The Primal Hunter

Jake sat in meditation as he felt his own body. Not just the physical one, but the metaphysical representation of it. He felt his stamina, mana, and health move as he tried to trace it all back to its source – the area around his heart.

Villy was standing with him as pressure was exerted. Jake felt his physical body slowly start to crumble as his skin flayed off and turned to dust. Every resource was exhausted, and Jake felt his metaphysical body begin to distort as it turned to nothing, and as it did so, he faintly felt something.

Just as fast as the feeling emerged, it disappeared along with the pressure.

Jake wanted to ask why the Viper had stopped but noticed he didn’t have any mouth… or much of anything, really. He was nothing more than a floating heart in the middle of the room, his entire body gone. Due to his sphere, he still saw everything, even when Villy waved his hand and Jake fully healed.

He opened his eyes and took a deep breath as he heaved.

“Anything?” Villy asked.

“A bit… I think…” Jake muttered.

They were already on the fourth day of doing this, and Jake had already “died” or at least had his body pretty much entirely destroyed hundreds if not thousands of times. Villy said it was for Jake to better understand his Soulshape, as he called it, which was the metaphysical representation of his body.

He needed to understand that first, to understand the Shroud that was several layers of his soul deeper under usual circumstances, and Jake had to “bring it out.” It was only when his body was destroyed that the Shroud became even faintly visible, and Villy told him why: because it was the time just before death, where the Shroud was designed to extend and cover up his demise.

Jake learned that out of everything, death was the easiest to scry. So many skills, abilities, and items existed that allowed one to detect the death of someone, so the Shroud had to extend and really show off if he was to die.

The reason it extended before actual death was that… well, if Jake died, his Shroud would naturally cease to be, so it had to be ready beforehand. At least, this was Villy’s description of how it worked. It was still early days, and Jake knew he was nowhere near close to being able to even grasp the Shroud, much less begin to influence it in any way.

“Any progress is good progress. We got time, and you feeling even a tiny bit of it is already faster than expected,” Villy explained with a smile.

Four days may seem like a long time, and they both knew it would take far longer than just a few weeks… so Villy had done some good old time manipulation and distorted time within the room, taking a lot of the pressure off. Jake had feared this would make feeling the Shroud harder based on prior descriptions of time manipulation messing with things, but the Viper had said that luckily the divine skill was bound to his own relative time.

How much time had been messed with, Jake didn’t know. All he knew was that it was even more than the last time he trained with Duskleaf and Villy.

“I think I need a breather,” Jake said as he kept taking deep breaths. He tried to move a bit, but it felt unnaturally exhausting, like he had just used and deactivated Arcane Awakening and was experiencing a lesser version of the weakness period.

“Understandable,” the Viper said. “It is exhausting to repeatedly have the entire body healed, especially at your grade and level of power.”

“How the hell does Eron do it?” Jake asked. Hey, now that he had a god to ask, why not?

“The other one with a Bloodline on your planet? Well, he, first of all, isn’t healed but regenerates himself, making it a bit easier, but he also isn’t truly ever close to death. I am not sure precisely how, but I have a feeling he has multiple health pools,” Villy answered with a shrug. “His methods are clearly deeply rooted in the power of his Bloodline, and like you, his Patron god has also given him a skill to hide from prying eyes.”

enough to block even you?” Jake asked with

and no. No, in that I can still pierce it if I really want to. But also yes, in that it would alert the

he will die anytime soon, so I am sure you will have plenty of time to figure

“Oh?”

Lifeform. A master of soul magic is the most dangerous foe to someone like that human. Well, not like soul magic is a good time for anyone,” Villy said with a smirk. “But enough delaying.

lining the ceiling and walls turned towards Jake and began glowing with mana. Jake instantly felt the thousands of signals making him aware someone had just tried to use Identify, and he

it would be inaccurate to say they were all merely using Identify. All of them had different versions, and their power varied widely. Some of the items

call it

any resources…

in meditation while being bombarded by the many items trying to Identify him. Many potential training methods had been

a D-grade learn to control this skill, and if he was honest, then the initial plan had been to get an item able to mask Jake’s identity as a Chosen

His ability to know whenever he was being observed was proof that it was Bloodline related, and so was the fact that he managed to tame a curse that should, by all accounts, be able to consume even a C-grade. Some parts of him actually envied that ability of Jake’s… he still remembered the days when he had lost control. But perhaps it could be said Jake

and typically required a skill. Knowing when anyone Identified you, even if it was a god, was on an entirely new level. Feeling when Shroud

any chance to begin to truly be aware of the Shroud, even with the Bloodline. Knowing when it triggered, “seeing” it trigger, and comprehending how it triggered were entirely different things. It was

understand how it felt. To feel how it worked. Perhaps this was also a path of comprehension. A simplistic one, but a

was extremely ordinary. Just not among humans. This was more something reserved for monsters, primarily those with low levels of intellect often had extremely strong instincts to guide them to use even complex magic and skills. There was some comprehension, but it was often an over-simplification of the complex. Something he also knew

just had

everything until he understood the skill in

odd concept to Jake. He felt it, and it hurt, and he wanted to avoid it in most cases, but his reception to it

in and use to properly understand what was happening, not different from any other senses like smell or sight. He did not want to avoid it or limit it as many others would.

He knew what they meant. He knew if they were good or bad. He knew pain could be useful

sure did hurt like hell, but he never felt like the pain should be a distraction. There was no trace of killing intent from the Viper during it all. His

practice also triggered something else. Every four hours or so, as Jake experienced near-death from the Villy’s pressure, time would slow down around him as Moment of the Primal Hunter

during a breather that the time-bending it did was at an incredibly high-level concept, even if it was simplistic in how it

he was

much the

began to consistently feel something when

in, Jake now felt the Shroud every time he was near death and rather vividly

Something that didn’t quite exist, but on the other hand, did. It was a bit like his metaphysical body as it seemed to

it whenever an Identify hit the unpenetrable shield. He felt how it wrapped around him and how everything that passed through was slightly different than before upon exiting. It was as if the inside of his Shroud was one world and the outside

began to experiment. He began to truly experience the Shroud, and they had entirely stopped all near-death experiments as they were no longer necessary. Villy tuned down the Identification devices, so he was only hit by one every second or

of a mirror that kept

[?]