MMORPG: Rise of the Primordial Godsmith

Chapter 1198  Gazing Beyond the Vital

"So…"

"Am I wrong?"

Seeing Jekyll continue to remain silent in response to his words, Valyr began to feel a hint of anxiety, inwardly asking himself whether or not the train of thought he came up with from the man's words was the correct one.

"You're not." Fortunately, Jekyll just needed to take a bit more time to internalize his explanation, nodding at Valyr the moment he did. "Slaughter is indeed the true nature of the next skill you'll receive."

"However, the way you explained it…" Continuing to look at the young man, the man soon let out a sigh as he bitterly smiled. "…Haah."

"At moments like these, I begin to understand why others get infuriated whenever someone gets the answer they were looking for faster than they thought it would take them."

Hearing those words, the young man slightly tilted his head in confusion, only to wryly smile in response as he felt that the man said something that was both a compliment and an insult.

Glancing at the wry smile that appeared on Valyr's face, Jekyll took in a deep breath as he closed his eyes, the explanation the young man gave him constantly echoing in his mind.

Although he was greatly impressed by the fact that Valyr nailed both the answer, as well as his reasons behind the answer, the man was still left speechless when the young man began to discuss what kind of life he led.

'I might have given him too big of a hint on that one,' thought Jekyll to himself, inwardly chuckling not long after. 'Then again, with all things considered, the hint I gave him was pretty vague.'

If any other person were in Valyr's shoes at that moment, the man was certain that the hint he gave would prompt them to follow down a path that would lead them to a dead end.

And even if they were able to eventually deduce that Jekyll was telling them to focus on the trajectory of his life for the answer he was looking for, he was confident that it would take them at least a few hours to arrive to that conclusion.

In comparison, Valyr took only like 5 minutes?

"…Haah." Letting out a long exhale after some time, Jekyll looked back at Valyr with a calm gaze, only for a faint smile to appear on his face not long after.

"I told you earlier that I'd give you the next version of the skill the moment you tell me its true purpose," said the man all of a sudden, prompting the young man to focus all of his attention on him. "Well, since you've done just that, it's time for me to uphold my part of the deal."

Whoosh!

Just as Valyr had thoughts of asking Jekyll about the process of upgrading [Hunter's Tracking Eyes] to its next version, the latter flared out his aura in its entirety, forcing the young man to release his own aura in a bid to resist against the pressure.

Unsurprisingly, the moment he regained a feeling of safety, Valyr began to look with Jekyll with confusion written all over his face.

Though, rather than receive an explanation from the man on what was going on, the young man was instead greeted with a toothy grin from Jekyll.

Whoosh!

Then, out of nowhere, the aura Jekyll gave off intensified by a couple degrees, causing the pressure that Valyr successfully resisted against earlier to envelop his body in an instant.

Swoosh!

However, not wanting to let the man's aura get the better of him, the young man knew that he had to go all out, activating his usual set of stat-boosting skills in a bid to mitigate the pressure he felt from Jekyll.

Swoosh!

Though the course of action he took was successful the most part, a small portion of Jekyll's aura still overwhelmed him, even though his current stats were more than enough for him to fight against Myth-level beings to a standstill.

Glancing at Jekyll's face, only to see a toothy grin looking back at him, Valyr began to sense a feeling of dread and despair from the man's aura, a feeling that anything he did to resist would ultimately end up becoming futile.

'Wait a second…' Fortunately, the feeling he got did not last long as a random thought suddenly surfaced in his mind. 'Isn't this… just a stronger [Hunter's Aura] from the skill?'

As the thought came to mind, the gears in Valyr's mind began to madly spin all of a sudden, getting the feeling that Jekyll's actions so far was not without reason.

'Come on…' Of course, the man also took notice of the young man's change in demeanor, causing him to inwardly hope that Valyr would do something similar to what he did with the question earlier.

Thankfully, Valyr showed him once more that his deduction abilities were not a fluke.

"[Hunter's Tracking Eyes]."

Whoosh!

Feeling as if he'd gotten a good idea of what Jekyll wanted him to do, Valyr briefly took in a calming breath as he activated the skill that connected them together, causing a crimson ring to appear around his pupils in a matter of seconds.

'Attaboy.' Seeing the hallmark of his skill appear around the young man's eyes, the grin on Jekyll's face grew wider as he nodded at the young man, indirectly telling him that he was on the right track.

