The Primal Hunter

”Isn’t it entirely expected a few of his Creations will be entirely hidden even from you? You know how the system is with Bloodlines,” Nature’s Attendant spoke up within the divine watch party living room. ”If I am correct, little Dina must also have submitted some items that were restricted when she did the House of the Architect.”

”She did,” the Wyrmgod confirmed. ”However, it is rare that Nevermore herself shows interest in a Creation. Much less several Creations within a short time span. My attention wasn’t truly on the Chosen of the Lifesoul Daolord, as while his methods and Path are interesting, it isn’t one I find particularly appealing. However, it seems there is more to him than I initially believed.”

”All Bloodlines have secrets and are irregular by definition,” Vilastromoz shrugged, fine that the topic had switched away from Jake. ”For him to have his own special means is indeed only to be expected.”

The Viper wouldn’t say he was worried about how things would go in the House of the Architect for his Chosen. Both when it came to Jake doing well and regarding if he would reveal something, he probably shouldn’t. The Bound God of the World Wonder was a quasi-system entity, making her subject to its rules. Even if she wanted to share all of Jake’s secrets, she would be unable to.

It did annoy the Viper a bit that Nevermore knew more about Jake and his secrets than his Patron god, but there wasn’t really anything to do about it.

When it came to the overall evaluation Jake would get, the Viper also had great confidence. Even without factoring in Jake’s Bloodline, alchemists tended to do very well in this Challenge Dungeon. Statistics showed that of all the popular profession archetypes, alchemists were the overall top performers in this Challenge Dungeon simply due to how diverse of a craft it was. Poisons, potions, elixirs, pills, transmutation, magic circles, herbology, and many more disciplines were part of the art of alchemy. All very different, with the only truly common thing being their requirement for high-level mana control.

This also meant that his Order was one of the factions that had the best average performance. Alright, it also helped that the Order only tended to accept elites, but the fact it was an alchemy-focused faction was definitely the most important factor.

With all that in mind, Jake would likely get a decent evaluation even if he only had his alchemy to rely on. But Jake, of course, didn’t only have his alchemy. Throwing in the Bloodline meant that Jake had a great whiff of uniqueness in there, and the Viper was sure Jake would pull off something impressive, bringing him from a decent to a great evaluation.

However, it was far from assured Jake would get a top-tier Grand Achievement.

”Jake and even Dina would definitely have earned a top score if this was Nevermore back right after it got established,” Nature’s Attendant shared with a nostalgic smile. ”It sure was interesting back then before all the checks and balances.”

The Wyrmgod scoffed. ”Balance had to be achieved. With the further propagation of Bloodlines, something simply had to change. A Bloodline should not result in an automatic top-tier evaluation. At least Record inflation meant that the Leaderboards from back then are now useless.”

”I think we should give poor Jake a helping hand by allowing him full points even for stuff that is fully Bloodline-reliant. The guy is clearly starved of points,” Minaga said in a fake sad tone.

”I am sure he’ll be just fine,” Nature’s Attendant chuckled.

The Viper smiled at the conversation, remembering how Nevermore changed and adapted with time. It was true that Nevermore once had far fewer balancing factors and far more things to exploit. There was quite a period where the evaluations in all these Challenge Dungeons were made entirely based on the Records contributed. This, in nearly all cases, resulted in anything using a Bloodline leading to an automatic top score, as few things could be more unique than a unique Bloodline. Well, besides maybe a Transcendant skill, something that would also automatically qualify someone to get a top-tier evaluation back then.

still a big bonus. It also mattered how well one used one’s Bloodline now, and the overall quality of the items submitted

long as

by the way, that human from your Chosen’s Planet just got done with the Challenge Dungeon. The one who walks a Path of the Void under the influence of Oras,”

questioned, finding himself a bit intrigued but not overly interested. He already had a good idea of how that

room. 25% was incredibly rare, after all, and unless Bloodlines or Transcendent Skills got involved in breaking a scenario, they were considered borderline impossible. The fact that the man following Oras had neither

of the people most knowledgeable

profession. The variety

I do know is that underestimating the mind

all. They were gods that existed outside of the physical realm while rarely interfering directly with reality. Not because they couldn’t, even if they were severely restricted outside of the void. However, even if they rarely interfered, one

just so alien that not even the Viper was sure what their deal

Stolen story; please report.

it won’t get interesting even if he gets lower, but, you know, it

long rant as he just answered the initial

of the Challenge Dungeon as the screen only flickers on for the minutes

”Oh… yeah, fair enough.”

the second era pondering in genuine puzzlement. Much less the happenings in the streaming room. Not that he had any time to think about such things, even if

Jake got more and more small ideas to improve things. At first, Jake had wanted to make either a really strong Hemotoxin or a really strong Necrotic Poison. Mind you, Jake had at least been clear from the start he wanted a poison that targeted life-affinity lifeforms. A poison tailor-made for those would be better than trying to mix

sorts, primarily, and while he did throw in the occasional plant, elemental, or mechanical creature, his Blood of the Malefic Viper usually did the job fine against those. Plus, as a hunter, Jake could choose his own prey, so if he only had poison good against flesh and blood, he could just only target flesh and blood prey. And currently, the only things Jake was

least Jake was fairly confident Ell’Hakan wouldn’t enjoy having his

or Necrotic Poison quickly morphed into Jake asking himself a very simple question: why not both? Well, the answer was that different poisons very rarely mixed well, resulting in the final product turning out worse than if you had just focused fully on either. Alas, this was a problem Jake knew could be overcome as merging poisons was something Jake had

idea as he felt like trying to mix in Neurotoxins would just make the entire project way too damn complicated. Plus, if he struggled to merge two poisons in a satisfactory way, how was trying to merge three going to make things any

down until it was time to go wild. Finally, even in Sleeping Night, the two toxins didn’t exactly mix well together. It was just that their violent clash would

make two powerful poisons to merge. One Hemotoxin and one Necrotic Poison, both firmly in the rare rarity, to then hopefully merge them even an even

reiterated that poison rarities were quite a bit different from many other types. A bit like potions. The rarity was a lot more ”set” than in other things, and even just making rare poisons

wasn’t uncommon for some alchemists to never even reach rare rarity with their