The Primal Hunter

”Are you sure about this, Jake?” Owen asked with genuine worry as they walked back to the Colosseum the next day. ”You should at least go to the crafters before the match… maybe you see something you like and decide to buy it, right?”

”It’ll be fine,” Jake waved him off. ”I will go check out the crafters after.”

”But… if you lose the match, you risk getting demoted and will have a harder time rising to higher ranks. That is assuming you don’t die or lose a limb,” Owen tried to convince him. ”You mentioned that you wanted better equipment at some point, so why wait?”

”Let me ask you this, Owen,” Jake said. ”That spear of yours, will you keep using that even when you become a Gladiator? Assuming you become a Gladiator, that is. Which you really should be able to, considering… you know.”

”Probably not?” Owen admitted, totally ignoring that last part of what Jake said.

”So at that point, when you buy a new weapon, the spear would just be a bunch of wasted points as you can only sell stuff back for half of what you paid,” Jake pointed out very accurately. ”Meanwhile, if I don’t buy anything, I don’t waste anything.”

His logic was truly flawless. Extremely risky but flawless, nevertheless.

”Okay, okay, I’ll trust you, geez,” Owen shook his head. ”Have you considered, at the very least, allowing Polly to obtain information on your opponents? Even if you don’t want to spend Colosseum Points on proper information packets, there is still a lot to discover.”

”Maybe later, but not now,” Jake said with a smile. ”But I will say that today’s match will be different than the one yesterday. I have something new to show off.”

”Oh, like that weird mental trick you use to make people tense up?” Owen asked with interest.

”Not quite, not quite. I believe it will be a bit more… destructive than that,” Jake teased.

”I look forward to seeing it, then,” Owen smiled, clearly intrigued but not prying.

”Destructive…” Polly, who had remained silent so far, muttered. ”You haven’t used any magic so far, but… do you know a bit? I heard that some spellblades combine the two…”

”Perhaps,” Jake kept teasing. ”All shall be revealed during the fight. Well, some shall be revealed during the fight. Revealing everything at once is boring.”

After that, Jake signed up for the fight and sat down to wait for it to start. He ignored any information he could have gathered and faced the entire challenge raw.

He meditated a bit before the fight as he mentally ran through his plan for the fight, as small sparks of energy circled through his body, confirming all the pathways in his physical body and Soulshape. Soon enough, he was called for his debut match as a Gladiator, and with not a single trace of worry, he walked into the long tunnel toward a far bigger arena than the one he usually fought in.

This one would be nearly a hundred meters in diameter, with a few pillars and such placed throughout to not give magicians and ranged fighters too big of an advantage while also spicing up the battlefield and opening up new strategies. They would maybe be an annoyance to him in the future, but not today.

Walking up the first flight of stairs, it became clear the layout of how to enter the arena had also changed slightly. From there being two gates, there was now only one large mesh of bars blocking the entrance, allowing each fighter to see the arena and each other before the fight began.

Jake’s first opponent as a Gladiator definitely lived up to the name, just going by looks. His opponent stood nearly two and a half meters tall, really cheating in the weight-class department. He wore a big spiked helmet, ringmail pants, bracers, leather gloves, and heavy metal boots. Most of his arms were left bare, and his chest was entirely exposed, showing off what looked like a… ten-pack? He was definitely ripped. Needed to be, too, with the giant axe he carried.

His size was naturally impossible for a normal human, but Identify informed Jake of what he was right away.

[Half-Ogre]

Jake had to admit that he wasn’t sure if half-ogres were even born in F-grade – on a side note, while Jake was G-grade, everyone seemed to be F-grade – or if it was just the system or Wyrmgod that messed with the rules a bit. It was entirely possible that they were born at F-grade… Jake hadn’t really met many ogres. Considering this made Jake wonder about the logistics when an ogre and human or elf had a kid, but those kinds of questions were for a drunk conversation with Villy.

”Today, we have gathered for a debut match! An old veteran of the gladiatorial arena, the Crushing Edge, will take on an up-and-coming Gladiator that only yesterday reached his rank! A figure I am sure many of you are excited to see in the big arena… that’s right, it’s the master of kicks, a martial savant, and someone described as the scariest person they have ever faced by his defeated opponents. The one, the only, Doomfoot!”

