The Primal Hunter: A LitRPG Adventure, page 7
Without any warning, something came out of the bush, and he instantly shot his arrow, easily hitting it. At the same time, before he could even register what it was, a silhouette charged out from the bushes. He couldn’t properly see what it was in the darkness, but the humanoid silhouette was clear. It was further cemented when saw the moonlight reflected off the blade of a sword.
Jake stumbled backward and called out to awaken the others, but the sound had barely left his mouth when he haphazardly raised his bow to try and block the sword.
He managed to block it, but he was pushed backward, once more nearly falling to the ground. He barely held on to the bow with both hands. Finally, he got a proper look at the assailant. It was a bearded man who seemed to be in his thirties, wearing an outfit identical to the one worn by Jacob and Theodore. In other words, a medium warrior.
The warrior once more tried to swing his blade, but it had cut into the wood of Jake’s bow and gotten stuck. Their fight became a stalemate—Jake trying to get his bow back and retreat, and the warrior trying to cut all the way through and into Jake’s body. However, the stalemate was short-lived as another person rushed out of a nearby bush, wielding a huge two-handed axe.
Jake saw him, and it didn’t take a genius to know the situation was bad. Real bad. The medium warrior was as strong, if not slightly stronger, than Jake, and he had already been forced into close combat, meaning he had no way to use his bow. The others back at the camp had awoken by now, but they were scrambling and confused, with not even one of them having a clue what was going on. Jake and his attackers were a good twenty-five meters from the bonfire, hidden in the darkness.
Jake was at a loss what to do as the axe-wielding warrior got closer. He had no time to think, so instead of thinking… he just reacted. Less than a second before the axe smashed his head in, he let go of his bow just as the warrior tugged, making him fall backward from his own momentum. Jake took the opportunity to pull back as the axe smashed into the ground where he had just stood. The weapon was now stuck in the ground, making the heavy warrior his next target.
Charging forward, he tried stabbing the heavy warrior with his knife but was blocked by the man’s armored arm. Without any hesitation, Jake pulled an arrow from his quiver and, making use of the arrow’s length, managed to hit the axe wielder's eye with an overhead blow, just reaching across his guard. The arrow barely penetrated, but it was enough to buy him time.
When he turned around, the medium warrior was once again upon him, but Jake managed to block the first strike with his knife. The warrior took a step back and swung his sword once more, but this time, there was a slight red gleam around it; it moved faster and was far stronger. Jake’s attempt to block it was met with severe pain in his wrist as the knife flew out of his hand.
At the very same time, he felt a distinct sense of danger from behind him. No… not the feeling of danger, but that of sure death. Time seemed to get slower, as Jake’s senses were stimulated like never before. He saw—no, felt—the battlefield. The axe wielder had gotten up once more, bleeding from his eye, but had managed to pick up his axe and prepare to attack again.
The medium warrior was already upon him once more, raising his sword for another strike. Even more importantly was that behind him… an arrow was flying for his head. For the first time ever, he completely embraced the feeling of these new, unfamiliar senses. But even more than that, he completely and unquestioningly followed exactly what his instinct told him to do. Something had been unlocked, and he more than willingly accepted it.
He swayed slightly to the side, raising his left hand behind his back as he caught the arrow. The same motion easily dodged the overhead blow from the medium warrior as he slammed the arrow into the man’s hand, making him yell out in pain and drop the sword. The axe-wielding warrior behind him once more tried to strike him, but he dodged the blow by ducking beneath it as if he had eyes behind his back. In the same motion, he caught the falling sword that the medium warrior had dropped earlier.
In a swift, fluid motion, he smashed the sword into the axe warrior’s kneecap, making him buckle over as he screamed. Instead of trying to finish him off, Jake went for the medium warrior with the intent to finish off the now disarmed man. Jake ran toward him and cut him once across his arms as he raised them to try and block. The second blow sliced his neck open, spraying blood and drenching Jake from head to toe.
Another arrow flew his way, but Jake merely swayed slightly to dodge it as he rushed the axe-wielding heavy warrior, who was trying to pick up his axe once more. Jake, however, did not give him time to do so. In a full sprint, he kicked the man in the head. Before the disoriented warrior could recollect himself, Jake lifted the sword and stabbed it downward into the skull of the kneeling man. With his entire weight behind the blow, the sword still ended up only penetrating a few centimeters, but it was more than enough to pierce deep into the brain, killing the man instantly.
However, the sword was stuck, making Jake take out two arrows from his quiver and wield one in each hand as he dodged another arrow shot by the enemy archer. The attacking archer was clearly flustered, and fear was evident in his eyes as the blood-covered Jake charged him. He had been hiding in some bushes off to the side, but pinpointing him using the trajectory of the arrow was simplicity itself.
The archer threw his bow to the ground, realizing that he had no time to fire another arrow, and drew his knife. An excellent choice, as Jake had found his archery very lacking. Clearly a novice before the system, and he had a feeling the man wasn’t that much better with a melee weapon either.
