The Primal Hunter

Jake still felt extreme confusion when he thought about the First Sage. All Jake really knew was that he was a man from the first universe who died in C-grade while also being the teacher of Villy. Well, and the fact he had apparently been so ridiculously talented it beggared belief, and that he also had a Bloodline, which the Viper had gained many years after his teacher’s death.

However, even taking into consideration his extreme talent, things didn’t really make any sense. How was he capable of leaving messages on boots he had owned trillions of years ago? How was a C-grade even capable of doing that in the first place?

“Do you think all this boots-business could have been orchestrated by the First Sage?” Jake said after a brief pause but instantly felt a bit dumb for even asking.” No, nevermind, that’s-”

“He could have,” the Viper cut him off.” One thing I learned while spending time with him was that he truly encapsulated the meaning of the phrase ”never say never.” He did things as a C-grade that I would think impossible for anyone who wasn’t a god.. or even above that. And that was just what he showed me. I am sure there was far more I never saw.”

Jake listened to what the Viper said as he frowned. ”But… how? He was just a C-grade. Aren’t there certain rules about equivalent exchange and one having to pay with energy for things? Unalterable rules set by the system that even Transcendent Skills cannot ignore?”

“There are, but where there are rules, there are also ways to bend them, and the First Sage was a master of bending the rules. Never once did I hear him say something wasn’t possible when I asked, just that I hadn’t found the right method to do it yet. Moreover, when I pressed enough, he often revealed clues, making it clear he had already found a solution to my inquiry. That is the kind of monster he was… someone truly limitless.”

Jake was silent once more for a bit before he asked a bit tentatively. ”If I had a way to meet him…”

”You should do it,” the Viper just said. ”Even if the notions sound silly… but I guess you are a bit of a silly existence yourself in the first place. I think he would have found you interesting if the two of you had ever met. Or, from the way you asked your question, it appears he does indeed find you interesting. Let me take a stab, you’re going to try and use Path of the Heretic Chosen?”

”Yeah,” Jake nodded. He still wasn’t sure how much he wanted to share with Villy about what he knew about the man. Not for any insidious reasons; he just didn’t feel like anything he could say would help the Viper. But he did still ask one thing: ”Also… if I could ask him a question for you, what would it be?”

”If it was me meeting him, I would ask a question I am not willing to share… but if it’s you, I guess I would have you ask him… how come he never found a solution to the one problem that caused his death? Why did someone I do not doubt would have become the first god just… give up? Or… if he even did give up in the first place or had some higher goal in mind…” the Viper said, his voice filled with more emotion than usual. The kind of emotion Jake only ever heard when Villy talked about the family he once had as well as the First Sage.

”Alright,” Jake said as the conversation naturally died out. Which made it the perfect chance to change the topic as Jake asked:

”What are your thoughts on all this Nevermore Challenge Dungeon stuff? Mainly the multiplier scores. Should I go out and advertise my score to smack down some fools, or…?”

”That’s up to you,” the Viper answered, clearly not opposed to the change of topic. ”But if you want me to decide, I wouldn’t share it. Doing so won’t really do you any good, especially not if you wanted to do so with the intent of harming Yip of Yore’s Chosen. In fact, you may just end up aiding him. He is writing a story where he is the underdog, so if you come out in a clear attempt to suppress his reputation, I am certain he would spin it as you showing fear toward his growth. That you felt the need to come out and show off how much better than him you were. No, if you really want to mess him up, the best thing you can do is nothing. Don’t acknowledge him, but just do your thing and regard him as nothing more than an afterthought. You will end up clashing on the Leaderboards whether you want to or not, and you will end up clashing more in the future, so try to not be caught up in his tempo, but walk to your own beat.”

Jake listened to the Viper’s words as he sighed. ”Why couldn’t you have made enemies and begun some conflict with someone like Valdemar so I could fight his Chosen instead? You know, someone who would actually want to fight me and not all this complicated meta-story bullshit.”

”Boohoo, this is a good lesson for you! And as I said, you will have your epic showdown someday. Every great story ends with a final battle at the climax… you just have to make sure this turns out to be one of those stories where the villain wins in the end.”

”Wait, why am I the villain? He’s the guy who attacked me first.”

”Because he’s the self-insert author, so you are a villain automatically simply because you are antagonistic toward him… ah, but do watch out. With your growing reputation as a Harbinger of Primeval Origins, they may change up their tactics and try to make you into a redeemed villain instead who ends up joining the good guys to take down the big bad. You know… me.”

