The Primal Hunter

Of course, Jake didn’t have any plans of dying, but occupying his mind with weird thoughts was the best thing he could do to distract himself from clawing out his own eyes. Luckily, the process was soon complete, and Jake opened his eyes again and…

Well, he couldn’t really tell anything had happened. It was not that surprising, considering he hadn’t actively aimed to make his eyesight better, and as he didn’t have any other people to look at, he couldn’t test the ability to look at other people’s souls.

With the evolution of his eyes completely done, he could also finally turn his attention to the skill upgrade itself. Jake stared at the skill for a while but didn’t get longer than the name alone before he had something he bit onto. Primal Gaze. Jake hadn’t expected the skill to necessarily become named “Gaze of the Primal Hunter,” but he sure hadn’t expected it to be Primal Gaze either. What did that even mean?

Clearly, it meant that ”primal” concepts had been infused into the skill, but not to the degree of turning it into a Primal Hunter skill. It felt more like a halfway point before becoming a true Legacy skill for him, and if that was true, wasn’t it still kind of awesome?

Because that would indicate that when he upgraded it to a true Primal Hunter skill, it would be one above mythical rarity.

Another possible part of the explanation why it wasn’t “of the Primal Hunter” was due to the inherent Records of the “of the Apex Hunter” concept being too powerful. Jake was ultimately still only a C-grade, and unless he did something unique to himself, it was difficult to make a skill that could truly be called part of his own budding Legacy, especially if it was built on top of a legendary skill.

Something like the Core Manipulation skill was something unique that relied on Jake’s unique concepts, so it was easy to make the vast majority of the Records in the skill belong wholly to Jake. The same was true with the Moment and Eternal Shadow skills that both came to be due to his Bloodline more or less directly getting involved.

Primal Gaze, on the other hand, was a true mix. It wasn’t truly something Jake had made himself but was instead only filled with Records that very closely aligned with his Bloodline and who he was. Jake did have full confidence that one day it would become a Legacy skill, but for now, he wasn’t going to complain about what he had gotten.

As a final note, the skill did also at least include mentions of who he was, with the nice little sentence: “May your gaze inspire primal fear in all who dare impede the Path of the Primal Hunter.” This pretty much served as confirmation that the skill was well on its way to becoming a Legacy skill.

Now, the actual upgrade to the skill was in the form of pure additions rather than any major changes. It was just Jake adding on “primal” aspects to the existing Gaze of the Apex Hunter, upgrading it without changing any of the fundamentals.

The new things added were the ability to directly clash his soul with others, the ability to see souls for weaknesses, and then an unexpected effect to inspire fear in targets he showed hostility toward? That last part of the skill definitely wasn’t something he had intended to add or even expected, but something that seemed to have snuck in with all the other stuff.

These changes to the skill meant that Jake could now also freeze the energies of people. At least, he instinctively felt so. However, there was one more important aspect of this upgrade to consider:

He could still use only the old version of Gaze. The one where people could still control their energies. He didn’t have to use the Fear Gaze aspect if he didn’t want to, which opened quite a few doors. First of all, it would allow him to use it on targets he didn’t wanna risk a direct soul clash against, and secondly, it meant he could use it strategically. What if he used regular Gaze in a fight against someone a time or two, making them adapt by keeping constant energy barriers ready, only for him to unleash a Fear Gaze for the finishing blow? Yeah, that could definitely be a thing.

Jake kept considering the potential use cases of his skill for a while longer before he continued to practice some other stuff. He really felt like he had to do a lot of catch-up after having spent so long as a level 0 in the Colosseum of Mortals, and if the dungeon hadn’t taken his items, he would probably have been busy doing alchemy by now.

Days passed before something finally happened in this particular story, also reminding him he was still inside the Test of Character Challenge Dungeon. Jake, with his Sphere of Perception now working properly, had early warning if anyone ever approached, and on that day, he saw someone going to the cell he was in.

Dispelling his stable barrier and lying down on the floor, Jake quickly relinquished control as his character returned to being an unconscious guy without any resources. A few guards arrived shortly after and didn’t notice anything wrong as they hoisted up the unconscious guy and dragged him away.

At this point, Jake was back to just being a spectator. He had been in the isolation cell for about ten days, and during this time, no one had come by to even check on him, though the magic circle meant to keep him trapped did have the ability to detect if anyone exited it. Considering the character was meant to be unconscious for all this time, he didn’t seem to have been much affected by Jake’s actions either, so Jake hoped he hadn’t messed up this storyline too much.

The guy was dragged to what looked like a temporary holding cell, where a healer came by and made sure he was awake and lucid. Once it was confirmed the character was awake – and very distressed – he was dragged off again toward a large building Jake quickly came to learn was a courthouse of sorts.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

From there, the trial began. Jake felt like he was in some crime show as both sides presented evidence, with Jake’s character’s defense being that he had no recollection of anything he was accused of and that he had potentially been mind controlled or at least messed with by some soul mage. Pretty much, they were just trying to sow doubt.

Meanwhile, the prosecution said that the guy was just lying because he had gotten caught. The evidence he had committed the crime was indisputable, so one would think they had an easy case considering there was a damn recording, but it appeared that the laws of the world in this story required them to prove a motive before he could be judged guilty. That he was some maniac who just liked killing was a legitimate claim, but the problem was that Jake’s character seemed genuinely heartbroken when he heard what he had done when he – allegedly – wasn’t in control of his body.

Both sides argued, and during all this time, Jake wondered if there really wasn’t anyone with a truth-telling skill like Silas anywhere. Jake tended to be pretty good at discerning if people were telling the truth, but with the character he was inhabiting, he genuinely had no idea.

