The Primal Hunter

It didn’t get better. Jake had hoped that the second floor would be less mushroomy, but it wasn’t to be. In fact, there were even more mushrooms, and some of them were even aggressive and attacked them. Mushroom Man Mages had also been added to the list of enemies, usually wandering with their warrior kin.

The second floor ended up proceeding much like the first. Jake hadn’t even needed any materials gathered by others from the first floor, and he and Draskil had ended up just having a mushroom feast prepared by Irin, who shared that she had a skill related to cooking. Why would a succubus have a skill related to cooking, one might ask? Jake didn’t truly know, but he did know that he and Draskil both liked her better after she began making their mushroom meals far tastier. Perhaps she had only become a cook to integrate herself with others not only through social interactions but through their stomachs. A truly insidious strategy that Jake was totally fine with.

Anyway, the second floor was also rather dull. All it required was for the party to kill at least two hundred mushroom men and craft at least three different resource-restoring potions using the materials found in the dungeon. Jake once more did all the crafting while Reika got some combat done with an already tired-looking Bastilla joining in.

Draskil was just wandering about eating stuff, and Jake did see him at one point juggle three Mushroom Man Warriors in boredom. No, not juggle in the figurative sense but the literal one as he tossed them up in the air before catching them again.

On a side note, then Jake and the others also finally found the exit to the dungeon. Inside every passageway leading to the next floor was an exit that could be used, but it was only available in the passageway. If anyone entered the next floor, the exit would cease to function, and one couldn’t go back to earlier floors once one had been successfully passed.

The third floor was once again more of the same, but at least there was something more than mushrooms present. Several flowers and plants had begun to grow together with the mushrooms, and one part even had a small lake with water plants inside. The challenge on the third floor was to craft a poison using the lake water. The poison itself had to retain all the toxic effects of the lake water but without any of the restorative properties. In essence, it was a test of purification rather than true crafting. There was one small snag, though – the water had to also increase in potency enough to be recognized as a common rarity poison.

By default, the water was of inferior rarity, and if the restorative effects were removed, it was questionable if it would even qualify as an item. This floor was the first time Reika proved her skills as she quickly figured out a way to distill the water, and Jake quickly realized that if he then just added some mushrooms also present on the floor, he would be able to make it.

On this floor, Bastilla also had to stop joining in on the combat or at least only fight with Reika. Reika herself was also struggling as the mushroom men got stronger, and the mages and warriors now also had something called defenders, which carried two mushroom shields.

Ah, not that there was any cause for concern if they could pass the floor or even subsequent ones. Draskil still ripped every single opponent apart with ease, and Jake had only killed a few himself who got in his way, all of them with only a few moves with his two katars.

From the fourth floor, the dynamic became more how they initially planned to do the dungeon. Draskil was in charge of the killing, with Bastilla primarily dismantling the corpses using skills Jake had never seen before. Usually, any creature killed only dropped its core or one other item, but Bastilla could dismantle a corpse and gain far more. Using her skills, most parts of the creature would turn into items of some variety, but her greatest ability was how she could redirect the Records of a slain creature. She could change it so that rather than the orb storing all the energy, it would instead enter another or several other parts of the body. Sure, crafters could already infuse cores into materials from a monster, but Bastilla didn’t just infuse the core into something – she infused the whole damn corpse. It was a bit weird seeing an entire mushroom man be reduced to a small piece of white mushroom flesh teeming with energy, but who was Jake to argue with system rules?

Reika and Jake also began to team up from the fourth floor and did all the alchemy. The challenges got quite a bit more complicated, and it was clear that the fourth one had a spike, likely due to being the last required floor one had to pass to complete the dungeon.

Oh yeah! The fourth floor also had a boss. Mushroom Man Commander. It was a bigger than usual mushroom man surrounded by many other mushroom men. Jake needed a piece from the boss to pass the floor, so he had Draskil be nice and not destroy the mushroom too much so Bastilla could still use her skills properly on it.

Needless to say, nothing seen so far could even touch Jake or Draskil. The Mushroom Man Commander had only been level 185 and wasn’t even that strong of a D-grade. Jake could likely have killed it with one well-placed Arcane Powershot and one hundred percent killed it with an Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter. Draskil also only needed a few moments to kill it with his claws.

Jake had yet to really see how Draskil fought even after going through the floors with him. Seeing the dragonkin kill mushroom men by swiping his claws casually didn’t give much insight, but at least did let Jake know Draskil was a melee fighter. Granted, Draskil didn’t know Jake’s fighting style either, as he had yet to pull out his bow.

shot at succeeding with the Lifecore, but at least they could practice the craft with lesser Lifecores from the other mushrooms before the real attempt. On the note of crafting, then

in the passageway to the fifth floor, having officially “completed” the place. They all

floors and have

into the Indigo Caverns, with challenge and opportunity growing hand in hand. Perhaps you may even see

to continue delving into the

admit… we got here faster than expected,” Irin said, shaking her head in slight disbelief. “I had estimated it would take

easier than expected. Granted, it would have taken him a bit longer if he was alone, but Jake could have definitely passed the place solo in between two and

have two absolute monsters

at what they do!” Jake agreed, failing to hold himself back from making a joke. The two of them had been incredibly helpful, but it was obvious that the two main contributors had been Jake and Draskil. However, one should not discount the absolutely essential

kept making mushroom feasts nonetheless. Okay, calling it cooking was maybe a bit much as all she did was season the mushrooms. Ah, but it

mushrooms edible, but it was something. Not that the two of them would have cared if all her seasoning did was make mushrooms somewhat taste good as

still kind of was? He didn’t concoct poisons the usual way but instead told Jake how he made it inside his body. He had

also eat a lot of poisons to both expand the scope and depth of his poison. Jake could only imagine the nightmare if he was the only one eating all that Irin prepared, so he was glad to have someone to share the pain

the

“Yes,” Draskil just stated.

big bad dragonkin has spoken. I want to reach this final C-grade

actually fight it?” Bastilla asked with a

looked at her and

– well, Jake had killed one – so not trying to at least fight it would be silly. Irin had even mentioned

to continue. The system prompt was not really a vote but more just an opportunity to leave, and Irin explained that if anyone did choose to exit, they could get their rewards then

some foes as they now had to slay five hundred mushroom men to proceed and craft a weird type of poison Jake had never come across before. A poison that seemed to erode water somehow. Not absorb it, but just make it disappear. It was weird, but Reika came in clutch again and helped find a solution, making the fifth floor take only around ten hours

Same shit, more mushrooms. Took them twenty-two hours as the alchemy challenge was

which looked exactly as abominable as one can imagine. This floor was by far the hardest, and everyone hated it, even those who

water, Bastilla how she had fur and how she wasn’t made for swimming,

passed, and Jake finally realized after about half an hour. He was terrified. Jake felt legitimate fear from the mighty dragonkin as he swam in the underground cavern

a god damn nightmare to make. They had to make a bloody fire affinity poison using only

they all took a small breather in the passageway. They dried off and decided to make camp for the first time there and then to all recover. They had just been running on potions and not really expending any resources due to how easy it was on all the prior floors, but