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.”

sim-Jake concurred. “However, there is one exception. After coming here, I naturally lost my Blessing and all connection to Umbra as well as anything related to Tenlucis… but

mean?” Jake asked

before fully reappearing. “This one I can still use… but my version was

encountered anything while using Shadow Vault, he would lose heath, mana, or other resources, and at his current grade, it was hard to

but he kind of

bolt. “And yeah, I 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. Like, I get the destructive parts of it,

head. “Anyway, we need to make Shadow Vault work with our arcane affinity, but without

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 was because of his deep connection with Villy, flooding him with Records related to the Primordial and hence his skills. One could say that as his Chosen, Jake was playing life on easy mode in regards to upgrading his

some thoughts in regards to Shadow Vault and will focus on improving it. Or at least find a

more. “Now for the main dish. Melee combat. I

to

how that works,” Jake said with

complain. That just means I retained one hundred percent of that knowledge.

lost?” Jake asked, a

but it is more like they are being replaced. I remember taking a university exam despite never going to university, but I do also recall the university itself as I once followed a target while there. The only things still

him fucking up a bit during the infusion process of the bone. Yet he also knew this was

Nevertheless.

“Sorry,” Jake apologized.

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

said, trying to lighten the

I actually find positive. Ah, the one with Carmen included. I am becoming you more and more by the day, and I fully accept that. The day you learn everything I can teach you is also the day I will finally become a real boy.

smiled. They looked at each other

bullshit. Come at me,” sim-Jake said as he spread his

“Unarmed?” Jake asked.

you suck,” sim-Jake

giving Jake time to react as he managed to block. A follow-up came, but he was able to dodge it. However, as he tried to avoid the third blow, sim-Jake managed to grab hold

seize the momentum,” sim-Jake smiled as

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 with

really using any superhuman

with your instincts. So, let us say the second

stood up again and cracked

laughed. “Man, you are going to make people