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 using

so, the Viper was confident. As long as he remembered to submit a damn Grimoire, at

The one who walks a Path of the Void under the influence

a bit intrigued but not overly interested. He already had a good

of those in the 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

what the man had created, and out of everyone there, he was one of the people most knowledgeable about Oras. He knew the Void God wouldn’t ever

long time, asked. ”From what I gathered, he had a mechanical profession. The variety of methods

”All I do know is that underestimating the mind of a man who walks side by

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

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

Stolen story; please report.

gets lower, but, you know, it will leave a lot up to the final Challenge Dungeon. Not that I think he will do badly there at all…

Viper listened to Minaga’s long rant as he just answered the initial

Jake will do? I haven’t seen any of the Challenge Dungeon as the screen

”Oh… yeah, fair enough.”

since 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 he had known. He was a busy man, after all, and was working hard on his current poison project. A project that had experienced what Jake believed could

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 in stuff to also target something like elementals, so that’s why

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

wouldn’t enjoy having

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 read a lot about and knew as possible from prior projects.

merging in a few concepts from his Sleeping Night poison but ended up quickly scratching that idea as he felt like trying to mix in Neurotoxins would just make the entire project way too damn complicated. Plus, if

hadn’t outright merged two fully-created poisons together to make it. That poison had also been far more subtle due to the ethtoxin infused to calm the two other kinds of toxins down until it was time to go wild. Finally, even in Sleeping Night, the

exciting project, Jake had first needed to make two powerful poisons to merge. One Hemotoxin and

than in other things, and even just making rare poisons in C-grade was considered pretty damn good. In fact, Jake had been told by Villy that should he

for some alchemists to never even reach rare