The Primal Hunter

The closer Jake got to completion, the harder it felt and the more nervous he became as he questioned if he’d gone about this the right way. The external time pressure of the final Prima Guardian being slain and the potential of communication opening up with the wider multiverse didn’t help either, but Jake knew he couldn’t let it impact him too much. He simply resigned himself to the fact he wouldn’t be done with his project in time…

And then a day passed. No news of the final Guardian being slain or any system messages appearing.

A second day went by. Nothing.

Followed by a third, a fourth, and soon, an entire week had passed by, at which point Jake no longer felt grateful he had some extra time but pure confusion about what the hell was going on. Enough to contact Miranda directly to ask if she had somehow missed telling him there were no red planets left. However, the response she sent made it clear she also wasn’t sure what was going on.

“I know it’s odd, and I’m doing what I can to figure out what is happening. So far, all we know is that the final planet is one firmly under the control of Ell’Hakan and the Holy Church, and honestly, one we expected to have had their Guardian killed far sooner. It took some effort, but we managed to locate a family who had once been living on this planet before the Prima Guardian event and had left because the Holy Church fully took over, and from the sounds of it, the planet is far from weak. It’s really odd that they didn’t join the Prima Guardian Alliance, though, even if they were powerful enough to deal with the system event alone. While I still can’t be sure yet, putting all this together, we can only conclude that they’re purposefully delaying killing the Prima Guardian for some reason. As for what this reason is… who knows? One would think the Church was also keen on reestablishing contact with their Patrons, but apparently, they want to get something done before that can happen.”

To summarize, some kind of scheme was going on. Jake genuinely had no clue why they were delaying like this, especially considering there was a chance some kind of reward existed based on how quickly the Milky Way finished dealing with the entire event. The Church and Ell’Hakan were, in essence, griefing the entire galaxy by refusing to kill the last boss to the benefit of everyone.

Maybe they wanted Jake or someone else to travel there to finish the event, only for it to be a trap? Or were they waiting to fully stabilize their power? Some internal conflict? There were so many possibilities that Jake didn’t even want to think about it but just kept focusing solely on his arrow.

There really was no need to stress about the outside world when he already had such a big stressor right there with him.

He felt like someone who’d been building the world’s largest house of cards and was now placing the last few dozen cards. With every touch, he feared the entire thing would come falling down, even if he knew that wasn’t really a possibility before he activated when. When Jake realized he only had about a day or two left of intense work, he contacted Miranda and told her not to contact him or allow anyone else to bother him until he was done. This final part would take absolute focus throughout.

Jake even went so far as to drink some of the soul-soothing dew water he’d used while healing to calm his nerves to ensure he could do the last touches properly. By now, only the top of the large arrow tip had to be covered with the rest of the formation. From there, Jake only had to make some finishing touches, and it was go-time.

Hours passed as Jake’s careful hand continued crafting the arrow. He connected the magic circles, drew the runes perfectly, and put it all in an interconnected web that should hopefully be powerful enough to merge with Eternal Hunger without instantly being overwhelmed and consumed.

For the first time in a long time, Jake was sweating as he willed the final bit of arcane energy to cover the tip of Eternal Hunger’s form. He added the required layers on top after that, double and triple-checking everything was according to how he wanted it. With a small nod, Jake lifted his hands away from the arrow that was now complete…

… alright, one more check-over to ensure nothing was out of place was definitely in order. And a good thing he did, as Jake spotted a flaw which was quickly rectified. He ended up spending nearly five hours just staring intently at the arrow from top to bottom before he felt satisfied and stepped back, having seen nothing obvious out of place.

Jake looked at the more than two-meter tall arrows-shaped Eternal Hunger and the translucent formation that covered it. It looked kind of bad, honestly, with the formation turning the arrow too bulky to look usable. It was as if Eternal Hunger was trapped in a crystal prison one was meant to break it out from, and the thing definitely wasn’t shootable like this.

Luckily, this wasn’t the arrow’s final form… because he still had the last step left to go. Jake didn’t have enough surface area to make the intricate runes and scripts he needed, which was why he added so many layers to give him space to inscribe, but naturally, this did result in the arrow becoming a bit too bulky.

