The Primal Hunter

The Primal Hunter - Chapter 671: Nevermore: A Different But Welcome Experience | Light Novel Pub VIP

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For the first time since entering Minaga’s Labyrinth, Jake had truly met his match. Minaga had claimed Jake wouldn’t be able to ”cheat” on this floor, and Jake had obviously not believed him. It wasn’t that there was no way to cheat him, just that doing it would fuck over others far too much.

Make the labyrinth randomly shuffle around to make Jake’s Pulse of Perception useless? That would make it utterly impossible to find anything and have all exploration just be pure luck, something Jake was certain Minaga didn’t want.

Make it so the rooms only reveal what is inside when you enter? Well, the rooms existed and weren’t generated when they entered, so this would be a huge change in how the entire dungeon worked. It would also mess with people who used more mundane skills. Minaga even commented on Jake using tracking as a way more legit way of finding things, so he doubted the dungeon master wanted to stop everything.

Increasing the distances to make Jake’s scanning range not big enough would also just ruin the entire labyrinth. If the only way to nerf Jake was to make things take too long, it would make all the time-based achievements useless.

Minaga did also reveal that these labyrinths were, of course, the same for everyone. Even if Minaga messed around, he still had a strong sense of fairness and cared a lot about balance. That was why he had not made any direct moves to make Jake less of a cheat but just allowed him to do as he did while complaining. However, on this floor, things were different.

”Do you see now? Tell me, Jake, how are you going to ruin all sense of exploration on this floor?” Minaga said, sounding like a true maniac.

He had won. Jake had to face that. Staring through the now-open gate leading into the labyrinth and after using a Pulse of Perception, it was clear that Jake had indeed been thoroughly countered by Minaga designing this floor in a fashion he hadn’t even imagined would make sense for a labyrinth.

”You can’t, can you!? Ha ha!”

”You are an absolute madman,” Jake muttered as he stared at his mental map of parts of the floor. ”How does this even qualify as a labyrinth anymore?”

What Minaga had done was indeed ingenious. He had gotten rid of all of Jake’s usual advantages when exploring the complex mix of hallways with one small trick:

Just don’t make it a labyrinth.

”That’s right! Completely linear, on-rails floor with not a single ounce of exploration! Just run straight down the middle till you reach the next floor, and you’re done!”Minaga laughed. ”Of course, you can also choose to stop and save the prisoners, so maybe you think you can use your cheating skills to locate them… but they are also right there out in the open! No secrets here!”

”I am not certain this even qualifies as a labyrinth,” the Sword Saint commented.

”Alright, so I did admittedly take some creative liberty with this design, but you only see it as a problem because you view this floor in isolation. I see these floors as one continuous labyrinth, so even if this part is straightforward, it is only a small part of the whole,” Minaga explained, sounding significantly less maniacal.

”That makes sense,” Dina nodded.

”Ree!” Sylphie chimed in.

”See, they get it! Especially the Sylphian Hawk!”

”I guess so,” Jake muttered at Sylphie’s apt metaphor. She said that saying this floor was not a labyrinth was like saying that if a beast in the forest had a hill as their domain, then the hill wasn’t a part of the forest anymore, which of course, wouldn’t make sense because while hills were not forests, hills could still be in forests. Same as a straight path could not be called a labyrinth, but a labyrinth could have parts that were straightforward.

”Rather than discuss the definition of a labyrinth, shouldn’t we proceed into the floor?” the Fallen King said.

”We should,” the Sword Saint agreed.

Jake didn’t complain either as they walked through the gate leading into a small hallway that was no more than twenty meters long before they entered their first room. These hallways had extra-thick fog that not even Jake could see through in any way, and they limited movement so much that they had to just walk.

Entering the first room, Jake understood why the thick fog was there: it was to do so one couldn’t just look through the fog and scout the next room… but also to do so whatever was on the floor couldn’t spot them before they entered.

