Jake had always known that his investment in Perception was a stroke of genius. He wasn’t just doing it because his Bloodline increased his Perception, and because having his senses improve just felt right somehow. That feeling of rightness likely came from his intuition, and since intuition came from Perception, it was truly a self-perpetuating cycle. Knowing that Perception was a lot grander than Jake usually read about the stat didn’t surprise him at all. Through his Bloodline, he already knew that Perception was far from a simple stat, but he had perhaps underestimated just how closely tied to the stat his Bloodline truly was.
Artemis talked about intuition being flawed at times and how one couldn’t entirely trust it, but in Jake’s case, he genuinely viewed his own intuition as more trustworthy than anything or anyone else. If Villy said one thing and his gut said another, he would go with his gut a hundred times out of a hundred, and so far, it had yet to lead him astray.
Jake also knew by now that his Sphere of Perception, as he called it, was more or less just an extension of spatial perception. Everyone had some kind of understanding of their own positioning within space and could vaguely feel what was around them. Jake just took that entire concept to a whole new level through his Sphere of Perception, which gave him omnidirectional detection of everything.
Well, mostly everything. It only allowed Jake to see shapes. Sphere of Perception didn’t display color, and unless the writing in a book was made with insanely thick ink that stuck up slightly, Jake couldn’t read it either using his sphere... not that he could anyway, as Sphere of Perception didn’t work with his translation skill.
His danger sense was also boosted to a level far beyond what Perception could usually do. Artemis talked about how it allowed precognitive knowledge of an attack simply by having high enough Perception, and upon elaboration, she explained that having a significantly higher Perception stat than one’s foe helped, and if the opposite was true, Perception also became utterly useless in regards to danger sense.
A C-grade would never even be able to know they were in any kind of danger before a god killed them. That particular aspect of danger sense definitely didn’t seem to be a thing for Jake at all, as he could feel if gods had any ill intent quite easily. On that note, killing intent, as many called it, was just an extension of danger sense, allowing one to detect if something or someone planned on attacking. This in itself was an instinct people had even before the system, as there were countless examples of people getting “vibes” from someone that they were about to turn aggressive.
Feeling that someone was observing you was also just a fusion of danger sense and intuition. Artemis explained that she knew when Jake was looking at her and where precisely he was looking, which luckily didn’t get Jake into too much trouble. This effect, just like danger sense, only really worked on people weaker than oneself or not too much stronger.
Jake’s version of this was also taken to the absolute extreme. He knew when anyone was observing him, no matter how strong they were. Having realized a lot of things, it took a lot of willpower for Jake to hide his inner thoughts from Artemis, as he still wasn’t ready to expose his biggest secrets related to his Bloodline, many of which not even Villy knew.
The more he learned, the more Jake couldn’t help but consider how his Bloodline had seemingly turned his Perception stat into something that could only be described as transcendent in quality. At least some of its effects were, and Jake now also couldn’t help but wonder if anything bad could have happened if he hadn’t invested sufficiently in his Perception stat. Could he have potentially lost some of the Bloodline-empowered abilities he’d begun to take as a given?
It was all hard to tell, but Jake suspected that the power of his Bloodline was intrinsically tied to the Perception stat one way or another.He also began to consider that it was possible Villy had already known or suspected this. Jake had told the Primordial that he got a percentage increase in Perception from his Bloodline, something that was apparently not at all normal. He at least hadn’t ever come across any accounts of others having it.
While most factions kept the powers of Bloodlines secret, they did reveal some things about them to convince others they were powerful. It was also a pretty normal thing for factions with powerful Bloodlines to form alliances and attempt to have children with mutated fusions of these Bloodlines, and in this process, exact descriptions of these Bloodlines sometimes leaked.
Jake considered whether he would have to talk to Villy more about it at some point, but for now, he chose to move on. While deepening his understanding of his Bloodline was all well and good, it didn’t help his current predicament much.
The talk about concepts continued for a couple of more days. These days all felt overly long and detailed, and every second only revolved around concepts. Jake tried his darndest, but in the end, it boiled down to Jake indeed being a bit of an idiot when it came to understanding them. At least if he wanted to do so the traditional way.
Ultimately, he and Artemis decided that the best way for him to see some real progress was for Jake to put himself under pressure. He needed to stimulate his own instincts and, during moments like those, seek an understanding of the concepts he wished to improve.
