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.”

even you?” Jake asked

want to. But also yes, in that it would alert the god who blessed him, and I am

I doubt he will die anytime soon, so I am sure you will have plenty of time to figure it out. Just don’t have

“Oh?”

can permanently slay that Bloodline holder… except the Unique 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. Even with you weak, there is no need to

and walls turned towards Jake and began glowing with mana. Jake instantly felt the thousands of signals making him aware someone

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 were so weak it barely mattered, while others felt like drills trying to

felt the skill “activate,” if one could even call it that, but every Identify was too weak for him to truly experience anything. That was why

any resources… but damn, was

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

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

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 was able to stay in

him. Knowing when someone Identified you wasn’t a usual ability and typically required a skill. Knowing when

the only reason Jake had 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 magic far too complex for a mortal to comprehend. Vilastromoz did not expect Jake

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

In fact, it 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 Jake often did, to great

up… Jake just had to

the Malefic Viper was going to make him feel everything

Jake. He felt it, and it hurt, and he wanted to avoid it in most cases, but his reception to it varied widely. In a battle,

not want to avoid

than anyone else. He knew what they meant. He knew if they were good or bad. He knew pain could be useful and not a

times, and it 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 danger sense did trigger a bit when Jake was essentially dead, but he trusted Villy to heal him, as quite frankly, it would be a shitty joke to just kill him like

funnily enough, the near-death 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 activated. This would heighten Jake’s senses even more and

familiar with the skill. Villy mentioned during a breather that the time-bending it did was at an incredibly high-level concept, even if it was simplistic in how it worked. Either way,

the time-chamber, Jake began to feel the Shroud every-so-often whenever he was near death and every time Moment procced. Still no progress

in, much the same, but

in, Jake began to consistently feel something

he was near death and rather vividly when Moment activated. He also began to

his metaphysical body as it seemed to almost exist in a dimension above his own. It neither cared

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 another. Anything happening within was always separated from what was outside as if going through encryption, making the source

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

success. He sat in front of a

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