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.

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

kind of lame. You 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

to your 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?

named it hardest?” Jake wanted to

I have to threaten you again?” Minaga said as he made the entire labyrinth

need. I just wanted to make sure,” Jake smiled as he waved the Unique Lifeform off and infused energy into the rune

hardest is perfectly fine,” the Sword Saint said as he joined Jake. “Prioritizing practicality and making the options easier to understand is more important than aesthetics in

my complaint letter to

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

a Pulse of Perception, 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 in question was the source

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

Jake saw its level was

Beast – lvl

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

part of 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 even some of the matter kicked up from the resulting blast. This makes them take

actual education about the multiverse and stuff is

we should be wary

environment, I reckon this version is also good at earth magic,” Dina answered. “But its

man nodded. “So,

need to,” Dina shook her head. “Unless the dungeon did something special to this particular Meteorborn Beast, that

out his bow. The Fallen King had also floated forward as he began to gather power, and Sylphie let out a low screech as

in hand. The Meteorborn Beast soon took notice of the two people approaching as it awoke. After seeing them, it also noticed Sylphie above. As for Jake and the

with repeated waves of force. The Sword Saint dove into melee range as he began to

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 Jake’s next arrows miss as it was thrown off-course, with the

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

good fight after so long on that damn city floor, making them all quite eager

starting, and despite its durable natural armor, the Meteorborn Beast had its defenses ripped and cut

no need for strategizing. With Sylphie landing the finishing blow by creating another smaller impact crater within

– Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your

reached level 219 - Stat points allocated,

even more. It had been straightforward, more so than he would have expected. Jake did also notice why. They had all grown in levels during the time on the city floor – Jake and the

Sylphie both complained a lot, but Jake saw how they had both gotten more refined at using all their magic. The Brokers who asked for assistance with tasks had

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

with the multiverse and stuff. She had said

respectively. That was 1000 points right there, which Jake thought was pretty responsible of him. As for all the

This meant that Jake’s stats had undergone quite the growth. That meant that after entering the next in-between room and licking his orb while placing the Free Points Jake just got, he took status as the others took

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 had initially

Status

Name: Jake Thayne

[Human (C) –

Hunter of Horizon’s Edge –