The Primal Hunter

The rest of the thirty-sixth floor proved relatively trivial as Jake and company soon completed the entire thing and entered the in-between room. There had indeed only been six rooms and their accompanying labyrinths, but when they arrived at the break room, he was a bit disappointed at seeing they had only managed to get three achievements along with the usual completion bonus.

At least he was disappointed until he saw the achievements in question.

Thirty-sixth floor completed. 360 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-sixth floor within one day (24 hours). 750 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-sixth floor while selecting the highest difficulty at every room. 600 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-sixth floor without straying from the shortest possible path by any more than 10% of the total distance. 900 Nevermore Points earned.

That was a whopping 2250 Nevermore Points from achievements alone. Counting in the Bonus Objective and the floor completion, they had earned 3110 points from this floor alone. Sure, it wasn’t incredible compared to the Demon Lord, but it was pretty damn solid.

“These are all sliding-scale achievements, right?” Jake asked as he went over to the usual bar in Minaga’s in-between room and poured himself a drink.

“They are indeed,” Minaga answered instantly, ready to jump into the conversation.

“Nice. So…”

“Yeah, you got the best ones. Won’t say if you missed any other achievements, though. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t.”

“Eh, it’ll be fine,” Jake shrugged as he chugged the beer-like liquid he had poured. It was okay, but not as good as what Villy usually brought.

“Do we need a recovery period?” the Fallen King questioned.

“I do not believe we do,” the Sword Saint answered.

Dina and Sylphie both seemed fine with just getting a move on immediately, so without further ado, they continued and moved onto the thirty-seventh floor, Jake quickly rushing after them while finishing his drink. As Minaga had already mentioned, the next floor was practically identical to the one on the thirty-sixth, though there were a few extra things added here and there.

The traps differed, and one especially nasty trap they ran into would teleport whoever stepped on it to a random place elsewhere in the labyrinth. At least Jake called it nasty until he got an idea. They sent Dina’s vine soldiers through a particular trap, and after seeing it actually put them closer to the exit, they all activated it together and skipped a good forty-five minutes of walking. Sadly not all of the traps could be repeatedly activated like this, with most only working on individuals before dispersing.

Room-wise, it was also much of the same, and Jake would say they got kind of lucky with what rooms had the highest difficulties. Of the seven rooms on the thirty-seventh floor – because yes, there were seven on the floor – they had combat in three of them, collection in two, and another had traps before they got the most interesting option of them all on the final room. It even had a never-before-seen new highest difficulty.

1. Crafting (Hard)

2. Boss (Harder)

3. Combat (Medium)

4. Random (Hard)

Jake just had one note when he saw the difficulty:

“Really? You named the difficulty after hard, harder?” Jake made fun of the dungeon master.

“Well, what else would you have me call it? Super hard? Mega hard? Or do you want me to use an entirely different word, like insane or impossible? Seriously, what is wrong with using harder? It perfectly communicates it is harder than hard,” Minaga quickly came to his own defense.

“Still,” Jake said, shaking his head. “It looks kind of lame. You could have made up your own word or something, too. It is ultimately your choice. Just… at least don’t tell me there is a difficulty even higher than harder that you decided to call hardest.”

“… as the professional dungeon master here, I see no reason to listen to your ridiculous critique. You try and make your own dungeon and then come at me with that kind of “feedback.” Forever the critic, never the creator. How would you feel if I made fun of you whenever you failed to concoct a poison or something? Wouldn’t be fun, now would it?”

“So you actually named it hardest?” Jake wanted to clarify.

“Do I have to threaten you again?” Minaga said as he made the entire labyrinth shake slightly.

“No need. I just wanted to make sure,” Jake smiled as he waved the Unique Lifeform off and infused energy into the rune to select the boss room.

“I think naming it harder and hardest is perfectly fine,” the Sword Saint said as he joined Jake. “Prioritizing practicality and making the options easier to understand is more important than aesthetics in instances like this.”

“I will revise my complaint letter to Aeon.”

The old man chuckled as they passed a fog wall, revealing a room with mountainous terrain. Rather than the usual rock color, the entire place looked orange, primarily filled with sand and mudstone based on what Jake could see. It was not an overly large room, only about fifty kilometers across and with a circular design.