More than ten thousand people cheered loudly, Jake using a single Pulse to see that Owen and Polly were also both in the crowd. He had no idea where the hell all these people came from, as while the city could house that many, did everyone there go to watch Colosseum matches every day? Wouldn’t that get boring?

”However, even if he is a truly fearsome newcomer… do not sleep on the Crushing Edge. He has earned that name for a reason. Standing as one of the tallest fighters the Colosseum has ever seen, with muscles able to crush bones, he has won nearly all his matches by landing one devastating blow! One single Crushing Edge!”

Listening to the brief explanation was all the information Jake really needed on his opponent as he had a good idea of what he was facing.

”Now, who will win!? Will Doomfoot be crushed, or the Crushing Edge meet his doom? Let’s find out! Lower the gates!”

As commanded, the horizontal mesh of bars first disappeared before the vertical ones lowered into the ground. Right when there was enough space to go out, Jake’s opponent began jogging toward him from the other end of the arena.

Casually, Jake placed the bow on the ground as he stepped into the arena.

Jake began walking forward slowly at first, as he slowly picked up pace and began running. While running, a shiver of energy went down his right leg. Stamina tinged with his arcane affinity infused every vein, every muscle. If one could see beneath his pants, one would see faint veins of pink-purple covering his skin, surging with destructive potential.

Applying arcane energy to his physical moves was extremely easy, even with his reduced stats. In fact, it was far easier now than before, as there wasn’t as much to control, while his pure level of skill in controlling energy was virtually unchanged compared to before the Challenge Dungeon. His energy control as a C-grade was already viewed as monstrous, so having that same level of control as a level 0 G-grade was complete and utter overkill.

Also, while Arcane Supremacy was gone, he still remembered the sensations of increased control, and even if he didn’t have skills, Jake rarely ever used skills when he used his mana to begin with.

So to infuse parts of his body with extra stamina and wrapping his foot in a faint shimmer of protective arcane energy and the rest in pure destruction? Easy as pie.

The two of them approached each other as the crowd went even wilder than before. The half-ogre roared as he swung his giant axe toward Jake.

Jake, still running at full speed, jumped into the air as he spun his body around. A trail of arcane energy swirled around his foot, leaving a trace of color as he kicked, delivering a spinning roundhouse kick.

His foot connected with the head of the half-ogre as a metal helmet met leather boots. A small localized explosion of arcane energy rocked the arena as metal spikes from the helmet flew everywhere. The giant half-ogre was sent airborne and flew nearly five meters before hitting a pillar, his neck broken and head crooked.

Jake landed on the soft arena floor, feeling the sand between his toes on his right foot. The leather boots were shredded to pieces upon impact, leaving him with only one shoe left.

More powerful than expected, Jake noted as he checked and saw that the half-ogre was still alive, though, without healing, it was doubtful how long that would be the case.

Deafening silence filled the entire arena for a few seconds before Jake turned around and began walking toward the exit. As he moved, the arena came back alive. Medical staff ran toward the half-ogre, and the crowd began screaming, with the announcer also finally doing his job again.

”Doomfoot does it again! With a single kick, the Crushing Edge had his dreams crushed by a debutant! But I am sure you are all asking… what was that!? What power does the kick of the Doomfoot truly hold? Has he been hiding his power all this time? Suddenly had an epiphany? What is the true depth of his power? Ha! Who cares!? The only real question is… when will Doomfoot ever meet his match!”

Jake didn’t know if he should be happy or annoyed that the announcer made it clear no one cared if you hid your power. Owen would definitely still ask, but at least he wouldn’t face questions from others. Not like it would have mattered even if he did – this entire Challenge Dungeon was just about arena fights, nothing more, nothing less.

Walking out of the arena to the cheers of the audience, remembering to pick up the bow on the way, Jake walked straight to the Battlemaster, who somehow seemed to be aware of everything that had happened in the arena despite not having moved a single step from where he stood when Jake accepted the match.

After some praise and a backhanded compliment, Jake went outside of the Gladiator training area as he waited for Polly and Owen, who predictably came over right away. After stalling for a bit, Jake finally went to a nice little corner where the questions began. Polly was the first to go.