'Now… let's start the upgrade process.'

Whoosh!

Just as Valyr thought that Jekyll would finally give him instructions on what he needed to do next to upgrade the skill, the young man was instead greeted by a far stronger aura coming from the man, its strength far eclipsing all the effort he put in to resist against it.

Then again, the feeling of an unbeatable predator looking down at him did not last for long.

Swoosh!

After letting out a chuckle at the reaction Valyr gave in response to the aura he gave off, Jekyll went ahead and spread out his entire aura throughout the room as thinly as possible, slowly making it disappear from the young man's senses.

Of course, the young man was greatly confused by this, considering that the progression of events this time around had deviated from what he'd experienced the last time Jekyll helped him upgrade [Gambler's Discerning Eyes] to [Hunter's Tracking Eyes].

Fortunately for him, Jekyll finally decided to give him instructions after that, giving Valyr the small confidence boost he needed to see the process through the end.

"The process to upgrade [Hunter's Tracking Eyes] to its next version is more or less the same as before," the man said, prompting Valyr to focus his attention on each and every word that left Jekyll's mouth.

"If anything, you could even say that the process is simpler when compared to what you went through."

"After all, the process to upgrade [Gambler's Discerning Eyes] to [Hunter's Tracking Eyes] needed you to use the skill from the perspective of combat first before using it to pinpoint weak spots and vital spots."

"On the other hand, this process only needs you to continue from the foundation you've built."

"Find more vital spots," Jekyll said with emphasis. "And if there aren't any, create one."

"Once a fatal spot appears in your vision, that's the moment you know you've succeeded in upgrading your eyes to the next level."

Whoosh!

At the very moment Jekyll was finished talking, Valyr's surroundings instantly underwent a massive change, transporting him into a battlefield that looked and felt similar to the frontlines of the ongoing war.

However, unlike the ongoing war, the sight surrounding him was filled to the brim with dark entities that took on a shape that was between human and orc, all of them giving off a strong killing intent that would overwhelm any normal person if they were hit by it.

Reminding himself that he wasn't actually in a battlefield, the young man soon took in a deep breath to compose himself as he began to gaze at the dark entities with [Hunter's Tracking Eyes].

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Within seconds, multiple weak spots appeared on these dark entities' bodies, showing Valyr that his constant usage of the skill had pushed the skill's performance to greater bodies.

However, the speed at which vital spots appeared on their bodies was excruciatingly slow in comparison, prompting Valyr to focus on increasing the speed at which he located these vital spots.

After all, even though Jekyll did not mention it directly, the young man had a feeling that the true first step of the upgrade process was to have him point out vital spots at the same speed he pointed out weak spots.

And thus, he pushed [Hunter's Tracking Eyes] to a level far greater than ever before, recalling the long process of omission he underwent to quickly and consistently find weak spots on the training dummies Jekyll directed him to.

Then again, with the dark entities giving off the feeling that they would kill him if he were to even make a misstep along the way, Valyr felt a bit of pressure and incentive to improve [Hunter's Tracking Eyes] as fast as possible.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

With time continuing to pass while in the battlefield Jekyll conjured for him, Valyr began to notice that his skill was undergoing a gradual transformation.

From taking a couple seconds to find around tens of weak spots on the dark entities, it now only took him less than an instant to find hundreds.

Then, as more time passed, the weak spots he saw began to number in the thousands, prompting many of them to disappear and coalesce into the vital spots Jekyll wanted him to find with greater consistency.

Continuing to push both himself and the skill to the limit, his vision slowly transformed even further, eventually reaching a stage where all he saw on the dark entities' bodies were pitch-black circles.

"This is…" Then, just as he felt like he'd reached the limit of what [Hunter's Tracking Eyes] was capable of, an ominous circle on one of the dark entities' bodies unknowingly appeared in his field of vision.

Taking on a shade of black far darker and far more unsettling than the black the vital spots took in his vision, Valyr instinctively knew that the circle he was looking at was none other than the fatal spot Jekyll told him earlier to find.

Suppressing the excitement he felt at the discovery, he went ahead and resisted against the killing intent and pressure the dark entities were directing at him, mustering up the courage to take a couple steps closer to the ominous circle that appeared in his sight.

Then, with a deep breath, he tapped it with his finger, only for a series of notification sounds to echo out in his mind not long after.

Ding!Nôv(el)B\\jnn