Through a Pulse of Perception, Jake saw the boss inside a crater in the middle of the entire arena. This crater was over thirty kilometers in diameter, and with the large boss in the middle, it did look like the creature in question was the source of the impact.

The group sneaked forward over a hill of loose rocks before properly seeing the boss in the distance. It looked like a large fusion between an elemental, lizard, and scorpion. It had eight legs and a stinger like a scorpion, but its entire body was covered in dense sandstone, with its head and body reminiscent of a lizard.

Using Identify, Jake saw its level was at least decent.

[Meteorborn Beast – lvl 285]

“Huh, so the beast is the source of the impact?” Jake muttered, a bit surprised. Seeing the beast was above even the Demon Lord in level was also really nice.

“It’s a Meteorborn Beast,” Dina said, clearly already aware of what kind of monster it was. “It is part of the Lineage known as Cosmic Beasts and considered a middle of the pack variant. This particular kind comes to be by their parents laying a single egg within a meteor and then directing it towards a cluster of planets where it will then land on one. Upon impact, the egg will shatter, and the newborn Meteorborn Beast will absorb a lot of the energy released from the impact and even some of the matter kicked up from the resulting blast. This makes them take on the properties of whatever planet they land on. Upon reaching B-grade, the beast will then usually take to the cosmos again and create a few eggs they send into the universe, continuing the cycle.”

Jake nodded. Damn, having someone with actual education about the multiverse and stuff is nice.

“Any particular weaknesses or things we should be wary of?” the Sword Saint asked

“Gravity magic. All Meteorborne Beasts have powerful gravity magic, and based on this environment, I reckon this version is also good at earth magic,” Dina answered. “But its overall power level should not be overly impressive, so I think we will be fine. They are also incredibly dumb and not truly sapient.”

“Very well,” the old man nodded. “So, no need to strategize?”

“I don’t believe we will need to,” Dina shook her head. “Unless the dungeon did something special to this particular Meteorborn Beast, that is.”

“Let’s assume Minaga didn’t,” Jake smiled as he took out his bow. The Fallen King had also floated forward as he began to gather power, and Sylphie let out a low screech as she ascended into the sky, ready to strike from above.

Seeing them all move, the Sword Saint also began to stride into the crater. Dina followed behind him with her staff in hand. The Meteorborn Beast soon took notice of the two people approaching as it awoke. After seeing them, it also noticed Sylphie above. As for Jake and the Fallen King… well, it would be hard not to notice the two attacks that hit it less than a second after it woke up.

Jake bombarded the beast from long range while the Fallen King went into medium range and blasted it with repeated waves of force. The Sword Saint dove into melee range as he began to fight the beast directly, with Dina supporting him.

Sylphie descended with attacks from above as the Meteorborn Beast was instantly put on the back foot. It responded by using the exact two types of magic Dina had mentioned. Spheres of condensed space were summoned all around it, making Jake’s next arrows miss as it was thrown off-course, with the Fallen King’s waves of force exploding randomly in mid-air.

Dense orange stones were also condensed from the environment itself as the beast lifted up thousands of tons of soil and sand at once. It pressed all of this together, making incredibly durable weapons it could then control with its gravity magic. Getting hit by those would definitely hurt.

Sadly for the beast, it had met Jake and company at quite an unfortunate time in their lives. See, they had finally been given a good fight after so long on that damn city floor, making them all quite eager to let off some steam. Even Dina seemed excited as she activated her boosting skill along with the four others.

The result was as expected. The beast’s eyes were blinded by arrows within thirty seconds of the battle starting, and despite its durable natural armor, the Meteorborn Beast had its defenses ripped and cut apart within mere minutes. It released its trump cards at that point, and Jake did have to admit that dodging a meteor shower that covered the entire room was quite an interesting experience.

Despite the beast’s valiant struggles, Dina was proved entirely correct when she said they had no need for strategizing. With Sylphie landing the finishing blow by creating another smaller impact crater within the existing crater, the three remaining legs of the Meteorbeast gave out as it collapsed, dead.

*You have slain [Meteorborn Beast – lvl 285] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level*

*’DING!’ Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 219 - Stat points allocated, +50 Free Points*

Jake was pleasantly surprised to see a level gained, but the fight itself had pleasantly surprised him even more. It had been straightforward, more so than he would have expected. Jake did also notice why. They had all grown in levels during the time on the city floor – Jake and the Sword Saint more than anyone else – but more importantly, they had all just gotten… better. The only one without any big improvements was Dina, though even she had improved a little bit.

