Nauja

Nauja is a Trial Planet archer who leaves the isolated Tri Lake tribe to explore the wider universe and becomes a recurring ally of Jack’s crew. Her inherited Sun Piercing Arrow grows from a borrowed technique into a skill she can express through her own Dao of Wind. (Chapters 136–560)

Biography

A hunter caught between her tribe and the outside world

Nauja first meets Jack while hunting in the Barbarian Ring. Years of exploitation by delvers have made her wary of outsiders, so she initially holds him at bowpoint and tests whether he means her people harm. When his answers convince her he is not another predator, she brings him and Brock to the Tri Lake tribe, explains its customs and the rings of Trial Planet, and gives them hospitality. She also explains that her people are direct descendants of the Ancients, a heritage reflected in her “Direct Descendant” title. As Jack learns what delvers have done to the tribe, Nauja’s welcome becomes a deliberate choice to trust someone from outside it. (Chapters 136–140, 144, 148–150)

That trust is tested when her father, the tribal chief, orders her to hunt a tyrannosaurus so she can become a true hunter. Nauja protests that the mission is effectively suicidal, especially with Jack and Brock as her companions, but ultimately obeys. She coordinates the hunt, lands the first arrow in the dinosaur’s eye, and keeps firing while Jack fights at close range. Their teamwork kills the beast, though both Nauja and Jack are injured. When her father later orders her into the Forbidden Cave and tells her to win or die trying, Nauja decides that she has been given an unjust burden. She protects the Ancient remains there, then chooses to leave the tribe and join Jack and Gan Salin rather than return to the life her father planned for her. Her departure is an assertion that she must choose her own path, even if it means losing her home and family. (Chapters 139–142, 150–157)

An inherited skill and a decision to keep moving

Nauja’s wish to explore beyond her ring is tested as Trial Planet separates her from Jack and Brock. In the labyrinth, she treats the unfamiliar space as a chance to train on her own, but a trial also forces her to confront confinement and pressure. An inheritance left by Veheil Maestro Cir, an elder of the Crimson Cloud faction, offers her the original Sun Piercing Arrow only if she can hit every target. Nauja hits 32 of 33 and fails the final condition; rather than receive the full technique, she is granted a weaker version that may evolve if she reaches its level. The near miss frustrates her, but she accepts the partial gift and keeps practicing. (Chapters 181, 189–190)

She first successfully uses the inherited arrow at a distance of about two miles, striking Bocor and helping her friends survive the conflict in Trial Garden. Nauja remains with the group outside the garden to pursue her own growth rather than rely on Jack’s victories. Her practice is slow: even after the first success, she spends hours training and cannot yet make the arrow travel ten miles before it breaks. She nevertheless returns to the Trial Planet battles and later leaves the planet to see the wider universe. (Chapters 212–213, 217, 226)

Her own wind in the Sun Piercing Arrow

During the fight against two scions, Nauja and Gan Salin face a difficult match-up: her repeated wind arrows are redirected by an elef’s defensive skill, while the faster eagler pressures Salin. The elef’s ultimate technique turns the pain of the battle back onto Nauja and Salin, leaving Nauja unable to aim. Salin refuses to retreat and stands between her and the coming attack, trusting her to save them. His choice gives her the time and reason to keep fighting through pain rather than accept defeat. (Chapter 312)

Nauja realizes that the inherited Sun Piercing Arrow cannot grow further as someone else’s skill; she must make it her own through her Dao of Wind. Her shot gathers ambient Dao as it travels, parts the eagler’s wind attack, pierces the elef, and explodes beneath the eagler, defeating both opponents and saving Salin. The breakthrough is costly and leaves her exhausted, but it changes the arrow from a borrowed inheritance into an expression of her own cultivation. (Chapter 312)

After Trial Planet, Nauja chooses to travel with Gan Salin, Brock, and the Trampling Ram crew. She joins their war against the Hand of God, using the Sun Piercing Arrow from ten thousand miles away to bombard a moon and combining her sustained fire with Salin’s World of Insanity to deny enemies safe escape routes. The ability she had struggled to use in the Trial Planet rings has become a defining part of how she fights alongside her friends. (Chapters 302–312, 317)

In the years of travel that follow, Nauja and Salin are hunted after taking a starship, but she keeps exploring and helps the crew navigate dangerous territory. She advises caution during Jack’s campaigns and later stands with Brock and the others when Jack’s grief threatens to consume him. When they reunite after the Black Hole World, her relief and concern show that the crew has become her chosen family; she stays with them as they continue the fight against the Animal Kingdom. (Chapters 323–325, 412–422, 443–461)

