The Primal Hunter

Jake stared up at the puzzle door, no one answering his inquiry right away. He could get why it could be a bit unsetting to chat with the guy who had nearly just killed someone, but in Jake’s defense, the guy hadn’t died. The lack of a notification confirmed that, and Jake was pretty sure people were healed when exiting.

“Uhm, it’s a magic puzzle of sorts,” some young man finally answered. He looked rather unassuming, and while Jake had seen him before as one of the observers, he wasn’t exactly someone Jake had taken special notice of. Just another level 105 in the crowd.

“Hm, I see,” Jake said, already inspecting the magic circle himself. Well, that was useless information and exactly what the message written there also said. However, it appeared that no one had really made any progress with the entire thing, so Jake decided that he wasn’t in a rush as he went over to the side of the chamber.

People looked towards him, but when they saw that he just summoned a comfortable chair and sat down, they turned back to the magic circle – a few glances were still thrown his way now and then, though. Once Jake was sitting comfortably, he deactivated his Limit Break and slumped down a bit. If push came to shove, he could reactivate it and suffer a worse backlash later if anyone tried to mess with him. It proved to be completely unnecessary as it seemed to only make them relax more when Jake stopped giving off his aura.

Jake decided now was a good time to go through some of his gains before he could tackle the big puzzle gate thingie.

The first items he went through were those he had looted from the Count of Blood, starting with the black sword.

[Count’s Vampiric Blade (Rare)] – A blade wielded by a Count of Blood that has been soaked in the blood of countless enemies throughout the ages. Crafted using a special type of steel, the blade can absorb the lifeforce of vitality-based lifeforms to repair itself. The Records left during this time have allowed the blade to evolve and transform even further, allowing it to steal a portion of the lifeforce of anyone injured. This blade was originally crafted in a set of nine using the unique environment of the hidden world and can absorb the weapons of other Counts of Blood to enhance itself. Note this functionality is only available within the Treasure Hunt area and will disappear once the event concludes. Enchantments: Hemoabsorbant Self-Repair. Vampiric Blade.

Requirements: lvl 125+ humanoid race.

Jake read it over a few times and reached one conclusion… it was pretty damn similar to his Scimitar of Cursed Hunger. Scarily so. Had Jake accidentally transmuted the cursed sword to make a vampire sword? Or were swords with vampiric abilities just not that rare? Thinking about it, it was a pretty basic effect to steal vital energy on each hit.

It was the kind of passive ability Jake didn’t really notice while fighting. It was just there and nice to have, much like many of his other passive effects. Now, the sword was good, but Jake didn’t really feel like using it. He liked the Nanoblade due to its longer length and insane sharpness, and he felt like the scimitar was still better as a vampiric sword. However, that wouldn’t necessarily last forever.

The ability to upgrade the sword by absorbing the other weapons was super interesting and, once again, pretty game-like. It did mean that Jake would have to hunt down all nine Counts himself or possibly trade with someone to get all the weapons. Well… he would have to do those things anyway due to the other item he had gained: the infamous key.

[Key of Blood (Unique)] – One of nine keys held by the Counts of Blood within the Treasure Hunt area. When combined with the eight others, this key will grant you the potential to earn bonus rewards. Holding any of the keys, even if unused, will contribute greatly to your final reward.

While the sword being able to absorb other weapons was ‘pretty game-like,’ having a set of nine keys one had to collect to open some secret place was super-gamelike. Or maybe movie-like? A plot about collecting MacGuffins was a prevalent trope, after all. Not that Jake was particularly complaining about it, he liked collecting stuff and unlocking bonus events.

Additionally, even if he failed to get all nine keys, he would still get bonus rewards. What this bonus reward entailed, Jake didn’t know, as he felt like all the loot he gathered was enough rewards in itself.

Moving on, he got to the red crystal the Count had transformed into. It turned out to not be a crystal at all, but a heart.

rare variant with high physical strength and incredible durability.

or weakened. Wouldn’t

expert, he could see how one that hadn’t fed for many years could be weakened. Also… it was true the Count wasn’t exactly a top-tier

out what to do with it was for later. Chances are he would learn more about it

Count’s chamber. It was the items the thief

the coffin were two separate items, both of the

The metal of the altar itself makes it near-indestructible for any being below A-grade. This altar has absorbed vast amounts of blood to empower it further, as countless sacrifices have been made upon it. It has

Requirements: N/A

a joke about it if he knew about it. However,

and there was sure to be someone in attendance who could use it. Shit,

the altar was also the accompanying coffin that Jake

The runes on the coffin

Requirements: N/A

tower, so it was already great thematically, and he also saw

were probably the worst ancient-rarity items Jake had ever obtained. At least for him. Oh well, if he ever made a vampire friend, he had some cool stuff for them, and if not, he could always have someone melt all the stuff down and make something else. Because no, Jake was not

a lot more sense. He had likely banked on Jake not

of Shadows would actually make an enemy out of Jake just because of one idiotic thief, but it did make sense he could think Jake would hesitate. The thief knew nothing about Jake. He had only seen Jake in this tower in person, and what had he done? He had fought a monster terrorizing others, helped many people, and even given out a healing potion to the woman with the stomped legs. This made Jake consider if the thief had somehow concluded that Jake was some

exactly commonplace, so maybe the stupid thief had hoped for Jake just to file an official complaint and start a diplomatic conflict or something. The thing is, Jake wasn’t big on politics, and hey, he had handled the problem just fine. What was the thief going to do? Go to Caleb and say: “Hey, so I tried to rob your big brother, the leader of another faction, and he got mad and made me leave the Treasure Hunt. Can we please declare war or something? A strongly worded

Yeah, no.

sitting there and going through the items, slowly having the period of weakness disappear. Still not in peak condition, Jake looked up towards the magic circle puzzle as he began inspecting it more

hour,” the man said as

the central

could be worse,” Caleb shrugged.

one of the towers disappeared less than fifteen minutes after he reported back about getting a big score. Apparently, someone managed to fight quite the powerful monster and left the

assigning them. More often than not, they took the role of handler for many

hand over what he stole. I am a bit interested in who was able to catch

other reports,” the Solicitor answered as he began going through the wisps. Each of them corresponded to a person, and each of them was linked to their respective member of the Court. They would send information through them, though it was only simple

such long-range communication wasn’t small, after all, so it was all encrypted by the individual Solicitor who