The Primal Hunter

Paradise. A city with a quite apt description for certain kinds of people. It was the kind of place that the United Cities Alliance didn’t truly recognize as a member but still wanted in their circle. A necessary evil, so to say, where all the weird and controversial shit could be done. A center of debauchery, wealth, and whatever the heart desired – and that came from its own marketing.

Peter had gone and gathered all the intel he could on the place. Considering what he got was clearly a watered-down version of the actual place, Jake was impressed the ”civilized” United Cities Alliance hadn’t denounced it yet. They didn’t exactly promote or endorse it but just acted like Paradise didn’t really exist, and their stance had led to some recent trouble resulting in the teleportation circle being cut off.

This meant they would have to travel there on foot, which the clerk heavily advised against. Apparently, one would have to pass quite the dangerous zone where these gazelle-like creatures roamed, and they were known to be rather aggressive towards anyone invading their territory. Hearing this, Jake naturally knew they had to check it out.

There was still one thing bothering him, though.

”Any idea why your family would choose to settle down in that kind of place?” Jake asked Carmen the second they were outside the city.

She looked in thought for a moment before answering. ”I don’t really want to know, but if I had to guess, then it is because they thrive in that kind of environment. My aunt and uncle made their fortune by running a casino, and I know my grandparents were heavily involved in the medicinal industry, so producing drugs or shit like that is right up their alley. As for my parents, they probably just followed whatever my grandparents, uncle, and aunt wanted.”

”Sounds like a pretty messed up family dynamic,” Jake commented.

”Yeah,” Carmen just said as she fell silent.

”Whatever the case, I hope they are safe,” Peter tried to comfort her. It didn’t seem to work very well as Carmen just ignored the guy.

While Jake did believe Carmen wanted them to be ”safe,” he had an odd feeling about why she wanted that. She seemed to carry a lot of animosity, yet she also clearly wanted to meet them again. Jake knew he wasn’t even halfway qualified to try and figure out what was going on, but he did know that Carmen certainly didn’t come from a typical family.

”Let’s just get moving,” Carmen said, making them drop the topic as the four of them headed off. Jake took out the Prima fragment as he also thought to ask Peter.

”You killed any Primas or gained any fragments?” Jake asked.

The young man sighed and shook his head. ”Yes to the first one, no to the second. While I was still with the Church, we killed a Prima, but the fragment was given back to the leaders. I haven’t killed or even come across any since then.”

Jake nodded in understanding. ”Alright. Just gonna say right now that we still need two for Carmen, so even if we come across any, she has them reserved.”

”Naturally,” the young man agreed. Jake didn’t detect any hint of disappointment from him either, so he nodded as they headed forward with great speed, only slowed down by Peter a little bit. Being a warrior with light magic, he was actually relatively fast, but his movement skills were more focused on instantaneous movement than long-range travel.

Sylphie helped as always with her wind magic, and only now did Peter seem to truly take notice of this small hawk. Jake hadn’t really thought much about it, but he now realized that most people probably just viewed Sylphie as an extension of Jake. An animal companion or something akin to that.

”I don’t think I ever properly introduced you to Sylphie, did I?” Jake asked, way overdue.

Peter just smiled and said. ”I do not believe you did.”

”Well, Sylphie is Sylphie, a pretty young little hawk, and probably one of the strongest creatures on the planet at her level, with less than ten humans alive able to fight her,” Jake quickly introduced her.

as he chuckled and looked at the hawk. ”Nice to

she was able to detect his

not joking,” Jake said in a serious tone. ”She is higher level than both Carmen and I, and

I’m gonna be honest; I would probably lose in a fight,” Carmen shrugged. ”She is faster than any of us, incredibly elusive, hard to pin

with newfound respect and a bit of fear as he seemed to finally understand they weren’t joking. It did help that Sylphie was circling them faster and

as more than an hour passed in silence. He and Jake ended up opening their mouthes

”I feel a Prima.”

territory

exchanged gazes as Jake smirked. ”Well then, seems like this won’t be a waste of time. I am a bit confused, though. How come no

its pack

group of gazelles is called a herd,” Jake

so ago, and they are fast

into the plains. While usually referred to as a mana signature, it was more accurate to call it an energy signature, as even someone like Carmen without mana had this identifiable trait. It was

of energy left by the Prima were muddled. It was like the beast

related to the body, it was effectively entangled with the soul, meaning that when Jake used a stealth skill, it hid all the mana in his surroundings, even the

gazelle did was far more complicated than merely hiding. A false trail combined with stealth skills would mean the gazelle could easily create ambushes and whatnot while never itself falling into a trap. Moreover, when

thing is good,”

is it?” Carmen

down false ones… Peter, have other people

never return. That is also

nodded. He inspected the energy signatures but simply had no way to properly distinguish them and track down the gazelles using them. Usually, this would

woven and cut away some of the tall grass in front of him. He went forward as he

as he carefully condensed mana under his feet and went forward, avoiding stepping on the grass. With the strings of mana, he cut away more grass as he finally found what he

behind by the traveling animal. A lot of these methods were made harder with the system. One such example was the fact that trampled grass

been left and using them, it became clear the gazelles had gone through there. Unsurprisingly enough, there was no trail of energy despite them clearly running there, but one

really do it due to his incredibly high Perception allowing him to see minute changes coupled with his Sphere of Perception, but even that did not grant him the knowledge to read and analyze the tracks. This is where Jake had one final card up his sleeve: he used to really like binging those TV shows about guys drinking their own piss and walking around in

smoothen itself out with time due to the grass and when it rained and whatnot, and he could see

way for sure… and

matter how good the gazelle was, it was only D-grade like him. Even if it had a powerful skill and was talented, Jake had

some of his own arcane mana, he introduced stability into his surroundings. Everything seemed to almost freeze as Jake scanned the mana in the air and around the tracks. He discovered what he was looking for down inside the hoof-print he had been looking at, or more accurately, embedded in the soil. It was just a faint wisp of energy that did not belong there. But it was enough. Once thoroughly scrutinized by Jake, it

That of the Prima.

unraveled as he found this. The false tracks now correctly appeared false in his mind, and

”Got you.”

based on limited clues left behind. Also allows the hunter to more easily identify characteristics of the game, including mana signatures and

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