The Primal Hunter

After the fun bantering with Minaga, they arrived at room number four, and finally, the difficulty seemed to have increased. At least it said this would be hard.

1. Traps (Hard)

2. Collection (Medium)

3. Combat (Medium)

4. Random (Hard)

As they were still following Minaga’s advice of never picking anything that wasn’t of the highest difficulty, the only choice was between Random and Traps. Jake considered for a second, but his gut didn’t really tell him one was better than the other. Maybe because both would be easy for him.

“Let us just pick Traps. The hunter will likely be able to trivialize any challenge and allow us to pass through quickly,” the Fallen King said as he scanned the options.

“I guess,” Jake shrugged as he turned to the others. He did kind of want to pick the Random one just to see if there was some fun category they had yet to even see, but alas, the other three agreed to just go with Traps. Well, Sylphie didn’t particularly care, but she did seem like she wanted to get through these floors fast after the city floor delay, so she just went with whatever she thought was fastest… which often was just to agree with everyone else.

“Let’s do that then,” Jake nodded as he infused energy into the particular rune, with the four others joining in. The rune lit up as the door in front of them began opening, revealing the room that had just been generated. Jake released a Pulse of Perception and saw the entire place was only around ten kilometers long and less than five meters in height and width, which made the place incredibly small for a challenge room. However, he also soon realized why it was so small.

The entire place was utterly packed with stuff. What appeared before them was a massive obstacle course with a web of challenges. The walls looked to be made of some kind of metal, and large panels were placed here and there, forcing whoever tried to go through into small openings reminiscent of doorways.

Jake looked around for a while and quickly noticed one more thing of note. The mist was not entirely gone in this trap room. A small amount of it remained, but its properties seemed slightly different. It did not obstruct sight anymore, but Jake did feel that the movement-restricting effect mostly remained, meaning things like teleporting through were out of the question.

”Odd,” Jake also said. ”I don’t feel any real danger…”

Dina looked at the room a bit before taking out a seed. She tossed it in the air, and before it landed, a vine soldier had grown from it. The one-meter-tall creature began walking into the area with the traps, and the moment it walked just five meters ahead of them, a barrier sprung up, separating the vine soldier from Jake and the others.

It paused slightly, but Dina urged it to keep walking. It did so, and just a few meters later, it activated a formerly invisible formation on the floor, resulting in an explosion of mana spears shooting up from the ground. The vine soldier was hit, but the spears only left small tears in its body… and then it disappeared.

Only to reappear back right beside Dina, the barrier in front of them also fading in the process.

”I believe we may have underestimated these trap rooms,” the Sword Saint voiced his thoughts.

”Ree!” Sylphie said, wanting to give it a go. Jake saw no reason to deny her, and the hawk shot forward as she turned into wind. She got several hundred meters into the room while successfully avoiding all the traps until suddenly, a section of the wall shot out like a piston, hitting the living gust of wind that was Sylphie. The glowing formation at the end of the piston glowed with some kind of energy, and in the very next second, living wind joined them back behind the barrier.

Sylphie turned back into her physical form and screeched in annoyance. But she did learn something.

The piston had managed to do a very small amount of damage to Sylphie, and that had triggered her to teleport away. The prior traps she avoided had failed to do any damage even if they had partly hit her, making Sylphie – the smart bird she was – conclude that only if someone took damage would they be teleported back.

”So, who wants to go next?” the Sword Saint asked.

Jake was about to volunteer when Dina stepped up. ”I can test if it is indeed about taking damage.”

”That sounds like a good idea,” the old man smiled as he motioned her to give it a shot. As she walked forward and passed that invisible threshold, the barrier popped up again, confirming that only one person could do the room at a time.

out her staff and touching her chest with her one free hand as it glowed with dense life energy. Bobo, her living armor, began to grow as her body was covered, and tapping herself with the

gripped one of the panels meant to block one’s progress as she dragged herself further into the room, the vines below her functioning as dozens of

amalgamation of vines, but they failed to do much. Even as a few

of the blow, and she ended up using the vines almost as springs as she allowed herself to pounce. She launched herself forward with help from the momentum, and within only a few minutes, she reached the midway point. So far, the only true challenge

walked over and poked

see,” the Sword Saint

get crushed as she raised her staff to stop both walls at once. The damn staff didn’t even bend from the impact, and after she infused some energy, it grew in

out, pitfalls, acid getting blasted from the walls, crescent energy waves, and of course, the trap room itself moving physically while trying to stop her. However, against the Dryad druid, nothing managed to penetrate her defenses. Even when the Fallen King pointed out a blast of soul energy, Bobo somehow managed to absorb it instead of Dina, which did look a bit funny as, for a fraction of a second, Jake

any injuries. The second she stepped on a small platform at the far end of the room, the barrier in front of Jake and the others faded

yeah, it is about taking damage. When Bobo took some damage, the room tried to teleport him, but because he is bound to me, he was

done was memorizing the safe path… there were places you could go without activating anything,” the Sword Saint sent

an unnecessary waste of time,”the Fallen King scoffed. Without waiting further, he floated forwards straight into the trap room. His passive barrier was already active, and with a wave of his hand, it turned

all around, nothing managing to do anything to the barrier, and in a time only slightly slower than Dina – only because he clearly didn’t rush - the Fallen King made it to the other side safely.

who is next?” the Fallen King questioned

Sylphie screeched as she flew up in the air, gladly taking on the challenge as a glowing green branch appeared behind her feet that she perched herself on. Jake felt her confidence and cheered

wiggle in a cute-looking way, like a cat ready to pounce. What was less cute was how her body began to glow with green energy, and the wind picked up around Jake and the Sword Saint. Power accumulated

Even with the mist limiting her movements, she flew with insane speed. All the spears, pistons, moving walls, and any trap that took even a moment to activate were simply too slow and only fired off in her wake. What did hit her, the Green Shield managed to stop. This

the Golden Mark

sent a mental thumbs-up as he had honestly expected Sylphie to have trouble with this room after seeing her trying to get through after transforming her body into wind. Luckily that wasn’t an issue. That just left Jake

Jake motioned

light steps, he began making his way through. A water barrier surrounded him as he slowly went through, trying not to activate traps as he went. Sometimes he did activate one, but before the attacks could hit him, he either dodged or

kilometer in, he failed to dodge an attack as a mana spear penetrated the water barrier and left a small cut around his ankle. Instantly, the Sword Saint found himself

wait patiently,”

just sighed as he went

and speed faster, resulting in him finally passing the room and getting to the other side, a bit worse for wear. It had ended up taking the Sword Saint a bit over an hour to get the room done, which in retrospect, wasn’t that bad. It just felt like a

the hunter,” the Fallen King spoke through the Golden Mark.

after being after

a plan,” Dina

to just

as he walked into the

Occasionally he did activate one and easily dodged whatever was shot at him. Towards the end, he purposefully just

Sword Saint chuckled as Jake walked through the final barrier. He hadn’t used a single skill during his little stroll and only summoned a couple of stable arcane barriers here and there to block

Sylphie asked why he didn’t use

like this isn’t worthy of facing my

answered

no, I can’t say that. Sharing information like that is against the rules,” Minaga said

company were already mid-teleport as he spoke, and they appeared

about to ask, but he nudged her

truly can