The Primal Hunter
Chapter 1107: An Odd Little Encounter

Jake had been more injured than he initially thought. The destructive energies running through his body due to his boosting skill had obscured much of the internal damage, but once it was dispelled, Jake could see and feel just how dangerous sound-based attacks could be.

As he meditated to recover, Jake also analyzed the battle and admitted that the poison had proven more effective than he first assumed. It wasn't just due to its efficiency, but also how it made those affected act.

Inducing panic in his opponents was a powerful weapon, and it was natural to attempt to flee to safety if suddenly thrown into a highly toxic environment. The mental effects were perhaps even superior to the toxic ones, as Jake felt confident he would have had a much harder time if the Rainbowfeathers had stayed down in the jungle and tried to kill him.

The poison wouldn't have killed them quickly. In fact, none of the birds died due to exposure but were all finished off by arrows or other attacks. The poison helped deal damage, but more importantly, it hampered their natural healing and allowed all of Jake's other attacks to deal more damage.

Admittedly, it had been quite an investment to set up the poison mist field of death. He had spent over a hundred rare bottles of poison mist, and the ingredients and time consumed to make these weren't negligible. It had definitely been worth using all the poison, but Jake concluded that making bigger poison mist bombs would probably be a good idea.

Jake took a lot of mental notes, and even if he hadn't achieved much progress in archery, he had learned a lot about his poison gas. Trying to actively train and understand a concept during combat wasn't easy at all. He had tried to apply the concept of time to his arrows several times during the fight, but it never succeeded. Technically, he had succeeded in infusing them with energy, but all this energy he infused into the arrows with the intent of altering their speed instead just wasted away during flight, utterly directionless.

All he could do was keep trying until things finally fell into place. He really wanted the ability to shoot arrows with vastly differing speeds so he could alter the balance between dealing damage and flying faster, just as Artemis had displayed. Jake knew just how impactful this would be for him, and Artemis had agreed as she used these sped-up arrows in a similar fashion to what Jake was planning, even as a god.

While speeding up the arrow with the concept of time would consume some of the attack's energy, thus lowering its damage, it wouldn't affect the arrow itself and anything that may or may not be coated in it. In other words, Jake would be able to shoot arrows that would fly incredibly fast but deal little damage. At least they would if they couldn't still inflict their full poison payload, which in reality, would make the overall damage not be lowered that much.

Artemis did something similar with her special arrows that would grow life. She shot arrows so fast they practically teleported to their targets, the seeds embedded in the arrows sprouting upon arrival with full power.

Having great ideas but lacking the ability to pull them off was frustrating, especially when Jake knew the only thing stopping him was his own brain not letting things click into place yet.

Trying to dispel these negative thoughts, Jake refocused his efforts on recovery. His recent Meditate readings proved helpful as Jake healed faster than nearly all other people with the Meditate skill. The connection to his Soul and whatever concept governed passive recovery was strengthened through the methods of the First Sage, and Jake would only take a couple of hours to be back in top form once more.

As he meditated, the poison gas around him also finally dispersed fully. It had been slowly corroded away by the mana in the environment, the many living things within the jungle, and even the ground itself that had absorbed quite a lot of it.

This left the jungle looking more dead than alive, and things only got worse during Jake's recovery. He was happy he had chosen to sit on a stone as many of the trees around him were now black and rotting, and he felt lucky that none of the dead debris falling from above landed on him during his meditation session.

Jake had guessed it would take a long time for the environment to recover, likely years. However, Jake soon realized just how wrong he had been. It only took minutes after all the poison mist was gone before the aura of life welled up all around Jake. Many things had died, yes, but those that survived took full advantage of all the newly provided compost.

New small plants sprang from the ground and began to grow in real time. Rotten bark peeled off the trees that had survived as a replacement layer began growing, and all of the dead organic matter was practically slurped down into the soil as the jungle itself ate it up.

