The Primal Hunter

Jake considered the five summoned bows closely, his immediate reaction being one of pleasant surprise. Sure, he’d known Maria was probably pretty skilled at making bows, considering she was a genius only behind people like the Sword Saint and himself, but that had only been when it came to combat. He had used a bow made by her before, sure, and that bow had been okay but definitely not top-tier.

However, it seemed that she had improved far beyond Jake’s expectations. Of the five bows summoned, four of them were ancient rarity with the final one surprisingly a legendary bow. Assuming the bow she was using herself was also of legendary rarity, she had at least crafted two of them.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the legendary bow presented also gave off the strongest aura by far and had the most impressive look. It looked to be made entirely of metal, with the string even reminding Jake of molten metal with how it even gave off a subtle glow. However, upon closer inspection, it wasn’t actually made of metal but some other material. Jake wondered what, but a quick Identify told him.

[Obsidian Blazebow of Kindling (Legendary)] – A bow with a body made from obsidian infused with potent fire energy and a string crafted using the sinew of an adolescent dragon. Its creator, a genius bowyer and master of flames, has further elevated the materials. The bow is incredibly conducive to fire affinity energy and becomes more durable the more fire energy is infused into it. Relatively fragile when faced with powerful physical attacks. Significantly increases the damage done by any fire-based bow attacks made. As the bow is used, all fire energy infused into it will lead to kindling and heat building up within that can be unleashed by infusing it into an arrow. All attacks with this bow will deal additional fire damage, increasing further as the bow is kindled.

Requirement: lvl 285+ in any humanoid race

Reading the description, Jake was definitely impressed. Obsidian could come in many shapes and sizes, with its power dependent on the lava it was created from, meanwhile, it didn’t need to be said that the sinew of a dragon wasn’t super easily come by. It definitely wasn’t crafted from resources Maria had acquired herself, and the fact her faction had invested such valuable ingredients in her to improve her crafting was proof they also viewed her as talented and thus worth nurturing.

However, despite his praise for the bow, there was one problem.

“Give me your honest opinion... I can’t use this bow at all, can I?” Jake asked Maria.

Taking the bow, it felt incredibly hot to the touch. The glass-like surface sat surprisingly smoothly in his hand, though, and Jake’s assumptions of his grip slipping had been entirely unfounded. He did wonder how it would bend, considering it was made of such rigid material... but he quickly realized he wasn’t even gonna get as far as to test that.

The moment he infused a bit of energy into the bow, he immediately felt something was off. His mana dispersed upon entry, and the bow only began to heat up enough for Jake to begin feeling a slight tinge of pain. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on as Jake let the bow go and put it back down.

“Not enough fire affinity?” Carmen asked with a teasing smile.

“According to the damn bow, no,” Jake shook his head, unable to say he was disappointed as this was the expected outcome.

“I figured,” Maria shrugged. “Still, from what I remember, you infused the last bow I gave you with your arcane affinity and made it useful that way around. While it would suck losing a bow that’s already good as it is, do you reckon you can transmute it into something useful for you?”

Jake looked at the bow for a few moments before shaking his head. “I’m not confident, no. At least not enough to take the gamble.”

It had been a while since Jake transmuted an item like this, and he knew there was a good chance that things wouldn’t go well, especially not with this bow. As the description said, it was relatively fragile toward physical blows and was very specialized toward fire energy. Obsidian was also a material with innate fire affinity, so if he wanted to transmute it into his arcane affinity... yeah, he wasn’t even sure it could be done.

Even if he did successfully transmute it, it would definitely end up a worse overall product. Considering how Jake had already been a bit of an asshat toward Maria by dragging her there in a rush, breaking a bow that she’d clearly spent a lot of time and effort crafting would also just only add insult to injury.

“How about any of the others?” Maria asked, sounding a little disappointed Jake didn’t want the legendary bow.

Jake checked out the four other bows at her prompting and did a quick analysis. Two of them ran into the same problems as the obsidian bow, with them being far too attuned to the fire energy to Jake’s taste. As for the final two, both were contenders. However, it was the last and final bow in the row that attracted his attention the most. It was one Maria clearly didn’t have much confidence in, even as she explained what it was.

“This is a weird one,” she began. “It’s one of those things you make just for the experience and to make different stuff once in a while. It’s made from Titanwood from a tree monster only found in B-grade and above. Massive fucking trees, I tell you, with the ability to change their size. I tried to integrate a bit of that, and while the final result is okay, I don’t really think it’s super useful. Cost-wise, it definitely wasn’t worth it, though, as this one was as expensive if not more so than the legendary bow.”

Nodding along, Jake used Identify on the bow to get a full idea of what he was dealing with.

