The Primal Hunter

One skill selection was great.

Two skill selections? Now that was just awesome. And today was truly an awesome day.

Jake was already pretty happy with his new profession skill, even if he didn’t have the chance to start experimenting with it right then and there. Sure, he would like to sit down for a few weeks and just make Curse Fragments and see if he could find anything to use them for immediately, but that didn’t mean he was any less excited to get another class skill or maybe even upgrade one of his existing ones.

In fact… having both skill selections at once like this was double-awesome because it meant that it didn’t matter if the next floor had a lot of downtime for crafting or was filled with combat; Jake would have something new and shiny to play with.

So, feeling in a good mood, Jake began the skill selection.

*Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge class skills available*

And was instantly disappointed because, as was almost becoming customary by now, there, of course, had to be one shitty magic skill on offer.

[Devastating Arcane Orb (Rare)] – Harness your destructive arcane mana to bring devastation upon the world. Allows the Hunter to summon an explosive orb of arcane mana at a target location within your range of perception. The arcane orb will be highly destructive and especially effective against environmental mana, with energies tailored to wide-scale destruction over focused damage, allowing each Devastating Arcane Orb to destroy large areas. Multiple orbs can be conjured at once for optimal devastation. Adds a bonus to the effectiveness of Intelligence when using Devastating Arcane Orb.

Man, Jake was definitely feeling regret now. He should totally have picked Malefic Plague Theory as his profession skill, as he now realized he had missed out on a huge opportunity. Imagine the synergy. With a plague, he would wipe out a civilization of E-grades, and then he could blow up their cities with Devastating Arcane Orbs once everyone was dead! One for killing, one for destroying, the perfect combo to wipe out people too weak to fight back.

Alas, Jake had failed to predict he would be offered such a perfect skill in his class skill selection.

All kidding aside, why the hell would Jake want a rare skill that was tailor-made to blow up stuff? Not even enemies, just… stuff. Also, the reasoning behind him getting offered the skill felt pretty damn thin. Did it really all come from Jake blowing up some cities during floor forty-one? Sure, he did sometimes use highly destructive arcane magic to blow up large areas or as distractions, but enough for one of his five skill offerings to be taken up like this?

Yeah, it felt like it was a bullshit skill just there to fill the list. Something the next one on offer also kind of was, though at least there was some solid reasoning behind that one.

[Superior Arcane Armaments (Epic)] – Be it a weapon or armor, through your arcane mana, you shall never be found wanting. Allows the Hunter to in-depth design and summon armaments of arcane mana. Armaments can be given to others. Weapons created will deal a small amount of bonus destructive arcane damage, while armor will be strengthened by the concept of stability. The duration and durability of all items summoned are based on the mana expended and the nature of the armament’s design. Adds a bonus to the effectiveness of Wisdom when using Superior Arcane Armaments. Additional bonuses may apply dependent on the nature of the conjured item.

Jake still remembered getting offered the skill Arcane Armaments and thinking it was pretty cool back several skill selections ago. He also remembered that skill had been an upgrade to one called Summon Spectral Armaments or something like that.

Now, he did have to question… why was the system so damn insistent on Jake learning how to summon armor and weapons? Three times getting offered effectively the same skill definitely felt like overkill. Additionally, why would he even need it in the first place? A summoned katar would definitely be worse than both Blackpoint Blade and definitely way worse than Eternal Hunger. Could he maybe make some armor out of it? Nah, that also seemed bad, as Jake was fully dedicated to dodging stuff and trying to gear himself out in arcane armor just seemed like it would weigh him down. The two only real use cases Jake could see were to make things for his allies, as he assumed even monsters could use summoned items like this. The other one was to summon arrows… in other words, something he didn’t have just one, but two skills, already doing.

Speaking of summoning arrows, Jake did feel pretty damn certain this upgrade to Superior Arcane Armaments came at least partly from his creation of Protean Arrow. Both were about designing things using arcane mana, after all. Of course, that upgrade had partly been facilitated by the Puzzle Cube that he had been gifted…

On second thought, Jake didn’t want to go down any train of thought that would make him have any negative emotions towards that wonderful little box of puzzling wonders. The skill offered sucked and wasn’t something he needed, so he proceeded to the next one.

Looking at it, things were finally starting to get interesting.