”And I repeat: please choose a normal enemy next time. Someone with a big sword or something.”

”How is Yip’s Chosen that different? He uses a halberd that’s got three blades,” the Viper very helpfully pointed out.

”Small blades.”

”Very villain-like of you to insult another man’s weapon for being too small…”

”You know what, maybe I should join him as a valiant hero who helped take down the evil Malefic Viper once and for all,” Jake joked.

”Now that would be a plot twist I didn’t see coming,” the Viper answered in the same joking manner. ”Anyway, the Wyrmgod is giving me nasty looks, probably afraid I am trying to give tips or share things I shouldn’t, and I am sure he is mighty uncomfortable that he has no idea what we are talking about. So when I cut the connection, do something mysterious that makes him question if I broke the rules, alright? See ya!”

Right as Villy cut the connection, Jake frowned deeply as he muttered out loud. ”To think it worked like that…”

To really play his part, Jake kept looking thoughtful. At least he did it to play the part for a few seconds until he did get thinking about everything they had talked about, especially about the First Sage. Villy clearly suspected things with his teacher weren’t as they seemed, and he didn’t at all seem surprised when Jake said he could potentially interact with him. As if nothing the C-grade could do would ever surprise him. He even recommended for Jake to meet him if he could… which Jake most assuredly would.

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I just need to reach level 300 in my profession first, Jake thought. It seemed far away, but Jake believed it wouldn’t be that bad.

Refocusing on the task at hand, Jake put his mind off all those thoughts of the future and turned his attention toward the now. Taking the mythical boots off the table, Jake quickly put them on. As his foot slid into the first boot, his eyes opened wide.

This… this is… the peak of comfort-wear.

It was perhaps the most magical aspect of the boots: how damn good they felt to wear. It was truly out of this world, and Jake couldn’t help but smile as he put both on. Oh yeah, the stats and other effects from the mythical item were also good, but if comfort was an enchantment, that would definitely have been their best one by far.

Sadly, Jake couldn’t really test them here and now. He instinctively had some idea about how they had improved, but seeing as the room he was in was sealed off from the outside, he couldn’t even test out the treasure-detecting abilities.

However, he did feel one change. It was incredibly subtle, but when Jake stood up to revel in the feeling of the best boots in the multiverse, it was as if he stood more… stably than before. He tried to move a bit, but nothing really seemed different besides this minor odd feeling. It was as if he would have a harder time slipping and falling or something.

Shrugging, Jake shifted his attention to the second thing he wanted to get done before his party gathered. Taking out the Storybook Page from his inventory, Jake studied it a bit as he considered what skill to use it with. He had a few already in mind, but the nature of the item made things a bit more complicated than just selecting a skill below legendary rarity he wanted upgraded.

The problem was that the item didn’t give a skill upgrade, just the opportunity to get one. As per the description:

“Ripping a page infused with the Records of a skill will grant you an opportunity to upgrade the skill. The effect is lower, the higher the rarity of the skill, and the page will not accept Records of certain skills… Skill upgrades are not guaranteed.”

If this wasn’t the case, Jake would have used the page on Big Game Hunter without any hesitation. However, while he couldn’t confirm it, Jake felt pretty damn certain that the skill was included in the “not accept Records of certain skills” part. Another thing he felt sure was included was the archery skill, as well as any of his basic crafting skills, as those kinds of skills were always considered a bit special. That being the case, Fang of Man was more likely than not also restricted.

Jake also pretty quickly decided he wanted to upgrade a class skill, as he wanted another boost in combat capabilities. While sitting there, Jake began going through his skills one by one. As this was just an opportunity to upgrade a skill, and seeing as the effectiveness was lower, the higher the rarity of the skill, he decided on going for one of his epic rarity ones.

He also wanted the skill to be one he would find difficult to upgrade on his own without any new inspiration. This meant a skill like Piercing Cursed Arcane Fang was ruled out, along with something like Splitting Arcane Arrow Rain. Jake felt pretty confident about upgrading those on his own if he just worked on it actively.

Among the skills, he ended up with two he heavily considered. The first of which was Avaricious Arcane Hunter’s Arrows. It was the epic skill Jake used to just generate his regular arrows, and seeing this upgraded would lead to a significant damage increase. It was also a skill that was kind of difficult to upgrade, as it had the avaricious tag along with its ability to instantly summon arcane arrows. Both of these added quite a lot of complexity, and he really didn’t want to lose either effect if he tried to upgrade it himself.

