The Primal Hunter

Jake decided to find a nice tree and take a seat as he opened his notification window to go over the last few days of hunting. There were many kill notifications, all of them giving experience as naturally a stealth archer was always the one engaging, and why would Jake choose to engage lower-leveled foes?

As for levels… well, it was pretty good as his hunting speed kept picking up, and in his fervor to upgrade the skill through trial and error, he probably ended up hunting faster than before. Especially when he considered the ever-growing level of power of his prey.

Checking it out, he was at least satisfied.

*’DING!’ Class: [Avaricious Arcane Hunter] has reached level 161 - Stat points allocated, +10 Free Points*

…

*’DING!’ Class: [Avaricious Arcane Hunter] has reached level 164 - Stat points allocated, +10 Free Points*

*’DING!’ Race: [Human (D)] has reached level 165 - Stat points allocated, +15 Free Points*

*’DING!’ Race: [Human (D)] has reached level 166 - Stat points allocated, +15 Free Points*

Jake looked at the notification and saw his level. 166. Having gained four class levels and two race ones from that. This has to be enough, right?

He believed it was. Draskil had done it at 173.

That’s right…

With a bit over a day left till the system event, it was time for this stealth archer to take down his biggest prey yet:

It was C-grade hunting time.

Now the issue was just finding one. No, not just finding one, but finding one suitable to hunt. One Jake was good against would be preferable. This meant it needed to be flesh and blood, probably a beast of some kind, and if it was not on the more durable side, that would also be nice. He wanted to avoid prey with healing powers if possible, as Jake knew that he would risk running himself dry. Fighting any C-grade would require Arcane Awakening to be active from start to end, putting him on a timer, so facing a foe able to turtle down and wait him out would suck.

The reason why It needed to be flesh and blood was naturally for his rare Hemotoxin Poison, his most potent toxin to date. He had made it with C-grade hunting in mind, so finding an elemental or something like that would be inadvisable.

His other requirement would be a good hunting ground, but honestly, the jungle was fine if not downright great for him. He had a lot of space to kite, and he had already tried and tested the effectiveness of striking from above to land Stealth Attacks with excellent results.

With all of that in mind, he set out on his hunt.

but because Vilastromoz had gotten used to it. Pointing out the fact that usually it could take months of deep meditating to identify and become familiar with the conceptual changes brought on by such

picking skills or upgrading them. Doing so would only lead to adverse effects down the line. Perhaps it would help him upgrade it now, but the next upgrade would only get more challenging, and the god fully

good - in most instances the preferable choice - there were also cases where it was not. Stealth Attack was a case where picking it was clever. The Viper had never wanted to ask or question Jake about getting the skill, and he had to admit seeing Jake

one of them he had skipped for a long time had been called Scale Armor. Instinctually the Viper had passed it back in F-grade before he even had anything close to sapient thought. Back

a magic-focused beast, so getting magical defenses just made sense.

to C-grade. Late C-grade that is. His decision-making then had spawned from interacting with some humans who had theorized these low rarity skills could be worth it. As he had no other skill choices he truly wanted at the time, Vilastromoz took a gamble and picked up the weak skill. The day he

spawned by the system. Simplistic damage reduction. A flat damage reduction on every blow that is. Its effect was so weak right when he got it, but it got stronger and stronger as time progressed. He adapted the skill, made it his own, fused it with Dragon Scales when he reached

of the Malefic

of the jungle. Rather than encountering beasts or Vinewood creatures every few minutes, he now barely saw any, and those he saw were all towards the peak of D-grade. Jake hunted a few, but they were not his target, and even the

just grown up in an environment with high mana density, making them grow powerful just by time passing and hunting each other. Nothing compared to genius-level beasts

something like the Termite Hive King. No, he needed a lower-tier C-grade, and as he spent the next many hours

An owl that looked to be made out of metal and used light magic that Jake did consider as a target, but it had taken off before he got a chance to properly assess it. A third had been a Vinewood Elephant that was also utterly massive and looked to be made entirely out of bark. As he did not want to fight a being that was

current target that he had been tracking for nearly

regular specimen of its species. Its entire body was black with sleek fine hair covering it. Four paws soundlessly hit

it, the

–

of, and he had to say… it was weaker than expected. It was undoubtedly a C-grade, but the fact

with incredibly high Agility to take down its foes. The Panther was a bit

entirely black blood. The way the wound healed also looked weird, but who was Jake to comment on what kind of physique made sense

system event. Smiling a bit, Jake knew it was enough time as he made all his preparations. He marked the Panther as he kept tracking it and waited as he took

did not take long before the Panther had won, and Jake felt his Mark stop moving. He could not make an Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter as he had yet to understand its physique, but he could still land quite the opening blow. He had prepared his arrows already with his rare

but the arrow was

as the Panther instantly locked in on him. He had just nocked an arrow as his danger sense

again as the beast rushed him with anger in its eyes.

an arrow again as he used Gaze of the Apex

on, you can do better than that, Jake

a bit as it entered his Sphere, and he easily side-stepped the beast as he pulled out Eternal Hunger

back. Another swipe left a nasty cut on his arms as his bracer was torn apart, but before it could land the third blow, Jake used Gaze

it could stabilize, Jake fired a barrage of Splitting Arrows that exploded in a torrent of arcane energy, sending it tumbling down even further. Four black crescent waves were sent in return as a swipe tore up space itself, but Jake managed to dodge between two space tears as he fired an Arcane Powershot rapidly charged through the use of

tried to dodge, but Jake had predicted its movements as the Powershot slightly curved and smashed into the Panther’s stomach, sending it barreling down towards the ground, creating a crater

no way a C-grade would go down that easily… no matter how weak it was. And damn, this one was weak. The mere fact that Jake had