[Arcane Arrow Rain of Horizon’s Edge (Ancient)] – At your will, cover the horizon in a sea of arrows. Allows you to repeatedly clone your arrows while in flight, allowing them to retain innate magical properties as one becomes hundreds. If the original arrow is shot upwards, it can be transformed into a devastating Arcane Arrow Rain, exploding as it releases a rainfall of arrows in a massive area. Cloning arcane arrows or creating Arcane Arrow Rains using arcane arrows has a far lower mana and stamina cost. On an internal cooldown, the Hunter can push himself beyond his usual abilities and create an arrow that, upon activation, will explode several times on a slight delay for multiple Arcane Arrow Rains. Doing this will temporarily make the skill unavailable. Adds a bonus to the effectiveness of Agility and Wisdom when using Arcane Arrow Rain. Increased damage based on Perception and the distance the arrows fall from when creating an Arcane Arrow Rain.

WARNING: This skill is unlocked by and will serve as an upgrade to your existing Splitting Arrow Rain, resulting in the loss of the skill

A direct upgrade to Splitting Arrow Rain, more or less. One that was linked to his class, too, making it even more interesting. Reading over the actual effects, Jake was both impressed and a little unsure about this one’s upgrade path.

It was pretty clear the upgrade leaned heavily into just adding more arrows. Jake didn’t doubt that the basic splitting function would be even better than before, with the entire Arrow Rain aspect becoming far better. Even the way the rain happened had improved, as rather than just mass-cloning the arrows, this skill would just make one big arrow that would then explode and create an Arrow Rain.

The integration of his arcane affinity into the skill also had the effect of making the cloning of all arcane arrows – which was all of them – more cost-effective. This was honestly a pretty damn obvious upgrade he should probably implement himself if he didn’t take this skill. It seemed incredibly simple and was just something he had never considered prior. Adding his arcane affinity to the skill never seemed relevant, as he was just copying arcane arrows anyway, so what would double arcane do? Well, make things more efficient, apparently.

This was already a pretty good basic upgrade. More arrows, better cost-efficiency, and a more effective method of creating Arrow Rains. All of it was great.

However, the most exciting thing about the skill by far was the option to put the skill on a cooldown in order to “push himself beyond his usual abilities” and create a self-sustaining Arcane Arrow Rain. If Jake read it correctly, using this effect would allow him to create a massive Arrow Rain that lasted for a prolonged period of time without him even needing to do anything.

Jake had never run into any functionalities in skills like this one before, at least not like this. Sure, Wings did have a powerful effect it could trigger and then become unusable for a while, and Palate also kind of did with the current situation going on with it right now – because yes, on a side note, even one and a half year or so after having the World Core explode, his stomach still hadn’t fully healed.

Anyway, back to the Arrow Rain upgrade, Jake was very curious about how this worked. Like, what was the concept between it? Usually, things that allowed you to break your own limits were classified as boosting skills, and even extremely powerful single-cast spells usually came with either a long cast time or some form of backlash or period of weakness after use. This skill didn’t mention that Jake would experience any of this, only a cooldown. Just to find out exactly how that worked, Jake nearly wanted to select the skill, but he had to remain steadfast. There were two more options to go through, after all.

With the next one having a suspiciously similar line in the description.

[Penetrating Arcane Arrow of Horizon’s Edge (Ancient)] – No defenses shall stop your arrows as they pierce any foe that dares impede your Path toward the horizon. Allows the Hunter to create a Penetrating Arcane Arrow that will pierce through nearly any natural barriers and have a far higher penetrative effect on any defenses manifested or possessed by the target. Will temporarily lower the defenses of the foe if they are struck successfully. These effects are more powerful the higher the enemy’s defenses and the level disparity between you and your opponent. On an internal cooldown, the Hunter can push himself beyond his usual abilities and forcefully infuse the concepts of the Penetrating Arrow of Horizon’s Edge into another self-created arcane arrow. Doing this will temporarily make the skill unavailable, with this period dependent on the power of the arrow you infused. Due to conceptual synergy, Penetrating Arcane Arrow of Horizon’s Edge receives significantly increased bonuses from Unblemished Arrows of the Horizon. Adds a bonus to the effectiveness of Agility, Strength, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Perception when using Penetrating Arcane Arrow of Horizon’s Edge.

Again there was the ability to “supercharge” the skill and put it on cooldown. Was this maybe something inherent to the Hunter of Horizon’s Edge class? Like how Avaricious was all about making his attacks more effective against higher-leveled foes, this concept allowed Jake to “supercharge” skills along with the usual bonuses?

If that was the case… why? What made this ability inherent to his class? Perception scaling made sense thematically with the concept of chasing the horizon. The horizon was just a metaphor for something unattainable that was incredibly far away, with any progress made toward the horizon just moving it further away. Perception played into this, as the further one could see, the more ambitious the horizon he chased. The scaling based on levels also made some level of sense, as every enemy reflected what obstructed him on his Path toward Horizon’s Edge, and every enemy was ahead of him on this endless journey.