Jake smirked as he easily dodged the first swipe of the knife, then leaned in and stabbed an arrow into the archer’s knife-wielding arm. To the man’s credit, he did not let go of his knife, but it helped him little as another arrow was stabbed into his stomach. He dropped his knife from the shock of that one.
He tried fighting back, but Jake easily took out another arrow from his quiver and smashed it into the archer’s chest, followed by another, and then another. The poor man was only able to flail his arms as he attempted in vain to ward them off.
Nine arrows later, the man finally stopped struggling as his last breath left him. A total of twelve arrows were sticking out of his corpse.
Jake got up and looked toward the sky, a small smile still on his lips. The sense of danger had passed, and his instinct to kill had gone quiet. He had survived.
The others back in the camp were now more than awake and ran toward him, all of them clearly still flustered. The moment they saw the scene, they were instantly horrified by the sight. A man lying facedown in a pool of blood, right beside another man still in a kneeling position, blood dripping from his eye and a sword sticking out of the top of his skull. The picture was made all the more horrifying by a smiling Jake, completely covered in blood, standing over another corpse with a dozen arrows sticking out of it.
"What… what happened?" Jacob stammered, clearly disturbed by the carnage.
A smiling Jake turned to him, still savoring the euphoric feeling he was currently experiencing. His smile grew even larger as he answered.
"I won."
Chapter 9
Blood
Jake felt good. Incredibly good, in fact. The sensations that came from facing down certain death and coming out on top were wonderful. He didn’t notice the weird look Jacob was giving him, nor did he notice that the other people in his group had made their way over, though some of them quickly turned right back around when they saw the scene.
Among the new arrivals, Caroline looked at Jake with a mix of concern and fear.
"Are you hurt? There is so much blood…" she said in a quiet voice. She looked pale as she stared at the image of Jake standing beside a man full of arrows, the blood gleaming as it reflected the moonlight.
"I’m good. None of it is mine." Jake said this casually, with a light smile. He was hoping to finish up any potential conversations so he could move on to more important things. He had gotten several system notifications that he was more than eager to get to.
"Oh… okay," she answered tentatively.
Caroline didn’t seem inclined to ask any more questions, while Jacob looked like he had something to say, but chose not to.
Jake gladly took the opportunity to extricate himself when no one else spoke up. "I’m gonna go sit down and check my status messages. There are no more enemies as far as I can tell, so relax, everyone.” He considered if he should tell them they could go back to sleep. He decided not to, as he had serious doubts anyone felt like sleeping right now. He sure as hell didn’t; his spirits were way too high.
Jake walked to the bonfire, which was still burning bright as ever, sat down on the same log he had used as a lookout earlier in the night, and finally opened his notifications window to a slew of messages.
*You have slain [Human (G) - lvl 3 / Warrior (Medium) - lvl 7] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level. 478 TP earned*
*You have slain [Human (G) - lvl 2 / Warrior (Heavy) - lvl 5] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level. 340 TP earned*
*You have slain [Human (G) - lvl 2 / Archer - lvl 4] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level. 294 TP earned*
*’DING!’ Class: [Archer] has reached level 4 - Stat points allocated, +1 Free Point*
*’DING!’ Race: [Human (G)] has reached level 2 - Stat points allocated, +1 Free Point*
*’DING!’ Class: [Archer] has reached level 5 - Stat points allocated, +1 Free Point*
He had won not because of his stats, but purely due to how he fought. They were amateurs, and Jake doubted they’d even used all their skills during the fight. Besides the medium warrior using that glowing sword, he hadn’t noticed anything else… Then again, they were all low level, and it wasn’t like skills actually had any real visual prompt from what he had seen so far. In fact, he wondered if he should be surprised that the guy had a skill to make his sword glow like that to begin with.
Looking at his gains from the fight, the stat points and levels were nice, but the real gains came in the next few notifications, though they were a bit different from any earlier ones.
*Bloodline Detected*
Processing…
…
Bloodline analyzed.
*Bloodline Awakened*: [Bloodline of the Primal Hunter (Bloodline Ability - Unique)] – Dormant power lies in the very essence of your being. A unique, innate ability awakened in the Bloodline of the newly initiated human, Jake Thayne. Enhances innate instincts. Enhances the ability to perceive your surroundings. Enhances Perception of danger. +5% to Perception.
A new skill had been unlocked—or was it an ability? He was clueless as to what the whole Bloodline business was about. His family background was nothing extraordinary, as average as one could be, and yet he apparently possessed an innate ability tied to it.
Not that he was going to complain just because he was a bit confused. The effects of the ability were, in Jake’s honest opinion, awesome. It also explained why he had these weird senses that none of the others seemed to have. More amazing was that the description even included his name. That was kind of cool in its own right… right?
What he gathered from his own experiences, along with the description of the ability, was that it had four effects. The first one was the enhancement of instincts. Without a doubt, this was the explanation behind his performance in combat and the occasionally supernatural reaction time he possessed. His ability to react was way beyond what his stats should allow him, and the reason why he, at times, felt like his body couldn’t keep up with what he wanted it to do.