They found themselves standing within a large open room more extensive than the one the Prime Summoner had been in. Jake estimated it had to be at least fifty kilometers long and about ten kilometers wide, and it was filled to the brim with life.

not the friendly kind if their names were anything

– lvl

–

a bunch of spread camps and villages, with one large tower at the back of the room. There, from over forty-five kilometers

Warden – lvl

these demons had a theme of sorts. They were all guarding something. That something being large groups of people sealed within barriers in all of the camps and

[Prisoner – lvl 175]

were mostly D-grades and even had a few E-grades mixed in. As he scouted the room, he also noticed that this entrance area was shrouded. Based on what Jake could see, nothing could detect them ten meters from the entryway, which was the only reason no one had spotted them yet. The reason for this magic circle

make a move… those prisoners will be in

kept as potential sacrifices,” the Sword

will be sacrificed relatively quickly,” the Fallen King said. “So we will have to decide whether we want to save as many as possible or rush this entire floor. If we split up and secure a camp each, we should be able to ensure to reach the 25% for the bonus objective. However, we will also need to be careful, any accidental attack could kill a significant portion of them, and while we may be careful,

said with

an option… but how many of us are good at it?”

looked at the

“Ree!” Sylphie said proudly.

already talked about giant tornadoes hiding you,

“Ree?”

of them can see anything,” Jake

Sylphie seemed a

That was Jake noticed that the ground was indeed different here. Rather than the hard rock of the chamber floor, it was more

looking for?” the Sword Saint

fourteen barriers with sealed prisoners within, right?” Dina

another Pulse of Perception to scout the room

along. “Give me ten minutes, and I will

to go through the

as she did this, and he responded by creating a barrier of stable arcane energy all around them that

they needed someone to get to the back fast, preferably before the Warden had time to make a move. Jake ended up taking this upon himself as he opened a small hole in the stable arcane barrier and snuck out as he activated his stealth skill for the

of the demons really being on guard, despite being called literal Guards. The Enforcers were mainly inside buildings chilling, with the guards just lazily patrolling about and the torturers seemingly working on their torture tools that none of them seemed ever use. All the prisoners just stood catatonically

of the team, who had all prepared to launch their own attacks. Jake had been tasked with dealing

there and began charging his Arcane Powershot. He remained undetected as the cloak didn’t just hide his person but even his actions and

the wearer to meld into the shadows when they stand still or move slowly, masking their presence and all of their actions, including energies. Improved further

the Demon Warden remained oblivious even as someone charged an attack behind his back, only a few

string and unleashed his attack. The second he did so, the cloak failed to suppress his energies any longer as his body

the barriers sealing in the prisoners as bark began to grow all over the vines to protect them further. Smaller vines also

tornado shot across the terrain towards the middle of the room and one of the larger villages with one of the larger

his seat at seeing roots shoot up all over the place.

Demon Warden managed to stabilize as a fist-sized hole now marred his chest, but he didn’t even have to

an upwards angle to ground the Demon Warden. He proceeded to unleash a rain of arrows down at the

more blocked with a barrier, but all of the arrows suddenly

wounds. An inferno erupted around him as burning crystals materialized. He stared at Jake with hatred but didn’t speak

and it quickly became clear what he

covered his hands in crystal-like skin and even used the floating crystals around him to further empower his attacks or launch strikes using them.

Less skilled than Carmen…

under the hand of the demon and punch him in the stomach with a katar. He reacted by trying to kick Jake, but Jake raised his own leg to block as he stabbed the demon in

the Warden would hopefully lead to some level of panic amongst the guards, so for

strong, yes, but against this Blackpoint Nanoblade, they still faltered. The indestructible nature of Eternal

expected to come was occupied elsewhere. Realizing this, the

never going

exploded forward as its entire body was temporarily covered in deep red spiked crystals. Jake flew to meet it, but just before they clashed, reality

the Apex Hunter momentarily froze the Demon Warden as Jake slammed two Descending Dark Fangs into its chest just before it was capable of moving again and used its

crystals and flames, but rather than crush the human, all its firsts met was the shadowy curse energy of

the Demon Warden had no time to react as an arrow pierced it straight in the eye and embedded

it reached the back of the demon’s skull. The Warden stumbled

Jake followed up with an Arcane Powershot, shooting the head

– lvl 255] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your

kill every single demon there. Hey, it had to give an achievement,

was a good reprieve from just walking through hallways and something Jake got a feeling they all enjoyed – even Dina. Surprisingly enough, there was one more person who

this is how things are supposed to be! Through pure skill and power, you manage to overcome the floor and

you couldn’t speak while within the rooms but only the hallways?” Jake asked as

yeah, got a bit too excited there. Act like I didn’t say anything, alright?

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