The Primal Hunter

Another in-between room, another small break before it was on to floor forty-five.

Over a year had passed since Jake had gotten his Arcane Supremacy skill, and throughout this time, he had time to thoroughly familiarize himself with the skill. He had time to relearn some things about his own body and truly discover how massive the bonus from the skill had been, despite the less-than-optimal setup of the floors he had been through.

The two skills that benefitted the most turned out to be Arcane Awakening, which wasn’t overly surprising, but he was a bit surprised at Arcane Powershot being the second skill that got the most out of the upgrade. Pure arcane magic benefitted the most, but something like Arcane Powershot dipped into several concepts along with the purely physical aspects.

Arcane Awakening, on the other hand, dipped into all of the benefits provided by Arcane Supremacy. The lowered cost naturally made the skill more efficient, and the increased potency materialized in Jake just having to move less energy through his body to achieve the same effect as before, thus also lessening the strain on his body and increasing the time he could keep the skill active.

Adding on his increased resistance to his own arcane energy, the benefit was massive. He could now keep the stable 30% boost active nearly indefinitely without suffering much strain on his body, while the offensive and defensive modes were also pretty easy to deal with. He wouldn’t even suffer any period of weakness from just using these two anymore as long as he didn’t use them for a prolonged period.

A full Arcane Awakening boosting all his stats by 60% still took a lot out of him, and getting around the period of weakness wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t as bad as before, though, and he could keep the full boost active for longer, with especially the health drain reduced significantly. The passive shield and the extra arcane damage with every attack had naturally also both been improved.

Arcane Awakening still didn’t allow him to boost above the percentages set by the skill without him deciding to purposefully push it higher, which was something he hadn’t dared to do, lest he would blow himself up. Even if Arcane Supremacy had given him more control over his energies, he still doubted he would get out of doing that unscathed, assuming he survived it at all. But… the potential for doing so was definitely there. Circumstances would decide if he would ever do it.

The second skill that experienced massive benefits was, as mentioned, Arcane Powershot, and some of the benefits were for quite obvious reasons. He could charge it for longer due to his increased resistance, do it faster due to increased control, and release far more potent shots due to everything put together. As the skill wasn’t only about arcane energy, it “only” got around thirty percent better in total… but adding thirty-percent extra power to his most reliable attack? Yeah, that was massive.

However… Jake did find one skill that got worse, and Jake had no idea how to fix it. One Step had been hit with the increased resource cost quite hard, which was a real bummer as he, quite frankly, had no bloody idea how to integrate his arcane energy into that skill. It was a well-defined Legacy skill, so even if he wanted an upgrade, it definitely wasn’t going to be easy. Shit, if he broke the set upgrade path, it would only get harder to upgrade it in the future… so as things were now, this was just a loss he would have to live with. It wasn’t all bad, though.

The one good thing was that the increased stamina cost was only a thing in combat. When Jake used it just as a skill to travel, the cost remained unaffected, which he assumed was due to the skill being originally invented as a traveling skill, not a combat skill. He was also very happy that the system distinguished when a skill was used in combat and not in combat wasn’t being applied to the Malefic Viper Legacy skills.

Oh, and there had been one other skill that had been negatively affected… though that hadn’t been for long. Jake was naturally talking about Splitting Arrow Rain, which he pretty damn quickly got upgraded with inspiration from his skill selection.

[Splitting Arrow Rain (Rare)] – A skill most often used by archers, now usurped and reformed by the Avaricious Arcane Hunter. Allows you to clone your arrows while in flight, allowing them to retain innate magical properties. Each arrow has variable strength and can be further split into less potent versions. If the original arrow is shot upwards, it can be split to create a far more potent arrow rain. Adds a small bonus to the effect of Agility and Wisdom when using Splitting Arrow Rain. Increased damage based on Perception and the distance the arrows fall from when creating an arrow rain.

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[Splitting Arcane Arrow Rain (Epic)] – A skill most often used by archers, now usurped and reformed by the Arcane Hunter of Horizon's Edge. Allows you to clone your arrows while in flight, allowing them to retain innate magical properties. Each arrow has variable strength and can be further split into less potent versions. If the original arrow is shot upwards, you can explode hundreds of smaller arrows, creating an Arcane Arrow Rain. Cloning arcane arrows or creating Arcane Arrow Rains using arcane arrows has a far lower mana and stamina cost. Adds a bonus to the effectiveness of Agility and Wisdom when using Arcane Arrow Rain. Increased damage based on Perception and the distance the arrows fall from when creating an Arcane Arrow Rain.

