The Primal Hunter

One skill selection was great.

Two skill selections? Now that was just awesome. And today was truly an awesome day.

Jake was already pretty happy with his new profession skill, even if he didn’t have the chance to start experimenting with it right then and there. Sure, he would like to sit down for a few weeks and just make Curse Fragments and see if he could find anything to use them for immediately, but that didn’t mean he was any less excited to get another class skill or maybe even upgrade one of his existing ones.

In fact… having both skill selections at once like this was double-awesome because it meant that it didn’t matter if the next floor had a lot of downtime for crafting or was filled with combat; Jake would have something new and shiny to play with.

So, feeling in a good mood, Jake began the skill selection.

*Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge class skills available*

And was instantly disappointed because, as was almost becoming customary by now, there, of course, had to be one shitty magic skill on offer.

[Devastating Arcane Orb (Rare)] – Harness your destructive arcane mana to bring devastation upon the world. Allows the Hunter to summon an explosive orb of arcane mana at a target location within your range of perception. The arcane orb will be highly destructive and especially effective against environmental mana, with energies tailored to wide-scale destruction over focused damage, allowing each Devastating Arcane Orb to destroy large areas. Multiple orbs can be conjured at once for optimal devastation. Adds a bonus to the effectiveness of Intelligence when using Devastating Arcane Orb.

Man, Jake was definitely feeling regret now. He should totally have picked Malefic Plague Theory as his profession skill, as he now realized he had missed out on a huge opportunity. Imagine the synergy. With a plague, he would wipe out a civilization of E-grades, and then he could blow up their cities with Devastating Arcane Orbs once everyone was dead! One for killing, one for destroying, the perfect combo to wipe out people too weak to fight back.

Alas, Jake had failed to predict he would be offered such a perfect skill in his class skill selection.

All kidding aside, why the hell would Jake want a rare skill that was tailor-made to blow up stuff? Not even enemies, just… stuff. Also, the reasoning behind him getting offered the skill felt pretty damn thin. Did it really all come from Jake blowing up some cities during floor forty-one? Sure, he did sometimes use highly destructive arcane magic to blow up large areas or as distractions, but enough for one of his five skill offerings to be taken up like this?

Yeah, it felt like it was a bullshit skill just there to fill the list. Something the next one on offer also kind of was, though at least there was some solid reasoning behind that one.

Armaments can be given to others. Weapons created will deal a small amount of bonus destructive arcane damage, while armor will be strengthened by the concept

Armaments and thinking it was pretty cool back several skill selections ago. He also remembered that skill had been an

same skill definitely felt like overkill. Additionally, why would he even need it in the first place? A summoned katar would definitely be worse than both Blackpoint Blade and definitely way worse than Eternal Hunger. Could he maybe make some armor out of it? Nah, that also seemed bad, as Jake was fully dedicated to dodging stuff and trying to gear himself out in arcane armor just seemed like it would weigh him down. The two only real use cases Jake could see were to make things for his allies, as he assumed even monsters could use summoned items like this. The other one was to summon arrows… in

upgrade to Superior Arcane Armaments came at least partly from his creation of Protean Arrow. Both were about designing things using arcane mana, after all. Of course, that upgrade

thought that would make him have any negative emotions towards that wonderful little box of puzzling wonders.

were finally starting to

of Horizon’s Edge (Ancient)] – At your will, cover the horizon in a sea of arrows. Allows you to repeatedly clone your arrows while in flight, allowing them to retain innate magical properties as one becomes hundreds. If the original arrow is shot upwards, it can be transformed into a devastating Arcane Arrow Rain, exploding as it releases a rainfall of arrows in a massive area. Cloning arcane arrows or creating Arcane Arrow Rains using arcane arrows has a far lower mana and stamina cost. On an internal cooldown, the Hunter can push himself beyond his usual abilities and create an arrow that, upon activation, will explode several times on a slight delay for multiple Arcane Arrow Rains. Doing this will temporarily make the skill unavailable. Adds a bonus to the effectiveness of Agility and Wisdom when using Arcane Arrow Rain. Increased damage based on Perception and the distance

by and will serve as an upgrade to your existing Splitting Arrow Rain, resulting

or less. One that was linked to his class, too, making it even more interesting. Reading over the actual effects, Jake was both impressed and a little unsure

with the entire Arrow Rain aspect becoming far better. Even the way the rain happened

was all of them – more cost-effective. This was honestly a pretty damn obvious upgrade he should probably implement himself if he didn’t take this skill. It seemed incredibly simple and was just something he had never considered prior. Adding his arcane affinity to the skill never seemed relevant, as he was

cost-efficiency, and

Arcane Arrow Rain. If

trigger and then become unusable for a while, and Palate also kind of did with the current situation

very curious about how this worked. Like, what was the concept between it? Usually, things that allowed you to break your own limits were classified as boosting skills, and even extremely powerful single-cast spells usually came with either a long cast time or some form of backlash or period of weakness after use. This skill didn’t mention that Jake would experience any of this, only a cooldown. Just to find out exactly how that worked, Jake nearly wanted to select the skill, but he had to remain steadfast. There were two more options

having a suspiciously similar

defenses shall stop your arrows as they pierce any foe that dares impede your Path toward the horizon. Allows the Hunter to create a Penetrating Arcane Arrow that will pierce through nearly any natural barriers and have a far higher penetrative effect on any defenses manifested or possessed by the target. Will temporarily lower the defenses of the foe if they are struck successfully. These effects are more powerful the higher the enemy’s defenses and the level disparity between you and your opponent. On an internal cooldown, the Hunter can push himself beyond his usual abilities and forcefully infuse the concepts of the Penetrating Arrow of Horizon’s Edge into another self-created arcane arrow. Doing this will temporarily make the skill unavailable, with this period dependent on the power of the arrow you infused. Due to conceptual synergy, Penetrating Arcane Arrow of Horizon’s Edge receives significantly increased bonuses from Unblemished Arrows

Was this maybe something inherent to the Hunter of Horizon’s Edge class? Like how Avaricious was all about making his attacks more effective against higher-leveled foes,

that was the case… why? What made this ability inherent to his class? Perception scaling made sense thematically with the concept of chasing the horizon. The horizon was just a metaphor for something unattainable that was incredibly far away, with any progress made toward the horizon just moving it further away. Perception played into this, as the further one could see, the more

of that? That he would reach beyond what he could reach beyond his

he wouldn’t get an answer by just thinking about it, so he

seemed like a bunker-breaker of sorts. It was created to destroy defenses and would probably work very well as an opener of sorts when Protean Arrow wasn’t an option. Or could he supercharge the skill and infuse the concept into the Protean Arrow? Yeah, that was definitely