☆ Hunting Gear (Unique Skill)
Conditions:
Fishing Mastery X+ or Spear Master X+
Acquired 100+ varieties of fish
Trap Mastery X+ or Bow Mastery X+
Night Vision V+ or Presence Concealment V+
Diving V+ or Excavation V+
Dismantling Mastery X+ or Tanning Art V+
2,000,000 creatures hunted (monsters excluded)
100,000 traps placed
In possession of a secret skill related to hunting.
Fished 5 lord fish never before fished on the server or defeated 5 area bosses never before defeated on the server.
Must have ranked within the top 5 of the Livelihood Ranking before.
1000 Energy consumed per hour (will not fall below Lv. 1 on Energy deficit)
Required Mana to Acquire: 1000
A Unique Skill that can only be acquired by the chosen. Provides a massive boost to all actions related to hunting.
70% bonus to all actions using a hunting weapon.
Overall stat boost.
Unlocks an exclusive combat skill and exclusive weapon slot.
WARNING:
* Damage to humanoid enemies -99%. This applies even when not using hunting weapons.
** May impose participation restrictions on future planned content.
*** All corresponding skills will be absorbed into Hunting Gear and their proficiencies will be reset. This cannot be undone. However, these skills can be relearned and their effects can stack with Hunting Gear. Achievements related to skill levels will be retained.
“Hmmm...?!”
What’s all this about? That sounds pretty broken.
A massive buff to everything related to hunting on top of a seventy percent boost to hunting weapons—there was strong, and then there was completely OP.
As a drawback, the skill couldn’t be removed, and my damage against humanoid enemies would be cut down significantly. This wasn’t just about monsters; if they ever implemented PVP elements, this skill was basically telling me to give up all hope.
To top it all off, I’d have to relearn every hunting-related skill I’d ever acquired, including Fishing Mastery.
Still, my recorded achievements—like the fish species in my fishing log—would remain, and I could re-unlock the skills by catching them again.
If it’s just up to Rank X, that’s not too bad.
The issue...was that the prerequisites were ridiculously high.
The skills in question could be raised to some extent (mostly with crab fishing), but...needing to fish up five never-before-fished lords was a harsh one! I mean, you had to be on the hunt for lords that no one had ever seen before. And here I was, having already cleared all of the conditions.
With requirements this strict, maybe I should just grab it as soon as possible. Rather, they’re so strict it almost feels like they designed the whole thing for me specifically.
Still... They were still the sort of things you could meet if you played the game long enough. And, given it was labeled as a “Unique Skill,” did that mean it was first come, first served?
I checked to see if there were any other Unique Skills on the list, but I came up dry.
There was a high chance it would only show up after you’d met all the conditions.
“Hmm...”
I’d lose most of my skills in exchange, but it did say they would be “absorbed.” Maybe that meant I could still get their effects while paying the mere 1000 Energy upkeep for Hunting Gear.
And if I relearned any of the old skills afterward, they’d stack. That was...ridiculous. Downright busted.
“The only thing holding me back is the ninety-nine percent damage decrease on humanoids... Is it just people, or humanoid monsters too?”
Monsters like the Dimension Garuda had a decent number of human-ish traits. And there were Lizardmen, Orcs, and Goblins too...
This had the potential to become a real issue down the line... I could definitely see them throwing in a battle arena as endgame content.
No, on second thought, I never actually play the PVP modes in most games.
Kanade and Tsumugi were good at that stuff, but me? I was always in it to have a fun time without fighting anyone. With that in mind, it wasn’t much of a drawback at all.
And if the skill was first come, first served...if I didn’t grab it, someone else would. I’d never forgive myself if I hesitated long enough for it to disappear into someone else’s hands.
Normally, I would have discussed it with everyone else, but it was late, and they said they were going to bed... I should at least check with Shouko.
She’d been with me through thick and thin, and she was the easiest person to talk to... No, maybe Yamikage was just as approachable.
I sent my chat requests to Shouko and Yamikage.
“Kizuna? Is something wrong?”
Shouko immediately picked up. Yamikage...showed no response. She was already asleep.