When Jake was done meditating two hours later, the signs of recovery were already stark. A lot of green filled Jake's vision as he opened his eyes. The aura of death was nearly entirely gone, even if the jungle still looked mostly rotten and dead in most places, especially when one looked up as the canopy that usually provided complete cover was gone. As Jake had stopped controlling the poison mist during his recovery, much of it had floated upward, corroding the cover and entering the skies above, where it had rapidly dispersed, allowing the sun's rays to shine through unimpeded.

Oh... I never noticed, there are three suns, Jake suddenly mentally noted, wondering how he had missed that. It also didn't look like it was later in the day than when Jake had arrived. Considering he had flown quite a ways around the planet using the jetstream, he should have noticed some change to the day-night cycle by now. Considering he hadn't, Jake made the educated guess there was no such cycle, and instead, it was day... well... all day.

Standing up within the rapidly recovering jungle, Jake felt a bit better that he hadn't caused any long-term ecological damage. As for the damage he had dealt to the Rainbowfeather Songbirds... well, from all Jake had read in the pamphlet, they had been some real assholes, and no one would miss having them around.

Cracking his neck after sitting down for a while, Jake decided to continue his exploration of the jungle. Not before gathering his loot from the hunt, though. In the pamphlet, he had read that the monster cores – something he didn't normally even bother gathering – were highly requested to be brought back and sold at the outposts. Being a good little hunter, Jake decided to gather those immediately nearby, and it only took him a few minutes to get thirty of them. These cores were only common and uncommon rarity, showing that the Rainbowfeather Songbirds weren't exactly peak creatures, at least not individually.

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Nothing else had entered his sphere during his recovery, likely because no monster wanted to enter the domain of the Rainbowfeathers or the newly-created domain of rot, meaning Jake hadn't seen anything else the Hunting Ground had to offer. That also meant nothing had taken his loot, and with nothing else nearby, he had no reason to remain unless he wanted to try and gather every core there was, which would not only take too long but, more importantly, be too tedious.

Rather than fly into the air for quicker movement, Jake decided to run while staying down in the jungle. Not only would that allow him to better explore his environment, but it was also a great excuse to practice some basic movement techniques and his One Step, as there were a lot of obstacles in the overgrown jungle.

Getting a move on, Jake continued his exploration as he ran toward where he knew the pamphlet, called the Grand Lake of Area 1, was located. The closer he got to it, the more powerful the monsters would be, and he was still hoping to encounter a B-grade monster to have a good fight.

After exiting the domain of the Rainbowfeathers, Jake still kept running for quite a while without seeing much of anything, which really hammered home how territorial the damn birds had been. On the way, he did see a few dead beasts hanging from vines or trees, most of them with their skulls crushed and a few discarded rainbow feathers embedded in their bodies, likely serving as warnings to stay away.

He ended up running for another five minutes before signs of non-plant life began to appear. Tracks from other monsters and even a few bones could be seen here and there, and through a Pulse, Jake saw several creatures ahead of him, all with several kilometers between one another.

As he was analyzing all these creatures in the distance, he released another pulse to see a small monster suddenly appearing only a few kilometers ahead of him. Jake was upon it in mere seconds as he slowed down and tried to take a more sneaky approach.

However, Jake had been going too fast and released too much energy between his running and teleporting, meaning he had already been spotted. Jake quickly stopped as on a branch a dozen meters up and thirty or so meters ahead, the creature that had suddenly appeared sat and stared down at him as Jake stared back at it, using Identify on instinct.

[Shimmerfur Warpsnatcher – lvl 346]

It was a small four-legged creature, no taller than Jake's knees, as it sat on its hind legs. Soft-looking blueish-white fur covered its body except for a back with glimmering spikes, reminding Jake a bit of a porcupine. The small, cute sort that is. It also had many cat-like features, including its face and limber body, making it overall look like a fusion between a cat and a porcupine.

Subtly, Jake double-checked the pamphlet as he was pretty sure he remembered this creature's name from the endangered animals list. However, before he could fully confirm, the creature disappeared, only to reappear a few steps in front of Jake.

