The Primal Hunter

Upgrading skills was always a difficult and time-consuming process. You had so much to evaluate and so much to do, and Jake’s method of upgrading was considered even harder than the standard approach. He insisted on only doing it during combat and only reflected on how to upgrade the skills on a surface level in between fights.

This would usually be an incredibly ineffective, if not downright horrible, method as it carried so many more risks. Especially when you did this only while fighting enemies at a higher grade. However, to Jake, this added element of danger only made him focus more. It allowed him to truly feel and experience the movements of energy in a more profound way, and his senses felt sharpened. Probably because they partly were.

It was not a joke either when he said Perception was a big reason why he could upgrade the skills the way he did. Rather than do a long time of experimenting and theorizing, he could feel and perceive the skills and how they worked and potentially find snags and room for improvement, along with discovering potential areas to build upon for an upgrade. Perhaps more importantly, it allowed him to faster rule out dead ends and ideas that were too hard to pull off with Jake’s current level of skill and grade.

As for how many skills Jake had managed to upgrade during this month? Three in total. Each upgrade used different methods and approaches but resulted in the same: Jake growing stronger. All were skills parts of Jake’s usual toolbox and perhaps his most essential ones in a fight.

He had been a busy hunter, and the first skill was one he used all the time.

Splitting Arrow, or more accurately, Enhanced Splitting Arrow. Currently sitting at rare rarity since just after Jake evolved to D-grade, where he had upgraded it from uncommon rarity to allow the split to work with his Arcane Hunter’s Arrows. That upgrade had allowed the arrow to split and retain innate magical properties.

It was a simple yet effective skill.

[Enhanced Splitting Arrow (Rare)] – A skill most often used by archers, now usurped and reformed by the Avaricious Arcane Hunter. Allows you to clone your arrows while in flight, allowing them to retain innate magical properties. Each arrow strikes with the power of the original. Adds a small bonus to the effect of Agility and Wisdom when using Enhanced Splitting Arrow.

Paths of improvement? Several. Jake had many ideas. Some of the first that sprung to mind was to allow it to clone even the poison on the arrows and other external magical properties. As an example, then Jake could not split an Arcane Powershot as the Powershot added properties to the arrow that were not innate. Okay, while he could probably still split it, all it would do was make the attack weaker, so it wasn’t worth it.

However, this method of improvement quickly hit a snag in that one of the biggest strengths of Splitting Arrow was speed and how subtle it was to use. If Jake wanted to make it so much more powerful, the skill would require a lot more energy to use as Jake did pay mana and stamina when he split arrows, and dependent on the poison, the cost could get insane. Sleeping Night Toxin would be so darn expensive to clone. Jake was not even sure he had the mana pool for it. So he quickly moved away from doing that.

Which is when Jake remembered his most important motto. Keep things simple. Why would he need to really change the skill? He just needed to improve it. Make it better than what it was. So why not just do that? Focus on improving every aspect there already was – something that would become a theme with these three upgrades. For Splitting Arrow, he felt like he needed to truly understand the process that caused the arrows to split and improve upon that.

Jake did have utterly bonkers Perception, so it was only right to put it to use. He thoroughly analyzed the moment his arrows split and the entire process from start to end. Since gaining it, the skill had gotten a lot stronger already. The resource cost was lower per split than the day he got it, and he had an easier time splitting more arrows than before. This alone was perhaps enough for an upgrade if he pursued it more actively, but Jake went in another direction. One he also believed would shore up even more room for future upgrades and improvement. A path where Jake had taken a lot of inspiration from the Sword Saint and the duel they had. The result had been better than expected.

[Splitting Arrow Rain (Epic)] – A skill most often used by archers, now usurped and reformed by the Avaricious Arcane Hunter. Allows you to clone your arrows while in flight, allowing them to retain innate magical properties. Each arrow has variable strength and can be further split into less potent versions. If the original arrow is shot upwards, it can be split to create a far more potent arrow rain. Adds a small bonus to the effect of Agility and Wisdom when using Splitting Arrow Rain. Increased damage based on Perception and the distance the arrows fall from when creating an arrow rain.

Jake did not have a good area of effect skill before besides just a lot of arcane magic. Now, Jake had what could thoroughly be classified as a disaster-level attack. Pre-upgrade, each Splitting Arrow had the power of the original, but with this version, Jake could vary it. He could make ten arrows with the power of the original or a hundred arrows with about twenty percent of the originals… because, yes, they actually retained more power than math would otherwise suggest.