Jake wasn’t all too happy about it, though. He felt a bit like a failure, having to accept that training with Artemis alone likely wasn’t going to cut it. Even if he did manage to experience some real progress, it would be far slower than if he just accepted reality and went out for some practical experience.
Training had the problem that it couldn’t add real pressure. Within the Colosseum, Jake wasn’t at risk of dying. Artemis never attacked him with genuine intent to kill, even if she could kill him within the Colosseum.
In the real thing within Nevermore, the Colosseum had felt far more realistic, even if he also had multiple lives there. It had been real enough so that even if Jake recognized that it was a Challenge Dungeon with multiple lives, instinctively, he still treated every battle as a genuine life and death.
This could be most easily seen by his survival instinct not kicking into gear during these duels within the Emblem. Jake wouldn’t have surrendered himself to his instincts and allowed himself to do whatever he’d gone at the end of the Colosseum of Mortals even if he could, but in this instance, he couldn’t even if he wanted to.
It didn’t help that Jake could continue to see the world around his actual body outside the Emblem when he and Artemis were inside. He had that weird double-vision where he had to filter one out and focus fully on the sphere his projected form possessed within the simulated Colosseum, and doing all that forced Jake to constantly be in a state of recognizing that the world within the Emblem wasn’t real.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Anyway, the Emblem was overall great for this type of practice, but it wasn’t enough for someone like Jake. If it had been the Sword Saint training with a god specializing in swordsmanship, Jake felt as if he’d already have upgraded several skills.
Artemis clearly recognized that Jake didn’t feel happy about the conclusion the two of them had reached as she sighed and spoke.
“Don’t think there’s anything wrong with this kind of approach; everyone’s different, and no method is necessarily better than the other. From how far you’ve already come on your Path, you’re already far ahead of the curve and being way too hard on yourself,” Artemis assured him. “I myself was never good at learning anything outside of during a hunt. Perhaps the most famous example of someone notoriously horrible at getting anything out of training on his own is the War God. The Primordial, which many recognize as the most powerful god in the multiverse when it comes to pure combat, doesn’t possess the three traits we spoke about at all. From my understanding, his moments of enlightenment all came during combat, and due to his Transcendence, he was able to take massive risks against more powerful opponents to eventually break through his current limitations and upgrade his skills. As you’ve probably guessed by now, the most common expression of someone deepening their understanding of a concept is a skill upgrade. It’s not a requirement for upgrading a skill to also better understand fundamental concepts behind it, but if I had to guess, it would be the most common one.”
Jake genuinely appreciated Artemis’ attempt to keep him positive, but he still felt that the only way to alleviate his own frustration was to see some actual progress, and the best way to do that would be through combat.
“Thanks for your encouragement... and I think it’s time we head out to one of these many fabled hunting grounds I’ve heard so much about,” Jake said with a smile, trying to be positive.
“They won’t disappoint you,” Artemis nodded. “Now the question is just what one you are interested in.”
“You know what? Surprise me,” Jake said.
“Oh? Well, sure. What kind of level range are you aiming for?”
“Late and peak C-grades... maybe a few weaker B-grades mixed in, dependent on the power of the variants,” Jake said. He wasn’t confident he could get proper competition from anything in C-grade at this point, so if he truly wanted to push himself, fighting a B-grade could be necessary.
“Alright, I have a few places in mind that could use a culling,” Artemis said with a smile.
“And I’ll gladly be the hunter that gets the job done,” Jake responded, beginning to feel a little hyped up to finally get his body moving again after spending so long only training with mortal stats in the Emblem or meditating.
“Great,” Artemis said as she took out a token and tossed it to Jake. “Use this before going through one of the gateways, and you will reach an outpost close to the hunting ground. I figure you can handle the rest from there.”
Jake caught the token and nodded as he also wanted to clarify one more thing. “No one will be watching me while I’m doing this, right? You won’t assign me people who are hiding and making sure I don’t mess up and find myself killed?”
“There won’t be anyone,” Artemis promised him.
“Good,” Jake nodded.
“But I can’t say if Yggdrasil will step in if you do die somehow,” Artemis added.
“I hope she doesn’t,” Jake said, as he didn’t even like the thought of that.
