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.

life energy. Bobo, her living armor, began to grow as her body was covered, and tapping herself with the staff infused Bobo with even more

The vine gripped one of the panels meant to block one’s progress as she dragged herself further into the room, the vines

hit the amalgamation of vines, but they failed to

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 for her seemed to be the small openings she sometimes had to get through, forcing her to shrink her form momentarily

the Fallen King said as he walked over and poked the barrier blocking them in, making

see,” the Sword Saint

managed to not 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

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

stepped on a small platform at the far end of the room, the barrier in front of Jake and the others faded

because he is bound to me, he was instantly brought back again. So good defenses do work here,” Dina explained through

there were places you could go without activating anything,” the Sword Saint

floated forwards straight into the trap room. His passive barrier was already active, and with a wave of his hand, it turned golden as he

– only because he clearly didn’t rush - the Fallen King made it to the other

next?” the Fallen

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 her on

around Jake and the Sword Saint. Power accumulated in their surroundings as Sylphie lowered herself a bit and opened her wings. Jake barely saw the familiar Green Shield appear around her body as the entire entrance area of the trap room

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 resulted in Sylphie safely making it to

bragged over the Golden Mark as she sounded incredibly

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.

can go first,” Jake motioned to the

room, and with light steps, he began making his way through. A water barrier surrounded him as he slowly went

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 teleported back right next to

shall wait patiently,”

just sighed as

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

only wait for the hunter,” the Fallen King spoke through the Golden Mark. ”I hope you do not disappoint

after being after me so much,”

a plan,” Dina tried to

him to just

walked into

it. Occasionally he did activate one and easily dodged whatever was shot at him. Towards the end, he purposefully just walked in a nearly straight line as he evaded everything the trap room could throw

of stable arcane barriers here and there to

Sylphie asked why he didn’t use

like this isn’t worthy of facing my ultimate

answered in full

that. Sharing information like that is against the rules,” Minaga said as

he spoke, and they

ask, but he nudged her slightly, and she seemed to understand

can I say