The upgrade had come during a fight with a massive water elemental while crossing a small part of one of the oceans of Earth. It had been larger than any creature Jake had faced before and relied solely on its massive resource pools to survive. Jake had bombarded it with thousands of arrows every few seconds and shown it that he, too, had a lot of resources to spend. And mana potions.

With a bit of practice, Jake could truly make it look like it rained as he shot the arrows into the air and let them rain down on his foe. His archery skill was also an important aspect of this skill, allowing him to bend the original arrow and make it fall faster and at slightly different angles than

screwed against the elemental if it had just run away underwater, but Sandy had done Cosmic Generis Worm stuff and made it so the

improved, and once that was done, he moved on to another

Arcane Powershot.

his fighting style, it had to be this. Jake had gotten Powershot all the way back at level 10, right after he got out of the Challenge Dungeon. Since then, it had been his best archery skill, if Jake said so himself, but more than anything, it was his skill. He

worked well when used with others, but where would he be without Powershot? Probably at a far lower level, if not dead. It was only right to give the skill some

way was to add more to the skill, like how Jake had just improved Splitting

better understand those that were already there. Out of all the Primordials, Valdemar was the best at

through the barriers of the Malefic Viper and tear his flesh and bones apart as space and reality itself bent and buckled under his power. This was not simply because he was strong but because

Powershot was inherently a bit chaotic due to the destructive arcane energies, but that was primarily due to Jake’s lacking control. The more stable energy he could actively control and pour in, the more destructive energy he could stabilize

his own muscles burn, his skin peel off from destructive energies, and his bow struggled to not break apart from the sheer level of energy infused. After days of slowly refining the skill and dozens of dead C-grades that

the power. Evolved from Infused Powershot, it now uses a higher concept of mana to amplify itself. The higher the magnitude of the charge, the greater the stamina and mana expenditure. Arcane Powershot’s power is dependent on the charging duration, but due to your Arcane Mana’s inherent power, the base power without any charging is significantly higher than Infused Powershot. Adds a small bonus to the effectiveness of Agility and Strength as well as a

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Powershot (Ancient)] – Stamina the fuel – Mana the guide – Arcane the power. Using your arcane energy, charge a devastating attack using a bow that pushes your body, will, and control to their limits. The higher the magnitude of the charge, the greater the stamina and mana expenditure. Arcane Powershot’s power is dependent on the charging duration but has a powerful baseline due to your arcane affinity. Adds a medium bonus to the effectiveness of Agility and Strength as well as a substantial bonus to the

certain foe like the massive water elemental. The upgrade had come during one of his many times using it to first engage a foe, and everything had just clicked

nothing had really changed functionality-wise, yet it was quite different word-wise. All references to Infused Powershot were gone and now replaced with their own text, indicating that the skill was now more divorced from Infused Powershot than before. The changes were so few that not even the skill name had changed; the

in that there was still no inherent Perception-scaling in the skill, but it was acceptable for now. The skill did still

but Jake had protected himself already. The two energies interacted and rapidly reached equilibrium as Jake mixed stamina and mana

had ever used outside of one using Hunting Momentum, and Jake was already beginning to see a path to a goal he had formed for himself.

grade above

to be upgraded was a

it had just kind of happened as he worked on his other skills. This skill was one of those semi-passive ones that he didn’t think actively about, but seeing as it was

Avaricious Arcane Hunter. It fit the Arcane Hunter part, but there was nothing avaricious about it. The avaricious tag usually just meant he dealt more damage to foes above his own level and sometimes less against those at a lower level. Most often than not, the

treasure trove of Perception and better analyzed the arrows. Jake had already applied many concepts to them before and was rather used to them. He had found ways to infuse the Stealth Attack Concept better and now worked with Hunting Momentum. and began to practice a bit by first making a bunch of Arrows of the Ambitious Hunter

not to change the skill too much, though, as one of the best things about the Arcane Hunter’s Arrows skill was the instantaneous summon. If the skill lost that functionality, he would probably have to switch back to just using a quiver that conjured arrows, which

to ask himself why he only ever shot arrows that were either stable or destructive. Like, he knew it was best to go all-in with one element, but why have it be all static? Jake could make stable balls of arcane energy and then make those explode. His arcane bolts were stable at one moment and then destructive the next. That shouldn’t be too hard to also do with arrows,

focus. And after he began to be able to change the equilibrium of the arrows, he