The Fallen King and Sylphie both complained a lot, but Jake saw how they had both gotten more refined at using all their magic. The Brokers who asked for assistance with tasks had all required them to push themselves over and over again, leading to subtle improvements that not even constant combat could teach them.

Jake himself had seen his improvements in prowess primarily from that brief period he had spent with the Puzzle Box he hadn’t even solved a single percent of yet. But for him, the power naturally primarily came from all the levels and stats.

Speaking of stats, Jake had made some difficult decisions when it came to his Free Points. This was partly spurred on by actually talking to Dina while on the city floor, as she had some more experience with the multiverse and stuff. She had said heretical things, like how just sinking all your Free Points into Perception could become a problem for him later on, and despite Jake obviously knowing that couldn’t be the case, he decided to listen to her out of courtesy.

That is why he put 500 Free Points into Strength and Agility, respectively. That was 1000 points right there, which Jake thought was pretty responsible of him. As for all the other stat points… well… Perception was still the best stat.

He had naturally also remembered to lick the weird void-lolipop that Oras had given him. This meant that Jake’s stats had undergone quite the growth. That meant that after entering the next in-between room and licking his orb while placing the Free Points Jake just got, he took status as the others took a small break until they moved on.

Jake focused a bit on the system window and had it show all the changes since he entered Nevermore to get an idea of how much he had gained so far… and it was honestly a lot more than he had initially expected.

Status

Name: Jake Thayne

Race: [Human (C) – lvl 204 --> 222]

Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge – lvl 203 --> 219]

Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper – lvl 206 --> 226]

Stats

Strength: 8536 --> 11022

Agility: 12496 --> 15391

Endurance: 8911 --> 10476

Vitality: 8834 --> 11053

Toughness: 7389 --> 8986

Wisdom: 11181 --> 14357

Intelligence: 9276 --> 11698

Perception: 23246 --> 30882

Willpower: 9385 --> 12336

Free points: 0

This was a total stat growth of 26906 in less than twenty race levels. Even if Jake didn’t truly feel like he was getting a lot stronger fast, it was undeniable that his current self was far, far stronger than the Jake who had initially entered Nevermore.

Every single level was just so much more valuable in this grade than those prior, and Jake honestly found it a miracle how he and the others bested monsters so many levels above themselves. Jake did have Big Game Hunter to make up for some of the difference, but still.

Levels also got harder as one progressed, but Jake still thought his Nevermore progress was okay so far. Of course, he hoped it would be even better moving forward and that they wouldn’t encounter another city floor.

One more thing they also got plenty of was Nevermore Points, as upon entering the in-between room, he also took stock of how many he gained on floor thirty-seven.

Bonus Objective Completed: Complete three rooms of the highest difficulty. 600 Nevermore Points earned.

Thirty-seventh floor completed. 370 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-seventh floor within one day (24 hours). 800 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-seventh floor while selecting the highest difficulty at every room. 700 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-seventh floor without straying from the shortest possible path by any more than 10% of the total distance. 900 Nevermore Points earned.

Every achievement besides the final one had grown in points they gave, but not by a lot. He also did get why the last one still just gave nine hundred, as the labyrinth part had not really gotten harder.

Dispelling thoughts of points and stats, Jake checked in with his party. Everyone had time to quickly rest up, and it was time to move on, Minaga actively cheering them on.

On a side note, Jake and the others had noted how no loot was rewarded in any of the in-between rooms, but Minaga assured them that it was by design. No, they would get their rewards once they had beaten floor forty. According to Minaga, this was done to offer even better rewards than was normally possible, which did make Jake a bit excited.

He was confident they would make it there quickly too. Jake saw nothing stopping them for long as they continued onto floor thirty-eight. They would keep going as planned and pick the hardest room they could every time while also prioritizing combat whenever possible. Especially bosses were at the top of their priority list as those were the fastest by far for their group and also the most enjoyable opponents.

On the topic of enjoyable opponents… Jake did hope that floor forty would be a pleasant surprise. And if his suspicions were correct, he was confident it would be quite awesome.