The Primal Hunter

System Announcement:

The Treasure Hunt Special Event will commence in: 23:14:53

All qualified participants will be invited at the allotted time. Those within the territory of a Pylon will be able to enter together, while any not within a Pylon’s territory will enter as individuals by default.

Neil, Christen, Eleanor, Silas, and Levi were all chatting in the room, waiting for the rest to arrive. It was right next to the newly expanded City Lord’s office, where a large meeting hall had been made, primarily for this day. The five of them had all gotten the notification about the Treasure Hunt along with every other D-grade in the city. Likely across the globe.

“Gotta say, Miranda ain’t a slouch either,” Levi commented as they chatted about the other D-grades from Haven who would join the Treasure Hunt.

“You totally got a crush on her,” Christen teased at the man who had made similar comments many times before during their hunting trips.

“No, I’m simply acknowledging reality,” Levi defended himself, faking offense. “By the way, you know who else is coming? Besides those randoms, that is.

The randoms, in this case, were something entirely unexpected.

Around a week before the Treasure Hunt began, D-grades had started appearing at the Fort and Haven. All of them had come for a few reasons. One of them was that they weren’t sure if they could enter the Treasure Hunt without being within the area of a Pylon and had come to make sure. That reason had now been debunked, but another purpose was to hopefully enter with a stronger group and team up with others.

All the big cities wouldn’t just enter with a dozen people. The party of five had spoken about how Sanctdomo, as an example, apparently had D-grades in the four digits associated with their city enter. Not all of them were members of the Holy Church, but a lot of them sure were. Independent parties who didn’t want to join some powerful faction needed somewhere else to go, and it appeared that Haven became one such place. No doubt, along with a lot of other smaller settlements around the world.

So far, a bit over forty D-grades had come to Haven. That didn’t sound like a lot, but it sure felt like it was, considering Haven didn’t even have half that.

Haven only had their party, Lord Thayne, Miranda, Arnold, Sultan, and those two creepy women, along with one other guy who had joined a month or so ago. Phillip was one they had expected to enter too, but he wouldn’t come. Christen had heard he was retiring, so that was a bit weird.

“Just those we discussed,” Neil answered.

They kept chatting, only stopping when another person showed up.

“Ah, you guys and gals are already here,” Miranda said as she entered. “Good, the rest should be here within the next half an hour, then we can get started.”

Her words proved true as two men wearing medium armor and sheathed swords entered, not even a minute later. Two minutes after that, a man and two women came, and five minutes after that, Sultan arrived. The room kept filling up, and close to the half-hour mark, Lillian entered, practically dragging Arnold, who had his head down reading on his tablet.

This would ordinarily not cause much of a fuss, except… Arnold was the highest-leveled person in the room, and practically none of them knew about him. He was the kind of guy who stayed hidden away in his workshop months at a time, so only people like Sultan who had gone to sell him stuff knew the man properly.

Yet, despite quite a few with decent levels coming and Miranda herself having a respectable aura, the forty or so independent D-grades did notice an issue. Haven was weak. Their strongest party was decent, but there was another traveling party present equal to them in power. Miranda, Sultan, and Arnold were perhaps powerful in their own right, but ultimately they were outnumbered heavily.

Confusion and some discontent spread in the hall as people talked. Many had come to Haven because of rumors of the city’s power and now found themselves incredibly disappointed. Five minutes passed without anyone showing up. Ten minutes. Fifteen.

They all just talked and discussed, their voices getting louder as many stopped bothering to hide their discontentment.

“Why is Lord Thayne not here yet?” Silas asked in a low voice to his party.

“I don’t know… but looking at Miranda, I am pretty sure she has something planned,” Neil answered in an equally low voice.

trust she had predicted this would happen and made an adequate plan. None of them except Silas and Eleanor had met the owner of the city recently, and the last time they did, he was just shopping or interrogating Sultan. They knew he was strong… but was he strong enough to handle a hall of nearly forty D-grades who had come to

good distance away from the city to not contaminate anything as he crafted his uncommon-rarity necrotic poisons and had now stocked up with a few dozen bottles at least. He didn’t know if

Jake had gone on a full-on crafting spree to get out as many

a total of +440 perception over his crafting frenzy throughout this last month. Unfortunately, that was all he had time to make enough elixirs

agility elixirs and 41 common-rarity elixirs had gone down his throat, and quite honestly, he was damn sick of the taste by now. He was now fully capped out at the 900 stats he could get from consumables. Additionally, he still had quite a few vitality-based elixirs left as well as plenty of agility ones. He would have

at

the first time in a while, Jake opened up his full status as he did a final check of everything

Status

Name: Jake Thayne

(D) – lvl

[Avaricious Arcane Hunter

of the Malefic Viper –

Health Points (HP): 29573/29580

Mana Points (MP): 39888/40812

Stamina: 20021/24870

Stats

Strength: 2050

Agility: 3711

Endurance: 2487

Vitality: 2958

Toughness: 2124

Wisdom: 3265

Intelligence: 2781

Perception: 6708

Willpower: 2814

Free points: 0

of a Primordial’s True Blessing], [Dungeoneer VI], [Dungeon Pioneer VI], [Legendary Prodigy],[Prodigious Slayer of the Mighty], [Kingslayer], [Nobility: Earl], [Progenitor of the 93rd Universe], [Prodigious Arcanist], [Perfect Evolution

of Vast Horizons (Rare)], [Limit Break (Rare)], [Enhanced Splitting Arrow (Rare)], [Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter (Epic)], [Arcane Powershot (Epic)], [Big Game Arcane Hunter (Epic)], [Arcane Hunter’s Arrows (Epic)], [Descending Dark Arcane Fang (Epic)], [One Step Mile (Ancient)], [Mark of the Avaricious Arcane Hunter (Ancient)],

Purification (Common)], [Alchemical Flame (Common)], [Craft Elixir (Uncommon)], [Toxicology (Uncommon)], [Cultivate Toxin (Uncommon)], [Concoct Poison (Uncommon)], [Malefic Viper’s Poison (Epic)], [Scales of the Malefic Viper (Ancient)], [Blood of the Malefic Viper (Ancient)], [Sagacity of the Malefic Viper (Ancient)], [Wings of

[True Blessing of the Malefic Viper (Blessing -

of Man (Unique)], [Identify (Common)], [Thoughtful Meditation (Uncommon)], [Shroud

the Primal Hunter (Bloodline Ability

went over it all with a smile. His stats had grown a lot, and he felt far stronger than before. If he faced the Altmar Census Golem now, the fight would have gone far differently. Every part

the golem, he had gotten nearly two thousand more in stats from equipment, about equally as much from consumables counting all the percentage bonuses. All of this wasn’t even

if it was later than the planned time. This was all with directions from Miranda about how to approach the

believe he was the strongest

fight anyone to find out. That was good enough for her to assign him to play that role they had decided he would play a long

the overpowering owner of Haven that would squash any doubt about the city’s power. Jake could do that, but there was one more participant in the plan. He had mentioned her

treetop, a green figure zoomed up to him and began flying beside him. Jake smiled at her

we are, eh?” Jake