The Primal Hunter

Jake’s perception-related abilities, primarily courtesy of his Bloodline, were quite mysterious and odd at times, even to himself. As he sat there in meditation and felt Identify after Identify hit him as nothing more than a background stream of information, he constantly felt how the skill worked.

He had the ability to know whenever someone looked at him. Jake always had that skill. Perhaps it was an extreme version of that sixth sense every human seemed to have, which made one aware someone was looking at them even when one shouldn’t.

This was merely intuition and instinct. The same was true for Jake detecting danger… detecting anything related to anyone, really. But he also took it to the next level. While others could perhaps get a feeling someone was looking at them, Jake could feel where they were looking and sometimes even had an intuitive sense of what they were looking for.

Why this was relevant for programming the Shroud of the Primordial quickly became apparent the more time passed. For every passing moment that Jake just focused on sensing it and understanding it, the more powerful his bond with the Shroud became. The more the skill became familiar to him, the more control he could exert. It was like any other skill: the more you used it, the better you got at using it.

Now, Jake had to admit that, like with other skills, he had tried all his tricks to somehow make the skill more “his” but failed at every turn. No amount of arcane affinity could affect the Shroud, at least not at Jake’s current level of ability.

All of his other tricks were also in vain as Jake just kept trying his tactic of slowly figuring out whatever parts of the Shroud were triggered by Identify and then proceeded to control those. He slowly began forming a map and model of the Shroud and what parts were affected in his head. As with most other things, it was just a metaphysical representation that only really made sense to Jake… but that was fine. It wasn’t like Jake planned on teaching anyone else to use the skill.

Like this, time passed. Days turned to months as months turned to years. Jake barely registered any of this as he was too busy forming his model. Within his Soulspace, he looked towards the sky that was now no longer black, but filled with countless stars, forming hundreds of constellations. This was his metaphorical model of the Shroud… the sky that covered his soul.

As he stared up at them, certain stars repeatedly lit up as an Identify triggered them. He began rearranging the stars, creating new constellations out of them, or simply using the same stars to form identical constellations corresponding to another form of Identify.

Most of his time now was spent within his Soulspace by now.

The only reason any of this was possible was due to Jake feeling the Shroud so vividly now. It was to his soul like an atmosphere protecting a planet. The Shroud did not only create something new, but it also empowered some existing parts of the natural protection of Truesouls. All of it used concepts and levels of magic that were truly outside the scope of comprehension for someone like Jake.

This is why it was the stars in the universe. If the usual protection to a soul was the standard atmosphere, the Shroud of the Primordial constructed an entire galaxy of protection. And slowly, Jake was now beginning to comprehend many of the stars inhabiting that galaxy as he got nearer and nearer to his goal

Vilastromoz stared at Jake as Duskleaf appeared by his side.

“You called me… but he is not done?” his disciple asked.

“Nope.”

“It has already been a bit over three months, hasn’t it?” Duskleaf asked.

“To you, maybe. To Jake, it has been thirteen years, give or take,” the Viper answered with a smirk. “But I have a feeling he is nearing comprehension.”

“Partial comprehension of a divine skill in only thirteen years?” Duskleaf asked, nearly in disbelief. “Doing so in less than a few centuries in D-grade is remarkable.”

VIlastromoz looked at his disciple as he raised an eyebrow. “I am surprised you aren’t questioning a mortal who was less than thirty before this began how he could spend thirteen years sitting still in meditation.”

was all for doing it. He would probably have spent even longer with the alchemical puzzle box if he wasn’t on a time limit back before the Trial of Myriad Poisons. I am more questioning if it won’t be harmful to him to spend this long in distorted time. The utter

not unlike diving deep beneath the water and going up again. This process was often slow, or the backlash would leave someone crippled as their bodies and souls slowly acclimated

However…

because it was the most he could handle, but because it was the most I could

of times already and had become clear on one thing – it consumed no mana, stamina, health, or any other resource. It

to temporarily create a relative time slowdown. Not because he made the world around him slow down, but because it untethered Jake from the usual rules of time to, in essence, be faster. This was not something a mage could learn… it was no spell or even a real skill in

of this skill a bit as Jake had spilled the beans about it when he explained his Bloodline. He had told how the system had upgraded it from rare to legendary and created a new one that even carried the same name as his Bloodline. Which meant Jake was the true Origin of the

like a Transcendent skill, so what happens when a Bloodline does something that would break the rules and create a Transcendent skill under normal circumstances? There really was no unified answer, but the Viper

skill. It had capped it at Legendary. The internal cooldown of the skill was arbitrarily imposed, the actual slowdown and duration

triggering the skill. However, it had removed this activation cost in trade of the cooldown, breaking another fundamental law. This meant the skill served both as a

one, at least. The system would never take away a skill given during a level upgrade unless you yourself chose to give it up through some upgrade. It also seemed like the system had chosen not to offer him a skill he could similarly upgrade

academy, should he learn some

time and to control

I have been

was against that idea,” the Viper cut him

and still made me figure out how to make the uniforms as well as embarrass myself by showing

just conservative; Jake is from a free-spirited world,”

“I am not even-“

just awoken from a dream. Vilastromoz smiled as he

“Level 169 Malefic Dragonkin?”

independently or in small groups linking up together and working flawlessly. Jake could almost feel the evident system assistance as he now

alight, with endless patterns and constellations ready to form at any moment to give a response to an Identify. Something he had

was a level 169 Malefic Dragonkin – the evolution he had skipped over.

grade, it appeared, but within that, he could freely make himself appear to be any level from 100 to 199. He also instantly modified

go lesser Blessing, or you will stand out a

a lesser Blessing. He also instantly cleaned up some of that heresy stuff by just blocking it in entirely. He hoped it worked, and luckily he didn’t

as he nodded in interest. “I can’t

could feel I was a heretic all along?” Jake asked

bit of time to build up, though. When you came here after the Tutorial, it was faint, but feeling

Jake said. “And

didn’t

He had

what now?” Jake