Solitary monsters were definitely superior to those who formed groups. It made sense, as these creatures would have been killed a long time ago if they couldn’t handle groups by themselves, and natural selection had done a good job of filtering out the weaker beasts that preferred to be alone.
The Crystalhide Oxen Lord had been a respectable opponent. Very durable, for sure, and Jake’s regular arrows couldn’t even penetrate its crystalline exterior. Its offensive capabilities did turn out to be a bit lacking, which was okay with Jake as it gave him more time and space to practice his archery. In the end, it wasn’t a monster that had any chance of fighting Jake in the first place unless he really messed up, so the result was as predictable as could be.
So was the result of the following dozen fights, all against peak C-grade solitary monsters that occupied their own small territories close to the Grand Lake. None of them were in the line closest to the lake, which was where the most powerful C-grades lived, so Jake still had some harder opponents to go through before it was B-grade time.
Jake knew he was strong for his level, but he still had some level of caution when dealing with peak C-grades in particular. The problem with creatures at the peak of any rank was that Jake had no clue how long they’d been at that level. When facing anything in the middle of a grade, it was a solid guess that the opponent was relatively young and still progressing on their own Path. Meanwhile, a peak C-grade could have been a peak C-grade for thousands of years for all Jake knew, and this individual could have spent all that time getting stronger and stronger, upgrading all their skills in an attempt to perhaps one day break through to B-grade.
Villy had also made it clear that while Jake would have a hard time finding equals in C-grade, he definitely could encounter beings superior to himself within the same grade. Perhaps he couldn’t find anything at his own level he couldn’t beat in a fight, but against those in higher levels, there were bound to be a few around.
What was the chance of him actually finding an incredibly powerful C-grade variant genius in these Hunting Grounds? Incredibly low, but a low chance was still a chance. He already knew some unique and powerful monsters could exist in the jungle as while that Warpsnatcher that scammed him hadn’t been dangerous, it definitely had been a high-tier variant.
That’s why Jake took a careful approach the closer he got to the Grand Lake. Additionally, Jake also wanted to limit himself somewhat by sticking to archery unless he didn’t have any other choice. Admittedly, Jake’s desire to have a fight won out over his intent to meticulously work on an archery upgrade, but he still had hope he could figure things out. He just also prioritized getting levels.
Sneaking through the jungle in stealth, Jake soon enough found his next prey. It was a mutant tree that had evolved into a tall and thick treant that was walking around, consuming other trees by punching a needle-like tree arm into them and draining them of life energy.
Seeing such a horrendous sight of cannibalism, Jake simply had to step in as the warrior for justice he was. While the treant was busy slurping down its non-intelligent brethren, a greeting in the form of an Arcane Powershot struck it in the arm, blowing it off entirely as the treant stumbled back with large, heavy steps that made the ground shake.
It responded quickly as the ground below it erupted, hundreds of vines springing up in an attack Jake felt as if he’d seen a thousand times before. Easily dodging all the vines, Jake counterattacked and made use of his far superior mobility to fight the slower but far more durable treant.The treant was around fifteen meters tall and took hits quite decently, regenerating whatever damage Jake did in an instant as the heavy life energy in the air nourished it. Some of the vines that it tried to attack Jake with originally also changed directions as they penetrated into smaller trees and plants. The treant that Jake had unfondly named a mosquito treant began to drain vital energy out of them, increasing its regeneration rate further as the entire creature began to glow green.
Finally, the treant did something unexpected. All the vines retracted as the treant leaned forward and stepped down, exploding into motion as a wave of broken bark shot out like the fragments from a grenade, revealing a far thinner treant that practically teleported over to where Jake was floating.
Fast.
A fist of woody goodness came straight for Jake’s face, but he managed to blast himself out of the way with a bit of arcane mana, only for him to need a second blast to get further away as another punch came from below.
