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.

an entirely different word, like insane or impossible?

could have made up your own word or something, too. It is ultimately your choice. Just… at least don’t tell me there is a difficulty even higher than harder that you

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

it hardest?” Jake

again?” Minaga said as he made the

I just wanted to make sure,” Jake smiled as he waved the Unique

think naming it harder and hardest is perfectly fine,” the Sword Saint said as he joined Jake. “Prioritizing practicality and making the options easier

revise my complaint

the entire place looked orange, primarily

Jake saw the boss inside a crater in the middle of the entire arena. This crater was over thirty kilometers in

an elemental, lizard, and scorpion. It had eight legs and a stinger like a scorpion, but its entire body was covered in dense sandstone, with its head and body reminiscent

its level

–

source of the impact?” Jake muttered, a bit surprised. Seeing the beast was above even the Demon Lord in

the Lineage known as Cosmic Beasts and considered a middle of the pack variant. This particular kind comes to be 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

Damn, having someone with actual education about

or things we should be

Beasts have powerful gravity magic, and based on this environment, I reckon this version is also good at earth magic,” Dina answered.

well,” the old man nodded. “So, no need to

“Unless the dungeon did something special to this particular

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

The Meteorborn Beast soon took notice of the two people approaching as it awoke. After seeing them, it also

into medium range and blasted it with repeated waves of force. The Sword Saint dove into melee range as he began to fight

from above as the Meteorborn Beast was instantly put on the back foot. It responded by using the exact two types of magic Dina had mentioned. Spheres of condensed space were summoned all around it, making

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.

at quite an unfortunate time in their lives. See, they had finally been given a good fight after so long

ripped and cut apart

she said they had no need for strategizing. With Sylphie landing the finishing blow by creating another smaller impact crater within the existing crater, the three remaining legs of the Meteorbeast gave

slain [Meteorborn Beast – lvl 285] – Bonus experience

of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 219 - Stat points allocated, +50 Free

also notice why. They 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

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

prowess primarily from that brief period he had spent with the Puzzle Box he hadn’t even solved

the city floor, as she had some more experience with the multiverse and stuff. She had said heretical things, like how just sinking all your Free Points into Perception could become a problem for him later on, and despite Jake obviously knowing that couldn’t be the case, he decided to listen to her

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 for all the other stat

had undergone quite the growth. That meant that after entering the next in-between room and licking his orb while placing the Free Points

bit 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

Status

Name: Jake Thayne

[Human (C) –

Hunter of Horizon’s Edge