The Primal Hunter 15: A LitRPG Adventure, page 40
“You promise you won’t be dejected no matter what happens next?” Artemis yelled.
“No worries,” Jake assured her. He remained confident and was ready for her to take the first shot.
“Alright... let’s start simple with a quickdraw,” Artemis said as she lifted her bow, nocked an arrow, and loosed the string in one quick, fluid motion.
Before the arrow was even released, Jake’s danger senses screamed at him. He dodged to the side right as an arrow flew by him—in the same second Artemis let go of the string.
Jake felt cold sweat run down his back, as he felt as if he’d just dodged a sniper bullet. The speed at which the arrow had flown made no sense at all, and all he could do was stare as the goddess with stats equal to his own looked at him with a little surprise.
“Impressive speed... Let’s try again, but this time, no breaks.” Artemis smiled as she took out another arrow. “Dodge well.”
Not needing a reminder, Jake barely dodged the next arrow by stepping to the side... only for another one to come at him right away. Jake bent his body out of shape and barely dodged it, leaving him unable to react when a third struck him in the thigh. It barely penetrated his flesh, but it stopped all his movements and made him vulnerable to another, more powerful arrow that struck him in the chest just before a final one to the eye ended his very first training session.
When the two of them were instantly thrown out of the Emblem by his death, he found Artemis looking at him with a smile. “Let’s have the first lesson be about one of the simplest concepts in archery... speed.”
Chapter 44
Conceptualizing Concepts
Jake’s loss was quick and entirely as he’d expected. The version of Artemis he was fighting now was not the same as the Lord of the Hunt from back in the Challenge Dungeon. This was the real Artemis with her full comprehension of concepts. The version back then had only been a mere specter of the real thing, and the difference was stark. The Emblem definitely hadn’t been made to foster duels between gods and mortals, as the sheer difference in conceptual understanding made it a total non-starter.
Without precognitive reaction times, that first arrow would have hit him in the eye. It wasn’t a question of being quick or not; it was simply impossible to dodge using the stats he had within the Emblem.
It was like asking someone to dodge a bullet from ten steps away. The only way to avoid getting hit was to look at the barrel and dodge before the bullet was even fired. Trying to react after the bullet had left its chamber would end in certain death.
The arrow shot by Artemis—an Artemis with stats close to those of a pre-system mortal—was faster than any bullet shot by a handgun. It was a speed that didn’t make any sense at all from Jake’s perspective, and he guessed that was precisely why she had started out with an attack like that.
“That first arrow was fast... way too fast,” Jake muttered in contemplation. “So fast that it really didn’t make any sense. It was as if it exploded into motion the second you let go of the string. I saw the string move, and the arrow didn’t even have time to get fully propelled by it.”
Even with lowered stats, Jake’s fairly high Perception had allowed him to see the movement of Artemis’ bowstring. However, it had only moved a few centimeters forward before the arrow shot out ahead of it as if rocket-propelled.
“I considered for a while what I could even teach you,” Artemis said. “I know you would benefit greatly simply from dueling, but I still wanted to help you more directly at least once. I may be overstepping with what the Malefic Viper finds acceptable, but I choose to accept the consequences if that’s the case.”
“Don’t worry—if he does get mad, I’ll handle it,” Jake said, waving off the notion. “Besides, I’m kind of dense and stubborn, so I doubt I’ll suddenly be corrupted by what you say.”
“Alright. What I’m about to discuss are things that you assume to be facts.”
“What do you mean?” Jake asked with a frown.
“I’ve never experienced a pre-integration universe myself, but I have interacted with plenty who have,” Artemis explained. “Having lived without the system gives certain unique insights and viewpoints, but it also births a lot of fundamental misunderstandings of how the world works, particularly when talking about physics.
“I’m aware that in the world you grew up in, you had rather simplistic mathematical equations that could accurately tell you most things. It was a simpler world, in many ways, and I know one of the most fundamental laws was related to objects in motion and the energy they possessed.”
Jake nodded along, naturally knowing about Newton’s Second Law. Mass times acceleration equaled force. He still wasn’t quite sure where Artemis was going with all this, though.
“If we go by this law, then answer this: why did my first arrow that hit your thigh barely penetrate, while the one that hit your chest went in deep? The first one was faster—so fast it didn’t make any sense, by your own account—and the arrows had the same weight, so shouldn’t the first one have done more damage?”
“Some other concept or magic was at work,” Jake said, shaking his head. “You poured more energy into that second arrow, thus making it stronger.”
“Energy. Right.” Artemis nodded. “Then, next question... why is light magic so slow?”
“Light magic is plenty fast,” Jake said with a frown. “It’s one of the fastest schools of magic there is.”
“But isn’t it still slow compared to actual light? And I’m not just talking about before the system. Look outside the window. You see the crown of Yggdrasil, but consider how far away it truly is. If we go by your pre-system terms, there would be many light years between here and there, so doesn’t that mean you’re now seeing how the Mother Tree’s crown looked years ago? Except you’re not. If we teleported there, what you see wouldn’t change. The concept of light, in its purest form, is nearly instant. If you observe a star from across the multiverse, you see it just the same as someone standing right next to it.