”That… magic… what was it?” Polly asked with wide eyes. ”I… I’ve felt powerful spells before, but that mana, that power, I-”

”My own magic,” Jake simply answered. ”Asking me about it will not help. It is innate to me, and even if you trained from now till the day you die, you wouldn’t ever be able to learn it.”

”Why did you hide it?” Owen questioned, just as Jake had expected. Also, he really wanted to point out the hypocrisy of that question but assumed the guy had his reasons. Same as Jake had his.

”What would it have helped if I revealed it earlier outside of making the fights even more boring? It would also have been too much and risked killing several of my prior opponents. Unless my previous opponents disagree… hey, Polly, would you have liked for me to have used that kick on you?” Jake asked the mage.

She stared at him with even wider eyes. ”I… I would be dead…”

”Exactly,” Jake nodded. ”As I said, all shall be revealed in time. Just assume that as the level of challenge increases, so shall more be shown. And we’re still in the early stages of these revelations.”

”Can I ask… how are you this powerful?” Polly questioned. ”Do you have a great master or something?”

”You can ask, sure. But I won’t answer. Anyone that may or may not have had an impact on my Path is not anywhere near here and will not show up in or around the Colosseum, so no reason to even think about it,” Jake tried to explain everything away.

Going into detail on how he was so strong also wasn’t that interesting and not something that could be replicated. The truth was that he was actually a C-grade. The true difference all came down to one simple thing:

Conceptual power. The sheer power and depth of the concepts in Jake’s arcane affinity made it far more powerful than it had any right to be. It wasn’t as simple as an Arcane Awakening-level powerup… it went far above that during the moment of kicking.

Through sheer control, he could stabilize destruction and stability until, at once, he would unleash it all into one wave of pure destructive force through his foot. In prior fights, Jake hadn’t even actively controlled his stamina during the fights, but now it was time to get a bit more serious.

What’s more… that one roundhouse kick wasn’t even close to Jake’s limits. If he wanted to, he could pour every single shred of mana he had into one singular attack. Doing so wouldn’t make much sense, though.

It wouldn’t just have killed the half-ogre if he did that. There wouldn’t even be a head left, as all would have been consumed by pure arcane destruction.

Jake was genuinely looking forward to facing an opponent he could go full-power on. Alas, he had a feeling it would still be quite a while before that happened. Especially now that he was limited to one match a day.

However, there was at least one positive change in the points department. Based on Jake’s math, then every win as a Gladiator should have rewarded 56 points, but he instead saw his points had increased by 250 from one victory. That was frankly a massive jump… then again, if he could only fight once a week, it had better give more points. It did also give some hope for this Show Matches, though.

Checking the menu, he saw how many points he had, and it was starting to add up.

Current objective: Be promoted from Gladiator to Veteran Gladiator

Current rank: Gladiator (1/10)

Colosseum Points: 2990

Lives remaining: 10

”Enough talk about how awesome I am,” Jake put a stop to Owen’s and Polly’s questions. ”Didn’t you two want me to go look at equipment before the match? Let’s do that now since we got the time. Can’t walk around like this forever.”

Jake showed off his bare right foot, which was already plenty dirty from wandering around after the fight. Plus he had sand everywhere, and everyone knows the bad rep sand had, being all coarse, rough and irritating.

”Yeah, good point,” Owen agreed. ”You know where to go, right?”

”I can figure it out?”

”Just follow me, then,” Owen said with a sigh.

”Don’t you have matches today?”

”I only got one fight left before my promotion match, so I plan on doing those two today. That still gives me plenty of time,” Owen explained.

Jake nodded as the three of them walked toward another section of the Colosseum. On the way, as they were walking down a long, populated hallway, Jake suddenly felt something from behind.

Two eyes starring into his back. No unusual… except there was something else.

An aura. The most powerful he had felt in this arena so far.

Turning around, Jake looked directly back and spotted the figure more than a hundred meters away. A lithe figure, wearing a cloak covering the entire body.

[Dark Elf]

The female dark elf smirked as Jake spotted her, as shadowy magic surrounded her, making her disappear the very next second. Not just from sight… she was truly gone, even in Jake’s sphere.

”What are you looking for?” Owen asked, trying to follow Jake’s gaze.

”Something fun for the future,” Jake smiled in response as he turned around and kept walking. Always fun to have a scripted encounter hinting at a later opponent.