The Primal Hunter

Jake was truly a genius. Why hadn’t he thought of using Polly earlier? It was such an obvious solution! Sure, he could also have asked Owen, but Polly had been keen on finding some way to help him for a while, and this was such a prime opportunity.

After he had gotten his clothing situation fixed through Polly – partly by cleaning it, partly by buying some new stuff - he headed straight back to a small townhouse that served as housing for Gladiators. Later on, he met back up with Owen and Polly to eat before going home and to bed. When he woke up and opened the door to the small house, he saw his clothes there, neatly packaged by the professional cleaning company.

What? He hadn’t actually made Polly clean them. With her whole young mistress vibe, she clearly never washed her own clothes either, so Jake had asked her where she got her clothes washed and had her escort him there. It was quite the high-end place based on what Jake could gather, specializing in cleaning armor and weapons for the combatants. As they already knew Polly, things went smoothly, and he didn’t even have to pay for anything. Not that there was a way to pay for anything without using Colosseum Points, and not even the Wyrmgod was cruel enough to make people in Challenge Dungeons spend points on not having dirty clothes.

Jake’s third day as a Gladiator was spent practicing with his bow, doing a Show Match, and working a bit on energy control when he was too physically tired to do any more target practice. The Show Match in question was versus some weird six-legged mammal creature that had died from just a few good kicks to the head.

The fourth day and onwards was very much the same as time passed. Archery practice was the name of the game, and he quickly got into a routine. Others would likely get bored doing the same things over and over again, but Jake had always been good at hyper-focusing on tasks until his body physically told him to stop. When that happened, he would just switch to working on something that took brain power instead until he was wrung out mentally too.

What rest he did need, he got through sleeping or during his rendezvous with Owen and Polly as they went out to eat, or Jake watched one of Owen’s matches. Speaking of Owen, he pretty quickly also reached Gladiator rank, with even Polly beginning to do some matches after finding herself inspired by Jake and Owen. She still had a long way to go, but she did at least begin to win some matches after learning some basic melee fighting along with her magic.

Jake wasn’t exactly surprised when she turned out to be pretty good at both. Her stats were clearly not ordinary; the only real problem was her lack of actual practice and fighting experience. Polly wasn’t going to become a Gladiator or anything like that before Jake left, but she could definitely get a few more promotions.

Everyone slowly got stronger, and soon, around nine entire weeks had passed since Jake had become a Gladiator, with nothing that exciting happening during this time. Jake just did one match every day, and as he slowly made progress, he realized that his math had been a bit off.

As he could do a Gladiator Match on the second day as a Gladiator, it would actually only take nine weeks to finish all ten fights. This resulted in a total of 54 Show Matches rewarding 300 Colosseum Points each, as well as 10 Gladiator Matches. So, just a single day over nine weeks. Which had allowed Jake to rake up quite the points.

Current objective: Be promoted from Gladiator to Veteran Gladiator

Current rank: Gladiator (10/10)

Colosseum Points: 20440

Lives remaining: 10

His daily point gain was still worse than it had been the day he was promoted to Expert Fighter due to the limited battles, but he wasn’t really complaining. It was still a lot of points. Moreover, Jake had gotten some damn good practice during his downtime. It was still slow-going and early days, but he felt like he was making some progress.

Ah, but not when it came to the actual fights. The Doomfoot was still dominating everyone he met. Well, okay, the domination had gotten less the more time passed. Even if the Show Matches and gladiatorial matches didn’t reward more points, they sure as hell got a lot harder. He could still win every fight by kicking, but as his opponents became more and more aware of his skills and just got stronger, he was beginning to face some annoying issues. That is to say… he couldn’t keep up his kicking-only challenge forever, no matter how funny it would be to reach Champion rank through kicks only.

Despite feeling a bit sad about that, there was also one pleasant surprise on the day he got done with his tenth Gladiator fight.

“Your streak just keeps going, huh? Can’t say I am surprised; I do have a keen eye for spotting talent,” the Battlemaster said, speaking the usual fluff. That is, until he added the next sentence. “Seeing as it is you, I assume you want your Promotion Match tomorrow? You can, of course, take some rest days if you want.”

Match tomorrow and not in

“Obviously,” the Battlemaster scoffed.

were limited

think you would be fighting with a combatant of your own rank for promotions? Hah! No, you need to face a real Veteran Gladiator to get promoted to one! This is the big leagues now,” the Battlemaster said, for some

as he went back and checked the message he had gotten several

to one fight a

Jake sure as hell didn’t! Not that he

meet a rather difficult opponent. The one you will be facing was promoted to Veteran Gladiator only a week or so ago, and he has only been here in the Colosseum for a month or so more than you. Which is to say, he also isn’t someone who has struggled or lost a single match. So be careful and consider if you wanna fight him. Moreover, he is a martial artist like you, so I am unsure how good that matchup is for you. Either way, the choice is yours,” the Battlemaster said

this was just more fluff to build up another pretty easy opponent… until

Bonus Objective gained.

Mortals couldn’t have been swifter. If you wish to keep this streak going, you will have to defeat an opponent with

will lock out many similar

Defeat the Benevolent

not expected a random bonus objective, but he wasn’t against

what say you?” the

going for it,” Jake

for tomorrow then. I would recommend that you get

he went back and relaxed in his little townhouse. He didn’t even go out and eat

but decided against it. Perhaps it

arena itself. Checking over

we have an exciting bout on our hands. On one side, we have Doomfoot, a rising star of the arena who has not missed a single opportunity to fight for us! And why would he? For he has never lost either, his foot spelling the doom of all who meet him! It’s the one and only Doomfoot!” the announcer yelled right as Jake walked up to the bars blocking

distance, he couldn’t quite tell if his opponent was a human or an

[Human]

Identified the man, the announcer

walked barefoot into the arena only a few months ago, and so far, it doesn’t look like

did make Jake’s

martial artists clash! Let

carefully stepped forward as he observed his opponent closely. The man wore only light pants as he walked calmly out of his entrance area. His head was entirely bald, and he walked with steady steps as he entered the arena. His breathing was calm too, and he

naked. The powerful, lithe muscles on both his arms and chest made it clear that the

walked toward Jake before stopping a good ten meters away. Just as Jake wondered what he would

as Doomfoot,” he said in a light and relaxed tone. “I thank you for sharing with me this moment on such a beautiful day. I hope our fight can be memorable for both of us and that we both may find

only carried pure sincerity, and his level of conviction felt unshakeable. Jake found himself getting carried along and decided to respond in kind, also giving a small bow to be polite. “Let’s have a