“Yet there’s also light magic that appears slow. So slow it can be dodged, even without precognition. That’s likely what you see when you battle mages who use this particular school. Yet at other times, they can flash a spell that blinds you, the light hitting your eyes the moment it’s unleashed. Why not simply have every scorching beam of light move at this same speed?” Artemis raised a brow.
Jake considered the question for a while before answering, “Because the amount of energy a person can pour into an attack is limited, and if it all goes to making the attack faster, the damage will be lower.”
“Right,” Artemis said, nodding. “Now transfer that same concept to a physical object.”
“How?” Jake asked, genuinely not getting that part. In his mind, a sword swung quicker also hit harder. That was just what made sense, and what he also usually encountered when fighting. The strongest attacks Jake had faced were also the fastest, with only a few exceptions.
“To comprehend that, you need to broaden your understanding of physics, because what you currently believe is limiting you,” Artemis answered. “The laws of physics simply don’t work the way you think they do anymore.”
“But it does work like I expect, at least ninety-nine percent of the time. I’ve seen pre-system physics work pretty damn well.” Jake frowned while remembering the weapon Arnold had deployed against the Prima Guardian. The Rod from God was a weapon that worked purely off physics: something incredibly heavy going incredibly fast.
“I never said physics doesn’t work the way you expect it to most of the time; I’m saying that the law of physics you believe in doesn’t,” Artemis said as she helpfully took out what looked like a small cotton ball from her inventory and tossed it to him.
Jake inspected it thoroughly and looked up at Artemis. “What do you want me to do with this?”
“Just confirm there’s nothing fishy about it.” She then reached out a hand to take it back.
Taking another moment to inspect the cotton, Jake indeed saw nothing wrong with it. It had no energy of note, a perfectly ordinary and uninteresting fluffy little thing. Handing it back to Artemis by placing it on her palm, she promptly flipped it over, and it began slowly floating toward the ground.
“Try to stop it from touching the ground,” Artemis said.
Jake did as asked, attempting to catch it with his foot like it was a falling balloon, but the moment it touched his foot, he felt as if he’d just tried to stop the fall of a dwarf star. His foot was pushed down and nearly crushed between the floor and the cotton ball before Artemis moved her own foot to nudge Jake’s out of the way.
He was about to say something, as he expected the ball to crush the floor and level the entire palace, but it instead landed softly on the ground, bouncing slightly before a small gust of wind made it roll to the side.
“Before you ask, no,” Artemis said with a smile. “I didn’t do anything to the cotton ball between it touching your foot and the floor. All I did was decide to make its velocity constant. Naturally, I poured in conceptual energy to do that.” Waving her hand, the cotton ball teleported to appear in her palm again. “Hold out your palm in front of you.”
Jake once more did as asked. He watched as Artemis made the cotton ball float upwards in the high-ceiling meditation chamber before stopping at the top, about eight meters up. It was right above Jake’s outstretched palm, and he wondered what Artemis was up to.
“I poured the exact same amount of energy into this cotton ball as the last one,” she said. “I’ll now launch it down with full speed into your palm.”
Jake trusted her, especially since his danger sense didn’t react.
“Keep an eye on it,” she reiterated, and Jake kept watching the ball closely. “I’ll launch it down in three... two... one... now.”
Jake kept looking upwards, ready for something to happen, but when Artemis said now, the cotton ball disappeared from sight. A moment later, however, Jake spotted it through his sphere and also felt it.
Looking down, he stared at the cotton ball sitting in his palm. From his point of view, it had just been teleported there, and he hadn’t even felt the impact... but he knew that wasn’t what had truly happened.
“Do you understand what happened there?” Artemis asked him with a raised eyebrow.
“I can guess,” Jake muttered. “This time, you channeled all the conceptual energy into pure speed, making the ball descend so impossibly fast it seemed like teleportation.”
“But did it hurt?” Artemis asked. “Because going by pre-system logic, that cotton ball should have torn off your entire arm. No, actually, seeing as it surpassed the pre-system speed of light, it wouldn’t even have been possible. Yet it was.”
“I didn’t feel anything,” Jake said, shaking his head, and he now also understood what Artemis had done in the arena. “Those first arrows you shot in the arena—you dedicated most of the energy you poured in to speed, at the expense of power.”
Artemis smiled at this answer. “That’s remarkably close. When you normally shoot an arrow, everything is balanced. You unknowingly channel concepts of what you believe archery is, and the limitations and power of your simplistic understanding of physics affect every shot. Every arrow you shoot is, theoretically, perfect. The balance between damage done and speed of flight is optimal, but what if you can tilt that balance a bit to either side? What if you can make the arrow faster but deal less damage? Or make it slower and deal more? It seems counterintuitive, but it’s not.”
Listening to what Artemis said, Jake fell into thought. One of the biggest weaknesses of archery was naturally having to actually hit with his arrows. If he could make these arrows faster, he would be able to hit things more easily, and the damage being decreased wasn’t a massive issue, as it shouldn’t affect his poisons.