So, the final step would be to remove those layers by combining them into one single-layered shell that would encompass and cover Eternal Arrow from top to bottom and merge with the mythical weapon. By far, this was the most crucial step, and Jake already half-expected something to go wrong.

If it did end up going horrendously, he had a few backup plans and was quite frankly fully willing to even pull out a bit of his Origin Energy if he believed it would help at some point. He hoped it wouldn’t be necessary and that the innate concepts of his arcane energy and its ability to change would be enough to accomplish his goal, but this was unexplored territory… and let’s be honest, something usually went wrong when Jake did things like this, and he had to do some hail mary to miraculously save everything.

Anyway, the primary goal of the formation was to empower the concepts of the Protean Arrow and his arcane energy which was core to the skill. For something to be Protean meant it was able to easily change. That it was versatile and adaptable. If that versatility was pushed to the extreme, then maybe, just maybe, it would be enough to even adapt to Eternal Hunger.

With a final look at the arrow, Jake decided to stop stalling and get on with it. Firstly, he dismissed the barrier all around him that had been stabilizing the space. This allowed mana to rush in and fill the room, putting him on a timer before it had any way to affect the in-progress arrow. Next, he reached out with his right hand and grasped hold right at the center of the arrow, where magic circles had been drawn for him to hold.

Here goes nothing.

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Jake’s body exploded with energy as he activated his boosting skill fully. With it active, he would have far less control over what was about to happen, but right now, he didn’t need control but pure power. Potent arcane energy rushed through Jake’s body as it entered the crystaline structure and spread all throughout it as the room lit up in the color of his arcane mana.

All he could do was trust he hadn’t fucked anything up as the first crack sounded out. The outermost layer of the formation collapsed in upon the layer right beneath it, merging the two together in an instant using the arcane strings Jake had placed to function as bridges.

The entire structure seemed to be shaking as they were forcefully merged, with hundreds of small reactions happening every second, and Jake did nothing but infuse his intent and energy. He didn’t try to manually control anything at all but believed that everything should fall into its right place… assuming he hadn’t fucked anything up.

Another loud crack sounded as the two merged layers collapsed once more, colliding and merging with the one beneath it. The intensity of energy grew as all the arcane mana Jake had infused into the arrow over the last weeks was released, bringing more and more parts of the formation to life.

Shortly, another layer collapsed. One by one they all cracked and merged, the formation becoming more and more complex. Jake, despite his insane resistance to his own affinity and mana, felt his hand begin to burn with the insane amount of energy at play, as most of it was completely wasted and dispersed into the air or tried to enter Jake.

He didn’t care about the utter inefficiency of his work, but only that so far, nothing had broken yet. However, he was about to reach the most crucial stage. On Eternal Hunger itself, Jake had placed several runes that were there to merge the formation and the arrow-shaped mythical weapon that the system refused to recognize as an arrow. When the final layer collapsed and fell upon these runes, it was make it or break it if all of Jake’s preparations had been good enough, or all he had accomplished was to feed Eternal Hunger a buttload of arcane mana that, in truth, wouldn’t benefit it jack-shit due to their connection anyway.

Finally, all the layers of the formation had merged, and so far, Jake was admittedly astonished nothing had gone too wrong yet. Sure, the last part was the hardest, but so far so good. He didn’t exactly have the choice of stopping what he was doing either, but he just had to believe in his own skills and let his will guide the grand finale.

With a rush of intent, Jake sped up the last collapse. The many-layered formation that made up the shell covering Eternal Hunger was crushed into the weapon itself, as all the runes Jake had inscribed upon it came to life as they switched from being made of pure, stable mana to being fully active.

In an instant, the color of the room changed. The arcane affinity turned from the usual pinkish-purple to an incredibly deep purple as curse energy was released and mixed with it. Jake felt Eternal Hunger come to life as it began to greedily absorb the vast amounts of mana actively being pushed onto its form, the formation shell duking it out with the weapon.

Gritting his teeth, Jake continued doing nothing but hoping that things would work out. Cracks sounded out constantly, and shards of crystalized arcane energy fell on the ground, as the grand formation seemed to lose some of its prior thickness as more and more of its energy was drained.

