapping into the concept of time to slow down his perception of it while simultaneously boosting all effects of Perception significantly. Your eyes receive

was pretty much just a “steady aim” skill with some fancy title added on and a flavorful description. Also, let’s

a legendary skill. Perhaps it was one of those times where Jake was meant to be offered some version of Steady Aim, and the system then analyzed Jake or something and decided