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?”

would alert the god who blessed him, and I am unable to do

soon, so I am sure you will have plenty of time to

“Oh?”

anyone on your planet besides a select few C-grades 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

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

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 bore into

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

didn’t expend any resources… but damn, was

meditation while being bombarded by the many items trying to Identify him. Many potential training methods had been considered, and if he was honest, this wasn’t even close to the most effective one… at least not for

if he was honest, then the initial plan had been to get an item able to mask Jake’s identity as a Chosen and a Heretic. That plan was still

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

his own skills. The area around him. Knowing when someone Identified you wasn’t a usual ability and typically required a skill. Knowing when anyone Identified you, even if it was a

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 to comprehend the skill either… but he did hope

was the sort of person to understand how it felt. To feel how it worked. Perhaps this was also a path of comprehension.

levels of intellect often had extremely strong instincts to guide them

up… Jake just had to go

going to make him feel everything until he understood the skill in both body and

to 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, the pain was little more than

not different from any other senses like smell or sight. He did not want to avoid it or limit it as many others would. This didn’t mean he enjoyed it.

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

hurt but wasn’t lethal, he didn’t bother. In fact, it was odd how it worked at times. Jake felt his own body be broken down several 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

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 actually ended up helping to speed up trying to feel

was at an incredibly high-level concept, even if it was simplistic in how it worked. Either way, Jake happily also began

feel the Shroud every-so-often whenever he was near death and every time Moment procced. Still

much the same,

in, Jake began to consistently feel

death and rather vividly when Moment

bit like his metaphysical body as it seemed to almost exist in a dimension above his

felt the Shroud. He felt the “impact” on 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

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 so as Jake concentrated on

Jake experienced his first success. He sat in front of a mirror

[?]