Summoning his wings, Jake retreated as the tree barreled after him. It had lifted its hands up to a defensive position as the mosquito treant had evolved into a boxer treant. It bobbed and swayed, throwing jabs as it chased Jake while attempting to avoid his arrows as best as possible, something that wasn’t overly difficult considering Jake barely had time to shoot any.
Jake was quickly forced to use his boosting skill to keep up as the treant kept trying to corner him. At one point, he even found himself taken by surprise at just how quick a damn tree could move and punch as it dashed forward, glancing Jake with a blow and sending him spinning through the air from the impact.
Stabilizing quickly through a quick Gaze to stop the treant in its tracks for a mere moment, Jake moved to reclaim the momentum as he made better use of the environment and curving arrows to land shots on the quick treant.
After about a minute, the green glow on his opponent began fading, and the monster retreated back and began to play defensive once more as it sought to absorb more life energy from surrounding plants while thick layers of bark began to rapidly grow all over it, returning the treant to its bulky form.
It was an interesting fighting strategy, for sure. The treant effectively had a defensive and offensive mode, with the offensive one evidently consuming far more energy, which it needed to consume in its defensive form. Considering it used life energy and was a sentient tree that could use this life energy to also heal itself, killing the treant was far from easy, especially when it was in its bulky defensive mode, as the energy it absorbed to power up itself also served as a constant healing tonic.
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Should I just use poison? Nah, let’s see if I can do enough damage without it , Jake thought to himself with a smile as he decided to have a little competition with the tree. Who would win? Jake spam-firing arcane arrows or the treant’s regeneration and life absorption.
Despite the treant trying to cheat by attacking Jake with vines again during its feeding time, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Jake was the winner as he whittled down the treant, never allowing it to enter its quick offensive form a second time.
Looting the life core of the treant, Jake took another moment to sit down and rejuvenate as he reflected on the battle he’d just been through. After about half an hour, Jake was ready to continue, but after only moving for a few minutes, something caught his attention.
The pamphlet he’d been given in the outpost was giving off a weird aura, and as Jake pulled it out, the entire thing started shining as an arrow of light formed above it, facing inwards toward the Grand Lake.
Jake instantly knew what was happening.
Someone activated the emergency thingie.
Which is to say another hunter – or a group of hunters - within the hunting ground found themselves in trouble and requested assistance from anyone nearby. Jake had read this part of the pamphlet during one of his recovery times, and he knew that helping people wasn’t mandatory or even expected. In fact, all hunters were warned that there was no expectation that summoning “help” wouldn’t just result in someone coming by to try and take advantage of the situation, so anyone activating the function really only ever did so as an absolutely last resort.
Jake took a moment as he considered his next actions. He had never been the good samaritan kind, and he knew going to help could be a risk. It was easy to guess that a hunter or group of hunters capable of fighting enemies this close to the Grand Lake were quite powerful in their own right, so anything that made them this desperate was bound to also be a danger to Jake.
Then, he also had to consider that this could be a trap of some kind. His danger sense wasn’t really warning him either way, though he could feel dangerous auras in the direction of the SOS signal. Either way, he knew how some enlightened were, and it was totally possible they were trying to use the emergency function to lure in other hunters, even if such a thing was definitely frowned upon.
However, despite there being a lot of reasons not to go, Jake only hesitated for a moment before he took action and headed straight toward where the arrow was pointing.
In a situation like this, Jake ultimately saw little reason for him in particular not to go. Logically, there certainly were a lot of good reasons not to go, but Jake didn’t fear entering a dangerous situation, and if it was a trap, Jake would gladly teach the assholes making said trap a little lesson.
As for the scenario where it was people who needed help and Jake was capable of helping them, well, he only saw upsides to going. Getting a good reputation within the Pantheon of Life could only be a positive thing, and as chances were, the person who needed help was from the Pantheon of Life, it only seemed proper for Jake to help, seeing as he was an honored guest of the faction.
Sprinting through the jungle with Unseen Hunter active, Jake avoided any and all monsters in his way as he followed the signal and got closer and closer to his destination. After running for about three minutes at absolute full speed, Jake began to hear the sounds of fighting in the distance.
