The Primal Hunter

Casper solved the puzzle and shattered the spatial bindings holding the final fragment as Lyra flew up and grabbed it. She returned it to him, and he inspected it to make sure everything was in order.

[World Fragment of Yalsten (Unique)] – One of five World Fragment of Yalsten, the cornerstones of the miniature world. As Yalsten began falling apart, the World Core was split into five and scattered in the cardinal directions of the world to stabilize it. What has broken cannot be restored, but the fragments can be combined into Quasi-Core once more. Be warned that creating a new core from the fragments will permanently destroy the world known as Yalsten. Cores will automatically reform if close to each other.

When coming to this place, the undead faction had two primary goals. This was the first of them. A World Core was something even gods sometimes desired, as it allowed one to create a true world. Not a full universe, but a world that existed within the endless Void between the universes.

These worlds could vary vastly in size, from no larger than a single room to millions of galaxies. Compared to a real universe, this was still only a mere fraction, but these worlds were far easier to control, customize, and defend compared to managing a section within a universe. However, they also had many drawbacks, such as their fragility and the fact that the world would become effectively inaccessible if all access points were cut off. This is what happened to Yalsten.

What Casper and the undead would get wasn’t a true World Core. That ship had already sailed and what they would instead get was a World Quasi-Core. This core would not allow them to establish a stable world, but it could serve other means. Of all the treasures in the Treasure Hunt, this core was possibly the most valuable.

To assemble it, Casper began heading towards the center of the Treasure Hunt – the crystal spire. The final fragment was stored there, and now was the time to make their final preparations for the battle against the guardian.

But for now, Casper needed to keep his distance from the spire, at least a kilometer or so. If he went too close, he would trigger the merging of the fragments, and then the world known as Yalsten would begin its destruction. The unstable space at the edges only didn’t spread due to the fragments Casper had taken, so once combined, nothing would hold the world back from slowly collapsing in upon itself.

Waiting was done not only for the undead but also for the other factions. After all, there were many other valuables to collect. Casper had also naturally seen the opening quest about the Vaults and knew that soon the final stage would begin without him triggering it or not. In the meantime, the undead would make their preparations while searching for the other thing they wanted.

The second item the undead faction really wanted was the Seed of Eternal Resentment, the fulcrum of the ritual that placed the curse upon Yalsten. Needless to say, an item with the ability to store and facilitate a curse able to destroy an entire world wasn’t to be looked down upon. It would no doubt be weakened if removed from Yalsten, but it was still worth it.

However, with this, they reached an impasse. They discovered that the Seed had already sprung long ago. Wood had been created from off-shoots of the Tree of Eternal Resentment and turned into weapons and tools of the Pure One’s faction.

The main tree itself would have had to be thousands of kilometers tall, towering over the world. Yet now, no such tree was to be found, and the undead scrambled to locate any remnants of it. There had to be at least some leaves, bark, or just any wood left… or perhaps just a single root.

“blub blub blub,” Jake complained as he peered down the hole leading into yet another damn cavern, his words roughly translating to: “you gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Of all the Vaults, he had now officially spent the most time in this one. In the first cavern, he had killed fish before proceeding down to the second. Inside there, he had killed slightly stronger fish. The third cavern he had killed fish, but now there were two different kinds – a second variant added with the ability to spew water bullets or something.

Fourth cavern? Two same kinds of fish, but get this, now there were also traps trying to hurt him. Fifth? More fish, more traps, more everything. Sixth, seventh, eighth? Same fucking shit, over and over again. Some were more focused on foes, some more focused on traps, and all of them equally a waste of fucking time.

Jake had gotten a grand total of nine kills that actually gave experience throughout the entire shitshow that was the water vault. It was just cavern after cavern with those air-lock type things in between to increase the pressure. Jake adapted every time, and he honestly barely noticed the difference between each level.

Perhaps it would screw over someone with less physical stats, but Jake handled it easily. The only real consequence was him having to limit his sphere by a little every time. In this ninth room, he had shrunk it down to only fifteen meters, which still served him fine. His eyesight had gotten rather good, so he managed.

Entering his ninth Vault, he checked it out, his sphere, to see what this place had to offer. It appeared to be more of the same as he was instantly assaulted by a school of fish. Jake sighed internally as crystalline bolts of arcane mana began condensing around him.

The explosion wasn’t meant to damage anything but simply

hadn’t found any feasible way to use his bow and arrow underwater, so for now, this was what he had to do. Just before the first fish reached him, his danger sense faintly warned him as

mobile to avoid the traps. He cut and weaved, swimming primarily by condensing and hardening the water under his feet. Sometimes he appeared to be dragged downwards, courtesy of the Pillar on his

lot of the rooms, he had simply reached the bottom and killed everything from there, feeling almost as if he was simply fighting flying foes. However, that hadn’t worked for the last two sections, as the bottom was now a forest of large vent-like openings spitting out extremely hot water whenever he got

made use of a trap, slapping a fish into an incoming spear or perhaps impaling one and sending it flying down to the bottom to become a steamed

but he did take some damage from the Spitters – the second variant. They fired bullets of pressured water after him, each of them able to leave

at the bottom and entered it. He instantly went to the floor of the small chamber and sat down to meditate, his body looking like swiss cheese from all the bullet holes. While

slain [Deepgorge Terror –

…

have slain [Deepgorge Terror – lvl 141]– Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above

of foe – because who needs proper enemy diversity

slain [Deepgorge Spitter – lvl

…

[Deepgorge Spitter – lvl 143]– Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy

previously mentioned, bottom-tier D-grades, and the Spitters were barely a level above that. If these were translated to land-dwelling animals, Jake would be able to slaughter them even more easily than the Deepdwellers back

of his notifications and saw

[Avaricious Arcane Hunter] has reached level 139 - Stat points

shit actually gave me a

math, it seriously shouldn’t have. While Jake had certainly killed a lot, these were weak D-grades

he did have to admit that fighting these fish wasn’t easy. He had to apply new methods, and not a single

head, Jake simply focused on his meditation, not bothering to think too much about it. Instead, he focused solely on recuperation so he could swiftly move on to the next area. The next one

Jake got up, ready to continue. There was now only a bit over a day of the entire Treasure Hunt left, and he seriously couldn’t dally around and play around in these shitty

he now found himself in what looked like a flooded underwater chamber with large metal pillars everywhere. He was also fairly certain this place was larger than any section prior. This change could only mean

was a boss

a boss room also indicate?

he spotted a figure

Eel –

darted towards him with its mouth open, even faster than the Terrors from the other chambers. He reacted by drawing his blades

angled itself to bite into his sword, catching it between its razor-sharp teeth. Jake thought it moronic to do so until the very next moment. His danger sense reacted as he quickly let

small amount either. Luckily, he had let go at the very last moment, avoiding being zapped. He was still hurt by the electricity, but not as much

hammered into the side of the eel, leaving nasty punctures along its side. It made an odd screeching sound

his body in Scales of the Malefic Viper, Jake dove in, scimitar at the ready. He retrieved his Nanoblade and attacked the eel with both of them, leaving a few nasty cuts. The eel turned around in the water, sending out a pulse of electricity after Jake, but this time his scales were up. The paralysis was negated as the beast didn’t bite down on a tasty