The skill honestly just integrated what he could get from the better Arrow Rain in the skill selection. It now used arcane energy, allowing him to clone arrows cheaper while also adding on the part where he exploded an arrow to make it rain. That was definitely better than what he did before, where he just shot upward and waited for the arrow to begin falling downward on its own.

He also finally got working on some curse-based poison, but it proved a lot more difficult than he had thought it would, so progress was slow in that department. Overall, things felt pretty slow, considering that even after two more floors, Jake had barely gotten any levels.

Status

Name: Jake Thayne

Race: [Human (C) – lvl 232]

Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge – lvl 232]

Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper – lvl 233]

2 class levels and 3 profession levels were all a bit over a year, and two floors amounted to. By now, Jake had to get used to slower levels unless he did something truly impressive. He kind of wished he could do a Minaga fight every floor, but alas, that wasn’t how Nevermore worked. Or anything worked, really.

How it did work was by throwing them on another floor meant to teach them a lesson. And the old man already had a good guess of what the last “lesson” floor would be about before they entered it.

“It will be related to gods and religion in some way,” the Sword Saint said with certainty as they were about to exit the in-between room.

“That… can either go very well or really badly,” Jake muttered. “Assuming you are right, that is.”

He was right.

was pretty damn deserted, with many old medieval-looking buildings surrounding them. The only place

me, Jake cursed as the welcome

Nevermore: Peerin Kingdom of

kingdom you have appeared in has been derelict for a long time,

gain access to the features of the kingdom as you aim to leave

teleportation that takes one outside of it. The only way off the floor is by leaving this formation first. You must navigate the kingdom and reach the waygate station at the edge of the kingdom, which will allow you to fully leave the Starcross Pantheon’s

permission to use. With B and even A-grades present in the kingdom, trying

getting the attention of the clergy will be vital to your mission, as

the teleportation token to

the clergy

Token used (0/1), Get the attention of the

achievements, or objectives may be hidden on

Current Nevermore Points: 102.073

five of them. It didn’t take a genius to figure out this was the teleportation token, and Dina instantly grabbed it,

muttered as he scratched the back

the little hunter doesn’t instantly anger

the hawk. “Dina, would it be best if the two of us took the lead? I am sure you have plenty of experience with how one is supposed to act around religious figures, while I myself have had some unpleasant experiences with a certain god and

second before speaking. “Do we care about the bonus objectives here much? Or would it not be better to move on as fast as

A total no-brainer.

“Swift progress is preferred.”

“Ree.”

the old man said, unsure what she was getting

answering before he understood. “I take it you also wanna just move on

Dina said. “That

absurd, but these last four floors since the Minaga fight had nearly doubled their total points. Jake and company had known that points would increase as one got further in Nevermore, but they hadn’t expected every single floor after floor forty to give over 10.000 Nevermore Points each. Especially not considering that they didn’t even go insanely out of their way to do all the bonus objectives and achievements they could. But… just the huge floor clear bonus being

quickly and get 4500 Nevermore Points, that would likely give the best

assume you have already felt it up ahead?” Dina continued. “There are many blessed inside… so I think it is worth a

man chuckled. “Sure, give it a go… if the floor blocks others

they can feel

the young master have whatever he pleases,” the Sword Saint said

said as he stepped toward the church ahead with the others in tow. They had to walk up nearly fifty steps to reach the giant closed double door leading into the church proper, but about halfway up, Jake

It spread out of him… and

Felt his presence.

two paladins appeared, standing at the top of the steps only a

–

–

Paladin – lvl

“I… who are yo-“

god down here,”

confused before suddenly turning angry. “How dare

as he flared his aura even more, mixing in Pride of the Malefic Viper to further

much comply,” the Sword Saint added in, also tossing in a bit of his

as the priest stared, clearly unsure how to react. The

well… full Young

contact your god,” Jake scroffed. “Or are you some damn heretic? Is that why this pathetic kingdom has fallen

could say as they discovered that the priest had indeed contacted someone. An aura appeared toward the back of the large

he was in

going