[Mighty Titanwood Greatbow (Ancient)] – A powerful bow made for a powerful wielder. This bow was created by a talented bowyer, bringing out the innate powers of the material used. With a body made of Titanwood and a string from the sinew of a behemoth, this is truly a bow meant only to be wielded by the mightiest. The Titanwood Greatbow can change size and grow up to ten times larger without losing any durability, while it may lose some material integrity if grown beyond that. Records of the behemoth have fused with the Titanwood, allowing some of its Records to bleed through. Strength adds an additional damage modifier to this bow beyond the usual.

Requirements: lvl 290+ in any humanoid race. 25,000+ Strength

As Maria had said, it was primarily made of Titanwood, and he didn’t doubt it was incredibly durable. Far more than the legendary bow. He was also surprised to see that materials from a behemoth had been used during the crafting process. Behemoths were monsters that – just like dragons – were natural B-grades.

However, while dragons were innate masters of magic, the behemoth was the exact opposite. They were purely physical powerhouses, their sheer power often enough to rip anything of their own level apart. Not to mention their large size, which made them terrifying opponents to face.

For the record, Jake was definitely going to hunt one down at some point. One of the reasons he even knew about them was because he’d studied creatures he’d for sure want to fight one day. Behemoths had definitely made that list alongside dragons, leviathans, phoenixes, and pretty much any other mythological creature Jake had ever heard about that actually existed in the multiverse – which turned out to be nearly all of them.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Anyway, back to the bow, Jake could definitely see the potential, even if Maria wasn’t as optimistic.

“As you can see, it’s not really an archer’s bow, but made more for warriors who want a bow as a backup weapon,” Maria shook her head. “I naturally can’t even use it. I don’t know if your Strength is high enough, but even if it’s not, perhaps you can transmute that effect away?”

“No worries, I have the Strength required,” Jake said with his nearly 33,000 Strength, which was definitely a stupidly high number for an archer, but seeing as Jake ended up in melee half the time, he kind of needed it. Plus, it wasn’t like Strength wasn’t a good stat when using a bow.

“Would I be right to assume that out of everything, this bow is definitely the most durable?” Jake asked the bowyer.

“For sure,” Maria instantly confirmed. “Stupidly so. The draw strength required isn’t to be underestimated, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it could double as a staff to just whack people with.”

Jake didn’t even think that was a joke as he picked up the bow and studied it more closely. He also instantly noticed something else with it.

“Is it just me, or is the mana-conductivity absolutely shit?”

The words weren’t meant to be offensive, and Maria clearly didn’t take offense either, as she just nodded and sighed. “Yeah, as I said, good for a warrior, but for someone with a more hybrid build like you and I, it is indeed a very shit bow. As it is right now, that is. However, I get the feeling you may be able to turn it into something usable, which is part of the reason why I presented it to you.”

“You’re not wrong,” Jake said, continuing to inspect the bow. “To be clear, me doing any kind of transmutation to the bow will completely ruin the materials and make it impossible to reuse any of them in the future.”

“I’m not loaning you a bow; I’m trading you one,” Maria said.

Jake, who was still holding the bow and even already had a good plan in mind for how he wanted to transmute it, stopped himself and looked at Maria. “What kind of trade are you thinking? I’m swimming in Credits, so-“

“So am I,” Maria interrupted him. “We both know neither of us is struggling for Credits, and if we were, we have backers more than happy to throw near-infinite amounts at us.”

“True,” Jake said, not really able to argue against that one. “So what do you want instead?”

Maria turned serious as she looked at Jake. “Nothing now... just that you’ll owe me a favor, and not just for the bow but for the expedited delivery. Not a massive favor, but you will owe me one.”

Jake returned her serious look, and Carmen also chimed in after having not been involved in their bow talk. “That’s a lot to ask for a bow.”

Carmen was entirely right. It was a bit odd to think about, but Jake and the two women at the lodge had reached a level by now where favors had become a legitimately powerful currency. What’s more, Jake was fully aware that him owing Maria one didn’t mean she had to cash in while they were still in C-grade. She could ask him for a favor in B-grade or even when he was in A-grade if she so desired.

Villy had told Jake many times that words held power, so Jake lying without having any intention to honor his promise could have an actual tangible impact. Even if it didn’t, Jake wasn’t the type to just make empty promises, and Maria knew it.

It was a lot to ask for a bow... but Maria had helped Jake in the past. This wasn’t even the first bow she’d given him. Also, while she was clearly taking advantage of the fact that Jake had fucked her over by having her rush to his aid, it was nevertheless a fact Jake had been an ass in that regard and felt bad about having done so.

That’s why he ultimately just sighed. “Very well, but it can’t be anything extreme or something I would never agree to help anyone with in the first place. So a medium favor or something like that.”

