The Primal Hunter

Jake’s second nap of the day was quite a bit longer than the first one. He ended up sleeping nearly ten hours straight, the longest in quite a while. And yes, he still categorized that as a nap.

Honestly, sleeping at higher grades was a weird thing. You didn’t need to sleep, and Jake had heard that some races just straight-up couldn’t, but those who started at lower grades where sleep was a necessity still retained this ability. As you then evolved, sleeping changed from being about physiological needs and became closer to a hidden skill of sorts. During sleep, one regenerated resources far faster, even when compared to meditation, and it especially helped refresh mental energy. Finally, and perhaps most importantly… sleeping was just nice.

Waking up, Jake struggled to get out of bed, not due to his body still being weak, but the allure of just laying there five more minutes. Alas, he had to get moving, so he got up and did some unnecessary stretches. Looking over his own body, he found most of his armor still in shambles, but at least he wasn’t outright dirty, as the arcane energy had thoroughly destroyed any blood that had gotten on him during the fight. He still went for a dip in the pond outside of the lodge to freshen up before heading into town to check up with Miranda.

Jake took out the cloak from his inventory – an item he didn’t really bother wearing anymore due to how useless it was – to at least cover up the broken armor. Looking at least a little representable, Jake made his way to the main office building of Haven, releasing a Pulse of Perception to confirm Miranda was there. She was currently alone in her office, giving Jake a perfect opportunity to sneak in.

He quickly made it there, and before he had time to knock on the door, she spoke from within.

“Come on in.”

Jake complied as he opened the door, seeing Miranda surrounded by papers and seemingly hard at work as always. He also felt that she had not quite reached C-grade yet, but she was close. Very close.

[Human – lvl 199]

He reckoned she was dealing with a quest or two, as Jake heard that it usually took most a bit of time to do those. Especially the race quests. Something Jake had not experienced due to the… peculiarity of his circumstances.

It was also possible Miranda was just delaying her evolution on purpose to upgrade some skills. A bit like how Jake wanted to upgrade all his Malefic Viper skills before his own evolution.

“How did your adventure in the termite hive go? None of the drones sent out by Arnold caught you leaving, and I suddenly just detected you back at your lodge, so what happened?” Miranda asked, her voice not really concerned but more curious.

“I would say it went pretty well. I am relatively sure I took down the top Queen as well as the strongest fighter in the form of the Isoptera Hive King. Afterward, I had to tactically retreat as C-grade warrior termites came swarming, which does confirm there are more C-grades around,” Jake answered.

“We are aware. Arnold’s drones have scouted quite deeply, and while the hive does appear weakened, it is far from doomed. There are dozens of D-grade Queens still, and I am having a meeting with the World Council later today to discuss how we will address this threat looming under our feet. I assume we will likely create hunting parties and assemble an army of sorts to go and clean it out, at least as much as we can. In the deeper reaches, the termites seem busy dealing with other C-grade monsters, so hopefully, cutting off their resource supply from the surface and severely limiting their potential for growth will deal a heavy blow. Based on my understanding, a C-grade Queen cannot birth another C-grade Queen directly, requiring these D-grades to grow and evolve on their own. As long as we kill all the D-grades, we should thus cut off their future potential,” Miranda explained.

“Sounds like you got things handled,” Jake nodded, happy to hear that Arnold had agreed to help and, from the sounds of it, even done a stellar job.

I will bring up the possibility with the Sky Whale if he can provide monsters capable of breaking into the deeper layers from the oceanside and create some chaos,” Miranda smiled. “Don’t worry about allowing more C-grades to enter human land. We will handle this thing

the cleanup or hunting of the termites himself. While he would welcome another Hive King to fight, he didn’t want to just go on a rampage slaughtering endless numbers of weak C-grade Isoptera Warriors. Hunting

waved him off before asking: “There is one thing I have been meaning to ask you. Haven, as in the city here in the forest, is at the moment rather limited in area and population very much purposefully. However, we have had a flood of applications from people who want to move

and ruin the good vibes. Let everyone who is already here stay, and still allow in people actually worth having around. High-level individuals who have some level of actual power, not just political clout. I don’t know about you, but I would prefer for Haven not to turn into a hive of political bullshit but have

mercenaries of the Holy Church, Risen, and United Cities Alliance now find themselves without any faction and, seeing as they want to stay independent, have set their sights on

too many flooding in and ruining things for everyone. No one wants endless queues at the nice skewer shops. Anyway, overall,

there more you

when are you evolving? What is stopping you?” Jake

will evolve… should not be too long, but it all depends on if I can actually find time to practice my magic

world-threatening

you had decided to spend a few months wiping out every termite in the hive and never told me about it. But we both know that wouldn’t happen, so kudos to you for actually

like you

the expected course of action? You being responsible is outside

Jake said, faking hurt. “Screw this place; I

waved him off, indicating there wasn’t more for him to deal with. If she did need him for something, she was

the teleporter he had set up down there. A few minutes later, he was once more dragged through the void and back to

as expected. It was pretty much ready for the final push to actually awaken the Queen, and even if he decided to do this final push now, a C-grade would hatch. But Jake wanted more than that to test if

Let’s get to work.

quite a bit from this fight, where he had finally allowed himself to let loose. He was now also fairly sure that he had missed some very basic things from his

first thought. He had several more insights too, and he didn’t bother to

greeting Meira and asking Duskleaf for some basic input, he did not allow himself to get distracted as he reflected and experimented. Reflected on how he would create an item capable of truly affecting the evolutionary trajectory of another

had recognized before that aspects of the skill still had to be applied as Jake was ultimately transforming Records and energy. However, Jake was now beginning to wonder if even

truly did was mix and change those already present. If one wanted “more” Records, a fusion of different materials or the use of

Like the item Jake had used to upgrade his boots when he was in D-grade or what the Sword Saint had told Jake about having done to his old ancestral sword. In Jake’s case, he had brought out Records related to the item, while the Sword Saint

were fundamental qualitative changes that resulted in better items. However, improving Records through outside items was not