The Primal Hunter

Meira laid on the ground within the tiny cell as she took pained breaths. Every time she breathed in, the toxic gas would invade her lungs and body, burning her throat and making her wish she could just stop. However, the wardens outside would come for her in moments if the toxic fumes didn’t decrease at a fast enough rate for their liking.

Ever since the day the Brimstone Hegemon had been slain, and she had been enslaved by the Order of the Malefic Viper, she had been forced to either endure torture, been forced to do certain tasks, or confined and taught lessons they believed she would need. She had just wanted to give up so many times, but she was just too cowardly to stop trying to survive.

She hadn’t heard anything about her father or the rest of her clan in months either, which only added to the torture. Her father had been captured together with her, and the Order no doubt controlled the clan she had once come from. Likely it was just much of the same for those back home, their masters having simply changed.

Soon enough, she felt like the toxins in the room had decreased enough, and just as she felt like she could relax, the cell door opened. Meira was still on the ground, her health down to less than a third as she barely managed to open her eyes.

“Is this the one?” a voice asked. One unfamiliar to Meria. They spoke the common tongue used within the Order, a language she had learned quite quickly during her capture. It was one of the things she had been forced to learn, which had actually served as a bit of a consolation. After all, would they bother teaching someone they would just kill their language?

“That is the elf. Evolved a month ago and is one of the better ones,” the warden in charge of her answered. “Got high marks on nearly everything, and her class and profession are both suitable to the role. Plus, she is an elf, and they tend to be popular with humans, don’t they?”

“Hm,” the newcomer said as Meira felt a healing spell fall upon her. Her health was restored, and the poison nullified. “Get up.”

She did as asked as she stood in her ragged robe. The newcomer that was clearly above the rank of the warden looked her up and down and held out a crystal. “Imprint the basics of your Status on this.”

Meira once more complied as her status was transferred. Just basics of her race, class, and profession as well as the general level of her stats.

She had evolved to D-grade a month or so ago, having gained the Perfect Evolution. This would normally be great, but she hadn’t truly been able to choose what she wanted. She had been forced into selecting a class and profession based on what the Order wanted. It was also clear that one of the reasons they had chosen to take her was because she was close enough to D-grade to mold her to their liking.

The only thing that consoled her was that at least none of her evolutions had the word slave in it… not that she wasn’t offered options that did.

“Seems adequate,” the newcomer bigshot said. Meira finally raised her view as she saw the robes the person wore. It was one of the people from “Humanoid Resources,” a part of the Order that not only handled internal matters of members but also the slaves and servants.

The woman in front of her was also an elf, but a dark-skinned Dark Elf rather than a “pure” elf like Meria herself. These elves were far more talented in dark magic of all sorts and were most often associated with the Court of Shadows, but it wasn’t really surprising to see any in the Order of the Malefic Viper either.

“Follow me,” the dark elf said as she led Meira away from the “training room” she had been placed in. The purpose was for her to build up innate resistance to toxins and even upgrade skills related to detecting and eliminating toxins. It was a cruel method that allowed her to become a test dummy for poisons. In fact, she had even gained the Palate of the Malefic Viper skill.

Meira knew a proper test dummy would be incredibly useful and even valued to a large extent. She had survived the initial training and gained the skills required with her evolution. Right now, her only plan was to gain enough value to not be viewed as easily disposable.

After she had passed the initial tests, she had even begun being taught things related to the Order, and by her own wish, she had been put on a path she believed would give her the best chances: that of a servant.

Soldiers who joined the Order would also do well, but Meira had never been a fighter. She had grown up with a profession related to mining and a healing class that also offered plenty of toughness and vitality for her to help her family in the mines. This had made her resilient enough to survive the ordeals she had been put through.

Her mother had also insisted on teaching her things related to managing the clan and matters related to the household. It was knowledge she had cursed having to learn as she knew it was due to the young master of the Brimstone Conglomerate, but now that knowledge had allowed her to get a good evaluation from the instructors of the Order.

Which was why the next words of the dark elf higher-up were not unexpected.

“You have gained a permanent position, and your training ends from today,” the dark elf said as she led her forward.

Meira felt relieved but was worried about one thing… why was someone who was clearly C-grade or maybe even beyond bothering with leading her, a measly D-grade? Much less inform her directly?

“May I ask, where will I serve?” she finally mustered up the courage to say after a dozen or so seconds of silence.

The dark elf seemed to have just waited for her to build up the guts to ask as she answered: “You will be assigned a new master who will gain full ownership of you, and you will act as the personal steward of his residence. That, or whatever else he decides to do with you.”

She spoke with an uninterested tone as she still probed Meira’s response. Meira could only shudder a little as this was what she had feared, but she tried not to display it.

Slaves like her could get many positions. They could get a job in an alchemy lab as test dummies, join larger experiments, be assigned to dorms as caretakers, or so many other places where servants were needed. The most sought-after positions were as a general caretaker or work in one of the brothels where survival was often always assured, and you even had the chance of catching the eye of someone influential.

But to become the personal servant of an individual was the worst. If you were owned by a collective, it meant no one could “break” you without repercussions. It meant you would retain some sense of autonomy as even if the institution owned you, no individual did, and this meant you could often just do your own thing as long as you did your job.

Having an individual master meant your fate relied solely on the whims of a person. You could be killed, tortured, or whatever else to sate that person’s desires without anything happening, especially as the ones getting personal servants were the influential, talented, or powerful ones. Often all three. Moreover, what happens when the master dies or gets powerful enough to no longer need you?

