Chapter 32: Predator’s Foresight
Predator’s Foresight
A fruitful sparring session later, which was devoid of anyone going feral—thankfully—Mike returned to his dorm.
It was a bit funny, considering his skin and clothes still had burns from Agnes’ whip, and he’d be lying if he said they didn’t hurt. Theresa had noticed and naturally wanted him to go and rest, but Mike assured her that they were just flesh wounds and would heal quickly.
Which they would.
In fact, by the time they reached the training area, a lot of the dead skin had fallen off to reveal skin that was just raw red, and even that was quickly fading
Passive Skill coming in clutch once more.
Anyway, while Mike had initially wanted to spar with Theresa, his ’battle’ with Agnes made him even more eager to do so. Why?
Well...
[Ding. Through the Host’s efforts, he has successfully created a new skill.]
[Skill Name: Predator’s Foresight
Description: It’s only natural for a predator to excel at hunting, and to excel at hunting, the predator must know how to read their prey. Allows the Host to see an outline of their target that alludes to how the target will move immediately after. Effectiveness of Predator’s Foresight scales with energy output and mental energy expended.]
The description was quite flavourful, but to sum it up, Mike could essentially ’see’ the next move his opponent was going to make, and depending on how much he concentrated or how much he made use of his aura, these potential moves could become clearer or fainter.
This was the primary reason he wanted to spar with Theresa. She was great at attacking and keeping him on his toes.
As such, he learned a lot about this new skill when he started using it, and if he had to describe it after initial testing...
It was kinda trash.
Well, not trash per se, but it was too inconsistent with its predictions.
Sometimes, it would work as intended. If Mike concentrated hard enough, the ’outline’ would indeed serve as a determinant of what Theresa was about to do. That could be where she aimed before firing an arrow, dodging into a certain direction, or feinting.
Moreover, he learned that it wasn’t just visual cues, either. The move tied into his instincts quite well, so sometimes, he could sort of ’feel’ what Theresa would do, but this was quite vague.
Anyway, he said it was inconsistent because, well, it was.
Multiple times during the spar, the outline would be hazy, making it hard for him to make sense of it. Other times, it would straight up just be wrong, and Mike would completely misread what Theresa was trying to do, earning him an arrow to the chest or arm.
However, he asked the system about it and learned that active skills acted a bit differently from Passive Skills. Yes, it was an active skill.
[Active Skills are just that, Skill that need to be used consciously. Even if the Host knows how to do something, he still needs to consciously perform the action with a certain degree of proficiency to achieve the result he wants. For instance, if this Theresa person you sparred with had a system like yours, chances are that she would have an active skill under archery. That doesn’t mean she can automatically shoot an arrow from a bow. She still needs to actively aim, pull the bowstring, anticipate where her target will move, and release it. In other words, you can’t expect active skills to behave perfectly simply because they are registered as a skill, how well they work still depends on your effort and proficiency with said skill.
The same concept applies here. Host expects the skill to activate automatically without putting much effort into how effective he wants it to be. That’s not how that works. The Host created the skill by actively paying attention to the movements of his target. The skill won’t do that automatically for you, it simply makes the results better.]
The system gave probably the longest explanation it had given him in a single go, and Mike realized he’d been going about it all wrong.
It was kinda like his aura. It registered under his ability section, and he knew how to use it, but he still needed to consciously activate the skill.
Here, though, he’d unconsciously stopped doing what made the skill itself, which was to read his opponent and their intent using his instincts and senses. If he didn’t do that, then the skill wouldn’t trigger properly.
It was an interesting thing to think about as it changed his mindset concerning skills.
Luckily, he and Theresa went at it for a while, so there was adequate time for him to brush things up, and true to the system’s words, the skill immediately proved itself useful.
He suddenly had a far easier time dodging and countering her attacks, and while it wasn’t perfect, it was better than nothing. Not to mention that, with his instincts at play, things became a lot easier than last night when he was struggling just to get close to her.
Theresa seemed to realize this, too, as she commented on it.
"Huh, you’re suddenly a lot better at reading people. It’s weird, it’s clear you have no combat experience, like you said, but you seem to improve a lot after each fight." The recognition made Mike happy.
