The Primal Hunter

Chapter 990: Arrow Crafting: Nightmare Difficulty Jake carefully studied the mana structure surrounding Eternal Hunger while taking some mental notes and getting himself into the right mindset to continue his research. As mentioned, he had been actively working on this for several months, but in truth, he had been wanting to do something like this ever since the day he first made Protean Arrow. No… earlier than that. Ever since he got the Sin weapon.

Eternal Hunger still had a problem even after it became mythical rarity, though: it remained strictly a melee weapon. This likely came to be because of the weapon’s Origin and how he’d made it in the first place. He had altered a melee weapon in the form of the transforming chimera weapon from Yalsten, and these properties had clearly been kept and only further empowered.

The majority of Sim-Jake’s Records merging with the weapon also hadn’t helped, as Jake’s alter ego had been nearly solely focused on melee combat in his final days, only further cementing Eternal Hunger as a melee weapon. Jake had consulted the description many times during the last few months, and he couldn’t help but bite onto the same thing time and time again… not once did it specify Eternal Hunger could only be used as a melee weapon:

[Eternal Hunger (Mythical)] – A weapon born of eternal hunger - a living sin of consumption, forever starving, forever seeking sustenance. Given form by the [Redacted] Hunter, this new myth still holds properties of its Origin as a weapon created by vampires from the core of a Chimera, allowing it to change shape and adapt to the will of its master. Origin has been further altered by [Redacted], giving birth to the Eternal Shadow of the [Redacted] Hunter. This weapon is eternally Soulbound to its creator; their souls are one and the same, making Eternal Hunger indestructible as long as the Hunter persists. Any attack made with this weapon will absorb energy from the target. Foes slain by the owner of this weapon will have their souls absorbed. Can consume absorbed souls. Take pride as you wield hunger incarnate. Enchantments: Curse of Eternal Hunger. Souldrinker. Soul Consumption. Eternal Shadow.

Requirements: Soulbound

Looking at the description carefully, one could even argue it should be possible to make Eternal Hunger into an arrow without any problems as the weapon adapted to the will of its master. He also knew some aspects worked when not in melee. The Souldrinker enchantment of Eternal Hunger worked on anything he killed, even if he never took out the weapon during the fight. Eternal Shadow could also be used at all times, and shit, his Eternal Shadow was made up of curse energy and could shoot with a bow and arrow.

Eternal Shadow did give one clue that what Jake was trying to do wouldn’t be easy, though… because while the Eternal Shadow was made of curse energy, the arrow it shot would still be of arcane energy, and it was only when it attacked in melee it used an exact replica of Eternal Hunger.

That didn’t mean Jake had given up, even if it seemed like an arduous task to use Eternal Hunger as a ranged fighter, and ever since he got the weapon, he’d continually experimented with it.

Jake had naturally tried to make Eternal Hunger into a bow way back, but it wasn’t made for it. And not just because he couldn’t turn the black malleable metal into a string, but because none of the properties of Eternal Hunger worked if he used it to shoot something. Yes, Jake had tried to ”shoot” things using Eternal Hunger by pretty much just using it as a catapult of sorts, but that hadn’t worked at all. The system wouldn’t recognize Eternal Hunger as a bow, even when he made it into one and tied a string himself, so it was back to the drawing board.

The thing is, Jake wasn’t the type to give up and had kept trying other things, only to get instantly roadblocked at every turn.

He’d once upon a time thought that perhaps the solution to this was easy enough: just turn Eternal Hunger into an arrow and shoot that… but that obviously hadn’t worked. If not, Jake would have been doing that all along. It had several problems, with the first one pretty obvious and why, perhaps even if he could make it into an arrow, it wouldn’t be that good of an idea: Eternal Hunger took time to change shape.

Usually, it took him several minutes to transform Eternal Hunger from one weapon shape into another, and that was while he focused intently on doing so. The weapon was malleable, but it was more like shaping liquid metal than playdough, and it took focus and time to do it properly.

One could probably easily spot the problem with Jake then trying to shoot Eternal Arrow like an arrow: he wouldn’t be able to use it as a melee weapon afterward. Jake had naturally instantly recognized this as a challenge and did have some considerations to alleviate the problem, but one thing at a time. Because he had one way bigger problem with his current idea:

couldn’t be transformed

into the shape of an arrow. He could make it look like a perfect metal arrow, big or small, and even make an identical copy of his Arcane Arrows just with Eternal

of Jake’s ranged fighting skills wouldn’t work if what he shot wasn’t an arrow. The system instead recognized Jake shooting Eternal Hunger akin

making his upgrade to Protean Arrow, but also the reason why he was trying to make a fusion of Protean Arrow and Eternal Hunger in the first place. He recognized that he couldn’t make the system recognize Eternal Hunger as an arrow, but what if he could make it recognize it as just another ingredient that made

knew he could use Eternal Hunger as a catalyst and power source when doing alchemy, meaning it wasn’t solely a weapon and that the system had some flexibility. Was it really too much

the shit he had tried - he saw notes on his attempt of wrapping Eternal Shadow to a Protean Arrow with mana strings before and how that hadn’t worked. He had also tried making a simple shape and put Eternal Hunger inside of it, but once more, no

to something way simpler to try and prove a concept. First, he took a dagger. Definitely not an arrow, right? Then, he took a stick. Still not an arrow. From there, he tied the dagger to

unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this

based on what it was combined with. However, he knew it likely had something to do with the Records of an

some of the innate Records of a dagger to also make it a good arrow? No, it was better to focus

did find some success. Rather than Eternal Hunger itself, he’d several times constructed an arrow filled with curse energy, but his biggest breakthrough was when he transmuted a cheap spear by filling it with the Sin curse. It had definitely been a

He had carefully constructed a formation inside the shell of the arrow, borrowing from his experience in the Nevermore Challenge Dungeon heavily. It hadn’t been his best work, but in the end, he managed to somehow push it over some threshold where it recognized the cursed spear as just part of an arrow and not an arrow

power of the arrow due to its far more durable form, courtesy of not being made of pure energy. To make it clear, it didn’t actually help him create an overall more powerful Protean Arrow to use a shitty common-rarity

had tried using the same method as with the common-rarity spear, but it had instantly failed. The problem wasn’t the idea itself but the power of the formation and Protean Arrow. The skill and how he used it simply wasn’t powerful enough to integrate

the shell for the arrow… one tiny step

Hunger as its base, Jake had very slowly begun to form the Protean Arrow around it. He did so from the bottom up, which was why the structure looked only half-complete. It had

earnest. The space where he made the arrow was kept incredibly stable at all times to make sure the in-progress formation was kept intact even when Jake wasn’t there, and as he began to work on it,

inscribe the formation, giving him a bit more space to work. Runes were also being infused into the surface of Eternal Hunger, once more stabilized by his arcane mana to not have the weapon absorb the energy. He needed to ensure that the arrow itself could tap

kept him going as he kept making the most complex formation he’d ever made

Eternal Hunger far surpassed anything else Jake had, so if he wanted Protean Arrow to be capable of making use of the mythical weapon, he needed to boost its Records by doing something else. Complexity was the most obvious answer and,

doing was hoping to hit that mysterious and unknown threshold where the system decided his efforts were good enough. He just needed one good push for Protean Arrow to upgrade in the direction of