The Primal Hunter

To be stealthy.

An ancient art learned by many teenagers with wary parents and creaky floorboards to remain undetected as they were up to no good. That, or because they just needed to go to the bathroom really late in the night and didn’t want to wake anyone up.

However, this was but one part of the stealth: the art of avoiding sound. Others were stealthy by melding into the environment through camouflage or even found ways to hide their heat signatures or other traces of their existence.

There were countless methods in the multiverse to remain undetected, with Jake’s current method akin to being able to summon a fake boulder he could hide within, which also helped mask his presence and energy. It was far from perfect, and moving around while using it wasn’t advised, but so far, it had kind of gotten the job done.

However, now, it was high time to improve it, and he may as well learn from the best while doing so.

In the multiverse, Jake knew of two beings who had reached the ultimate peak of stealthiness. One of them was naturally Umbra, the leader of the Court of Shadows. Her ability to remain undetected until the moment she decided to strike was unparalleled as she could hide within the shadows themselves only to emerge when she so desired. Her form of stealth was the most classical sort, but there was one person in the multiverse who surpassed her when it came to remaining undetected.

Because another branch of stealth was one where you could be seen, but no one truly noticed you. Where you could stand next to your target on the street without them looking twice your way. The being who had reached the apex of this was, needless to say, Eversmile, the ultimate shapeshifter. He could take any form and become anyone or anything he wanted. His form wasn’t just limited to people, as far as Jake had been told, but he could even mimic objects or non-humanoid races.

So, if one apex emerged out of nowhere, the other emerged from right next to you unexpectedly. These two methods were often recognized as the main branches: obscuration and blending in. Jake was currently doing a bit of both – which most stealth methods did – but he did both kind of poorly.

Jake wanted to still do a bit of both with his improved method, primarily because he wanted to try and learn what Artemis had talked about. At least he wanted to integrate concepts of what she explained, even if it was pretty damn complicated. He did have their entire discussion committed to memory, though, as he recalled what she said during what Jake would call a great discussion on progression methods, while others would probably define it as pillow talk.

“My method of stealth is a lot more simple than what you described,” Artemis had explained. “The Path of the Hunter is naturally intertwined with the world around us. It is one of the most natural Paths to anyone in the system, and anyone who fights and kills partly steps into the Path of the Hunter at least a few times in their lives. Hunters are merely the name we use instead of predators for those of the enlightened races, and many civilizations even call those who fight monsters hunters by default, no matter what weapon or form of combat they use.”

The basis for the entire stealth method Artemis used was to be a natural hunter. A part of an ecosystem. At least, that is the mentality Artemis had when she first learned and improved the skill.

“My form of stealth leans into becoming one with the environment in a more literal sense. Feel the natural mana around you, feel the presence of the world itself, and breathe it in. Let it fill you and become one with everything. Perceive the world as you let it perceive you, and through that, you will know how to hide at the end of Perception. Seek the very edge of where you recognize your own form within the world and obscure what little remains of you that remain as you blend in. If you do this, you will be able to move without hesitation and act entirely normal, as you will simply disappear from everyone’s spectrum of what they perceive. You will never be perfect in this; no one is, but if they cannot perceive the world as well as you do, finding you will prove difficult. Well, unless they have a cheat-like Bloodline,” Artemis had further elaborated.

Jake had probed further and had kind of formed his own interpretation using more pre-system terms. Jake would liken this kind of method to changing how you appear on the color spectrum. The human eye, before the system, was unable to see things like ultraviolet light but had a limited spectrum. The same was true for what one could hear, and Jake wouldn’t be surprised if the same had been true for smells and pretty much everything else.

elements were introduced; one could see and feel mana, and Jake could see things he never would have been able to before. With his Perception alone, he could easily peer through things like naturally-formed mist or clouds despite it being completely impossible to see through before the system, and with time, he knew he would even be able to see through things

as his highest stat, as it allowed him to perceive things others couldn’t. Jake was

become able to understand them, it was definitely an essential factor. Not to say everyone needed it to reach the peak, as someone like the Sword Saint was so in tune with the concepts that mattered to him, it wasn’t as much about perceiving them as it

his Sphere, and as it existed outside of the system, it wasn’t limited. Of course, it wasn’t entirely accurate to say that he saw everything as

final moments of Jake fighting Valdemar probably included expanding this spectrum far more than he could usually handle, which was also why Jake couldn’t remember everything he had felt back then anymore. He had touched upon things that simply didn’t exist

on the topic of creating a stealth skill, the method Artemis used was to “see” yourself on this spectrum of the world and then become one with it. To move yourself on the spectrum from where even a level 0 could see you to somewhere no one would know you were there, even if you stood right

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able to replicate something like this perfectly. In fact, he was pretty damn sure he wouldn’t be able to, as that sounded like at least a

said that her stealth skill even worked in combat to help keep her hidden, even if the effect was lessened while fighting due to how much energy one had to give off that inadvertently disrupted and

use of some of what he learned from his Bloodline. As for the rest of the stealth capabilities? That would have to be mimicked using other means. Primarily, his arcane energy,

opportunity. That is where all his ideas for using arcane energy came from. Artemis had just given him even

upgrades. One that he could potentially

the stealth skill at the House or doing practical testing while also completing some Merit

of progress as he implemented some improvements to the stealth skill he had long been considering, which

(Rare)]

avoided getting downgraded a rank after he evolved. This upgrade had brought it back to be considered a pretty good C-grade rare skill, but it was naturally far from enough. All Jake had really done was tighten up what the skill already did and improve all aspects of it

later, Jake had failed another two Grimoire crafts – primarily because he wanted a good one and felt both wouldn’t turn out well – but

he moved and used energy within

Upgraded*: [Improved Arcane Stealth (Rare)] --> [Supreme Arcane

is where the truly hard part began. Jake’s newly acquired Supreme Arcane Stealth was a good skill in its own right, but it had severe drawbacks. First of all, he couldn’t really move when it was fully activated. He had to maintain the construct around him to stay hidden, and if

to just make it entirely transparent, but it wouldn’t work nearly as well as, say, within a forest. Plus, he would still have

for Arcane Stealth was severely limited by design. It was essentially a ”camping” skill for Jake to sit still and wait for his moment to attack while

its limitations did mean getting it above epic rarity wasn’t likely. This is where the concepts Artemis spoke of

confident in moving himself when it came purely to the visual realm. He kind of already did something similar when he made his arcane construct invisible, as concepts would bleed through,