The second skill Jake considered also had the avaricious tag, and was even more complicated than the Arrows one. It was one of the core skills Jake used all the time to do more damage than usual and was, in some ways, one of the reasons his amazingly high Perception allowed him to do as much damage as he did. It was naturally Mark of the Avaricious Arcane Hunter.

As he considered these two skills, Jake brought up both their descriptions and studied them closely. However, after a while, he closed the Arcane Hunter’s Arrows one. He looked at Mark closer as he was kind of impressed by the many things it did despite only being in epic rarity.

[Mark of the Avaricious Arcane Hunter (Epic)] – Your prey is chosen; the hunt is on. Covertly mark targets, making you aware of their positions at all times until the marks expire or are dispelled. All damage done to marked targets is increased. Arcane damage has its damage amplified further. The extra arcane damage inflicted while the marks are active will be built up in the form of an arcane charge that you can detonate to release all the stored-up energy. Additional bonus experience earned for slaying a marked target above your level (this effect remains even if your target dies to the mark detonating or within a short duration of the detonation). Adds a bonus to the damage inflicted, the duration of the marks, the subtlety, and the number of marks available based on Perception.

The skill did a whopping four things at once. It allowed him to mark and track creatures, deal extra damage to those tracked, store up an arcane charge to explode, and even more experience gained for kills. What’s more, everything was scaled solely with Perception. While Jake wasn’t all clear on the math, he was pretty certain the damage amplification of Mark was responsible for a good percentage of Jake’s total damage output due to this Perception scaling.

Moreover, this was a skill so complicated Jake didn’t really have any good ideas on how to upgrade it while at the same time being “only” epic rarity, meaning the Storybook Page should have a good effect. It was a bit of a gamble, but unless Jake wanted to rely on another skill selection to get a system-given upgrade, he felt this was the best way.

He could spend a long time thinking up more reasons… but after only a few more justifications for this being the best choice, Jake decided to stop delaying as he held the page and began to infuse it with the Records of the skill. He did this simply by thinking about wanting to do it while holding the page, and he subtly felt energy leaving his body as the page began to glow and fill with runes Jake couldn’t at all recognize.

Once the runes were complete, Jake tore the page in two, and a flash of energy was released as his consciousness shifted.

As Jake was busy being knocked out by the Storybook Page, his party members were quickly getting done with their Challenge Dungeons. This included the Sword Saint and Sylphie, who had already finished theirs and had both returned to the prior floor to do some minor practice by hunting down monsters and sparring a bit.

During their joint hunting efforts, it was also naturally shared how they had done over the last few years – even if communication was a bit strained due to the Sword Saint still not being fluent in the language of Ree.

In the Challenge Dungeons, Sylphie ended up with a pretty good total multiplier of 45%. Her best performance had been Minaga’s Labyrinth, where she got 25%, being the little cheat of a bird she was. The second best was the Colosseum of Mortals, where she had ended up with a 10% multiplier, though admittedly, many would come to claim the version she did was easier. Instead of becoming level 0, she had only become level 200. The opponents were mostly the same – even if there were some monster opponents thrown in there - and the arenas had changed to accommodate the fights of larger scope. Also, even if skills were still removed from everyone, Sylphie was pretty lucky in that much of her magic was just innate manipulation which was how she had done as well as she did. A place she had also done okay in was the Test of Character, where Sylphie had ended up with only a 5% multiplier, a feat she repeated in the House of the Architect.

Her personality was simply too flighty, and her Creations came mainly in the form of skill upgrades she decided to work super hard at, along with some other small things she tried to create. These creations included a nest the size of a smaller city created entirely by collecting every single tree and plant occupying a huge part of the jungle world. Finally, to finish out the list of Challenge Dungeons, there was the Endless Journey, where Sylphie didn’t even get a Grand Achievement, meaning she only got some Nevermore Points but no multiplier.

She didn’t care much, though. Sylphie had never wanted to compete on those silly Leaderboards when she knew Uncle was going to be the best there anyway. However, Sylphie did notice her current fighting partner seemed to not be all that happy about all the Leaderboards and big score stuff. Even if Sylphie was not the smartest bird when it came to seeing when others felt sad, she could see that the old swordsman she was training with seemed frustrated. Sylphie had gone to this floor because she was bored and wanted to fly around and fight, but the swordsman had come after all of those big announcements of performances in the Challenge Dungeons. As if he felt like he couldn’t delay his progress for even a second lest he would fall behind.

Again, Sylphie didn’t care about all those scores… but the old swordsman sure seemed like he cared a lot.