The Primal Hunter Volume 2

Going Up 2

It didn’t take him long to discover the faint improvements. The string was slightly more comfortable to pull; the arrow flew slightly faster and carried an almost negligible amount more power. It was small, nearly to the point of being unnoticeable, but any bonus was a welcome one.

After firing off a few more arrows to get a better feel for it, he thought about what to do next. It was either alchemy or a bit of solo flying practice. His decision, in the end, landed on flying practice. The kind he didn’t practice with the bird.

Flying up a little, he tried his best to hover, to flap his wings and have the rest of his body remain as stable as possible. He could already imagine how effective he would be if he became able to actively fight with his bow while flying at the same time.

But that was far off, as he couldn’t even correctly hover in the air yet. His flying practice was something that would simply take time and effort. It wasn’t something that should be rushed.

It was like a human child—in this case, an adult—learning to walk. Despite it being such a simple thing for any regular, non-disabled adult, that didn’t mean it was entirely instinctual. It wasn’t like breathing, making your heart pump. It took conscious effort and trained motor controls, and people who had to learn to walk later in life or go through retraining took time to do so.

The skill itself didn’t give him any hint or help with flying, so he was indeed a newborn bird in the sky. His only real help was his monstrous stats, which allowed for his suboptimal movements to let him fly. No matter how sillily or horribly he did so.

By the end of the day, when the hawk returned, he still hadn’t learned to hover, but it was getting better by the hour. The two took to the air, and this time, they flew straight up, higher than Jake had ever been before.

Previously, they had never gone higher than a few kilometers. Jake had quickly learned that the skies had their own separate ecosystem from the ground below. Different flying creatures dominated above. The higher one went, the stronger they were.

Below five kilometers, one barely encountered anything in E-grade. The flock they ran into earlier had been an incredible outlier. They were like locusts scouring the low skies, killing any other bird or flying creature on their way.

Above a couple more kilometers—which was the threshold the two of them had just passed—one began running into the occasional stronger monster. But the hawk didn’t show any intention of stopping or even slowing down.

They passed by a few low-hanging clouds, the hawk purposely avoiding them. Jake peered into one of them and understood why. Within were several unnatural movements. He couldn’t quite discern what they were—a natural phenomenon or perhaps a monster. Either way, he decided to rely on the hawk’s expertise and avoid the clouds for now.

Monsters of many kinds appeared in his vision as they continued. Many different types of birds, even ones he had never seen anything like before. One looked like a flamingo but had two sets of wings. Another was just a big, balloon-like bird that looked like it quite honestly didn’t belong up there.

None of them had a level above 50, making Jake and the hawk ignore them entirely, but as they kept flying further and further up, that started to change fast.

At eight and a half kilometers, they encountered a not-so-friendly giant wasp that tried to sting Jake. This resulted in Jake just catching the stinger and, with his hands on the thing, spreading death through it with Touch of the Malefic Viper. It had only been level 61, so Jake honestly didn’t know where it had gotten the guts to attack him from.

At ten kilometers, they had to avoid a brawl between two giant flocks of birds. Thousands of birds in each flock were ripping into each other. They were relatively weak individually, most still not in E-grade yet, but their sheer sizes made up for it.

Jake felt tempted just to use Gaze of the Apex Hunter but decided against it pretty quickly. It was pointless to do, and he wasn’t keen on the idea of committing bird g******e for no reason.

This kept up as they flew upwards. The hawk had clearly been up here many times before, as it swiftly dismembered any bird that attacked it while avoiding flocks and stronger-looking monsters. Jake felt more like a tagalong but had no complaints.

He was blown back by the sights he saw. It was indeed an entirely new world up there. But he did wonder why it was like this. The hawk had clearly shown a need to land once in a while. To rest. While he didn’t doubt that some monsters could rest while remaining in the air, he seriously doubted any of the more common-looking birds could.

At fifteen kilometers, they encountered their first challenge—the word “challenge” being used relatively lightly. It was a small group of three hulking birds. They looked like vultures that had gone to the gym six days a week, never forgetting wing or talon day—all of them level 87.

It was a bit novel to encounter such strength-focused birds. They attacked the pair, with one of them going for Jake and the two others the hawk. The hawk danced around them effortlessly as the wind cut into them, while Jake met the brute in melee.

Luckily for him, it didn’t even try to dodge but just smashed into him, trying to pierce him with its sharp talons. He summoned his sword and dagger, blocking the foot with the sword as he plunged the dagger into the leg of the vulture.

They kept tussling for a while before Jake managed to get in a few good blows to its stomach and lower body. The wounds didn’t look lethal, but they sure as heck were. The dagger was releasing its innate venom with every stab, only further amplified by Jake coating the blade with his blood.

The hawk had managed to finish off one of its vultures when Jake’s failed to keep itself airborne. It began falling to the ground as he flew over and helped the hawk finish off the last vulture. The one he had been fighting succumbed halfway through the brawl to his poison, dying before even hitting the ground.

It had been a relatively easy and fast fight, which was why he was surprised when the message popped up with the death of the last vulture.

*’DING!’ Class: [Ambitious Hunter] has reached level 84 - Stat points allocated, +4 Free Points*