Additionally, it would make his archery a lot more unpredictable if arrows flew at different speeds. Claiming momentum in fights should become easier, and it wasn’t as if foes could easily discern that the quicker arrows were less dangerous, making them great for forcing enemies away.
“Don’t get me wrong—what I’m talking about isn’t easy or natural to most people,” Artemis said. “Your current understanding, even for those who grew up with the system, is the most intuitive. An archer’s most powerful arrows also tend to be the fastest, as they simply have a lot more energy infused into them. Additionally, if you use a powerful skill, trying to change the balance gets magnitudes harder.”
As Jake nodded along to her words, she continued, “I also want to clarify that your understanding isn’t wrong. It has a lot of truth to it, and actively messing with the conceptual energy within each arrow isn’t a feasible method of fighting. In most cases, having a faster arrow does also mean it will do more damage, just be aware that this isn’t due to some law of physics. It happens because that’s what you believe should happen, and the energy you put into the arrow reflects that. The same is true in all other aspects of battle. What I’m talking about right now is a gross oversimplification of the effect of concepts, but nothing I said is definitively wrong, and it should be enough for now.”
“Got it.” Jake nodded as he considered everything they’d talked about. Concepts were something Jake still had a difficult time fully understanding, even if he knew they were pretty much the bread and butter that made everything work.
Swords relied on the concept of sharpness to cut things, armor on the concepts of durability and resilience to block attacks, and hammers on the concept of... smashing stuff to smash stuff. What Jake still struggled with was the entire concept of better understanding a concept to make it stronger.
The Sword Saint was the complete opposite of Jake in this aspect. He had spoken a lot to the old man about concepts, and one of the things he’d learned was that no one could truly explain why something was. The old man could tell Jake that he’d “deepened his understanding” of the concept of sharpness, but he couldn’t properly put into words what exactly he understood.
No matter what, the effects couldn’t be denied. From Jake’s understanding of things, concepts were one of the fundamental sources of power in the system, alongside stats and energy. When one made an attack, the three most important factors were the stats that affected the skill, how much energy one had poured into it, and how deeply one understood the concepts that went into the attack.
When Jake fought Artemis in the arena, their stats had been equal. The amount of energy they could pour into an attack was also mostly equal, with Artemis still having a solid edge. However, since they’d shot arrows of the same size and used the same weapons, the most impactful difference between the two of them was their understanding of concepts...
And there, the difference truly reflected the gap between a god and a mortal. It was the difference between someone using an inferior-rarity skill and a divine skill to do the same attack. Even if both had the same stats and equipment, it wasn’t hard to see who was superior.
Artemis left Jake alone to ponder things, and an hour later, they reentered the Colosseum. Their duel was slightly longer this time, with Artemis purposefully not hitting Jake and instead showing off, allowing him to take everything in. Ultimately, he still met his end and had another conversation before it was back to meditation and thinking for another hour, followed by more arena time.
This was how time passed for the next few days. Jake got more and more into the zone as Artemis showed off more and more things, many of which were far beyond Jake’s understanding or even willingness to attempt as a mere C-grade.
Jake was fairly confident that Artemis made her teaching style pretty darn confusing on purpose. She wasn’t trying to hammer home a singular point or make him realize one specific thing. Instead, she was trying to make him think. Make him question how things worked, with the hope of broadening his perspective, guiding him to think in new directions beyond what he was used to.
The lesson that had resonated the most with Jake was still the first one about speed. It was the one Jake felt he was closest to grasping, and further conversations on the topic only strengthened his thinking.
“Few concepts can stand alone,” Artemis explained. “In nearly all attacks, we use some form of composite with aspects from many different concepts, often far more than we even realize. Every step you take relies on concepts. When your arrow is in flight, consider how many concepts it interacts with. Depending on the environment, there’s wind, moisture in the air, dust, light, gravity, space, and so many more. Penetrating all these can be put under the umbrella of dealing with the concept of friction.”
It was all getting pretty damn complicated, but despite that, Jake began to form some actual ideas. One of them was related to a concept he had some familiarity with and had even incorporated into some of his other skills already.
If he wanted to lean more into making his arrows faster... in other words, making their travel time shorter... what was more fitting than the concept of time itself?
Chapter 45
Perception Best Stat
Sometimes in life, one has to ask oneself important questions. What do I want to do with my life? What brings me purpose? How do I feel about someone? This was one such situation, as Jake asked himself a vital question:
Am I actually a fucking idiot?
Jake had tried hard. Really hard. Artemis was helping him as much as she could, too, but so far, Jake felt like he’d made no progress. It had been over a week since he began practicing with the goddess, and all he’d learned so far was how to dodge a little bit faster with lower stats.
Logically, he understood what she said. He also knew what he wanted to do and formed vivid ideas and plans. Sadly for him, no matter what he tried, he simply got no response. He’d shot several thousand arrows with no change in the concepts he could infuse.
