The Primal Hunter

Jake kept staring at the corpse of the Hive King for several more seconds, still ready for anything to happen. It looked like it could begin moving at the very next second, even if he knew it wouldn’t. It took a few seconds for Jake to finally dismiss the katars as he fell backward onto his ass, breathing out a loud sigh of relief.

“Damn, you were tough,” Jake said out loud to the corpse of the Hive King. Even now, with the carapace broken in so many places, the termite still looked indestructible. It had not lost a single of its legs despite the continued bombardment, but he could see that the damage to its internals was an entirely other matter. It was all just a mush of flesh and blood beneath the armor, the explosions doing quite a number on the C-grade.

Laying there on the ground, he checked some of his other notifications. Funnily enough, he had another identical string of “branding failed” messages, and he also saw at the very bottom he had indeed gained a level from the Hive King.

*’DING!’ Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 203 - Stat points allocated, +50 Free Points*

Getting only one level for killing a monster like that seemed bad… but one had to remember Jake had only spent about a day in the termite hive. Earning three class levels in a single day for a C-grade was considered extremely fast, even if one took insane risks to accomplish it.

Reflecting on the fight, there were a few standout moments.

Jake had not really thought about it in the heat of it all … but Eternal Shadow usually had an innate cooldown of sorts. Yet he had used it twice in a row, somehow bypassing it. He frowned, looking for an explanation. Even now, as he lay there on the ground, he knew he could not summon Eternal Shadow again. The cooldown was active, despite far longer passing than the time between his last two casts.

After thinking about it for a bit, he saw only one real explanation: Moment of the Primal Hunter. Somehow the skill being active meant that the cooldown of Eternal Shadow hadn’t properly been applied, something Jake had never even considered was a thing. In combat, he had just acted on instinct most of the time. He still wasn’t sure how and why it had worked, but he wasn’t one to complain over a good thing.

Closing his eyes, Jake wanted to take a breather and relax but knew he would have to move soon. The cavern was collapsing all around, starting mainly at the edges. A massive hole more than two hundred meters deep had been blasted into the ceiling, still pulsing with destructive arcane mana even now, speeding up the collapse.

With a bit of struggle, he got up and cracked his neck. He had stored the bow back into his necklace, despite a deep tear down its middle and small fractures all over it. He felt lucky that it still registered as an item and hoped it could still prove useful somehow. Maybe he could find a talented crafter to repair and improve it… who knows. Speaking of items… it was looting ti-

Just then, Jake felt like something was off, and he promptly released a Pulse of Perception. Just as he did, his eyes opened wide. “Well, shit.”

Mustering all the speed he could, he jumped over and stored the corpse of the Hive King. Next, he stored the entire corpse of the Queen as well as all the Guards he felt cores had manifested within. Rushing forward, he got into the egg chamber of the Hive Queen, the barrier having faded after both the King and Queen had fallen.

Arcane Awakening was still active, and he was on a timer before he would have to deactivate it and experience what he reckoned would be quite

not his only

Jake had wondered where all the spawns were… and now he

body began to change color, and just as it did, they appeared. Termites streamed into the chamber by the hundreds, but just as they were about to reach Jake, Wings of the Malefic Viper activated, and Jake disappeared

the hive. He had made it all the way to the middle of the valley with his lodge in Haven, his wings turning to mist and dispersing the moment he did. Jake didn’t have the energy to do anything besides falling forward onto the grass, Arcane Awakening deactivating, and Jake taking a well-deserved nap

again to rebuild and reclaim. None of them noticed as thousands of invisible metal spheres entered through the mounds, invisible and undetectable by them all. The spheres spread out once they were inside, each scanning its surroundings as

helping hide all other drones. Slowly, a map was formed of the hive, hundreds of thousands of kilometers of tunnels were put into a three-dimensional model, and Arnold, as well as Haven as a whole, began to get

not overly deep network towards the surface

went even deeper than that, remaining undiscovered or perhaps just being ignored. Its goal was not to map out anything but find out how deep the tunnels went. It flew a few hundred kilometers deeper than Jake had managed to get, and it finally reached vast expansive caverns. Caverns larger than was imaginable by pre-system standards. Their sizes were measured in hundreds of kilometers rather than hundreds of meters, and there, the drone managed

battled as they tried to conquer more land. Thousands of C-grades fought local wildlife, claiming resources and battling for experience and power. Like the depths of the ocean, the pinnacle of the sky, and

were perhaps about to change as the underground monsters got an opportunity to fight back with the menace

as the Council, with Miranda at the helm, would also soon make

and stared at the sky, seeing it was now night. Not that night and day mattered much anymore. Any human, even in E-grade, was totally fine with seeing at night, and with sleep not being a thing for so many and the need reduced for everyone, there was no reason for society to function

strong, Jake reckoning he had only slept for an hour or so. He had really pushed himself with that Arcane Awakening, and flooding out all the earth mana had caused quite a

joked as he forced himself to stand. He started out by taking out his loot, more specifically, the corpses of the many ectognas. It took quite a bit of effort for him to dig out the cores from all the

had killed, but Jake felt the Records within were a lot more potent.

inspection of the corpse, he didn’t feel any core anywhere. Instead, he felt strong energy from a solid piece of its armor covering the back of the Hive King. This specific piece was about a meter and a half long, and eighty or so centimeters wide, with

is extremely durable, offering incredible defenses against all types of attacks. Has high natural rigidity, making it a

could not really use it for anything by himself. He needed a good crafter to work with it, but he doubted he would find such a crafter on Earth. Arnold definitely didn’t strike him as the type to use chitin. He was more of

a proper break. Feeling tired despite just waking up, he stumbled into the lodge and headed straight for the bed. He wasn’t sleepy-tired, but the kind of

closed his eyes as he reached out to

edge of your seat at the final moments of the

promptly answered. “It was