The Primal Hunter

The journey to Skyggen was one Jake had made before, but this time was far faster in every way. Jake’s One Step had upgraded, allowing him to go further than ever before, and he was fast approaching the city. It did help that he also ignored everything in the way… except one thing.

Curiosity had always been one of his strong traits, but the last time he had gone to Skyggen, he had listened to the logical part of his brain. A massive mountain appeared before Jake, one reaching far into the sky above the many layers of clouds. It was bonkers how big it was, and Jake faintly felt a powerful aura from the top. A C-grade aura. Jake had not wanted to go the last time he was there as he was not quite ready to face a C-grade, but this time it should be fine, right?

Right?

Jake rapidly approached the mountain, which only looked bigger the closer he got. It completely put any mountain on Earth to shame, and based on how massive the base was, Jake estimated its height should not be measured in tens but hundreds of kilometers.

Kind of makes sense, Jake thought. The C-grade – or C-grades if there were more than one – had to live far enough up on the mountain due to the system restrictions.

The climb wasn’t fast, but it wasn’t slow either. By climb, Jake meant running vertically with One Step as he teleported up in the air like he had just unlocked infinite teleporting double-jumps. Soon, he made it ten kilometers up. Then thirty. Fifty. A hundred.

For every step, the mountain narrowed a little. When he reached the hundred-kilometer mark, Jake guessed the mountain had to be around three hundred kilometers tall. He did spot many caves also while making his way up and many creatures living on the mountain. Thousands of birds made it their resting place before heading out into the merciless skies again, some of which found themselves hunted by predators lurking on the mountainsides.

None of them paid him any mind, and Jake didn’t bother them either. It did not take him long before Jake finally reached the layer of cloud that allowed C-grades, and he instantly felt the shift. The air suddenly turned chilly and white snow covered the mountain. He saw now that the rest of the mountain was covered in white, but more than that, he felt something else there. A presence that seemed to seep into the mana itself.

Curiosity still had hold of him as Jake went to investigate. He flew closer to the mountain and landed as he saw several tracks. Areas where the snow had been disturbed by what looked like a giant claw print.

He kept going forward until he saw a massive cave that seemed to burrow straight into the middle of the mountain. Icicles covered the sides of it, and Jake felt an intense chill coming from within. Enough for him to use a barrier of arcane mana to defend himself from it.

As he stood there, he also felt something from his boots. As he was earthbound, he could detect natural treasures, and from within that cave, a powerful sensation came. Sense of the Malefic Viper did not react, meaning it was not a toxin, but that did not mean it would be useless to him.

Not that Jake thought he could claim it… for he also felt a powerful aura.

Mid-tier C-grade? No… not quite… but still strong, Jake thought. Whatever creature dwelled within also seemed to become aware of him as its presence swept out from within. Jake was ready to retreat as two blue wisps of light lit up within the unnaturally dark cave.

A rumble sounded as he heard the sound of claws scraping stone. Soon, the creature became visible as it slowly walked out of the cavern, the chilly air cooling down as it got closer. Jake knew upon feelings its presence that It was a creature of pure mana. One of the natural masters of magic in the multiverse.

The blue scales covered its body as vapor exited its slightly open mouth. Two claws dragged it forward, each attached to large leathery wings, with two legs being the primary method of moving when not in the air. For some reason, Jake did not feel any fear but only had a stupid smile on his lips from finally meeting one in the wild.

Wyvern – lvl

often could not match a similarly-leveled evolved wyvern. The reason was simple… the requirements for a reptile to evolve into

a voice echoed out

smiled. “No, I am not. It is

“Then die.”

reacted as fast as he could and activated Arcane Awakening and crossed his arms in front of him as several layers

tried to redirect some of the force as he was shot backward. The arcane barriers froze and shattered one by one as he felt like he was in the middle of a blizzard. Within a second, the final barrier shattered, and the cold energy hit Jake directly. His skin froze, his armor cracked, and he had to close his eyes for them not to freeze solid, the already

healing potion into his mouth to fight the cold energy that invaded his body and

through the air like a comet down toward the ground. The entire front of his body was frozen, and Jake gritted his teeth as he managed to move his frostbitten limbs and brace for impact before he smashed into the ground, creating a large

emanated from his body, even freezing his surroundings. Feeling pretty damn chilly, Jake sat

rude

could this count as a shortcut? Definitely

from the frostbite. It was damn annoying, and even with his vital energy working at high speed, it would take some time to eliminate all the frost energy in his body. The breath of a wyvern was far less potent than that of a true dragon, but it still held incredible conceptual

journey. He complained a bit under his breath and swore: the

how to deal with a newborn, especially with Caleb working early hours and whatnot as a school teacher. At least that hadn’t been an issue

talked about how he would always wake up when you entered the room, almost

from behind. “Back in my day, we had to get up every two hours to a crying baby and soldier through the day on four

all fairness, I am not even getting four

for a newborn… but he seems normal. Part of me had thought that maybe kids would grow up to adulthood within a few months or have

concurred on that one. All of it. He had feared what kind of life a child could have in a life where battle and killing were so common, and perhaps more,

surprisingly enough, it was generally positive. How exactly the status menu of a toddler looked, he couldn’t know for good reason, but

was already level 3, which meant that by pre-system standards, he should have more stats than a regular adult man. Or at least close. At least he should be far stronger than he was. Okay, he was still stronger than a normal kid, but it was not extreme, so even if he could crawl faster and had quite the grip, it was not at a level where he could lift his own dad off the ground. He did

to sometimes do less than intelligent things. Things that would usually make a kid cry, such as bumping his head or hitting himself with a toy, he ignored. The few times he managed to scratch himself, the wound would also heal

thankful that the system seemed to have made life for both children and parents easier. No longer did you need to be so fearful of anything and everything going wrong. Parents no longer

lucky,” Caleb just smiled

the hourse, and Caleb would have to leave soon, leaving his dad behind to babysit. Yes, even with the system and all that, there was no way he and Maja

Maja settling in?”