Chapter 1187 – Long Range Archery

Artemis had truly prepared a varied lineup of archers for Jake to face off against, using all sorts of affinities and concepts to amplify their power. Some were halfway mages who used their arrows as delivery vehicles of their spells, while others used barely any magic to do anything besides making themselves stronger and faster.

When it came to technique, Jake quickly realized that the ability to curve arrows was pretty damn standard, and the only ones who didn’t do it were those whose concepts they infused their arrows with didn’t mix well with the ability to control flight paths.

One example was the gravity archer Jake had first faced, but there were several others. An archer using light-infused arrows only ever shot in a straight path, but later informed Jake he usually summoned mirror-like objects to bounce his arrows around in combat to alleviate the weakness of every attack going in a straight line.

Another didn’t need to curve the arrows as she could make them “jump” while in flight to make them hit from unpredictable angles. A fourth one was a hunter with a Path, a lot more similar to Jake, in that she focused on stealth and taking down her foes before they even knew where she was, by unleashing an incredibly powerful opening shot. To her, she had sheared away all aspects of her archery skill that didn’t focus on empowering her opening attack, and her archery skill even had an effect, making her do more damage to foes she had struck before.

From all these examples, it was further hammered home that there truly was no “perfect” archery skill. It was all a question of give and take and avoiding contradicting concepts.

Again, that was why Jake couldn’t adopt something like his second foe’s ability to do more damage with every attack landed. To get that, Gladiel had to reduce how powerful her arrows could be at the beginning of a fight, but perhaps more importantly, she couldn’t get concepts that helped empower the initial attacks or ones that just allowed her to set a high baseline.

Jake also didn’t want an archery skill like the one that was all about being a sniper and killing her foes without ever getting into a “real” fight. She sacrificed being able to last in prolonged combat should she fail her initial strike, and she confessed that her strategy usually was just to run should she fail her kill attempt, because if the fight dragged out, she would more than likely lose.

Effects like these, and even the stacking damage one, were concepts Jake could gain, just not through his archery skill. The archery skill was the core of every archer’s Path and the foundation that every other skill using a bow relied on. That also meant every other skill using a bow was infused with the concepts of the archery skill, meaning that Jake could never turn it off if he had any effects that were situationally unwanted.

Meanwhile, that could be possible with skills that weren’t his archery skill. If these concepts weren’t entirely passive, he could, in many instances, avoid their effects if he so desired. In their case, the definition of “passive” also sometimes got a little loose.

Jake could – if he really focused on it – suppress even skills like Big Game Hunter, but he had no way to stop his archery skill from working when wielding a bow, as it purposefully “activated” merely by having the weapon in his hand.

So… whichever way Jake went with his Archery skill, it had to encompass his entire Path while at the same time not becoming too much of a mishmash of concepts that didn’t necessarily play well together.

Finally, as a skill, it naturally had a limited budget for Records. Skills could either spend these Records on doing a lot of things or doing a single thing really well. An example of the latter was Arcane Powershot for Jake. The skill was straightforward yet insanely powerful for its rarity.

In total, Jake had faced twenty-nine archers thus far, all with different fighting styles and levels of power. Jake had won the majority of these duels, but he had also found himself defeated a fair number of times. Truthfully, the defeats had been the most beneficial ones.

There were some encounters that Jake really wasn’t sure about, where people had some real wacky archery skills. Opponent number thirty was one such fighter, and this was also the first fight Jake began to seriously question whether what the guy did could even be considered archery anymore.

Retreating back, Jake summoned several barriers to block the incoming burning shrapnel from the exploded arrow. At the same time, he quickly positioned his bow to block the incoming swing.

A sharp edge descended upon him from above at the same time, but Jake swayed to the side, avoiding the blow while using the momentum from blocking the other hit to create some distance.

The moment he got even slightly away, two arrows flew toward him, fired by the opponent with one of the most ridiculous fighting styles Jake had ever faced, and one only made possible by his opponent’s unique physiology, which had come courtesy of his race.

[Demon – lvl 349 – Intermediate Blessing of Artemis]

Jake blocked and dodged several incoming arrows as he fought back with his own arrows, their duel looking for a moment like a fight between two archers until the demon closed the distance again and continued his assault by swinging both his bows like they were glaives, which they kind of were.

