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

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

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

“Oh?”

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

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

say they were all merely using Identify. All of them had different versions, and their

of it was stopped by Shroud of the Primordial. He 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 was why he experienced thousands

didn’t expend any resources… but damn, was it

being bombarded by the many items trying to Identify him. Many potential training methods had been considered, and if he was honest, this

even begin to bother having 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 and a Heretic. That plan was still an option, but Vilastromoz believed it possible

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 was able to stay in control and not act on impulses was because of how aware he was of them… or perhaps because his

of 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 god, was on an entirely new level. Feeling when Shroud of

how it triggered were entirely different things. It was magic far too complex for a mortal

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

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

up… Jake just had to go

everything until he understood the skill in both

reception to it varied widely. In a battle, the pain was little more than a warning from

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. This didn’t mean he enjoyed it. In fact, it was still rather unpleasant, but the gains of

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

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,

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

the time-bending it did was at an incredibly

Jake began to feel the Shroud every-so-often whenever he was near death and every time

much the same, but

month in, Jake began to consistently feel something when

he was near death and rather vividly when Moment activated. He also began to get a feel for something

months in, Jake began to vaguely get a feel for something enveloping his body at all times. Something that didn’t quite exist, but on the other hand, did. It was a bit like his metaphysical body as it seemed to almost exist in a dimension above his own. It neither cared for

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

Jake began to experiment. He began to truly experience the Shroud, and they had entirely stopped all near-death experiments as they were no

in front of a mirror that kept

[?]