The Primal Hunter

“I feel bad for them. Imagine just living your happy life in the water, and then suddenly, this naked monster comes down and forces you to stab them several times as you try to get away in fear. But the monster refuses and just keeps smashing his body into you in a ridiculous display of self-harm. The confusion when he then just leaves with several of your spikes in his chest must only make it worse, too,” Sandy said in a highly judgemental tone.

Jake was sitting on a jagged rock sticking out of the deep ocean, completely naked. Well, naked, as long you didn’t count the many quills sticking out of many places on his body. He ignored Sandy as he meditated, feeling the venom from the many quills course through his body. He purposefully did not eliminate it right away but slowly integrated it into his body.

He had gotten super lucky, and they had come across an area filled with sea urchins. No C-grades were around, but thousands of D-grades dwelled below, and Jake had jumped into the water with glee once he discovered them. Sense of the Malefic Viper had detected them even from a distance as they were all highly toxic and had powerful neurotoxins on their quills. From how the venom felt, Jake assumed these were all weaker versions of the C-grade he had gained the Lifeblood of. Probably also weaker variants. However, what mattered was that their venom was similar in nature.

This meant Jake had just stumbled across a living treasure trove of potential ingredients. It was also a great way to feed Palate and allowed him to get more familiar with the Lifeblood of the Sea Urchin Emperor. Consuming the actual liquid was only worth it in small quantities due to the diminishing return of Palate when eating something new. Yet he still wanted to become more familiar with it, so these lesser D-grade variants were perfect.

There was the negative side effect of Sandy being bored of waiting. Jake had spent about a day here at the many sea urchins, and he knew Sandy was getting more and more impatient. It was weird that a C-grade was so much in a rush for no reason, but Jake assumed it was just in Sandy’s nature.

“I told you to find a solution then,” Jake said in return, briefly exiting meditation. “As long as the sea urchins are here, we stay here. At least for a while longer.”

“You just wait!” Sandy said with indignation. “I will show you!”

“Do just that,” Jake said teasingly. “Back to meditation.”

Sandy tried to say more, but Jake blocked the worm out. He opened a single eye and saw Sandy wriggle in anger up in the air, making him smirk as he reentered meditation. The poison still flowed through his body, and he absorbed it all over the next hour or so before diving under the waves again.

The Sea Urchins were all large porcupine-like creatures and were pretty much just oversized versions of the pre-system animals. The sea had many parts where it was not as deep, and this was one such place as they are close to a few islands, meaning he could make it to the seafloor only by diving a few hundred meters down.

Jake happily swam down to a big crowd of the animals, and annoyingly enough, they now no longer attacked him on sight but instead just hunkered down and erected their spikes. Not to worry, Jake could make them attack him anyway as he just barrelled into one and got himself impaled. Well, okay, not impaled, more stabbed a bit.

Each sea urchin’s main body was about the size of a small two-person car, with their spikes a bit longer than that. Their sizes did vary a bit, and there were some variants here and here with different forms of venoms. Jake wanted the ones with white tips on their quills while avoiding the ones with blackened quills. He did try to get stabbed by them a bit, but they just had necrotic poison, so it wasn’t that exciting.

Mind you, he hadn’t gotten stabbed on purpose the first time around. These sea urchins hunted as a flock, and the first time he dove down, they had all attacked him. Their tactic was to form a barrier of themselves all around him and slowly incircle him before stabbing their prey to death.

Jake reckoned this was also the cause of their mixed toxins. Neurotoxins would make it harder for the prey to flee, while the necrotic poison would slowly whittle down and kill it. It was a good strategy, and Jake could even see C-grades die when a thousand sea urchins decided to attack. Especially larger C-grades would find themselves injected with ludicrous levels of venom.

However, this strategy of theirs quite frankly sucked against small targets. It was clear that Jake did not fit in the underwater meta where most powerful creatures were massive, and those of small size moved in huge groups. He was a singular small person, so only a handful of urchins could prick him at once. If all of them struck him at once, Jake could not come out of it alive simply due to the sheer physical damage, but as things were, they were simply not a threat.

something would come out of it. The most usual thing was a Beastcore, and so was it with these sea urchins. If they had a Beastcore, the Lifeblood would be useless, and one of the spikes could only get infused, making it into great material for a spear but shit-tier material for Jake. He even had one of them not

Jake continued this process of diving down, getting

Jake also began to forcefully extract some venom from some of them for further testing. On the third

his rock and meditating as the worm

ignoring me!” Sandy yelled, finally getting Jake’s

worm and got out of the water. “Didn’t you say you were

madly. “Also! Since you are not killing these

they go,” Jake answered with a shrug. He had taunted Sandy for a

got a feeling he had indeed

and down into the water as he saw the worm suck up seawater like a vacuum. Space distorted and warped as the C-grade went further down until finally, Sandy reached the seafloor where all the urchins

quick and smiled. “I only need the ones

for a minute or so more, eating close to a thousand of the D-grades, all of them between level 150 and 170. After being done sucking up, the massive worm closed its mouth for a bit before opening it again, spitting out large sea

sending him back to his usual cave-like stomach. Outside, Jake saw

“So…”

think I ate too

some of it containing a few quills here and there. After these ten minutes, Sandy once more rose up

thank me for making a water stomach,”

He had just heavily

how is torturing someone not forcing them?”

the definition of torture, how about you explain what you did?” Jake asked curiously. In all honesty, even after all his time, he had no idea how

get stuff when you do the alchemy, why can’t I eat other creatures and maybe get something

I can go there somehow?” Jake asked, unsure how the setup of Sandy’s stomachs worked. His Sphere of Perception looked outside of Sandy while inside, only revealing the room he was in. He assumed this was linked to him being unable to see inside of people’s bodies, even with

seconds,” Sandy said. Two seconds passed before, off to the side, and a hole appeared in the floor. It looked

“Is this a portal?”

answered shruggingly. “I don’t really know. I am

further. Jumping into the manhole, Jake felt like he was in the ocean again. His sphere instantly spread out, and Jake was taken aback. The stomach Jake was usually in was about the size of a large room, but this

and Jake estimated the entire stomach was around a kilometer deep and

said. “How

keep the environment healthy. I also probably