The main theme of his class did seem to be going above and beyond, reaching for the impossible, so was this supercharging of skills maybe a representation of that? That he would reach beyond what he could reach beyond his own station and, at the cost of putting the skill on a cooldown, supercharge the skill for one final push?

He knew he wouldn’t get an answer by just thinking about it, so he decided to evaluate the actual skill.

Penetrating Arrow seemed like a bunker-breaker of sorts. It was created to destroy defenses and would probably work very well as an opener of sorts when Protean Arrow wasn’t an option. Or could he supercharge the skill and infuse the concept into the Protean Arrow? Yeah, that was definitely an option, too, if he went for the one-shot.

The increased synergy with Unblemished Arrows was also interesting, but honestly made sense considering the two skills were kind of similar. The skill was also ancient rarity, so it clearly dealt with high-level concepts… yeah, all in all, this skill would just be a great tool to add to his skill set. Sure, he did have a few doubts, such as how long it would take to summon this Penetrating Arrow, but as it didn’t mention how fast or slow it would be, he assumed it wouldn’t be too bad or good.

In conclusion, this one was definitely a contender. But he had one more skill offered – this one legendary.

[Arcane Supremacy (Legendary)] – All other magic - all other energies – falter as you embrace the supremacy of your arcane affinity. Determined in your Path, you are ready to dedicate yourself to your arcane affinity once and for all. With conviction, reforge your body, making arcane energy more easily travel through your pathways while making you significantly more resilient to your own arcane energies. Passively increases the effectiveness and lowers the cost of all combat skills using arcane energy. As your bond with your arcane affinity deepens, so does your understanding of it, reducing the mana cost of all freeform manipulation using your arcane mana while increasing its power. As your arcane affinity strengthens, you surrender other forms of magic, significantly increasing the cost and lowering the effectiveness of all combat skills and freeform magic that does not utilize your arcane affinity.

When reading this skill, Jake instantly got reminded of Attunement skills. In prior skill selections, Jake had been offered both the Curse and Dark Attunement skills, which would have permanently transformed a portion of his energies into dark mana or curse energy, with the benefit of any magic using those energies improving, but at the cost of any other types of energy manipulation getting worse.

This one was incredibly similar to that, but it was no attunement skill. Attunement skills were permanent changes to your status menu, literally adding or changing it to have a new resource. Arcane Supremacy, being a passive skill, would likely also lead to some changes, but it was far from as severe as an Attunement skill.

The biggest difference was that this one only really affected combat skills and magic. Jake wondered for a moment as he checked his status menu just to confirm something. Yep, pretty much all his skills already integrated his arcane affinity in some way or another. The only ones he was a bit worried about were those like Steady Aim, Relentless Hunt, and especially Eternal Shadow… but he was unsure if those were even affected or if they maybe did somehow utilize his arcane affinity even if the descriptions didn’t clarify it. One had to remember that his arcane affinity came at least partly from his Bloodline, so any skill related to that should also be affected positively, right? Or at least not negatively impacted.

Even something like curse energy Jake knew he could merge with his arcane affinity. In fact, it was better to merge it with his arcane affinity to stabilize it, something the Curse Fragments he had just learned to make were already doing. The Penetrating Stab also used his arcane affinity already.

One thing that also really interested him was how this one would work with Arcane Awakening. The part about making his body more resilient to his own arcane energies had to work great with his boosting skill, right? As it was his own affinity, Jake already had an insane innate resistance to arcane energy, but that didn’t mean he would say no to having to be even better.

Oh yeah, and reading more closely, when it talked about freeform manipulation of arcane mana, it didn’t actually say that part only worked in combat… so maybe he could even use that elsewhere? The possibilities.

All in all, Jake concluded that Arcane Supremacy was a skill that would effectively just buff nearly every aspect of combat, with minimum downsides, and those downsides he could quickly iron out. The only true negative was that this would be Jake fully dedicating himself to a Path. That he would, once and for all, go all-in with his arcane affinity over all other types of energy. Which, to be fair, he kind of already was.

It was a good skill, no two ways about it. Legendary too, plus it had a great name, in Jake’s opinion. The thing is, there were a lot of good offers this time around.

Jake read over the skills one more time, and he kind of liked the three last ones offered. Arcane Arrow Rain of Horizon’s Edge, Penetrating Arcane Arrow of Horizon’s Edge, and Arcane Supremacy all had different pros and cons, but all shared that they would be great additions. One would make him far better against massive foes and large-scale combat, as well as just give more overall damage to one of his core skills. Another would give him an arrow to break defenses and even empower his other already massively powerful attacks, such as his Protean Arrow, while the final one would just make nearly everything Jake did slightly stronger.

So… which one should he pick?