There was also some opportunity in having only one master… but those were few and far between. In fact, the biggest hope was the master just forgetting you existed altogether. But she knew her likely outcome was far worse. All she could do now was hope she would get lucky.

“If I may, who will my new master be?” Meira asked, a bit hesitant.

“A human that just passed the entrance test and is from the newly integrated universe,” the dark elf said.

Meira was at first a little relieved it would at least be a human until the next sentence came:

“One with a unanimous vote by the judges of the trial to have the highest level of importance placed upon him, so do not disappoint.”

She instantly felt herself take a deep breath but once more tried to not let it show. For someone to get such attention meant he had to be outstanding. But as a human from a newly integrated universe, he hopefully was-

The dark elf interrupted her thoughts as she waved her hand, and an image appeared, showing a masked person with two piercing yellow beastly eyes that made a shiver run down her spine.

Instantly killing all hope of her new master being an amicable person. She was already wondering what her perhaps limited future would hold as she was led through a gate towards her new “home.”

Jake had discovered days ago that Sylphie could still communicate with him even across universes, which was nice as he had a constant feed of her adventures, including how she and her parents had now gone to the dungeon. Sadly it appeared the communication did not work out of the dungeon and had not worked while Jake was in his dungeon either, so for the next week, at minimum, they would be cut off. It sucked because he really liked updates from the cute little hawk.

Back in the Order, Jake was following Irin and all the others as he made his way over to Reika to walk beside her. They exchanged a glance that told Jake they were fine, which made Jake just walk in silence as they walked through the gateway.

They entered a large office with hundreds of people working, and it reminded Jake of some government branch with people running all over. Well, most just teleported or opened gates and stuff, so a magical government office?

“This way,” Irin the succubus said as she led them all over to a table with another demon sitting at. Behind him was a large black statue of sorts that looked to be made of obsidian or maybe some kind of crystal? Jake wasn’t sure, and his Identify didn’t render any results either. It depicted a robed figure with an outstretched hand with the palm facing upwards.

The demoness stopped in front of the statue, with the other demon also getting up, but it was Irin who spoke.

“This statue will serve as an exchange of your Entry Token to get a true Order Token. This token will serve as both your badge of identification and is useful, if not required, to do much within the Order and the Academy. Moreover, this token will be Soulbound to you and only you, making it impossible to use for anyone but yourself,” she said as she motioned for the male demon to speak.

He followed through as he spoke: “To exchange the token, merely place your Entry Token in the hand of the statue and proceed to infuse your energy into the statue. Do not resist the scan that then follows. This will transform your token into a true one, signifying you have become genuine members of the Order!”

Before anything else could happen, Draskil stepped forward and placed his token in the hand of the statue as he infused energy into it. A few seconds later, the Entry Token had transformed into a new one as he held it up. It was entirely black and looked like a circular-cut gem of some kind with the Order of the Malefic Viper motif on it.

The male demon looked with recognition as he smiled. Jake wondered why as Irin explained.

“The tokens are split into the ranks: White, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Black, and Dark Green, with Dark Green naturally being the highest. The tokens are also grade-specific, so each time you advance, you will need to get them re-issued, which may also result in getting a lower ranking. Or a higher one, of course. I will be honest, this color-coding is primarily cosmetic and will have little practical impact besides signifying your status to others easily,” she explained.

Jake and everyone nodded, but he noticed no one else stepping forward. Instead, a few glanced his way. It turned out that skipping queues was also a benefit of being strong as Jake gladly stepped forward and did the same thing Draskil had done.

He felt the statue scan him, but the moment it tried, it impacted Shroud. Jake was quick as he deactivated the Divine skill, letting it through. The scan still took a second more than usual, getting an odd glance from the demon in charge of it, but he quickly calmed down when it spat out a new black token.

Jake had feared he would get a Dark Green, but it appeared he would at least avoid that attention. He stepped over to where Draskil was as they exchanged another glance. Both were staying to see who else would get black tokens, and moreover, to see if they could find the mysterious one who got a higher grade than them. Also… clearly, none of them had any idea where to go.

He took this time to inspect his new token after binding it to himself.

[D-grade Black Order of the Malefic Viper Token (Unique)] – A token signifying you are a member of the Order of the Malefic Viper. This token holds info regarding your identity and details about your person, as well as a plethora of other useful functions, including but not limited to information storage, gateway access, event participation, formation control, contract services, and residence services.

Requirements: Soulbound

It felt simple yet incredibly complex. Jake was also confident the token was borderline unbreakable. When he checked it further, he also felt the knowledge in the Entry Token had all been transplanted onto this new one, along with a lot more information about the Order and whatnot.

He didn’t have more time to scan it as a commotion was made as an unimpressive level 111 Risen got a black token. The highest level Risen also went up right after and got another black token as four more Risen followed who all got gold ones. Six Risen had arrived at this test, and of them, two had black ones and four golden, which was far more than any other group.

The Harpy, who was the last to complete the test, also went up and got a black one as all the other leaders of the higher-level groups got golden tokens. Reika only got a bronze token, as all but one of the alchemists with her got white ones. Jake didn’t know if he should be happy or sad that at least one other alchemist from Earth managed to get bronze, but oh well.

This, in the end, meant that five total black tokens were given, and the mysterious top-performer was either one of the two Risen or the Harpy. Jake glanced at all three, and his instincts were pretty clear as he met the eye of the level 149 Risen.

Him.

He was certain. It was a mere fraction of a second, but Jake’s intuition was clear. Because for a moment, Jake felt a response from Sense of the Malefic Viper as he looked at him that practically screamed that the Risen before him was akin to a walking natural treasure of pure toxicity.

And not online video game kind of toxicity.