He didn't react in fright as he felt no sense of danger from the cute-looking beast that stared up at him with big eyes. It tilted its head back and forth a few times before cautiously approaching. Jake remained still as the little thing sniffed Jake's boots before looking up at him again as it lifted its small paws up and cupped them together.

"Gift!"

The little creature mispronounced the word quite badly, and Jake was momentarily surprised as he just stared down at the thing in confusion.

"Me. Gift!"

Jake shook himself out of his stupor and, without really thinking much, took out one of the uncommon monster cores from a Rainbowfeather Songmender. He knelt down and placed the core in the creature's paws. It stared at the core for a little while before looking back up at Jake.

"Thank!"

With those words, the little thing scurried off, jumping a few steps like a squirrel before its body faded away, and even when looking through Jake's sphere, it had disappeared somewhere else.

Standing there for a few seconds, Jake scratched the back of his head before mumbling, "Did I just get scammed? Robbed? What was that all about?"

He was confused enough to pull out the pamphlet before finally checking if the Warpsnatcher had indeed been considered an endangered species, and yep, it was right there on the list. Pulling up more information on the thing, Jake saw it was pretty limited, though there was some.

"Shimmerfur Warpsnatcher. Known entities within the Hunting Ground: 1. This creature is extremely mobile, able to cross vast distances, enter and exit its own subspace realm at will, and has proven itself to have potent magic within the realms of space and mysticism.

From reports, this creature does not show outward aggression unless attacked first. Instead, it has been known to steal the bounties reaped from others' fights without ever engaging in combat itself, giving rise to the theory it's a scavenger pursuing a Path focused on the consumption of natural treasures. If spotted, do not attack or antagonize, but seek to retreat or wait for it to leave."

It didn't have any section about the creature using cuteness to scam people out of loot, nor anything about it being able to talk. While all C-grade beasts could learn to talk, most of them never did. First of all, it took time to learn to communicate in a way enlightened races understood, and while Jake's translation skill was potent, it couldn't translate random bird screeches... not to say people couldn't learn to understand them, especially if a beast in question wished to communicate its meaning to enlightened.

Sylphie was a prime example of this. Did she just screech? Yes, yes, she did, but her screeches held intent and willpower that could communicate what she wanted to say to people familiar with her and able to interpret her meaning. The Rainbowfeathers never even tried to communicate with Jake, though he did reckon they talked amongst themselves with how organized they were.

Putting away the pamphlet again, Jake shook his head and got a move on again, trying not to think too much about a cat-hedgehog scamming him. At least the thing had been cute, making him not feel too badly about it.

He had already spotted several potential targets for archery practice with his pulses and was now going toward one of the larger ones. It was a beast he hadn't expected to see within a dense jungle, as it seriously didn't seem to fit, but as he got closer and saw the creature in question... yeah, it still made no sense to see that kind of beast in a jungle.

[Crystalhide Oxen Lord – lvl 348]

It was a large ox, as the name implied. It was about four meters tall and over six meters wide, with stumpy and sturdy legs that crushed the underbrush as it moved around. Seeing a giant ox that looked as if it was covered in gray glass shards was super weird, and Jake wondered how it even fought, considering the terrain.

Luckily for him, he was going to find out very soon as he approached the large ox. Jake made no attempts to hide as he got within a few hundred meters, and upon doing so, the beast noticed him. It turned its head toward Jake, staring at him for a moment as Jake wanted to see if the beast would make the first move. He had already confirmed this wasn't some endangered species, and while he could have tried to take it down with a stealth attack, what was the point of that if Jake was meant to be training his archery?

A second or so passed with the ox observing Jake. It was long enough for him to consider if it was even aggressive... which was when he felt the rumbling from below. Jumping into the air just in time, Jake managed to dodge out of the way as a forest of crystal shards bloomed beneath him. The ox that had otherwise looked passive began to glow as the environment took on a silver hue, the beast unleashing some form of domain skill.

Crystals grew from the trees all around Jake, pointed toward him, and were ready to fire and skewer him from all angles. Jake saw these hundreds of attacks being prepared, as he nodded to himself.

So that's how it fights.