The Primal Hunter

The ground shattered as the two beings clashed. Mountains were torn asunder, and space shuddered with every impact as their bout seemed to go through a neverending cycle of change. The larger of the two figures repeatedly adapted and transformed in response to the attacks of its small attacker, while the small combatant seemed to always be able to counter whatever the monster did.

Jake stood back and observed this all as huge areas of the Soulspace were ripped apart. It was a fight clearly far beyond D-grade, and yet sim-Jake didn’t even seem that pressed. The level of power Jake could display inside his Soulspace had always been a bit of a mystery to him. It wasn’t a real world, but just one created from his Records and his own mind. Kind of. It was real and yet imaginary - a dreamscape.

What sim-Jake was fighting was naturally the chimera made up of the curse energy from Eternal Hunger. The hulking monstrosity of pure energy had an ever-shifting body that constantly tried to adapt and improve to better kill and consume sim-Jake, but even with everything it did, it was a losing battle. Not that it cared, considering it was just pure instincts with not a shred of thought within. It just saw sim-Jake and wanted to eat sim-Jake, because that is what it did. One could almost call it eternally hungry.

The fight finally reached the zenith as sim-Jake vaulted over its massive form and, before it could adapt, smashed his katar down into its head. The blade extended in an explosive way on impact and blasted the chimera into the ground below, where it took a bit to re-condense its body. Mind you, no energy was actually lost by either of them, and this battle could truly go on forever or until Jake himself died, thus making the Soulspace disappear.

Getting a feeling it was time to interfere, Jake stepped forward and once more wrapped up the chimera in mana strings and re-sealed it. Primarily so that it would stop trying to constantly eat Villy’s blood only to hurt itself and actually risk getting destroyed.

Sim-Jake nodded at him in approval once the job was done. “I must say, that arcane affinity is nifty.”

“Definitely better than the boring dark affinity,” Jake said in return.

“Spoken like someone who never bothered to explore it properly,” sim-Jake shook his head. “Also… an elf slave, really? How fucking stereotypical can you get?”

“Villy set me up,” Jake shook his head in the exact same fashion as sim-Jake had. “But I am handling it. More importantly, you seem to be having fun playing with that little bundle of very hungry joy.”

“Definitely worth it,” sim-Jake nodded. “It is better at fighting than most beasts I have encountered and is pretty damn interesting in the way it constantly adapts. Forces me to stay on my toes, you know? How come you never trained against it?”

Jake scratched his hair. “I maybe should have… anyway. How was your nap? Feeling rested and good to go?”

“Adequately rested, sure. I have been awake for a few hours now and just sat back and watched,” sim-Jake shrugged. “I really don’t have much interest in all of that alchemy crap, and based on how clueless I still am when it comes to it, I haven’t merged with any Records related to your profession.”

“But do you get the attraction?” Jake asked.

“Kind of?” sim-Jake answered, pondering the question. “I get the attraction in the complexity and that it can offer a different sort of challenge, though the lack of life and death makes it a bit less interesting.”

“Eh, a bit, but it makes up for it with pure complexity. The field of alchemy is so damn broad, and there is so much to learn and so much to craft. I feel like I would be able to keep doing alchemy forever while still progressing," Jake smiled. “But enough about me. This version of me. What is the lay of the land?”

Sim-Jake sighed. “A mixed bag. First of all, my skills are gone. All of them. This is partly to be expected, but I don’t even bloody remember how the skills worked anymore. I tried recreating some, but anything even remotely complex is completely lost to me. I have a feeling the system purposefully did it like this, but I am not sure.”

“That sounds plausible,” Jake nodded. “It probably deemed it too much to borderline hand me a bunch of skills to learn. Sure, they wouldn’t be skills, but that level of knowledge would make doing what the skills did a lot easier and make me learn them far faster.”

Umbra as well as anything

Jake

backward and used the skill as he turned into a shadowy form for a second before fully reappearing. “This one I can still use… but my version was at a

Shadow Vault of Umbra for a long time, and the reason for that was simple: it was prone to do more damage than good. If he encountered anything while using Shadow Vault, he would lose heath, mana, or other resources, and at his current grade, it was hard to travel in a straight line without anything getting in the way.

but he

can, of course, use the affinity too. Though I must say, I don’t quite understand it… I can just use it. Weird that one.

and soon scattered by itself as sim-Jake shook his head. “Anyway, we need to make Shadow Vault work with our arcane affinity, but without losing what actually makes Shadow Vault so great. More importantly, we need to get rid of its

harsh towards your old Patron,” Jake joked, but he got it. Having skills related to several gods at the same time wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it could lead to some conflicts, especially when it came to upgrading the skills. One of the primary reasons Jake so easily upgraded his “of the Malefic Viper” skills

to Shadow Vault and will focus on improving it. Or at least find a

Melee combat. I assume you lost the skill you had

didn’t even try to upgrade

how that works,” Jake said with

scoffed, a bit offended. “Not that you should complain. That just

knowledge have you lost?”

itself as I once followed a target while there. The

bit during the infusion process of the bone. Yet he also knew this was an

Nevertheless.

“Sorry,” Jake apologized.

new ones of begging mom and dad to get fast food at the drive-through? Sure, both resulted in us eating trash, but at least I had a family and a brother in one of those memories,” sim-Jake joked, but then turned more serious. “I am being genuine here. You clearly made the better choices and ended up better off than I did. All I had was being strong and good at fighting. Sure, you are still a broken-ass human with major issues, but you are less broken than I was. Did you know I was a damn virgin? Not due to lack of opportunity, but

too much information,” Jake said, trying

you have much to say,” sim-Jake smirked. “At least I now have memories that I actually find positive. Ah, the one with Carmen included. I am becoming you more and

Jake also smiled. They looked at

at me,” sim-Jake said as he spread his arms

“Unarmed?” Jake asked.

think it makes a difference already proves how much you suck,” sim-Jake confidently said

dodge it. However, as he tried to avoid the third blow,

the momentum,” sim-Jake smiled

up and didn’t hesitate to attack. He went for a punch that was dodged, and as he tried to land a kick, his leg was caught. Sim-Jake just smirked again as he tossed Jake away, making him land on the ground

been without either of them really using any superhuman abilities, and even then,

to make such wide moves against someone with your instincts. So, let us say the

cracked

are going to