What didn’t make him happy was how she seemed to realize that she no longer needed to go softly with his improved capabilities, making Mike realize that he truly had been let off easy last night, because needless to say, she thrashed him for the remainder of their spar.
Her arrows moved in unpredictable ways with the flames that made them up suddenly gaining all sorts of new properties that, quite frankly, made zero sense!
Even with his new ability to predict movements, there wasn’t much you could do when you had no paths to escape!
This did cause Mike to improve a decent bit as well as Theresa kept on surprising him with new things he’d never seen before, but she had an oddly large kit of moves considering her ability revolved around summoning a bow and arrows of fire.
By the end, Mike had successfully lost another shirt and looked like he’d been bathed in volcanic ash. He wasn’t exactly hurt, but he knew that he had been pretty thoroughly defeated, once more reminding him that he still had some ways to go before he could match up to these people who’ve had training since they were young.
Though, Theresa said he was alright, and by her words.
"You could probably beat a bit under half of our grade as you are right now. So you’re not half-bad. Just get better." Moreover...
"I think you should focus on enhancing different parts of your body with your aura and not just doing it as a whole. Overall enhancement is nice, but there are situations where boosting a specific trait will do you well in certain situations. For instance, your biggest issue when fighting me is closing the distance. Maybe learn how to boost your legs to give yourself a bigger burst of speed. Or something like that, it’s just advice, no need to follow it." She said pretty casually, but Mike took the words to heart.
He too was considering how to do just that as it would make him more flexible. Sure, he was quite strong with the overall enhancement, but being able to specialize would allow his scope of expertise to grow significantly based on the situation.
Eventually, though, they called it a night, and Mike returned to his dorm room feeling pretty upbeat despite getting his ass handed to him.
The more he used his ability and the system, the more he realized just how many options he truly had.
Becoming a Lupine brought many changes, many of which he was still struggling to come to terms with, but he had to admit that his life had become better overall after the changes regardless of the downsides.
With a small sigh, he decided to take a shower and thoroughly wash himself.
The few wounds that remained stung as the water touched them, but it wasn’t that bad.
’Huh, I just realized that my wounds don’t get infected anymore.’ He suddenky noticed. Back on Klein 4, injuries were always a hassle as they always ran the risk of infection, especially in the poor conditions on the moon.
Now, though, not only was his healing accelerated, the risk of infection had also been cut down to pretty much zero.
When he finished showering, he lay in his bed and decided to look through his stats.
STATS
[Name]: Mike
[Age]: 17
[Race]: Lupine
[Level]: 3
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STATS
Strength: 25
Agility: 27.8
Endurance: 26.4
Vitality: 30.8
Perception: 24.2
Ferocity: 8% (Stable)
Allocatable Stat Points: 0
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SKILLS
> (Active Skills)
• Primal Awareness (Level 1) – The Host can precisely direct his instincts to warn of danger, incoming attacks, or nefarious intent.
• Predator’s Foresight (Level 1) – It’s only natural for a predator to excel at hunting, and to excel at hunting, the predator must know how to read their prey. Allows the Host to see an outline of their target that alludes to how the target will move immediately after. Effectiveness of Predator’s Foresight scales with energy output and mental energy expended
> (Passive Skills)
• Bestial Adaptation – Physical stats (strength, reflexes, stamina, and senses) are heightened even in human form.
• Cellular Recovery – Slowly regenerates minor injuries and recovers fatigue over time.
• Aura Modulation – Through disciplined control, Host can regulate the intensity and spread of his aura at will, reducing waste and maintaining longer active periods without strain.
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ABILITIES
• Primal Surge [B+]
A combat-type aura ability absorbed from a fallen foe. Enhances physical performance, reinforces strikes, and can be shaped into offensive bursts or barriers.
> [Hold to Expand for Details]
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EVOLUTION
Locked
> Requirement: Unknown
He read it through and nodded with satisfaction. It’s a bit wild to think that his stats had grown this much despite having only been in the Academy for a few days. He got excited just thinking about how much he could grow in the future when he trains properly.
For now, though, he wanted to sleep and prepare for another day of commissions and sparring.