Artemis didn’t say anything to Jake’s comment as she just nodded. “Now go. Chances are I’ll still be around when you return, and in any case, you can use the token I just gave you to contact me at any time. You know, if you need extraction or help in any way... or just want a chat. I’ll also use it to contact you if anything happens.”
“I may just take you up on that casual chatting offer,” Jake smirked as he stood up and stretched. “In that case, I’m off. Going to be good to get in a few more levels.”
“Enjoy yourself,” Artemis said as she watched Jake walk out of the living room and toward the gateway.
Jake felt better as he held up the token to the gateway while infusing energy into it. The gateway reacted and without further hesitation, Jake walked through it.
His foot stepped from the palace atop a mountain into a tall wooden outpost floating on an island in the sky. Jake saw the blue skies stretching out before him as he walked forward onto the platform where the gate was constructed. With his sphere, he saw the entire island and the eight buildings it had on it, with seven of them being small wooden lodges or huts.
The last building was a lot larger than all the others and looked a lot more official. Jake also saw a single person sitting within, and as he observed this person, the individual inside also noticed Jake’s arrival.
Guess I’m supposed to go inside and check in or something , Jake thought to himself as he walked toward it while observing his surroundings. The entire place definitely gave off cozy vibes, and while there was no one else on the island besides Jake and the person inside the large lodge, there were traces of others occasionally staying there.
Entering the large lodge, he instantly made eye contact with a beastkin sitting behind a counter about five meters from the entrance. Without thinking, he used Identify as Identify was also used on him.
[Beastkin – lvl 349]
The beastkin, who looked to have descended from some kind of rodent, observed Jake and was the first to speak.
“A human, eh? Are you here alone, or will you be bringing any companions?” he asked in a super casual voice, which surprised Jake a bit.
That is when Jake realized... he hadn’t even made his mask visible. During these days with Artemis, he naturally didn’t walk around with a mask on all day but had made it invisible. He’d entirely forgotten to make it show again, and he guessed that was why the beastkin hadn’t recognized him.
Normally, a mask was used to hide one’s identity, but for Jake, the mask was almost his hallmark by now. Considering all this, the beastkin probably just saw Jake as some C-grade hunter dozens of levels beneath himself who’d come to the outpost for a little hunting trip.
And Jake had no interest in correcting him.
“No, it’s just me,” Jake said with a smile. “Hoping to get in a good hunt, I have a few things I wanna practice.”
“I can only wish you luck,” the beastkin said with a polite smile. “I will warn you, though, the jungle has been a bit restless recently after two new decently powerful B-grades appeared in the last couple of years. You can check the wall over there to get a better understanding of the areas to avoid and where safest to hunt. Oh, and do remember to check the list for no-go targets.”
Jake looked over and saw a massive map covering one of the walls. It was clearly magical as it looked like the ink was moving ever-so-slowly, and on it, he also saw a lot of small blips, which he at first thought were targets to hunt down until he saw a list off to the side, displaying about five hundred names.
“Those are the ones currently registered and hunting below. Based on how you’re acting, I’m going to guess this is your first time at one of the hunting grounds?” the beastkin asked with a chuckle.
“Guilty as charged,” Jake didn’t deny.
“No worries, no worries,” the beastkin shook his head as he pointed to a small stack of pamphlets on the desk in front of him. “Take one of those before you leave; it contains some basic etiquette rules and whatnot. It also helps with keeping track of endangered creatures you aren’t allowed to kill. It will also serve as the tracker for the map, and if need be, you can tear off the back page, and it should alert anyone else holding a pamphlet nearby.”
“Alright,” Jake said as he walked over and picked one of them up. “How many B-grades are there in the hunting ground?”
“Locally in this district? Forty-seven. It fluctuates a bit as some of them migrate around, and some evolve while others are killed off, but this is one of the areas with not that many, so don’t worry too much. They aren’t the strongest either, and they tend not to bother with weaker C-grades, so you should be fine.”
The beastkin obviously assumed Jake was being cautious about encountering too powerful beasts, and he couldn’t help but just smile and nod. “I guess we’ll see. Thanks for the introduction.”
“No problem and I hope to see you again,” the Beastkin nodded with a smile. “Happy hunting.”
With that sendoff, Jake exited the lodge, ready to see what the Pantheon of Life hunting grounds had to offer.