“I was scrolling through the new skills before I went to bed. And, well, I saw a Unique Skill and wanted to discuss if I should take it or not.”
I explained the Unique Skill called Hunting Gear to her.
“That is certainly a difficult decision. Thank you for consulting with me. However...wouldn’t it be better to discuss it with everyone?”
“Nah, it’ll get messy if I bring it up to my sisters. Romina might give some sound advice, but I get the feeling she’ll say the same thing as you. L’Arc will tell me to do it, no questions asked. But honestly, no one else really understands how it is with Spirits.”
“In that case, Yamikage would be a suitable person to consult.”
“I sent her a chat, but no response.”
She was always quick to tuck in, after all. Not that she was the sleepy sort—she was always fully alert when we needed her. That was just Yamikage. If she wasn’t compelled to stay up late, she simply wouldn’t.
“It just feels like I might lose it if I don’t act fast. It’s making me nervous.”
“To be frank, with conditions so strict, I doubt anyone but you could meet them...”
“If you play the game long enough, requirements like these aren’t as hard as they seem.”
Take the two million kills, for example. It looked like a big number, but with small fish—sardines, herring, saury, and the like—if you went out to sea on a fishing ship and took in a big haul, you could snag tens of thousands of them in one go.
Say you did two trips a day for around forty thousand total, you could hit that number in just fifty days. With the right environment, you could have it done in the blink of an eye.
We weren’t the only players with ships, and you could scrape up tons of fish if you just attached a bottom trawl. The number wasn’t that difficult to achieve.
“Yes, but being the first to catch a lord will be a considerable hurdle.”
“Not at all. You snagged one yourself not too long after you got into fishing, Shouko. You just need to do that five times.”
“I still think you’re rushing into this...but I do understand it’s not a bad skill to have. The issue is that penalty to damage against humans.”
“Yeah. Thing is, I almost never do PVP.”
“I understand that. I did have a hunch that you weren’t the sort of person to enjoy it. However...if they are giving you a warning, it probably means that the feature will appear eventually. We might be split into teams to fight one another in a wave battle.”
Ah... I never thought of that.
“With that said, it seems you were never planning to focus on PVP. Ultimately, I think this is your decision to make, Kizuna. If the day comes that we have to fight humans no matter what, then I and everyone else will pick up the slack. After all, you’re someone who wants to fish wherever you go, right?”
So you’re saying it’s just more of the usual.
“I see... Thanks. I guess I’ll go ahead and take it.”
Talking it over with Shouko solidified my decision.
Even if it caused some trouble down the line, when that happened, I would just need to fall back on fishing. That was why I started playing the game in the first place.
I slapped a nice, juicy check mark next to the Hunting Gear entry on the Skill Menu and focused on acquiring it. After making sure all the prerequisites were learned at their highest possible level, of course.
The fact it was even showing up meant I met every requirement within the skills available to me.
The cost might be steep... I thought. But if Hunting Gear was good enough to justify it, maybe it was actually a bargain.
Warning: Once acquired, this skill cannot be removed.
All corresponding skills will be absorbed and you will be unable to reacquire the original skills unless you meet their conditions again.
Are you sure?
[Yes]/[No]
As expected, a confirmation message popped up. They really didn’t want me to regret my decision. Without hesitation, I selected “Yes.”
Are you really sure?
[Yes]/[No]
They’re really being careful about this. If they hit me with a “Are you really, really sure?” prompt after this, it’ll start to feel like a comedy sketch.
And as that thought crossed my mind, I watched as all my familiar skills slid their way off the menu, swirling and fusing until they settled neatly as a single new entry on the list.
Congratulations! A player has obtained one of the 12 Unique Skills—Hunting Gear!
A message was posted for the entire world to see.
Wow...this has to be a pretty important skill, then.
“That was surprising. It suddenly broadcast to the entire player base,” Shouko said.
“Right. I’m just glad it didn’t list my player name.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to stand out, more that...being the island lord already got me enough of the limelight. I could see people snapping at me for going even beyond that.
I never imagined they’d announce it game-wide like that.