Yet the integrity of the formation held. Rather than being broken, it was absorbed as the runes on Eternal Hunger continually grew in power. At this point, even with Jake’s incredibly high Perception, he wasn’t capable of keeping track of all the reactions going on between the formation and Eternal Hunger. This was many weeks of work and months of preparation leading to barely a couple of minutes of reactions all at once, with most of them happening now.

Jake was only waiting for the shoe to drop. For something to go wrong and his instinct to scream at him. For what he’d missed to reveal itself and force him to scramble to do a last-minute fix that would hopefully save everything… but it just didn’t happen.

Seconds ticked by, and the reaction just continued. Jake stood there, tense as could be, as the arcane and cursed light began to slowly fade. The energy within the room began to rapidly disperse until, finally, the room went still. No more reactions, no more energy released.

Jake stared at Eternal Hunger and its slight change.

Nothing looked like it had changed besides a deep purple – almost black – layer of crystalline arcane mana now covering the entire form of Eternal Hunger. It was not even a millimeter thick and just looked like a thick coat of paint… but Jake, who still had a hand on the arrow, smiled as he felt it.

As of this moment, he was no longer holding a weird arrow-shaped spear in his hand… he was holding an actual arrow, even in the eyes of the system.

With a big grin, Jake finally opened his system notifications and saw it.

Skill Upgraded: [Protean Arrow of Avaricious Horizons (Ancient)] --> [Protean Arrow of Eternal Horizons (Legendary)]

He didn’t delay and instantly checked the new description, and… hot damn was it long.

[Protean Arrow of Eternal Horizons (Legendary)] – Manifest your will as you forge an arrow to encompass all possibilities. Grants the skill to design and summon two types of extremely powerful arrows to strike down a targeted foe (only one arrow can the summoned at a time). Two versions of arrows can be created: one of pure energy and the other using a medium known as Impetus Arrows. Energy Arrows may be infused with several layers of energy dependent on the Hunter’s will. Impetus Arrows requires a powerful medium to direct the nature of the summoned arrow. Creating Impetus Arrows requires a significant amount of time, focus, and manual input, while Energy Arrows can be summoned relatively quickly and with far less effort. The Hunter may envision his foe and channel his Willpower into the creation process to further empower the final creation. The arrow summoned deals significantly increased damage to the envisioned target, dependent on Willpower and your familiarity with the target. Damage increased further based on level disparity, Perception, and distance traveled. Due to the Hunter’s powerful connection to the arrow, he can influence its flight path, and all effects can be further increased dependent on the Hunter’s connection to the medium used to create an Impetus Arrow. Stat bonuses are applied depending on the nature of the summoned arrow. May the horizon of possibilities remain eternal, as no foe proves themselves too powerful to slay; you’ve simply yet to create the arrow capable.

Summarizing the changes to the skill seemed complicated, but it really wasn’t. All that had changed was that Jake could now create another type of Protean Arrow using a medium, and the system had decided to call these arrows Impetus Arrows. Perhaps because all turning a medium into a Protean Arrow really did was empower it and allow the medium to become a “perfect” arrow infused with the concept of the skill.

Of course, the details were a bit more complicated, and Jake only saw more possibilities for the skill in the future. However, for now, he was more than satisfied as he couldn’t help grinning. Not just because of the massive upgrade he’d just gotten, but the circumstances under which it had happened.

This felt like one of the first times nothing had gone terribly wrong during something like this. Shit had just worked the way Jake had wanted it to, and his preparations had proven sufficient. After the utter failure that was his attempt to forcefully upgrade Palate of the Malefic Viper, this felt like a massive win, and perhaps what had happened then had influenced his success this time around. It had made him extra careful and considerate to ensure nothing went wrong, as to not replicate what happened then… even if it couldn’t have been as bad no matter what, seeing as Jake wasn’t fucking around inside his own Soulspace.

Still feeling in a good mood, Jake kept reading over the description time and time again, as he still just stood there holding Eternal Hunger with his bloody hand that had been nearly burned away by the intense energies it had been subjected to.

However, that’s when he noticed something… he’d gotten notifications about the skill upgrade and the new skill description, but due to its sheer length, he had missed this wasn’t the only message he’d received. Due to his hyperfocus, he hadn’t even noticed it… but during the final parts of the upgrading process, another system message arrived:

The last Prima Guardian had finally been slain.

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