The Primal Hunter

Casper flew towards the island with the Vault on, the curse energy revolving around him as he soared through the unstable space. The cause of the disturbance in the natural balance of space was naturally the world having been partly broken by the curse, but also due to the battles that had taken place within.

Many high-level beings, including A-grades and possibly even S-grades, had fought within the world known as Yalsten, and such battles rarely left the area unbroken. Yet space also had a natural inclination to always stabilize itself. It wanted to be as solid and as stable as possible while returning to its original form. This was why space could so often be shattered and the world borderline torn apart, yet space would nearly always find a way to stabilize once more. Of course, if large parts had been broken for good… those parts remained broken, and space simply had to find an equilibrium not to cause a chain reaction.

In these unstable places where space had been shattered, the physical realm constantly shifted and turned, overlapping in places to keep this equilibrium. It was patterns of failed attempts at repairing itself, which meant that any outside entity entering often resulted in space simply trying to shift and stabilize around them. Diving head-first into unstable space would be a quick way to be torn into several pieces.

However, Casper didn’t fear this. The curse that empowered him helped shroud and protect him, but even without it, he was confident. While his class revolved around curses, his profession did not. He was a Dungeon Engineer, and one of the basic elements of dungeons was space magic. His understanding was still simple and very specialized, focusing on dungeons and not general combat or even making things like spatial items… but what little insight he had was more than enough to survive the unstable space in the Treasure Hunt. In fact, his knowledge was especially suited for this kind of thing.

Now, if this world was one actually amid collapse or he found himself in a full-on space storm, he would be utterly fucked, but luckily it wasn’t that bad. Though Casper doubted it had much to do with luck and more to do with design. All of these system events were designed, after all.

They were set up to challenge those who participated, not that much different from most dungeons, albeit far more tailored to the participants. It was interesting, as the system even made its own dungeons, and in some aspects, one could view this entire Treasure Hunt as a collaborative dungeon of sorts specifically made for Earth. The comparison was actually quite apt, as this was even a completely separate space, and none would likely ever enter Yalsten again. At least not this version of it.

Just focus on your task, Casper reminded himself as he made it through the unstable space and got close to the island.

Once he got close enough, he noticed that a bubble of stable space had formed around the island. In fact, it was the reason why this island was even whole and not broken into tiny fragments like everything else around it. This was no doubt due to the Vault that had been formerly hidden on what had likely once just been part of the plains.

This was evident from the blue grass and the familiar-looking environment. The only real difference was a single structure smack in the middle of the island, emitting a giant red pillar of light. Casper ignored everything else as he made his way towards the structure.

When he got close, he saw it looked just like an old house with unassuming features. It was camouflaged well, or at least it had been. The issue now was that the building was whole with no broken parts and even looked recently cleaned, giving away the high tier of the materials used and the enchantments placed on it.

Casper walked up to it and placed his hand on the door handle. He knew something was off the moment he did so, feeling the enchantments, but frankly, there was nothing he could do about it. He sighed as he opened it without any problems and stepped inside to see a perfectly regular-looking room, at least by post-system standards. It was an entrance area to greet guests, and once more, it all looked way too clean. The door automatically closed behind him, startling him a bit as he upped his guard.

He slowly made his way forward as he spoke. “Lyra, do you detect anything dangerous yet?”

“No… it feels almost too safe. I can’t even detect the outside,” she answered him, her voice echoing in his head.

This made Casper frown as he turned around and opened the door he had just entered through. When he did so, he saw a living room where the outside of the island had been before.

“Great… a damn maze,” he sighed as he got to work. The worst part? He was pretty sure he hadn’t even found the actual Vault yet… this was just the automatic defenses to trap people, probably until someone could come and investigate. But, naturally, no one would come to investigate, so all this meant was that Casper would have to find a way out himself.

tapped it, sending out a pulse of space-mana, mapping out the building – or at least attempted to. It projected a structure to him, and when he saw it, he sighed again as all he got was a jumbled mess, showing the same rooms repeating tens of

all honesty, not finding the situation that bad. At least he could now be

taking any detours or finding any distractions. At least not that many. He passed several people and parties on the way, and he even

the black mist had dominated in the distance before. Jake did wonder if he could have scouted it using the Root of Eternal Resentment before this second phase began, and while he probably could, he didn’t really regret his decision

to make it to the Vault. He only had a handful of brief stops on the way to take some loot

ones that had avoided him before, but now at a far higher level. He even encountered a

of them were

fingers, willow form, and sharp claws – but instead of their pure

Nocturne Ekilmare –

used magic to make themselves appear even darker than usual and

little problem though… their stealth abilities were shit. With the mist turned white again, they stuck out like sore thumbs. Luckily for

single one of them in a 2-minute bout, mainly to just get a look at

them all dead. Actually, thinking about it, with vampires

find out with only a bit over a

it soon entered his line of sight, and as

to feed them as they slowly died. Yet, smack in the middle of it all stood a perfectly normal-looking tree – at least by this world’s

kind. In fact, the only stumps remaining were those closest to the totally-a-real-tree, as whatever had protected it likely had extended slightly to those around it. He couldn’t detect anything suspicious about

when this place was a forest, he didn’t doubt it would be pretty much impossible to find. A single unassuming tree in the middle of a forest wasn’t exactly what many would assume was a hidden treasure vault. Jake made his way into

Below the bark was a metal structure

poke it to see what would happen. He extended his finger and lightly

seconds

still doing nothing. Then he tried infusing a bit of mana but found that the bark-like coating shielded the structure beneath. Which, funnily enough, was what bark on actual trees did after the system

seeped in through small holes if he tried to direct his mana into them, with each hole corresponding to a hidden rune. So Jake did a quick run around the tree and

some sort

Was it made by some other enlightened race? Probably. The core of the whole tree structure was also obviously the metal sphere on top, and when Jake peeked into it, he saw how complicated

the sphere the

enough to contain some valuables, but if It had the name ‘Vault,’ he assumed it was more likely a spatial storage of some kind. No doubt he would have to input the correct password on the tree to make the sphere unlock and grant him access to the loot. It was the logical solution,