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.

Arcane Armaments (Epic)] – Be it a weapon or armor, through your arcane mana, you shall never be found wanting. Allows the Hunter to in-depth design and summon armaments of arcane mana. 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 of stability. The duration and durability of all items summoned

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

to summon armor and weapons? Three times getting offered effectively the 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

Jake did feel pretty damn certain this 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 had partly been facilitated

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

it, things were

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

as an upgrade to

more 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 about

into just adding more arrows. Jake didn’t doubt that the basic splitting function would be even better than before, with the entire Arrow Rain aspect becoming far better. Even the way the rain happened had improved, as rather than just mass-cloning the arrows, this skill would just make one big arrow that would then explode

into the skill also had the effect of making the cloning of all arcane arrows – which 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

More arrows, better cost-efficiency, and a more effective method of creating Arrow

skill by far was the option to put the skill on a cooldown in order to “push himself beyond his usual abilities” and create a self-sustaining Arcane Arrow Rain. If

while, and Palate also kind of did with the current situation going on with it right now – because yes, on a side note, even one and a half year or so after having the World Core explode,

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

one having a suspiciously similar line in

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 class? Like how Avaricious was all about making his attacks more effective against higher-leveled

moving it further away. Perception played into this, as the further one could see, the more ambitious the horizon he chased. The scaling based on levels also made some level of sense, as every enemy reflected what obstructed him on his Path toward Horizon’s Edge, and every enemy

supercharging of skills maybe a representation of that? That he would reach beyond what he could reach beyond his own station and, at the cost of putting the skill on

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

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 an option, too, if he went for the