Anyway, both sides had a hard time winning the case, and investigations continued as Jake spent several days being dragged in and out of a courtroom that looked very much like it could have come from Earth.

As time dragged out, the investigations into whether the guy had somehow been controlled really got momentum, which was when a change happened.

That night, while Jake was in a temporary holding cell, the truth was revealed. One of the guards approached the cell, and Jake instantly knew something was off. The guard looked like the regular guard, but Jake felt like he wasn’t… in fact, he reminded him of a certain someone.

Eversmile?

That’s right, the character Jake inhabited was innocent, and in reality, a shapeshifter had taken his form and killed a bunch of people! What’s more, the shapeshifter had done all this as a job for a powerful local bigshot to get rid of one particular person in the crowd slaughtered.

Meanwhile, Jake’s character was just the fall guy and had been put in a trance of sorts at home, where he just slept for a week straight while experiencing weird dreams that made him believe he could have been the killer.

Seeing as the investigation had gone on for too long, the bigshot decided that assassinating Jake’s character and making it look like a suicide due to guilt would be for the best, which was why the shapeshifter had come that day.

As for how Jake learned all this? Well, it turns out his new Primal Gaze’s fear function was quite effective at making others figuratively shit their pants and spill everything once he looked at them in a mean way. After a few threats where Jake acted like he was a being that had taken over the guy’s body – which technically wasn’t untrue – the shapeshifter turned on the bigshot, and from there, the rest of the story went as one would have expected. The bigshot was found out to be the real culprit, Jake’s character was released, and justice was served as everyone lived happily ever after.

At least that is what one would have expected, but there was more corruption and more shapeshifters around who also worked for this bigshot. Anyway, to make a long story short, Jake ended up gathering up a crowd of around two dozen shapeshifters and kindly threatened them with very painful deaths. It was only after that things ended in a satisfactory way, though it did also include Jake dismantling several institutions in the judicial system. So, yeah, things maybe got a bit out of hand.

So, when Jake said he believed it was satisfactory, that was only according to his own beliefs, where he tended to like good endings in stories, but if it was a good conclusion to the story from the Test of Character Challenge Dungeon’s point of view? Who the fuck knows!

By now, Jake had pretty much resigned himself to getting a shit evaluation for doing this Challenge Dungeon. The advice he had gotten from both Villy and the Wyrmgod didn’t really help him much, as both just boiled down to being himself… but hey, maybe that actually meant he was doing super well and was on his way to the best evaluation ever? When you didn’t know the criteria you were being measured by, it was pretty damn hard to tell.

Oh well, all he could do was continue as he went on to the next story… which was pretty much just a reskinned trolley problem. Yeah, he wasn’t a big fan, but hey, maybe the audience watching him do these stories enjoyed the show?

This is… getting out of hand.

Vilastromoz looked around the room, which had quite a few new additions since Jake completed the first Challenge Dungeon. The first of which was naturally the most expected of the bunch: Valdemar. Within a day of getting the information package, he had popped in with a huge grin on his face as he wanted to see the one who had beaten his image in the Colosseum of Mortals.

Only a few days later, the second person the Viper had kind of expected to come did. He was naturally speaking of Artemis. However, one of the reasons he had only kind of expected it was due to who and what she was.

For someone like Valdemar to show up to Nevermore and want a personal meeting and hang out with the Wyrmgod was entirely what one could expect. However, for someone like Artemis, she simply didn’t have the status to do something like that.

Moreover, Valdemar, the Viper, and the Wyrmgod were naturally all Primordials, and as a non-pinnacle god, simply being in their presence could be quite unsettling. So, she had made a wise decision and invited someone along who did have the status required: Nature’s Attendant.

That is how they, less than a week after Jake completed the Challenge Dungeon, ended up doubling the number of people sitting within what was effectively a large living room, watching recordings and livestreams of different mortals currently doing Nevermore.

It had to be noted that the Wyrmgod didn’t simply stream everything to everyone in the room. The only reason the Viper was allowed to see Jake was because he was his Chosen, meaning the three newcomers were not offered this privilege despite Valdemar’s loud complaints. Complaints primarily aimed at Vilastromoz, who was the one that was supposed to give permission, but after a while of the Viper refusing, Valdemar just settled with watching some of the young prospects from Valhal instead.

To avoid things getting too annoying, Vilastromoz did say he would share if something exciting happened on Jake’s side, but honestly, they weren’t missing much with the Test of Character dungeon. Not that it wasn’t fun to see Jake trying to figure out what he was supposed to do, but the Viper believed he was quite unique in his enjoyment of that.

Artemis and Nature’s Attendant eventually settled on watching his granddaughter. The hunter god was quite subdued in the room, contrary to her demeanor in the Colosseum, but the Viper couldn’t blame her. In fact, it was pretty odd she was even allowed to be in the room, considering the others there. Valdemar and the Viper being capable of existing in the same room without showing hostility toward one another didn’t mesh well with the official conflict between their two factions, after all, so for Artemis to be there was quite a risk.

Alas, the Wyrmgod allowed her to stay, Vilastromoz not doubting for a second that Minaga had something to do with it. At least the Unique Lifeform seemed to enjoy teasing her quite a bit as he showed her some of his own recordings from when Jake did his labyrinth.

Around a month passed like this until suddenly, two additions he had not expected arrived together. In retrospect, he probably shouldn’t have been surprised, as a gathering of three Primordials and Nature’s Attendant was already considered rather extraordinary, and these two had the pulse on the happenings of the multiverse and wouldn’t miss a happening like this.

And that’s how the Viper chilling with the Wyrmgod to see Jake’s antics turned into a meeting between five Primordials, with potentially more apex beings of the multiverse yet to arrive as they noticed the continued confluence of powerful beings in one place.