The Primal Hunter

Multitasking. Everyone loved multitasking, and it was one of those great buzzwords people often used when they attempted to do fifteen things at once poorly rather than just do a few well. Multitasking also wasn’t truly doing more things at once. It was just rapidly switching between several tasks or starting tasks that could automatically continue or finish on their own while then spending the meantime on something else. Like an author putting food in the oven that would take forty minutes to cook and then using that time to also focus on writing.

Jake’s ways of multitasking were at a level far above this. He had found a way to not only train with sim-Jake but also train Meira at the same time. It was quite honestly genius and not at all an accidental discovery found when Meira walked by his room while Jake had a fun spar with his other self.

It appeared that when Jake was fighting himself or just straining himself within the Soulspace, his aura flared as he was effectively having an internal struggle. When Jake also began to purposefully amplify this effect, it became highly effective to the point of Meira barely being able to move. It was just too good not to use.

So currently, Jake was sitting in the library on a pillow in Serene Soul Meditation while Meira was anything but serene. Duskleaf was trying to teach her as sweat poured down her face, and she was out of breath from the presence. The old alchemist god was unaffected due to the sheer difference in power but did admit that it was a very impressive aura when they began this kind of training. He had even added that if Jake was a god, it would maybe have been a little intimidating.

However, as things were, they did conclude that Jake could only do this kind of resistance training with those significantly weaker than himself. There was also some passive resistance to auras gained from just being around him frequently, but it was meager in comparison to a full-on training session where he was just blasting.

Anyway, while Meira was struggling in the outside world, Jake struggled in his inside one. He and sim-Jake had been training for a few weeks now since their first bout, and it was no longer just “fights,” but there was some actual teaching going on.

“Don’t let it adapt, move faster,” sim-Jake said as Jake was busy fighting the massive monstrosity of pure curse energy. “If you let it get used to your patterns, you will be screwed.”

You said that ten fucking times, Jake grumbled as he dodged and punched forward with his kater – a weapon he was still very-much getting used to still. He hit the arm-like appendage of the chimera but was soon pushed back by several spikes claws flying towards him, followed by a whipping tail.

“Momentum is key. Seize it,” sim-Jake spoke once more as Jake moved to attack. He delayed his actions by a fraction of a second, making the tail miss before he truly attacked, managing to land several blows before the beast could adapt and strike back. Jake was pushed once more and had to find a new way to counter as their endless cycle of switching advantages continued.

Jake had made himself weaker than the chimera on purpose to make it into an actual fight that he could lose. All other times he had “fought” the chimera had been merely using overwhelming power. He had blasted it around and sealed it, never truly engaging in combat.

And now that he did… he concluded that the chimera was far stronger than he had ever thought it would be. It was so adaptable it was insane. Its body would evolve on the fly to counter its opponent and its instincts were absolutely top-notch to the level of Jake suspecting it tapped into his Records a bit.

While sim-Jake had made the brawl with the monster look simple, Jake was struggling as he simply couldn’t keep up. Which, in some ways, was a good thing as it showed how much room he still had for improvements.

The key to the fighting style sim-Jake had developed was all about seizing momentum and using the opponent’s own fighting style and instincts against them. Jake had not truly considered it before… but this style was incredibly Perception-centric. It was all about reading the flow of combat, reading your opponent, and understanding the tempo of your foe instantly. It was about reacting, and to react, you had to see and be aware of what was coming. Jake’s Bloodline-empowered instincts leaned towards always just avoiding danger and not attacking, meaning that while his instincts could help him read his enemies, it wouldn’t help with what kind of response he had to formulate.

and understanding the one you were fighting wasn’t anything new either. Everyone did it, and it was the basis of most martial arts. Someone like the Sword Saint was

simple. It’s just about hitting the right timing and then swinging your weapon or landing that punch, right? While technically true, it is a harmful oversimplification. One of your other major flaws is overextension. When you see an opening, you pounce on it without considering the next step. Sure, you may land your blow, but won’t it just end with you getting smashed in return? I am not saying trading hits can’t be a good strategy, but it has to be an intentional choice and not the result of you fucking up and still managing to get out on top,” sim-Jake had

later. The same is true for dodging. It is all about dodging every individual move, sometimes a few consecutive moves, but the pre-cognitive danger sense is simply not able to predict far enough ahead. Once an enemy picks up on this, they can begin to take

to it, trying to keep up with its ability to adapt and change to better combat what he was doing. It could

have been wondering… why does our body dodge the way it does? If you noticed, our ways of dodging are slightly different, and you borderline instinctually form mana barriers and use magic. Something I

their fight and got the advantage. He kept pressing and adapting faster than this foe could adapt to him. He stabbed it over a dozen times as

proud smile, looking at the wriggling form the chimera within its prison of

on my level,” sim-Jake shook his head. “But you are improving for sure. Fighting our

decide how to counter based on how he had wanted to dodge and what he sensed from his opponent. Jake needed to take in a whole lot of information and

saw them do the slightest adaption or shift, you had to pick up on it and counter-adapt. Always be

wanted to take it. Theoretically, this would be an unbeatable style as long as he wasn’t beat handily in stats, but reality was not that simple. There were too many variables in any

important thing was to be able to quickly seize back the momentum after surviving the trump card. Needless to say, simply expecting to instinctually survive these trump cards was only possible due to Jake’s Bloodline, and honestly, the entire style could only really be called a fighting style due to the Bloodline. It wasn’t something Jake could teach someone else as

reactionary. Well, okay, maybe there were kinda moves, but the moves were just all based

progress on the Shadow Vault front?” Jake asked sim-Jake after discussing melee combat a bit

you just copied the progress I have already made, you would get an upgrade.

will one day in the not-so-distant

it off. “I naturally assume you will become

die to some random critter?” Jake teased back. “Or maybe I

all on you for not further developing it then,” sim-Jake smiled. “Even after I am gone, it will not

his head. “One

means of combat besides just brawling. In actual combat, Jake would, of course, be different, and he also had some minor adaptions to make based on his

said. “You know, you can even add archery in and make it an

Jake would overextend in combat, sim-Jake would overextend in adding to his own workload, making him stretch himself thin. “Anyway, just keep it up with the melee practice and Shadow Vault. I

body, shared senses, partially shared memory. Ah, but

nodded and smiled as he disappeared from the Soulspace and opened his eyes