The Primal Hunter

For the record, Jake had never opened any system menu related to him being a City Lord or the World Leader of his own volition. The only times he’d touched them was when Miranda asked for him to do something, and that something was more often than not just transferring rights and permissions.

In Jake’s defense, he blamed the bad UI of the system. How was it his fault the system didn’t have an “allow all” button? At least these existed for some major categories, and shortly after Jake became the World Leader, he went over these and granted rights to Miranda.

The problem was that the UI wasn’t static. New things would be unlocked with time, and how much the “country” or “kingdom” or whatever expanded. At least when it came to all the City Lord stuff, Miranda did have pretty much every permission available, but the permissions given had begun to fall behind severely with the World Leader stuff.

Also, because Jake didn’t have any profession related to City Lord stuff, he had to actually touch the Pylon of Civilization to activate it and see the system interface. Was it enough for him to just touch it with a bit of mana, or potentially even just his presence, allowing him to do it from hundreds of meters away easily, including during all the time he’d spent in his lab?

Well, yes, but Jake didn’t think about it, and that was the defense he was sticking to after he’d gone to talk to Miranda.

Jake was right nearby, so he’d been the first to arrive for their meeting after Arnold contacted him, with others like Arthur, the Fallen King, and Sword Saint needing a bit to get ready.

“So we both agree that we’re going back to your lodge to get this fixed here and now while we still have some time?” Miranda asked after a very enlightening conversation.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jake said in a semi-joking, semi-meek tone as he scratched the back his his head. “But… can I just add that I think you’ve done a brilliant job?”

“Well, thank you,” Miranda smiled. “Now imagine how much more brilliant it would have been if I didn’t have several options unavailable to me as your stand-in World Leader. To clarify, if you wish to take back full control and manage the planet yourself, I would more than happily-”

“Oh, would you look at that? I can give you World Leader permission stuff right here and now without going to the Pylon!” Jake quickly said as he hurridly found the system menu and began allocating all the new features to Miranda. Seriously, why didn’t it just automatically allow her to do all that stuff? He had officially made her his stand-in even by system standards, yet some things were still not granted by default.

After Jake was done, he couldn’t help but sigh. “Can I blame the system again? All this should just be automatic…”

“If I may,” Lillian, who was now sporting a cool mask – great fashion choice, by the way – spoke up. “Some new features for World Leaders become available that hold quite a lot of power most World Leaders wouldn’t ever want to unilaterally grant others. So a manual granting of permissions is likely implemented to avoid problems.”

“I kind of get it, but it isn’t like the permissions do anything overly dramatic,” Jake shook his head.

“You just gave me permission to control practically every single Pylon of Civilization on the planet, and not just their associated defensive barriers, but the ability to simply blow them up, which would cause worldwide panic and the resulting explosions kill thousands,” Miranda added.

brightly. “Now, let’s go to the

his lodge and got all that sorted. On the way, Jake even proposed maybe asking Villy if he had a solution to automate all this granting of permissions, but Miranda made it clear she’d

things happening. Once things like the Prima

witch. Miranda already knew pretty much everything Jake had done as she got updates every single time they’d stopped by a City Floor. Jake hadn’t known

ready to join for a meeting. Only the three of them, and a few others who would arrive shortly,

far away. Even if they could just use the teleportation network, that would still take some time. Besides, going somewhere for people like Arthur wasn’t as easy as someone like Jake. He

note, one of the people who would join remotely was Arnold. Arnold lived only a few kilometers away and could get to the meeting room in a few minutes if he wanted to,

expectedly entered the room shortly after, along with two people Jake didn’t recognize. One of them was a beastfolk man, while the other one was a scalekin. Both of them acted overly polite toward Jake, but he had honestly gotten used to that

big board rooms rich people had board meetings in before the system, except they now had the technology to project holograms and stuff of everyone

Jake to take a seat at the head of the table – a seat that was usually left empty, as it was reserved for the true World Leader as a symbolic gesture. Even if he wasn’t the one actually leading the meeting or doing much at all, Miranda didn’t want to hear any arguments, as it was only considered proper that the one with the highest status would sit there. Jake’s offer of just standing in the corner with Unseen Hunter active was also rapidly shot down, so Jake surrendered himself to his fate and took a

everyone seated, Miranda

Whale, Arthur, his little brother, and many more familiar faces. Even the pretty shady merchant Renato, who ran Paradise, the city Jake had visited with Carmen during

please do not pay it too much mind, and let us proceed as usual,” Miranda opened the meeting. “Let me begin by saying I am more than pleased to see how well Earth is doing even in

like as if he was there in person. “I would also like to welcome Ms. Wells and everyone else back, and I hope you

him to before the system. That was, in some ways, lucky, as that meant Jake was trained to not zone out too much, but actually listen in case he would be asked to reference anything said in a

by going over a lot of stats. Not the cool kind of stats, like Perception, but boring stats, like housing developments, employment rates, material gathering, birth rates, and a whole bunch of other things. He even had graphs and stuff to show, making it clear he had prepared for

xenophobia from humans who didn’t like anyone who didn’t look enough human for their taste. Elves didn’t really face any problems, nor did the

these harmful sentiments, with

with totally free one-way trips to the moon if they got

topic of the Prima Guardian Preparation Plan. Jake had heard a bit about this plan

side with the Prima Guardian, but there shouldn’t be too many. At least not close to human lands. The further they got away from where

to join the light side. Then, there was the entire underground world, which was definitely the least explored overall. Earth was simply too large now, with the planet having tunnels leading all the way to the core. Efforts had been focused on mapping only the upper

should feel bad, knowing how busy everyone had been, especially over the last many months. Someone like the Fallen King had also been busy as hell dealing with monsters and effectively setting up a huge domain of his own in what was once not considered human

Minaga and how great that was. Oh, and then he mentioned how he had people go over

and his explanation that he was waiting for Miranda to return to make the dungeon wasn’t just him making up a reasonable excuse on the fly.

if there were some major issues they had to address. Jake was honestly impressed with himself for having been zoned in for the whole nearly six-hour meeting

approaches wouldn’t work on any of those problems. The only place he could help was with the Prima Guardian preparation, and it didn’t particularly sound like they needed