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.

bit as he chuckled and looked at the hawk.

bit offended. Even she was able to detect his lack of belief in what Jake had

tone. ”She is higher level than both Carmen and I, and

”She is faster than any of us, incredibly elusive,

looked at the cute little hawk 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

guy also finally didn’t speak for more than ten minutes as more than an hour passed in silence. He and Jake

”I feel a Prima.”

reached the territory

this won’t be a waste of time. I am a bit confused, though. How come no one has

its pack

gazelles is called

only a month or so ago, and they are fast and difficult to track down while also being rather powerful,” Peter

and the others began making their way into the plains. While usually referred to as a mana signature, it was more accurate to call it an

first time, Jake felt something like that. The trails of energy left by the Prima were muddled. It was like the beast had gone in both directions at

his energy signature, and most stealth-related skills worked like that. Due to the way energy was related to the body, it was effectively entangled with the soul, meaning that when Jake used a

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 Jake felt the presence of other gazelles than the Prima, he felt their

is good,” Jake

it?”

Gazelle Prima is able to mask its tracks and lay down false ones… Peter, have other people tried to hunt it?” Jake turned

few, but they never find it or never return. That is

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

mana were woven and cut away some of the tall grass in front of him. He went forward as he scanned the area with Sphere of Perception until he finally found what he

stay back,” Jake said to the others 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

was quite a bit different from old-world tracking. Tracking in the old world relied on actual tracks, analyzing feces, and just looking for any physical evidence left 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 was far more resilient and would

not even itself out. It became covered by the grass, but Jake could still see the earth below had been dented. Hoof marks had been left and using them, it became clear the gazelles had gone through there. Unsurprisingly

tracks were pointing. Physical tracking was rarely done, and Jake could only 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

became more and more sure this one was relatively recent. The soil would still smoothen

way for sure… and recent.

gazelle was, it was only D-grade like

He discovered what he was looking for down inside the hoof-print he had been looking at, or

That of the Prima.

to hide the Prima unraveled as he found this. The false tracks now correctly

”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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