Jumping up and entering the skies, Jake sped up even further with One Step as he teleported a few times before he finally laid eyes on what was going on. He saw two people in the distance, standing in front of a mound in the ground, which had a cave within it. The two were clearly guarding the entrance to this cave, but it wasn’t looking super good for them, considering they found themselves surrounded by monsters.
He checked out the monsters first, which were sitting in trees surrounding the mound. All of them looked very humanoid, and they even wielded weapons, but Jake could tell they were monsters, something Identify on a few of them also confirmed.
[Grand Simivita Shaman – lvl 348]
[Grand Simivita Spearmaster – lvl 347]
[Grand Simivita Terramaster – lvl 348]
The only animal Jake could compare them to was apes, except these all had mostly green fur that allowed them to blend into the jungle environment. Their names were rather impressive, though, and Jake got the feeling that these Simivitas were relatively common creatures in the multiverse, seeing as these were clearly high-version variants.
From a quick count, Jake saw eleven apes surrounding the two people who’d activated the emergency signal. Jake also used Identify on them real quick... and he began to consider if this encounter was even an accident.
[Dryad – lvl 334 – Minor Blessing of Yggdrasil]
[High Elf – lvl 325 – Lesser Blessing of Artemis]
What were the odds of meeting two people both blessed by gods Jake had recently met? Artemis had to have known that someone she had blessed was in this Hunting Ground, right, or did she have so many followers she didn’t even keep track?
Anyway, the dryad and elf were both women, with the dryad wielding two thin curved swords while the high elf unsurprisingly had a bow. Both of them were in defensive stances, waiting for the apes to make a move first, and Jake was honestly a bit surprised at what the hold-up was all about.
It was only about ten seconds later that Jake knew why. Three more apes had arrived, two of them flanking a third that was larger than all the others. It was even wielding a sword Jake reckoned had been taken off some hunter, and the necklace of skulls from elves, humans, dwarves, and other enlightened that hung around its neck made it clear it had quite a kill record.
[Grand Simivita Chieftain – lvl 349]
This newcomer ape was clearly up to no good, and Jake got the vibes that things were about to go south. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but it seemed that the Chieftain was capable of speech as some form of negotiations started. Seeing as Jake had no hope, he didn’t wait to charge an Arcane Powershot, and good thing he did.
Not even five seconds into the negotiations, they broke down. The Chieftain seemed to yell something as everyone exploded into motion at once. The dryad dropped a seed on the ground that instantly began sprouting as the two women jumped forward.
Behind them, vines formed a barrier all around the mound, sealing it in and allowing the two of them to not worry about whatever was within it – something Jake quickly realized was likely the cause of this entire conflict.
The elf and dryad tried to go straight for the Chieftain, likely in an attempt to kill the leader quickly and make the enemy lose morale, but they were outmatched. The Chieftain swung its sword, forcing the dryad to block awkwardly while being sent scurrying back, and the elf’s barrage of arrows was blocked as the Terramaster Jake had identified earlier jumped down from its tree and slammed a staff into the ground, making a wall of soil rise up and block it.
The shaman who was sitting out of the line of sight of the two women waved an odd-looking wand as it began to channel magic to launch a sneak attack on the two women before they even saw it... However, the ape never had time to cast anything as it experienced a sneak attack of a caliber far beyond anything it was capable of.
A pinkish-purple line cut through the jungle as an arrow arrived from above. The shaman didn’t even have time to react as the fully channeled Powershot, released from a hidden Jake, tore through its body indiscriminately, shearing off its entire upper body before the arrow slammed into the tree it had been sitting on, exploding a moment later, sending splinters flying everywhere.
At the same time, Jake revealed himself as his aura flared, and he nocked another arrow, ready to provide assistance. The high elf and dryad both noticed him alongside the Simivitas, and he was ready to get a good fight in as a voice echoed in his head from the high elf archer staring at him.
“Are you insane!? Run! Get out of here while you still can!”