Appearance and personality

Nauja is a muscular, pale-skinned human with blond hair and sharp blue eyes. She initially wears fur garments and carries a bow with separate quivers for ordinary arrows and larger, spear-sized shots; after years away from Trial Planet, she wears brown leather armor. She is direct, energetic, and quick to laugh, but her suspicion of delvers reflects the harm they have done to her tribe. She is proud of her people and her heritage, yet unwilling to let either tradition or fear of leaving keep her from seeing the universe. (Chapters 136, 139, 137–140, 413)

Abilities and cultivation

Nauja is an archer whose known cultivation follows the System’s grade and level scale and the Dao of Wind. Before leaving Trial Planet she advances from Level 101 to 106 and is later described at peak E-Grade. By her reunion with Jack, she has reached the late D-Grade, and by the following year she is at the very peak of D-Grade. Her intervening level checkpoints are unknown. Her most important ability is the inherited Sun Piercing Arrow, which she develops through her own understanding of wind. (Chapters 144, 170–171, 307, 312, 413, 443)

Archery, wind arrows, and marksmanship

Nauja’s conventional archery supports both hunting and team combat. Her father made her bow from the heart of an elder treant, with a string woven from nine tyrannosaurus hamstrings; it can withstand her strength as a peak E-Grade archer. Against the tyrannosaurus, she places an arrow through its eye and continues shooting while Jack draws its attention, carefully keeping her shots clear of him. She can also form arrows of wind, fire them in rapid succession, and adjust their trajectories after release. In the Space Ring she uses this control to send arrows across space and steer them into an eel’s eye, even as the battlefield moves around her. Her exceptionally sharp sight later lets her identify cultivators and read traces of their auras from ten thousand miles away. (Chapters 141, 169, 173, 189, 418)

Sun Piercing Arrow

Nauja receives a weaker version of the Sun Piercing Arrow after failing the final target in Veheil Maestro Cir’s archery trial. The skill requires concentration and archery; in its early form, she can make it gather power and grow as it travels, but the arrow remains limited in range and can break before reaching ten miles. She spends long sessions practicing and first succeeds against Bocor from roughly two miles away. (Chapters 189–190, 212, 217)

The arrow’s mechanism is demonstrated in battle: it gathers ambient Dao into a mantle as it travels, allowing its power to increase rather than simply dissipate with distance. At first the inherited skill remains only first-tier and difficult to use under pressure. In the fight with the scions, Nauja’s realization of her own Dao of Wind lets her supply the missing understanding; the arrow then parts a wind attack, pierces the elef, and releases a large explosion beneath the eagler. The exact new tier is not stated. By Chapter 418, she can fire repeated golden arrows from ten thousand miles away, each gathering power on its way to bombard a moon. That scale depends on distance and the favorable gravitational conditions of the battle; she is not shown piercing a star herself. (Chapters 312, 418)

Power progression

Relationships

• Jack Rust — Nauja first shelters Jack and Brock after testing Jack’s intentions, then fights beside him against the tyrannosaurus and joins his wider journey. Their relationship develops through shared danger, travel, and repeated battles; she remains one of his trusted friends and later supports him when he is in danger of losing himself to grief. (Chapters 136–157, 312, 323, 443, 460)
• Gan Salin — Salin becomes Nauja’s close traveling companion and regular battle partner. When the scions’ attack leaves her unable to fight, he shields her and insists that she can use her skill; she responds by making the decisive shot that saves them both. (Chapters 181, 312, 418–419)
• Brock — Nauja befriends Brock while he travels with Jack, and the two later fight as part of the same crew. She supports him in the crew’s battles and shares her strength with him during his fight against Alexander Petrovic. (Chapters 137, 317)
• The Tri Lake chief — Nauja’s father orders her to hunt a tyrannosaurus and later sends her into the Forbidden Cave under a “win or die” expectation. She obeys the hunt despite fearing its danger, but eventually rejects the mission’s cost and leaves to choose her own life. (Chapters 137–139, 157)

Items

Nauja’s father-made bow is an important part of her archery, but it is unnamed. It is made from an elder treant’s heart and strung with nine tyrannosaurus hamstrings; Nauja uses it with her own ordinary and Dao-infused arrows. (Chapter 189)