The Primal Hunter

Chapter 942: Within the Prima Vessel Chapter 942: Within the Prima Vessel

Likely due to the passive nature of the Lone Hunter, Jake didnt really feel anything different after getting it. He considered testing out the one aspect he could right now, namely the improved effectiveness of stealth, but he reckoned there would come a better time after returning to Earth. Right now, all it could potentially do was make it harder for Sandy to find him. Besides, there would definitely be many chances for Lone Huntering around during what was to come with the Prima Guardian Alliance.

As Jake had felt, Sandy appeared not long after, popping out of what looked like a hole in space. Jake regarded the worm, and once more, he could only be happy to have a living spaceship available. If not, it would have taken annoyingly long to fly back to Earth, especially with his Wings of the Malefic Viper unavailable.

”Couldn’t even have begun flying to meet me halfway?” the giant space worm asked in an admonishing tone.

”Shouldn’t expect an injured patient to move around too much,” Jake responded.

”Always with the excuses… now get in here,” Sandy said while opening their maw. Jake felt the suction and didn’t resist as he was eaten.

He appeared in a pretty familiar-looking room as he raised his eyebrows. ”You made a new alchemy lab for me?”

”I didn’t make it; the people at the Order did. Try not to make me break everything again by making me face another B-grade, alright?” Sandy said semi-jokingly.

”Now that you mentioned it, we could check out what’s going on with Mars…” Jake said, for a split second seriously considering it, before shaking his head. ”Next time, that is. For now, let’s get back to Earth. Good suggestion, though, maybe there’s also a few B-grades on other planets.”

”Sure, sure, let’s also go see some of the solar systems closer to the core of the galaxy! Maybe we can even find a few A- or even an S-grade or two there! Great thinking, Jake!” Sandy said, not super receptive to Jake’s great suggestion.

”That definitely does sound like something we should do down the line! Imagine what kind of treasures they’re hiding; it’s gonna be awesome!” Jake kept the gag going… though he not joking at all. But, again, all of that was for later.

Nothing in his Lone Hunter skill said anything about using a taxi service either, and seeing as Sandy wasn’t a fighter at all, Jake believed it should be possible to have Lone Hunter be active even while traveling with the worm. It was not like Sandy would ever get involved in any kind of fighting if the worm could avoid it.

Sandy didn’t give any response but was too busy entering subspace, or Sandy’s Sand World, as they called it, to speed up their return trip. Jake got the hint and entered meditation to try and fully recover by the time they got back. He had already healed a fair deal during his skill evaluation time, but he was far from in top form.

The space voyage ended up being relatively uneventful, taking only about four hours in total, Sandy having gotten even faster since their moon journey despite literally dying. Jake healed up as well as he could during this time, with the only communication happening during this time being Miranda sending him updates about how everything was going and the Fallen King asking once when Jake and Sandy would be back.

Jake learned from Miranda that things were going pretty damn well. It was just a cleanup of Primas, with everyone able to assist in killing the many enemy monsters doing their utmost. Earth did still take quite a few losses, but not a single person Jake knew the name of died.

After Eron had dealt with healing the strike team, he began to help kill regular Primas, with others also following suit when able. Miranda even praised William a fair deal, calling him a ”valuable asset,” with Jake not socially inept enough to not know what she meant by that.

She wanted to make use of William. Even if Jake didn’t like him, he could recognize William could be of great assistance in certain matters. Karma mages were one of the rarest types of mages around, primarily because learning about karmic magic without a teacher was incredibly difficult, and it was easy to form wrong conclusions that could make you screwed down the line. Shit, Jake would probably suck quite a bit at karma magic due to his overly simplistic view of karma. Even if it wasn’t inaccurate, he just viewed karma as some kind of connection between people and other people or things. This wasn’t wrong… but too simplistic to work with to achieve anything substantial. So, to conclude, karmic magic wasn’t anything Jake wanted to learn about actively.

William, on the other hand, had learned the Legacy of Eversmile, the foremost expert in karmic magic in the entire multiverse. Eversmile hadn’t taught him anything fake either, but his genuine Legacy. From what Jake understood, William was even pretty damn talented in karmic magic. In fact, he seemed pretty talented in all forms of magic and mana manipulation as a whole. He truly was a genius in his own right… but that didn’t mean Jake liked him.

