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.

to use an entirely different word, like insane or impossible? Seriously, what is wrong with using harder? It perfectly communicates it is

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 difficulty even higher than harder that

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

it hardest?” Jake wanted to

you again?” Minaga said as he made the entire labyrinth shake

waved the Unique Lifeform off and infused energy into the rune to select

joined Jake. “Prioritizing practicality and making the options easier to understand is more important than

my complaint letter to

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

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

loose rocks before properly seeing the boss in the distance. It looked like a large fusion between 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 of a

Identify, Jake saw its level was at

–

impact?” Jake muttered, a bit surprised.

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 on the properties of whatever planet they land on. Upon reaching B-grade, the beast will then usually take to the cosmos again and create a few eggs they send into the universe, continuing the

having someone with actual education about the multiverse and stuff is

things we should

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

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

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

he began to gather power, and Sylphie let out a

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

it with repeated waves of force. The Sword Saint dove into melee

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 Jake’s next arrows miss as it was thrown off-course, with the Fallen King’s waves of force exploding

orange stones were also condensed 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

had met Jake and company at quite an unfortunate time in their lives. See, they had finally been given a good fight after so long on that

arrows within thirty 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 did have to admit that dodging a meteor shower that covered the entire room was quite an interesting

when she said they had no need for strategizing. With Sylphie landing the finishing blow by creating another smaller impact crater within the existing crater,

slain [Meteorborn Beast – lvl 285] – Bonus experience

Edge] has reached level 219 - Stat points allocated,

also notice why. They had all grown in levels during the time on the city floor – Jake and

Jake saw 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

he hadn’t even solved a single percent of yet. But for him, the power naturally primarily came from all the levels and

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

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

lick the weird void-lolipop that Oras had given him. 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

the changes since he entered Nevermore to get an idea of how much he had gained

Status

Name: Jake Thayne

[Human (C) – lvl 204

[Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge