The Primal Hunter's
Instincts

In a small corner of the tutorial forest, a very strange thing happened. A man repeatedly skips around, more often than not, finding himself crashing into a tree first. He seemed to turn into something resembling a shadow, quickly moving forward and then returning to his normal real form with each jump.

This strange man was naturally Jake who was testing his newly acquired Basic Shadow Vault of Umbra. That skill took some time to get used to, which was the reason why he needed to practice as much as he did.

The skill was quite simple, actually. With little or no warning or preparation, Jake can accelerate his movements in whichever direction he moves, turning into a shadow-like substance, and then it appears once again whenever he reaches the specified target, or the skill working time is up. .

When he was still a shadow, there was no physical object that could touch him, instantly making Jake want to try to penetrate the wall. Unfortunately, that hope soon dashed. Although he could get through the little things, he had no way of getting through the tree, for example. If he thought back to his fight with that caster William, he also doubted he could get through the iron wall. He found that objects with high mana densities were more difficult to pass through, and the conjured walls had to be very dense mana.

He can, however, phase through smaller objects. So, avoiding the swing of a sword, a thrown dagger, or an arrow is very possible. Although he was aware of it, it increased his mana consumption when he did.

The reason why he kept bumping into things was due to the increase in speed and the disorienting effect of the sudden acceleration. It was like suddenly stepping on an escalator that surpassed any safety standard.

One moment he would move normally, and in the next moment suddenly accelerated several times that speed for less than a second. The skill itself was not teleportation, but just quick movements. However, it could easily appear as if he had just teleported into the untrained eye when he used the skill at maximum output.

The fact that he took on the characteristics of the shadow only made it more challenging to use. It felt like it had suddenly become weightless, and everything felt dead. The fact that it moves in a direct line also makes it even more confusing.

So, he trained. As someone said, practice makes perfect. Although he did not really aim for perfection on his first day with the skill, he should at least be able to use it to accidentally get himself killed during battle. He could actually see himself crashing into something much more dangerous than a tree.

The damage he took to health and the gathering of mana when he hit things like trees was already crazy enough, to begin with. The sudden momentum that suddenly stopped when he hit the tree left his mana instantly drained by several hundred points, and his health points dropped even more.

The one lucky thing with that skill was that it also removed all of its equipment. Even if he had a bow in his hand, it also looked like a shadow. He tried it with a few different things and found that almost everything he touched would bring Shadow Vaulted with him. It did increase the mana consumption and stamina of the skill.

He also discovered with some experimentation that the charm with his boots did reduce stamina expenditure. And although it is said only by the amount of “kecil”, it turns out to be quite significant. It was not just an immediate percentage drop but had some more advanced math behind it.

If he did a small vault, consuming only 5 stamina with the shoes as an example, the cost was reduced by as much as 3 points. In other words, a 60% reduction%. However, if he did a longer vault, spending 30 stamina, the boots would only reduce it by about 10 points, aka a reduction of about 33%.

Its maximum consumption of one vault so far is 78 stamina, and then reduces costs by 17, which is a strange reduction of about 22%. To be honest, the math behind it confused him, and he decided to remove it as a system that does system things.

There is a pattern somewhere. He doubted it would only be entirely random. Jake just doesn't see the value in math and tries to find the formula. Without it, he already had a good premonition of how much stamina he consumed, and he did not have time to count much during the battle. Especially not with defensive skills.

The vault also consumes mana, of which no deductions are available. The cost is almost the same as the stamina counterpart – does not include a reduction. Mana expenditure becomes much higher, however, if he gradually passes through any object. Fortunately, Wisdom was still his highest status, and he did not use too much mana during a normal fight, to begin with. So, despite the relatively high cost of avoiding objects, he could manage to.

He could not help but think of how useless the skill would be if he only had his archer class. The consumption of mana would drain him in just a few safe deposit boxes, leaving him with a dead skill. But with his current pool of resources, he could easily make dozens of high-powered leaps. If he could avoid banging his head into things, that was.

But he's getting better. And quick. In just a few hours, he managed to make a short jump and was quickly able to move back and forth a few meters with a fairly smooth movement. The long dome was still quite loud, but it also increased drastically with each minute.

To be honest, his bloodline abilities also felt like a total cheat here. His scope was completely unaffected by it which turned dark and made him completely aware of his surroundings. He 'knows' when he's about to hit something, and he seems to be slowly able to train his instincts to understand the skill better.

An important distinction must be made between moving based on instinct and moving deliberately with the mind behind each action. If Jake tries to avoid the swing of the sword intentionally, he must first register the approaching weapon, then he must decide to dodge, and then the method he will use to avoid it. If he decided to use the Shadow Vault, he would have to use the skill, and all the decisions related to it, such as how to dodge, how far, and how fast.

However, if it is done instinctively, only the first step is necessary. And it's more than just being handled by Jake's overpowering perception of danger. At that moment, he just had to not go against what he instinctively wanted to do and do. It seemed like he only 'know' what was best to do without considering it.

Everyone would naturally rely on instinct there. A Boxer blocks based on intuition; when someone throws something at you, you raise your hand to block instinctively. Jake has just taken the whole concept to a higher level. Not only did he raise his hand to block something that was thrown; he would catch it from the air and throw it back if it was an attack. Of course, his instincts were not perfect.

Relying on so much just on his instincts could also easily backfire. Jake is not omniscient, and the trick has a considerable effect on him. His instinctive reaction also ended up depending on himself. If he was attacked by a skill that he could not understand at all, his instincts would also not know how to respond appropriately. His perceptiveness of danger did help a little there, but it also had many flaws.

The same was true for the dagger that William controlled to attack him. Their subtle movements were difficult to understand, making his instincts could only try and follow their attack patterns. His perceptiveness of danger made him aware of them at all times but it felt more like a constant buzzing telling him that the dagger was dangerous.

The way he won the fight was also against his instincts. To dodge or block an attack was the most natural thing to do, so his instinct naturally shouted at him to do so. Instead, he chose to ignore the attack and was hit, eventually gaining a gap to win.

If he had only listened to his instincts during that fight, he would likely never have had the chance to land the blow before he or the caster ran out of resources. Although he would definitely win that battle of endurance, he did not believe the other party would be foolish enough to last long enough to run out. But, of course, Jake could be wrong.

There was also the fact that the five daggers in the back barely bothered him. They penetrated several centimeters into his flesh, resulting in almost no real damage. With his high vitality, he could have taken out those dozens of daggers, the only real problem was his pain.

The pain that his instincts naturally wanted to avoid. Feeling pain is just the body's way of saying: "Dude, you have to stop doing that."

In the end, his instincts only became a guide or an emergency tool when his mind could not keep up. However, it also had an aspect that he could not understand at all. It seemed, at times, to make him aware of many things. It allowed him to get a faint feeling around things, such as how powerful the beast was compared to himself or how much damage a certain attack would do before it even hit him.

Many multiverse warriors could probably do a lot of this. Feeling the power level of others is not a new concept at all. Learning how much damage something would do also seemed like a relatively simple ability if one had sufficient experience on the battlefield.

Even a savage beast could determine how dangerous the attack was. Jake sees some of them dodging more destructive attacks while resisting weaker attacks. Of course, it completely depended on the beast.

In the end, he could only sigh at how much was unknown. His bloodline and related abilities were only to be truly understood by the bloodline holder. The system gave no advice, only a simple explanation of the lineage. And even that has many instances of having minor flaws or lack of information.

It's not like Jake has any complaints about his lineage. He's not delusional. He knew it was his biggest weapon. He knew it was the only thing he was not given by the system, something that belonged to him and to him alone.

As he sat there, relaxing, he heard a voice over him and felt like something was staring at him. He focused on his ball and saw one of the strange donkeys staring at him. Rarely could they be this close, in fact, this was the first time one of them had entered its sphere, and…

Birds are not real. The scope of perception confirms that.

When he focused on the bird, other than a joke, he did not see any physical animals but pure energy. Which density just now. Jake couldn't even find the words to describe how ridiculous it was.

Jake was confused, but he didn't show it. He still felt his gaze on her. It obviously came from a bird, but it wasn't…

It made him think ... Who or what was watching him? The birds were obviously just intermediaries of some kind. Based on their mana density, it was unrelated to any of the survivors. It felt much closer to the power that the Malefic Viper displayed than itself.

Is there a god behind the birds? If so, why? Does the system allow gods to observe directly like this? Can the gods interfere? He didn't think it was a system that made it his own; it seemed too omnipotent to need a magic super bird to keep an eye on people.

The birds have been around since day one. As they are original from where the tutorial takes place. Wait for…

Jake's been under assumptions for a long time. Who ever said that the system makes tutorials? What if the gods did it?

Obviously, the gods can interfere with the tutorial. Heck, the Viper has put a dungeon in there. Who said that other gods or powerful entities did not also affect things. Who says gods didn't create this outer area? Maybe even the rules? Or does the god work with the system to do all these things? Some kind of collaboration?

But most importantly, he thought, why am I sitting here thinking about things I cannot find, in any way, shape, or form, at the moment, but can only ask Viper about the time we met again.being productive?

So with that, he went back to what was really important. Try not to shadow the Vault into a tree.