The Primal Hunter

Jake narrowly ducked under the flying glaive before jumping right as the floor collapsed under him. Kicking off the wall, Jake managed to launch himself away from the pit that had opened up beneath him right as a piston-like block of labyrinth shot down, nearly pushing Jake into the hole.

Landing on solid ground, Jake quickly knelt down and braced himself as he crossed his arms and summoned a stable barrier of arcane energy to defend himself. A barrage of small mana spikes hit him right as the barrier was done manifesting fully, blasting Jake further down the labyrinth hallway but failing to penetrate the barrier.

He knew he couldn’t land on the ground as spikes would just pop up, so Jake ran on the wall for a bit as he made his way down the long trap-filled labyrinth hallway while avoiding all the remaining traps. At least he tried to. A net of lasers shot after him not soon after, followed by an incredibly fast-moving spike that came out of seemingly nowhere, but before Jake could even address these two, he had to consider something else.

Runic circles began glowing on the ceiling and walls as energy intensified. Jake instantly understood what was about to happen as he gritted his teeth and blasted arcane mana to launch himself down the hallways as quickly as he could while also dealing with the damn everpresent mist.

This decision did mean a sacrifice had to be made as one of the lasers hit him, taking his left arm clean off. It hurt like hell, but it had to be done. Flying down the hallway quickly, Jake hit the back wall and kicked off it as he got around the corner.

Right as he did so, an explosion sounded out as the entire hallway erupted with intense mana, the ceiling even collapsing in a scripted event, blocking off the path. Jake didn’t doubt for a second he would have died if he had stayed there or been just half a second slower.

“Maybe I should have taken the non-shortcut route,” Jake muttered to himself as he regarded his missing arm. Taking out a health potion, he quickly chugged it and focused on his Blood of the Malefic Viper skill as the arm began to regrow at a visible pace.

“Wow, really? But that would have wasted an entire hour or something horrendous like that!” Minaga chimed in, always ready to add his two cents.

“Oh, good point. Yeah, definitely picked the right hallway,” Jake said with a smile.

These trap hallways had begun to get quite dangerous. By now, everything could kill him, and the attacks moved so fast that Jake could only react due to his near pre-cognitive instincts. He had noticed that some attacks could still be blocked even if Jake should logically not be strong enough to. The barrage of small mana spikes being one such example. If it was dungeon-fuckery or some unique properties of these attacks, he didn’t know, but his stable arcane mana did wonders.

For most attacks, blocking was entirely out of the question, though. The lasers would burn through anything Jake could summon, with him only feeling confident in blocking with Eternal Hunger if he absolutely had to. However, even then, the remnant energy that hit him scorched his flesh. Any physical attack was also not gonna happen as the sheer impact would rip both his arms off.

“So, is it hard enough for you yet?” Minaga asked.

“Considering I managed to do the hallway while only losing an arm, I am sure I can handle it getting a bit harder. But yeah, things are definitely improving with every section,” Jake said with a smile as he continued onward. Walking a bit forward, he saw a hole in the ceiling, and without further ado, he jumped as he went up a floor.

surprise. It was a multi-layered labyrinth with two floors. It was as if the labyrinth had gotten a basement that one had to use to pass certain sections by either

could only trigger a gate on the opposite floor of the one where you needed to move the wall, making it all quite a complicated puzzle. Well, it

was expanded once more

labyrinth was very much a two-dimensional puzzle, but the further he got after section one hundred, the more it became a cube as it turned

struggle and get challenged. It had to be mentioned that even if Jake had an overpowered Pulse of Perception, the labyrinth could still

to consider which walls to raise and lower, which teleporters could potentially be used, which paths he had to avoid entirely, and finally, to create an entire route that he could complete in time. Okay, the time limitation still

151, and by now, it was pretty much just a giant cube. He had to climb up and down all the time to get to the exit that

and with a newly fully regenerated arm, snuck around a corner and took a quick glance in to confirm something. What he saw was a creature that stood in front of a large barrier, with a shimmering wall nearly right in front of him. He knew that if he passed this wall, he would be trapped in there with the gatekeeper until one of them died, so he couldn’t just escape even if he wanted to. The shimmering wall also marked when space would be expanded, as each gatekeeper pretty much had an entire arena to itself. Fighting in a

appropriated; report any instances

of it. Its body looked more metal than flesh. It was about five meters tall, very bulky and bear-like, and looked to be a slower tanky variant. As it stood on two

Gatekeeper –

around section one-forty, he had now truly graduated beyond the grade

“Hey… Minaga…” Jake muttered.

about doing

a certain section without dying?” Jake asked. “Like, if I somehow died now, would it

way, on an entirely unrelated note, did you know that B-grades aren’t really meant to ever appear in this C-grade version of the Challenge Dungeon? So, if you do ever happen to encounter one, surely it is indicative of you having gone far beyond the norm. Just

observing the B-grade for a

he couldn’t let go of a chance like this. To face a B-grade in an actual battle without any genuine risk of death was a

it definitely wasn’t just Jake really wanting to fight it. It was

me luck,” Jake smiled as he walked toward the shimmering wall, not bothering to make any real preparations. He was just testing the

makes you dead-set on revenge, making you spend all your other attempts going back here over and over again to exact vengeance upon the gatekeeper,” Minaga said with a

out his hand and touched the

warped as the wall expanded rapidly. Jake soon found himself standing inside a massive chamber with the B-grade gatekeeper at

his bow, ready to attack. Pulling out his bow apparently registered as an act of aggression,

far end having raised an arm. Surprised at Jake dodging, it let out a low growl that sent a shockwave of sound through the chamber. Jake felt Pride of the Malefic Viper get impacted as