The Primal Hunter

Wings of the Malefic Viper was honestly a bit of a weird skill in Jake’s repertoire when Jake thought about it. Mainly in that he didn’t really need one of its primary functions anymore: the ability to fly. Jake could fly just using mana manipulation already.

This meant the skill now only served as a way to pump out poison mist. It did add a bit of maneuverability while flying, but it was not that major. Jake knew that a lot of the skills Records went into simply summoning the wings in their phantasmal form and adding them to the Soulshape, but that wasn’t exactly something Jake ”needed” either.

Jake still used the wings a lot due to their relatively low upkeep, which meant the only time he really spent resources on them was with the initial summoning and when he pumped out poison. The poison pumped out also wasn’t exactly impressive. It mostly just served as a way to keep his current poison active and the occasional area of effect attack.

Upgrading the poison mist aspect of the skill did not appeal to him either. Besides, if he upgraded his Blood of the Malefic Viper, he would inadvertently also upgrade the mist. There was also the approach of trying to make them more durable or perhaps increase the maneuverability and overall flight speed. There was even the approach of going the same direction as Draskil, where his wings allowed him short-range teleports and speed-ups in battle. His version was clearly one specialized for movement in combat and taking advantage of his existing physical stats. But that wasn’t the direction Jake wanted to take it.

During his vision, where he saw Villy get smacked by Valdemar, he had seen Wings of the Malefic Viper be used as an escape skill to great effect. He had felt how the wings had somehow been activated, and a ”tunnel” of sorts had been formed that allowed him to escape. Jake wanted something like that.

He wanted an escape skill, not necessarily to run from a fight he could not win like Villy had, but to escape situations that rendered him stuck or sealed in some way. Like the skill, Ell’Hakan had used that had seemed to isolate Jake from the rest of the world for its duration.

One Step was already better at long-distance movement anyway. It was a legendary skill specialized in travel, while Wings had so many other aspects. There were some issues with upgrading it, though.

Having already been shown the skill twice, Jake was not sure if he could see it again. It did say that he could only view a vision of a skill once, but did the one he had count? It felt more like that one had been about Fangs of the Malefic Viper rather than Wings.

Nevertheless, Jake tried to use the Path of the Heretic-Chosen skill as he focused on Wings of the Malefic Viper. Not necessarily to use it, but to see if he even could, and to his disappointment, the skill did not activate right way. This left him even more unsure as he still didn’t know if it was because he didn’t fulfill some requirement to see the vision or because he had used his one chance on the skill.

He also tried to reflect on the feeling back during the vision he had before, but it was all too blurry for him to remember. His focus back then had been on Fangs of the Malefic Viper and Fang of Man and not Wings, so even when he had felt the escape technique, his mind had partly been elsewhere.

”You busy?” the worm suddenly asked Jake as he meditated on the issue.

”Only a little,” Jake answered. ”Why do you ask?”

”You said you wanted to hurry, right? The problem is that up ahead is the territory of scorpions, and they like to hide in the sand and attack if we try to go through, so we tend to avoid them. Avoiding them and going around will be slower, though… but if the human is strong, then maybe…” the worm said very leadingly.

”Let me guess, they have a C-grade leader of some kind?”Jake asked.

tried to scare them off once but was hit, and it took weeks to recover from the nasty venom. We aren’t that good at fighting, if you haven’t noticed, and trying to swallow them wouldn’t end well as

for the well-being of worm society?”Jake asked a

leader may or may not also be guarding a very tasty-looking rock that I wouldn’t complain if I happened to eat,” the worm admitted, making its intentions clear. Even if worm society was very altruistic and they believed in sharing, then there was still some greed when it came to unique, powerful natural treasures. The C-grades tended to monopolize these according to what the worm had told him, and the only exception was when a treasure was found that would allow another worm to break through to C-grade. Another

fit the criteria of both C-grades and those wanting to evolve being able to use it, according to his worm buddy. It was also one that no other worms dared go for due to

Tell me everything you know about them,” Jake answered as he

allowed him to avoid getting thrown away entirely. No concept or advanced magic truly mattered before supreme power. If

helping him and the worm even mentioned this way would be faster. Did the worm specify how much faster or how much of a detour it would be? No, not

look dangerous, but they aren’t actually that bad as they can’t really grab our

as he considered if maybe fighting them wouldn’t just be a quicker way to find out as, quite frankly, they just sounded like normal scorpions. Massive scorpions, but still

to be

As the Judge of the Court of Shadows in this branch, he was obligated to. The reason was that the leader of the United Cities Alliance had not come to invade the

simply approached them

avoid a fight if necessary. He had to admit that looking at Arthur, he

meet

but the Judge of the Court of Shadows. I am here as a client looking to hire the Court. Nothing

yet you show up with an army,” Caleb said a bit

and death. Recently, after their Patron returned, what did they do to strengthen themselves? They forced every other faction on the planet that the Order was placed on to submit or die. Those who refused they slaughtered or enslaved. While you may hold the belief that your brother

Jake has absolutely

our planet once they are aware he is from here. His lack of interest will only fuel their desire to take over our world if just to say they did. But let me concur for a moment that Jake Thayne is no threat. He is not the only reason for this. Can you say that others will

that well,” Caleb confessed. ”The Risen, that is. The Holy Church will try to take over the planet; that is something I have no doubt in my mind about. It has been their MO since the very first Era. Which leads me to… isn’t Jacob your son? You know, the leader of the Holy Church on Earth? Are you willing to kill your own son for fear of losing control of… what, a piece of rock floating

you are right. Even if I got the opportunity, I could never bring myself to kill my own son, which is why I made sure he was not on the planet when all of this began. He is just a cog in the machine, and the Holy Church will gladly make use of him by just deploying him elsewhere. I hope

off the planet. It kind of made sense based on the recent movements of the Church. Even so… Caleb still wasn’t certain what the man wanted of him. ”You still haven’t said what you mean by

missions of these gods. The Court of Shadows is more a business than organized religion, and you operate not based on faith but a far more understandable concept: money. I am here to hire the Court of Shadows to assist the United Cities Alliance in our mission to take

be a list, and Caleb took it almost instinctively. He skimmed some of the names but recognized only a scarce few as City Lords belonging to the Holy Church and City Lords who had refused to join any other

all business, we are still humans. Asking you to hunt your own family or friends is something I know you couldn’t do, even if it conflicts