The second part of the ability was the one to perceive his surroundings. The three-hundred-sixty-degree perception he had experienced during the fight made him act as if he had eyes in his back. He could not explain at all how it worked; he just “knew” where everything was.
Even now, it was still active. He “felt” the bonfire's flickering flames and every particle of smoke that entered the air. He “knew” of the log beneath him, how it had a small part of it inside that was hollow, and every single blade of grass around it. His understanding improved whenever he focused on it, but it was passively making him aware of roughly everything around himself, especially any movements.
It was all vague, however, and the range seemed only to be a few meters. He could not sense the others, as they were still at the corpses ten or so meters away. He estimated the range to be perhaps five or six meters. Too low for scouting, but invaluable in combat.
Third on the list was the perception of danger. That part was rather self-explanatory, honestly. It was the prickling sensation he felt whenever something dangerous was heading his way, the feeling in his gut that something dangerous was lurking ahead.
That part alone was great, but what made this part of the ability incredibly strong was the synergy with the two other effects. His perception of the area around him allowed him to perceive the nature of the danger, and his enhanced instincts allowed him to make a split-second reaction.
The fourth and final part was a 5% stat bonus to Perception. While certainly valuable, he saw it as rather inconsequential compared to the other effects. He didn’t doubt it would prove more beneficial as he got more stat points, and the bonus started adding up, though.
The entire skill seemed far stronger than anything else. Archer’s Eye was also a Perception-based skill, but compared to his Bloodline of the Primal Hunter, it was borderline useless for anything other than scouting.
Even with the ability itself being so awesome, it didn’t come alone, bringing even more benefits.
*Title Earned*: [Bloodline Patriarch] – Unlock a unique Bloodline ability. The power found in the origin of your Records are yours, and yours alone to wield and pass down throughout the multiverse. May your Bloodline prevail. +15 Vitality, +10% to Vitality.
This one was… massive, in a few different ways.
The description of the title was quite something in itself, especially compared to his only other title, which was just a matter-of-fact statement that he was now part of the multiverse and new to it. This one instead talked about something called Records. Whatever the hell that was.
Even the name of the title felt quite a bit more impactful. Bloodline Patriarch. It was indicating that he was the forefather of the Bloodline and that it was his alone. Did this mean that the rest of his family didn’t also possess it? Was he just the first one to unlock it? The thought of his family still alive briefly entered his mind, but he suppressed the thought. Now wasn’t the time to get sentimental.
The description and stat points granted by the title indicated the system's desire for him to survive and thereby allow the Bloodline to live on... and oh boy, the stats. A massive +15 Vitality, instantly making it his highest stat, only made better by another +10% straight on top.
Looking at his stats, he found they had gone through quite a development from the level-ups, ability, and title.
Status
Name: Jake Thayne
Race: [Human (G) – lvl 2]
Class: [Archer – lvl 5]
Profession: N/A
Health Points (HP): 302/310
Mana Points (MP): 123/130
Stamina: 144/170
Stats
Strength: 18
Agility: 19
Endurance: 17
Vitality: 31
Toughness: 12
Wisdom: 13
Intelligence: 13
Perception: 28
Willpower: 11
Free Points: 3
His stats had seen a massive growth, which made him smile widely. He did frown a bit, however, as he began to question his Vitality being at 31. According to his quick math, he should have 29 Vitality before the +10%, having been at 13 the last time he checked. After that, he had gotten +1 point from his race leveling up and +15 from the title. With +10%, he should be at 31.9… and yet it only showed 31 and not 32. Did it only show whole numbers rounded down?
Jake had 3 Free Points, so instead of thinking further on it, he simply allocated a single point and saw it instantly jump from 31 to 33. So, only whole numbers rounded down. Got it, he thought, nodding internally.
As for his last two points, he decided to do another experiment. His stamina was at 144/170, being higher than his maximum was when he’d woken up earlier in the night. What Jake wanted to know was how increasing the maximum of a resource affected the current amount available.
He allocated a Free Point to Endurance, leaving him with one left for later. He saw his stamina jump to 154/180, adding a static 10 points to both maximum and current. Does this mean you could potentially have infinite stamina with enough repeated level-ups? Jake wondered, though he did admit the scenario of that happening was quite far-fetched.
For the last Free Point, he was unsure how to distribute it, so he just let it be for now. The last subject on his lengthy list of system messages was the result of reaching level 5 in his Archer class:
*Archer class skill available*
Jake mentally acknowledged that he wanted to browse class skills, and a big list appeared before him. To his surprise, a huge number of weapon skills showed up. [Basic Two-Handed Weapons (Inferior)], [Basic Shield Technique (Inferior)], [Basic Unarmed (Inferior)], [Basic Throwing Weapons (Inferior)], and so on and so forth.
The only ones he did not seem to have were the magic-related ones. Quite honestly, Jake was not interested in any of them whatsoever. He was more than happy with his already once upgraded [Advanced Archery (Common)], and he still had the [Basic One-Handed Weapons (Inferior)], in case things got dicey and he was forced into melee as he had been in the last fight. This left him with only three options available at the bottom.
