The Primal Hunter

”Underground… water is not like up above,” Draskil began, speaking far more than usual. “We sought long and far for it. Digging. We needed water to live… but the water was also a bringer of death. The skilled ones tried to be careful, but they failed. Sometimes. If they made a mistake…”

Draskil stared into the air again as he sighed and spoke in a serious tone. “They fucked up. Made a hole into a large reservoir of groundwater, flooding everything. It spread through our caverns and into our homes. So many drowned… I was the only one left. Family dead. Alone. Stuck for days with the water rising… had to swim.”

Jake saw the now so powerful dragonkin shiver as he stopped talking. He had known that Draskil had been a mole-type creature before the system and what Villy had described as half-human-like. Something with intellect between that of a human and a chimpanzee. Smarter than any normal animal for sure and smart enough to form societies and have full sapience.

“Happened often… but we needed to dig. Water fine, but being in it is not,” Draskil finally shook his head as he stared down. A few more moments passed before he looked at Jake. “Fear makes me weak?”

“Being afraid of something and being weak has nothing to do with one another,” Jake said with a shrug. “What matters is what you do when afraid. You swam alongside us, you fought, you killed. Even if you were afraid, you didn’t show weakness. So no, that doesn’t make you weak, but quite the opposite.”

Draskil was clearly skeptical as he sneered. “I was weaker because of fear.”

Does he want me to scold him or what? Jake asked himself but still didn’t fully agree.

“We were all weaker. You have already shown that even in the face of fear, you don’t back down, and even if you are afraid of it now, you can overcome that fear,” Jake said, trying to be convincing. He hoped for Draskil to accept the answer and feel relieved, but it didn’t go that way.

“What do you fear?” Draskil instead just asked.

Jake opened his mouth and was about to answer but stopped. What was he afraid of? If he was thinking back… he felt a bit scared of Oras when he saw him in the void? No, that wasn’t’ really him being scared but more an instinctual fear. But there was…

His silence seemed to annoy Draskil as the dragonkin asked. “Don’t know?”

Jake took a moment longer before shaking his head. “I don’t. Not really.”

That was… a lie. Jake just didn’t want to say it as he realized he did have one fear. It was a weird thought, but Jake was legitimately scared of one thing – losing control. Not in the sense of momentarily being unable to do something or being forced into doing things, but truly losing control of himself. He remembered one time that had truly scared him.

It was the time he thought Miranda had tried to take over his Pylon. The anger and bloodlust he had felt at that moment. Those emotions that now felt so foreign. He had not been in control then but acted on pure impulse and emotion. Jake feared those kinds of emotions. And there was one other recent time where that happened.

During his meeting with Ell’Hakan within the Seat of the Exalted Prima, Jake had lost his wits and trusted someone for no god damn reason. He had been furious afterward but knew deep down it was due to fear. He was afraid of that kind of power that could make Jake lose, even just momentarily, control of his own emotions… because he knew that even without any outside sources interfering, his own emotions were scary.

It was honestly a stupid fear. Fearing your own strong emotions. Or maybe it was a normal fear that many people had. Perhaps it wasn’t truly the emotions themselves he feared either, but what he would do while feeling those emotions.

“Or you do… and don’t want to share,” Draskil accurately read Jake. For some reason, this seemed to make the dragonkin feel better as he regained his old toothy smile. “All things to overcome.”

Jake wryly smiled as he nodded, not sure if his fear was something one could truly overcome. Especially not with his bloodline. Perhaps it was closer to something you just came to accept and live with. Something to manage.

didn’t speak much more but just relaxed and meditated a bit. Hours passed as they all got back into optimal condition, just needing a potion or two to top themselves up. The break was ultimately more to replenish mental energy than anything else and have them have a mental

as those before the seventh, making Jake think that his theory of the water level being a failed attempt to diversify was correct. The only real difference on the eighth floor was how everything

Giant

into the air but otherwise looked the same. They all felt like they were miniatures of themselves. It was a pretty fun and

big bastards apart with ease, and Jake blew them up with Arcane Powershots as he killed in droves together with the Malefic Dragonkin. Reika and Irin also joined in, but Bastilla could well and truly no longer participate meaningfully in combat. Reika barely could, but at least her ice magic helped slow down foes for Irin to sometimes finish them off. The problem was that Irin didn’t really

and illusion magic, as well as other things one would expect of a succubus. Skills that were obviously not useable

through the cavern, they soon reached the next gate and saw the challenge to pass the eighth floor. Once they read it, Jake nearly

it in the cauldron. In order to open the lid of the cauldron, at least eight hundred mushroom men must be

78/800. Poison placed in

uncommon rarity poison, the materials provided had been far better as there were even a few rare rarity mushrooms they could use. On this floor, based on their initial observations, the best one could get was of uncommon rarity,

However…

easy,” Jake smirked as he pulled out two types of mushrooms he had already picked up earlier. “I will need more of these two mushrooms. Also, I need some

get easy. I wanted to gather

approval showing himself a true man of culture.

going to find more. Jake ate some of the materials he had gathered to absorb some knowledge through Palate as he got to work while the rest of his group killed things. Occasionally they would return with materials

more materials, only to see Jake toss the poison bottle towards the cauldron. It landed on the lid still on top with a clank as Jake shook his head in an overly dramatic

himself back from saying. He looked at the cauldron as

mushroom men killed: 771/800. Poison placed in

because we bring you

up. Draskil looked slightly annoyed but didn’t complain more. In fact, he looked happy even with all his grumbling

out of the floor within less than five hours, they ended up staying for ten or so more simply to take full advantage of the place. Each floor held mushrooms Jake had never seen or heard of before, just as the

too many corpses to dismantle and ended up only bothering with those who had Lifecores within. If they had to wait for her to dismantle nearly a thousand corpses – well, realistically, nine hundred as Draskil had taken his frustrations from the water level

they had ended their break

optional boss

every floor after the fourth is optional,” Reika correctly

should be paying to

was relieved when he saw it was just more mushrooms without the water. It was a bit of a mix between the giant stuff on the eighth floor and

Mushroom Man Warriors, Mushroom Man Defenders, and Mushroom Man Mages. All kinds of mushroom

General –

naturally its commanders, which were just copy-pasted versions of the boss on the fourth floor with a few more levels on top. Four of

Commander – lvl

shit-tier,” Jake said, stating facts. Recycling older bosses as semi-regular enemies.

it does seem rather uninspired,” Reika