The demon’s two weapons were shaped like bows, sure, but they were made of metal and bladed on all sides as he held one in each of his two hands. Two of his four hands, that is.

What made his opponent’s fighting style insane was the two additional arms that he had right beneath the first two. Between swings and whenever Jake moved out of range for even a microsecond, the demon would draw one or both bows using these other hands and shoot summoned metal arrows toward Jake while closing the distance to once more strike in melee.

Each arrow was infused with fire energy, and many of them exploded after they had barely left the string, creating a shotgun effect where Jake found himself pelted by metal fragments.

Truthfully, as an archer, the demon wasn’t very good. As a melee fighter, he also wouldn’t be considered impressive. However, putting the two together and using them interchangeably throughout the fight made the demon an actual nightmare to fight.

Jake had to constantly keep track of the two glaives to see if they suddenly had arrows nocked on them, resulting in Jake potentially getting a projectile to the face halfway through a melee swing.

This was definitely Jake’s first time meeting a close-range archer, and he still found it questionable if the demon could even call itself a proper archer, but he evidently had an archery skill that allowed this, so who was Jake to question if the system had given its approval?

Alas, it was clear that Artemis had only chosen this demon because of his unique style and not because he was particularly powerful. Once Jake adapted adequately to the demon’s fighting pattern, he found more and more openings, eventually resulting in the demon being covered in wounds all over, as one of the weaknesses of his Path was definitely subpar defenses.

“I… admit my defeat,” the demon said as he fell to one knee after Jake landed another solid arrow in his thigh. “The Chosen is truly powerful beyond approach.”

“It was an interesting fight. Your technique is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before,” Jake said with a smile as he took a deep breath. He was covered in burns here and there but was otherwise in decent shape.

“I thank the Chosen for his praise, and am pleased by his assessment of my meager abilities,” the demon said, being overly polite in Jake’s opinion.

He didn’t get better when Artemis’s presence descended on the moon, but luckily for the demon, he was already down on one knee, which made switching into a full-on kowtow easier for him.

“Do not sell yourself entirely short. Your clan’s fighting style remains novel yet powerful, and you still have a long way to go before you’ve mastered it. Also, find solace in the fact that had you used your armor, things would at least have been closer, even if your defeat was inevitable, no matter how good the equipment. Before you tackle your evolution to B-grade, you should…”

Jake listened in as usual as the demon got some advice from his Patron, and he also took this time to consider and digest everything he’d gone through so far. He had been flooded with inspiration after having seen so many archers, and in the end, his conclusion was that he shouldn’t go overboard.

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Instead, as he stood there waiting for Artemis to be done teaching the demon, he decided on what his first step to upgrading his archery skill should be. Knowing there were so many available options and so many decisions he could make, he paradoxically decided that his first way to improve the skill wouldn’t include choosing anything at all. In fact, he wasn’t going to expand the capabilities of the skill at all.

No, he would improve upon what was already there to create a foundation to build upon any expansion he would do in the future. This was a thought he already had for a while, but this duel with the demon had truly hammered home that he needed to lock down his Path somewhat to ensure he wouldn’t go astray.

Not long after, Artemis was done teaching the demon, made the odd opponent disappear, and Artemis teleported back to the moon once more.

She noticed Jake was in thought and waited until he snapped out of it before she spoke. “I know he wasn’t the toughest opponent, but his fighting style is interesting in my opinion. Even though you may find it a little silly, he’s from a very powerful clan that has even given birth to a god using the same style.”

“How come a demon like that is even in the Pantheon of Life?” Jake asked curiously as the thought suddenly struck him.

“Political reasons mainly,” Artemis shrugged. “The demons aren’t super united unless something threatens the Nine Hells, so they like to try to make allies wherever they can.”

Jake slowly nodded, having figured it was something like that.

“You don’t seem that injured, but some recovery time is still wise,” Artemis said. “Assuming you want to continue, your next opponent-“

“Can I make a request?” Jake asked, now determined, as he knew what he wanted to do and also had a good idea of what kind of opponent could help make that happen.