The Primal Hunter

”You know, I am not even sure if I should be angry or happy with this outcome,” Owen muttered while Jake scarfed down his lunch. ”I know that I said I wanted you to convince my father to no longer attempt to become a Grand Champion… but did you really have to convince him to try and make me one?”

Jake finished chewing as he answered seriously. ”In all honesty? Yes. You kind of said it yourself, but for the last many years, your dad had made his quest to become the Grand Champion his entire personality. To him, it was all that truly mattered, and me trying to convince him to be a good father and husband wasn’t going to change his mind… unless those things are required to achieve his goal.”

”If he is just faking being a non-shitty person to convince me to train and become the Grand Champion, what is that even worth? Also, how did you even know that would work? Even if I some-fucking-how manage to become the Grand Champion at some point in the future, how will that allow him to fulfill his goal?” Owen questioned.

”I have been thinking, and I asked myself… why did your father spend his time recovering training you, and teaching you how to use your family’s affinity?” Polly chimed in. ”Maybe it was because he wasn’t sure if he would ever recover and wanted you to pick up where he left off even back then.”

”I… am not sure that makes any of this better,” Owen sighed.

”Think of it like this,” Jake said, trying to be positive. ”A dad who wants you to train to be the Grand Champion while faking being a good dad is better than a dead dad. Because at least the first option has the possibility to turn into something non-shitty, while the latter can never turn non-dead. Also, finally, is it really that bad to train to become the Grand Champion? Even if you fail, you will get a lot stronger in the process, and I have the feeling that as long as you get stronger than him, he will let off you.”

”I guess you’re right,” Owen said, still sighing. ”Now, how confident are you in facing this Archmage?”

Jake was happy with the change of subject as he considered the question for a while. ”Well… hopefully it will be a good fight. I did catch a glimpse of him in the stands, and he did have a respectable aura, but I also know that he is supposedly a slippery bastard with lots of resources at his disposal, so I probably don’t want it to be a drawn-out affair.”

”Yeah…” Polly muttered. ”He is really old and has a lot of artifacts he has created throughout the years, especially the many Sealing Orbs he carries around. They are super dangerous, so remember to watch out for those, alright?”

They had already had this conversation before, as Jake had learned plenty from Polly about her so-called Master. She knew far more than any information broker could relay, as she had been his assistant for a while, and even if he hadn’t taught her much about combat, he had taught her plenty of general magic mumbo jumbo, and due to his innate need to brag, had gladly shown off a whole legion of valuable items he had either purchased or created himself.

Jake cared about what he had made himself, as those were what he could bring into the arena. The most dangerous items were the Sealing Orbs, which were small crystal balls where he had trapped intense mana within of a specific affinity. Then, through a bunch of rituals and more magic stuff, elementals would appear, already sealed within. These elementals could then be absorbed by the Archmage, giving him a far greater affinity to a particular school of magic for a period of time while also burning their mana instead of his own… so yeah, that was his gimmick.

Only two days after Jake had beaten his first opponent as a Champion, he issued his second challenge to the Archmage. Jake had almost expected another instant duel to happen, but…

”You wanted a fast fight, right?” the Battlemaster asked.

”Yeah?” Jake asked with hope.

”Well, the Archmage doesn’t. The match is scheduled to take place in twenty-nine days and twenty-two hours,” the Battlemaster said with a deadpan expression.

”That fucking sucks,” Jake grumbled. ”Can I just change opponent or fight someone else in between?”

”Nope, the rules are rules,” the Battlemaster shrugged. ”And based on what I know about that old crook, he would have scheduled for the last minute no matter when you chose to issue the challenge, so you may as well have the waiting period now. Either way, you should go prepare, yeah?”

Jake just nodded. ”Yeah, I guess I should.”

So, Jake spent the next month training and making preparations for the Necromancer and Lord of the Hunt. Okay, he did also do a little bit to prepare for the Archmage, but honestly, he had already done all the preparations he needed. No, the only true preparation he did was to prepare a special little surprise.

Owen also stayed with Jake throughout this time, and what’s more, he even had his father actively give advice. The man formerly known as the Lightning Monarch gladly shared all he could about other Champions he had either fought with or researched before. In the end, he ended up handing everything he had to Polly before he headed home to Owen’s mother and siblings.

