The Primal Hunter

Meira laid on the ground within the tiny cell as she took pained breaths. Every time she breathed in, the toxic gas would invade her lungs and body, burning her throat and making her wish she could just stop. However, the wardens outside would come for her in moments if the toxic fumes didn’t decrease at a fast enough rate for their liking.

Ever since the day the Brimstone Hegemon had been slain, and she had been enslaved by the Order of the Malefic Viper, she had been forced to either endure torture, been forced to do certain tasks, or confined and taught lessons they believed she would need. She had just wanted to give up so many times, but she was just too cowardly to stop trying to survive.

She hadn’t heard anything about her father or the rest of her clan in months either, which only added to the torture. Her father had been captured together with her, and the Order no doubt controlled the clan she had once come from. Likely it was just much of the same for those back home, their masters having simply changed.

Soon enough, she felt like the toxins in the room had decreased enough, and just as she felt like she could relax, the cell door opened. Meira was still on the ground, her health down to less than a third as she barely managed to open her eyes.

“Is this the one?” a voice asked. One unfamiliar to Meria. They spoke the common tongue used within the Order, a language she had learned quite quickly during her capture. It was one of the things she had been forced to learn, which had actually served as a bit of a consolation. After all, would they bother teaching someone they would just kill their language?

“That is the elf. Evolved a month ago and is one of the better ones,” the warden in charge of her answered. “Got high marks on nearly everything, and her class and profession are both suitable to the role. Plus, she is an elf, and they tend to be popular with humans, don’t they?”

“Hm,” the newcomer said as Meira felt a healing spell fall upon her. Her health was restored, and the poison nullified. “Get up.”

She did as asked as she stood in her ragged robe. The newcomer that was clearly above the rank of the warden looked her up and down and held out a crystal. “Imprint the basics of your Status on this.”

Meira once more complied as her status was transferred. Just basics of her race, class, and profession as well as the general level of her stats.

She had evolved to D-grade a month or so ago, having gained the Perfect Evolution. This would normally be great, but she hadn’t truly been able to choose what she wanted. She had been forced into selecting a class and profession based on what the Order wanted. It was also clear that one of the reasons they had chosen to take her was because she was close enough to D-grade to mold her to their liking.

The only thing that consoled her was that at least none of her evolutions had the word slave in it… not that she wasn’t offered options that did.

“Seems adequate,” the newcomer bigshot said. Meira finally raised her view as she saw the robes the person wore. It was one of the people from “Humanoid Resources,” a part of the Order that not only handled internal matters of members but also the slaves and servants.

The woman in front of her was also an elf, but a dark-skinned Dark Elf rather than a “pure” elf like Meria herself. These elves were far more talented in dark magic of all sorts and were most often associated with the Court of Shadows, but it wasn’t really surprising to see any in the Order of the Malefic Viper either.

“Follow me,” the dark elf said as she led Meira away from the “training room” she had been placed in. The purpose was for her to build up innate resistance to toxins and even upgrade skills related to detecting and eliminating toxins. It was a cruel method that allowed her to become a test dummy for poisons. In fact, she had even gained the Palate of the Malefic Viper skill.

Meira knew a proper test dummy would be incredibly useful and even valued to a large extent. She had survived the initial training and gained the skills required with her evolution. Right now, her only plan was to gain enough value to not be viewed as easily disposable.

the initial tests, she had even begun being taught things related to the Order, and by her own wish, she had been put

a profession related to mining and a healing class that also offered plenty of toughness and vitality for her to help her family in the mines. This had made her

to learn as she knew it was due to the young master of the Brimstone Conglomerate,

next words of the dark elf higher-up

a permanent position, and your training ends from today,” the dark

felt relieved but was worried about one thing… why was someone who was clearly C-grade or maybe even beyond bothering with leading her,

will I serve?” she finally mustered up the courage

seemed to have just waited for her to build up the guts to ask as she answered: “You will be assigned a new master who will gain full ownership of you, and you will act as the personal steward

as she still probed Meira’s response. Meira could only shudder a little as this was what she had feared, but she tried not

get a job in an alchemy lab as test dummies, join larger experiments, be assigned to dorms as caretakers, or so many other places where servants were needed. The most

were owned by a collective, it meant no one could “break” you without repercussions. It meant you would retain some sense of autonomy as even if the institution owned you, no individual did, and this meant you could

relied solely on the whims of a person. You could be killed, tortured, or whatever else to sate that person’s desires without anything happening, especially as the ones getting personal servants

master… but those were few and far between. In fact, the biggest hope was the master just forgetting you existed altogether. But she knew her likely outcome was far worse. All she could do now was

my new master

that just passed the entrance test and is from the newly integrated

relieved it would at least be a human until the next sentence

with a unanimous vote by the judges of the trial to have the highest level of importance placed upon him, so

to not let it show. For someone to get such

interrupted her thoughts as she waved her hand, and an image appeared, showing a masked person with two piercing yellow beastly eyes that made a shiver run

already wondering what her perhaps limited future would hold as she was

days ago that Sylphie could still communicate with him even across universes, which was nice as he had a constant feed of her adventures, including how she and her parents had now gone to the dungeon. Sadly it appeared the communication did not work out of the dungeon and had not worked while Jake was in his dungeon either, so for the next week, at minimum, they would be cut off. It

and all the others as he made his way over to Reika to walk beside her. They exchanged a glance that told Jake they were fine, which made Jake just walk in

with people running all over. Well, most just teleported or opened gates and

all over to a table with another demon sitting at. Behind him was a large black statue of sorts that looked to be made of obsidian or maybe some kind of crystal? Jake wasn’t sure, and his Identify didn’t render any results either. It depicted a robed figure with

demoness stopped in front of the statue, with the other demon

as both your badge of identification and is useful, if not required, to do much within the Order and the Academy. Moreover, this token

your Entry Token in the hand of the statue and proceed to infuse your energy into the statue. Do not resist the scan that