The Primal Hunter

The rest of the thirty-sixth floor proved relatively trivial as Jake and company soon completed the entire thing and entered the in-between room. There had indeed only been six rooms and their accompanying labyrinths, but when they arrived at the break room, he was a bit disappointed at seeing they had only managed to get three achievements along with the usual completion bonus.

At least he was disappointed until he saw the achievements in question.

Thirty-sixth floor completed. 360 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-sixth floor within one day (24 hours). 750 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-sixth floor while selecting the highest difficulty at every room. 600 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-sixth floor without straying from the shortest possible path by any more than 10% of the total distance. 900 Nevermore Points earned.

That was a whopping 2250 Nevermore Points from achievements alone. Counting in the Bonus Objective and the floor completion, they had earned 3110 points from this floor alone. Sure, it wasn’t incredible compared to the Demon Lord, but it was pretty damn solid.

“These are all sliding-scale achievements, right?” Jake asked as he went over to the usual bar in Minaga’s in-between room and poured himself a drink.

“They are indeed,” Minaga answered instantly, ready to jump into the conversation.

“Nice. So…”

“Yeah, you got the best ones. Won’t say if you missed any other achievements, though. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t.”

“Eh, it’ll be fine,” Jake shrugged as he chugged the beer-like liquid he had poured. It was okay, but not as good as what Villy usually brought.

“Do we need a recovery period?” the Fallen King questioned.

“I do not believe we do,” the Sword Saint answered.

Dina and Sylphie both seemed fine with just getting a move on immediately, so without further ado, they continued and moved onto the thirty-seventh floor, Jake quickly rushing after them while finishing his drink. As Minaga had already mentioned, the next floor was practically identical to the one on the thirty-sixth, though there were a few extra things added here and there.

The traps differed, and one especially nasty trap they ran into would teleport whoever stepped on it to a random place elsewhere in the labyrinth. At least Jake called it nasty until he got an idea. They sent Dina’s vine soldiers through a particular trap, and after seeing it actually put them closer to the exit, they all activated it together and skipped a good forty-five minutes of walking. Sadly not all of the traps could be repeatedly activated like this, with most only working on individuals before dispersing.

Room-wise, it was also much of the same, and Jake would say they got kind of lucky with what rooms had the highest difficulties. Of the seven rooms on the thirty-seventh floor – because yes, there were seven on the floor – they had combat in three of them, collection in two, and another had traps before they got the most interesting option of them all on the final room. It even had a never-before-seen new highest difficulty.

1. Crafting (Hard)

2. Boss (Harder)

3. Combat (Medium)

4. Random (Hard)

Jake just had one note when he saw the difficulty:

“Really? You named the difficulty after hard, harder?” Jake made fun of the dungeon master.

you want me to use an entirely different word, like insane or

up your own word or something, too. It is

ridiculous critique. You try and make your own dungeon and then come at me with that kind of “feedback.” Forever the critic, never the creator. How would you feel if I made fun of you whenever you failed to concoct a poison or something? Wouldn’t be fun, now

named it hardest?” Jake

Minaga said

smiled as he waved the Unique Lifeform off and infused energy into the

is perfectly fine,” the Sword Saint said as he joined Jake. “Prioritizing practicality

revise my complaint

old man chuckled as they passed a fog wall, revealing a room with mountainous terrain. Rather than the usual rock color, the entire place looked orange, primarily filled with sand and mudstone based on what Jake could see. It was not an overly large room, only about fifty kilometers across and with a

Jake saw the boss inside a crater in the middle of the entire arena. This crater was over thirty kilometers in diameter, and with the large boss in the middle, it did look like the creature

and scorpion. It

Identify, Jake saw its level

–

muttered, a bit surprised. Seeing the beast was

by their parents laying a single egg within a meteor and then directing it towards a cluster of planets where it will then land on one. Upon impact, the egg will shatter, and the newborn Meteorborn Beast will absorb a lot of the energy released from the impact and even some

someone with actual education about the multiverse and

particular weaknesses or things we should

Meteorborne Beasts have powerful gravity magic, and based on this environment, I reckon this version is also good at earth magic,” Dina answered. “But its overall power level should not be overly impressive, so I think we will be fine. They are also incredibly

the old man nodded. “So, no

Dina shook her head. “Unless the

had also floated forward as he began to gather power, and Sylphie let out a low screech as she ascended into

awoke. After seeing them, it also noticed Sylphie above.

long range while the Fallen King went into medium range and blasted it with repeated waves of force. The Sword Saint dove into melee range as he began to fight the beast directly, with

mentioned. Spheres of condensed space were summoned all around

from the environment itself as the beast lifted up thousands of tons of soil and sand at once. It pressed all of this together, making incredibly durable weapons it could then control with its gravity magic. Getting hit by those would

long

seconds of the battle starting, and despite its durable natural armor, the Meteorborn Beast had its defenses ripped and cut apart within mere minutes. It released its trump cards at that point, and Jake

Sylphie landing the finishing blow by creating another

[Meteorborn Beast – lvl 285] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above

Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 219 - Stat

had all grown in levels during the time on the city floor – Jake and the Sword Saint more than anyone else – but more importantly, they had all just gotten… better. The only one without

how they had both gotten more refined at using all their magic. The Brokers who asked for assistance with tasks had all required them to push themselves over and over again, leading to subtle improvements that not even constant combat could teach

brief period he had spent with the Puzzle Box he hadn’t even solved a single percent of yet. But for him, the power

Jake had made some difficult decisions when it came to his Free Points. This was partly spurred on by actually talking to Dina while on the city floor, as she had some more experience with the multiverse and stuff. She

why he put 500 Free Points into Strength and Agility, respectively. That was 1000 points right there, which Jake thought was pretty responsible of him. As

quite the growth. That meant that after entering the next in-between room and licking his orb

on the system window and had it show all the changes since he entered Nevermore to get an idea of how much he had gained so far… and it was honestly a lot more than he

Status

Name: Jake Thayne

–

Edge – lvl