His father insisted Owen should stay with Jake, especially after Jake acted like he was helping Owen train.

”I sur-”

No more sound came out as an arrow hit him in the side of the throat, drowning the word. Through his sphere, Jake saw the mage feebly reach for it right as a second arrow flew in and struck him in the eye, penetrating into his skull and ending the fight for good.

The crowd and announcer were both silent as Jake put away his bow and fell onto his ass. Blood was dripping from his eyes and ears, and his right shoulder was nearly entirely blue, with several visible blood vessels ruptured within, giving birth to plenty of internal bleeding. Shooting those two follow-up arrows definitely hadn’t helped.

As the dust cleared, the body of the Archmage was revealed. His lower body was covered in an earthy shell as he had tried to cover his entire body with stone. Sadly for him, his upper body did not have time to be affected, and whatever emergency barriers he had put up and the protection from his elemental had been far from enough, resulting in his entire body dripping with blood. Most of it was from wounds caused by all the explosions, but a good portion of the blood also came from the hole in his neck.

After a few more seconds of silence, the cheers began, along with the announcer excitedly declaring his victory. Jake just stayed sitting for a bit as he looked at the mage’s body before sighing. ”I did tell you to surrender when you had the chance.”

Jake got up after a bit of struggle and walked out of the arena, once more raising a fist to the cheers of the crowd. They were eerily cheery despite the corpse with an arrow in his throat and eye lying there in the center of the arena, but by now, Jake was honestly used to it.

Right as he got outside of the tunnel leading into the arena, he went straight to the Battlemaster to report his win and get a pat on the back that hurt like hell. A few minutes later, Owen and Polly arrived to escort him back to his little townhouse so he could rest.

In this fight, Jake had once more gone in with a plan. Polly had repeatedly said how the Archmage was never in a rush when fighting but gladly took his time to use his spells to buff himself up. Jake had taken advantage of that by creating an attack far more powerful than any other he was capable of.

The quasi-Protean Arrow had been made up of a faint layer of arcane energy on the surface, with weak destructive energy right beneath. In this weak destructive energy, Jake had put twenty-four stable arrows that he had painstakingly created, and during the creation process, he tried to push in as much Willpower energy as he could to make sure they would curve upon exploding the weak destructive energy. Ultimately, he still had to control all the arrows when the big arrow exploded, hence the bleeding from nearly every orifice.

It had worked out as he wanted, and Jake was more excited than ever to get out of the Colosseum and upgrade some skills. He had gained a lot of inspiration, and he was more sure than ever that the true purpose of this entire Challenge Dungeon was to help people upgrade skills and train concepts… which often led to upgrading skills.

Walking back to his small townhouse, Jake checked his status.

Bonus objective gained: Defeat the other Champion to become the Grand Champion.

Current rank: Champion (2/7)

Colosseum Points: 1,882,910 (2,882,910).

Lives remaining: 10

Jake hadn’t been entirely sure before, but now he was. Each win as a Champion rewarded 500,000 Colosseum Points… which made all the points he got in lower ranks feel so damn meaningless, especially considering how ”easy” his first two Champions fights had been. As the Battlemaster had said, he didn't actually have these points yet, but would only get them after all the Champion fights were done, but at least it told him how many he would get.

He did know that the Lighting Monarch and Archmage were the easiest. Not just because he had seen and felt the auras of all the other Champions but because that just made sense from a design perspective. These two both had Challenge Dungeon natives related to them and storylines associated with them.

No, he was sure that the next five had to be the truly challenging ones. At least strong or not dumb enough to let Jake charge his quasi-Arcane Powershot together with his quasi-Protean Arrow, right? Not that he wasn’t going to prepare some anyway.

Jake even went to the shops to see if he could buy a better spatial storage, but sadly found that none of the ones on offer would allow him to store his arcane constructs. At least not any of the non-legendary items, and Jake really didn’t want to spend nearly a million Colosseum Points on a ring. Not before he lost a few of his ten lives, at least.

By now, he was beginning to wonder if he would even lose any lives at all during the Colosseum of Mortals…

Well, that was entirely dependent on his opponents, right? And if anyone could grant him death, it had to be the Necromancer who literally dealt with it.

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