Perhaps he could tolerate him, though. If Miranda wanted to make use of the mage, Jake could at least put his personal feelings aside as long as he didn’t have to play too nice with the guy. He also knew that Casper had steered very clear of William for a good reason, as he was partly responsible for Casper having a ghost girlfriend and not a regular living girlfriend.

Actually… Casper wouldn’t even have become a Risen if not for William, would he? He also wasn’t sure if Jacob would have ever become an Augur. Who knows… the gods were clearly playing quite a few games during the Tutorial, and Jake really didn’t want to uselessly dwell on the past. Suffice it to say, what William had done hadn’t made him the most popular of sorts, but if someone like Casper could resist killing the guy on sight, so could Jake allow Miranda to make use of him.

And, no, Jake wasn’t afraid of William taking advantage of Miranda or messing with her using karmic magic. He had personally seen all the damn magic she constantly deployed to defend herself, especially against any form of mental influence, and there was no way William could get through that. If he did manage to, Jake also felt confident he or someone else would notice. Finally… William could be bold, yes, but Jake really hoped he wasn’t dumb enough to start shit, or they could have a repeat of the Tutorial, and this time there would be no Eversmile with a Golden Leaf of Yggdrasil.

of the things Jake considered on the way back, as he honestly didn’t have anything better to do while recovering. Once they broke through the final layer of clouds, and he could fully see the desert below,

Primas really were just about wiped out. At the Prima Vessel, he saw the strike team gathered once more, most of them never having left as they were recovering. Even if they

depart now or be thrown out forcefully and get a mouthful of sand,” Sandy said in a very professional

resisting, Jake was spit out as he appeared floating a bit above the sand, not far from the rest of the strike team. Oh, and by the rest of the strike team, Jake only meant those who didn’t have to disengage. Maria and Casper were still nowhere to be seen, likely recovering on their own somewhere else. Arnold was back with the group, though, and he looked quite curious to see what was going on with

misappropriated; report any instances of

help in the cleanup battle anyway, but he wanted to be there for this Prima Vessel exploration. Jake could perhaps have said no and rejected him,

when she saw Jake had returned.

far, obviously,” Jake answered with a smile. ”My escape skill has been put on a ridiculously long

into the Prima Vessel already,” the

new opening, which had a white barrier blocking it. Not even Jake could see through it, but when he laid eyes on it, he faintly

following along curiously, with Sandy deciding this wasn’t anything they bothered to get involved in as the worm took off once more. Reaching the barrier, Jake simply reached out, and the moment he touched it with the hand holding the key,

the system after the Prima Guardian had died, as the entire section of the Prima Vessel he now saw

he didn’t feel anything dangerous anywhere. The hallway led to a cross-section not soon after, with a room to each side and one straight ahead. Two of the rooms were blocked by barriers, each with the same key symbol as the one on Jake’s hand. The last one had both Jake’s key symbol and a number that currently displayed ”31” before dropping to ”30” while they were looking. Jake quickly guessed this was the number of surviving

as in there being a big empty room, but that the entire space just didn’t exist. It looked like the inside of a lockbox that hadn’t been opened yet… making Jake guess this room could effectively be a giant lockbox. That was pretty exciting to think about, but he was more interested in the two other rooms first. The room off to

was the one straight ahead, though. Because Jake

seal on it, the barrier quickly melded away as Jake and

of the Exalted Prima,” the Sword Saint commented, everyone nodding in

approached what he assumed to

you’re the only one who can operate stuff,” Carmen said after she had

upon it, the entire control room came to life, and a giant screen appeared in front of them all, showing a massive

markers began appearing all

three different colors. One color was red, which was displayed on most planets. Another was blue, which was showing on hundreds of others. Finally, there were green flags…

only those not part of the alliance. The blue markers were all the

Jake questioned out loud. ”One of them is us, I bet Ell’Hakan is

that it was some insect hive or that Arnold would jump in and inform him it was another follower of some Void God, but nope, no one seemed to

one other big

planets cleared the Prima Guardian already, who did it first?”

be us, right?” Carmen said, sounding pretty

I’m uncertain as to its significance if we were first. The Prima Guardian we killed was an outlier and likely the only one of its kind, so in some ways, it

added as he regarded Jake. ”What

Prima Vessel more than before, and quickly, information entered his mind. He saw an interior map of the entire Prima Vessel and what it could do… which wasn’t a super lot. But it did have some

Jake said, and without any warning, activated the

Prima Vessel felt a thing, as from the outside, the entire

you