“Deal,” Maria said with a bright smile, clearly happy with the outcome.

“You do know that you effectively just agreed to help her out with a mercenary assignment in the future, making it so you actually just promised to help out the Crimson Flame at least once,” Carmen very accurately pointed out, having a quite good idea of how those kinds of organizations worked, considering Valhal was also kind of a mercenary organization.

The biggest difference between the two was that in Valhal, individuals or small groups of companions agreed to work as mercenaries without the top brass getting involved. Meanwhile, the Crimson Flame were far more organized with a top-down, almost militaristic style. They could assign Maria with jobs as Gwyndyr had evidently done to make Maria leave the dungeon, while the only times Valhal would ever have anything come down from the top was if Valdemar declared war... and even then, that wasn’t really an order. Everyone simply followed the War God without question as he tore a path of death and destruction across the multiverse.

“I am well aware of its implications,” Jake answered with a small nod after a moment of thought. “I assume she and the Crimson Flame know not to go overboard.”

“We’re not stupid,” Maria smiled as she got up. “Well, this turned out to not be that bad of an outcome. I’ll take my leave now and rush back to the dungeon as quickly as possible. Ah, in case any of you two wanna go, it’s pretty much just a large volcano and the land surrounding said volcano inside. Once you reach the volcano, there’s a long path going through the mountain before reaching the final boss in a core chamber below. You can use the tunnel or you can just fly above and head for the final boss right away by diving down into the lava, though it will be stronger if you do it that way. The boss is level 330, so not too bad experience, and you should be able to clear it within a few days at most, dependent on how fast you are at navigating and moving about. So for Jake, I reckon he could do it within hours, not days.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Jake said with a slight smile, mainly because he now knew he had no intentions of going to the dungeon. Level 330 was simply too low for him to consider it worth the journey. Would it give him experience? Sure, but Jake really wanted to only hunt peak C-grades right now... or perhaps even his first B-grade.

But for now, he had a bow to transmute and a Holy Church to invade.

After Maria left, Carmen gave Jake some space, and he instantly got to work. He already had a very vivid idea of how he wanted to transmute the bow, and there really was no need to delay as Jake began the process.

Jake’s plan was to do away with the ability of the bow to change size by forcefully condensing it and stabilizing its condensed and small human-sized form. This would not only increase the durability of the bow significantly, but during the compression system, he could also do a little something else.

With the bow in hand, he sent in pulses of destructive arcane energy during the entire transmutation process, creating veins of destruction within the otherwise stable wood. These veins were there to address the lack of mana conductivity, and while the result wasn’t pretty, Jake was confident it would work.

The materials created clearly carried the entire process, being able to handle Jake’s incredibly heavy-handed transmutation. The entire process ended up taking around two hours before Jake was done, and as he succeeded, he saw something unexpected.

’DING!’ Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 310 - Stat points allocated, +35 Free Points

’DING!’ Race: [Human (C)] has reached level 306 - Stat points allocated, +45 Free Points

Jake nearly felt called out for not having done transmutations in a long with that level-up. Especially considering it had come just after he’d gained the Anomalous Soul upgrade that should make gaining levels harder.noveldrama

Not the he complained as he looked down at his “new” bow.

[Mighty Arcane Titanwood Greatbow (Ancient)] – A powerful bow made for a powerful wielder, augmented through the power of arcane transmutation. This bow was created by a talented bowyer, bringing out the innate powers of the material used before then being transmuted by an even more talented alchemist. The durable Titanwood has been infused with the concept of stability, losing its ability to change size in exchange for higher durability. Arcane pathways have been burned through the durable wood, giving it acceptable mana conductivity for the type of arcane magic used to create the pathways. Records of the behemoth have fused with the Titanwood, allowing some of its Records to bleed through. Strength adds an additional damage modifier to this bow beyond the usual.

Requirements: lvl 300+ in any humanoid race. Quasi-Soulbound. 30,000+ Strength

The requirements of the bow had gone up, with the level and Strength requirements both getting higher, not to mention the Quasi-Soulbound effect that effectively just meant that one was required to have Jake’s exact arcane affinity to be able to use the bow.

Besides that, he’d achieved everything he wanted with the transmutation. Overall, he would say that he’d made it into a worse bow, but it was definitely better for him. Still not even close to as good as his old bow, but for now, this would have to make do.

Carmen also quickly noticed when Jake was done and walked out of the lodge where she’d been meditating... Jake having obviously noticed her sneaking out twice to steal bananas when she thought he was too focused on using Touch of the Malefic Viper to notice.

“I take it everything’s ready now?” she asked, none of them mentioning the banana thievery.

“Yeah, as ready as can be,” Jake nodded and looked at her. “Time to pay the Holy Church a visit.”