The Primal Hunter 11, page 1
THE PRIMAL HUNTER 11
©2024 ZOGARTH
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the authors.
Aethon Books supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact editor@aethonbooks.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Aethon Books
www.aethonbooks.com
Print and eBook design and formatting by Kevin G. Summers. Artwork provided by Antti Hakosaari.
Published by Aethon Books LLC.
Aethon Books is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Also by Zogarth
Also in series:
The Primal Hunter 1
The Primal Hunter 2
The Primal Hunter 3
The Primal Hunter 4
The Primal Hunter 5
The Primal Hunter 6
The Primal Hunter 7
The Primal Hunter 8
The Primal Hunter 9
The Primal Hunter 10
The Primal Hunter 11
The Primal Hunter 12
Want to discuss our books with other readers and even the authors?
JOIN THE AETHON DISCORD!
Contents
Previously in The Primal Hunter
1. Time Skip Status
2. Challenge Dungeons
3. Colosseum of Mortals
4. Kicking Off The Colosseum Arc
5. A Second Day at the Colosseum
6. To Inspire Fear
7. Windows to the Soul
8. Fear Gaze
9. Gladiator
10. Gladiatorial Debut
11. The Merciful Doomfoot
12. An Unexpected Opponent
13. Benevolent Monk
14. Concepts
15. Monk Beating = Colosseum Loot
16. A Man With A Plan
17. Gladiator No More
18. The End of Benevolence
19. Paragon Preparations
20. Benevolent Monk Rematch
21. Images
22. Willowood Clan
23. A Small Speech
24. Looking Forward
25. The Championship Match Begins
26. Warrior of Valhal
27. Gauntlet of the Grand Champion
28. Seven Champions & Side Quests
29. The Gauntlet Begins
30. Lightning Monarch
31. Archmage
32. Necromancer
33. Undying
34. Death & Flames
35. Lord of the Hunt
36. Tending to Wounds
37. Artemis
38. Umbra
39. Warmaster
40. To be a Grand Champion
41. Warrior (1)
42. Warrior (2)
43. Warrior (3)
44. Hunter vs. Warrior
45. One Last Shot
46. Hunter
47. Rewards/Cost of the Impossible
48. Backlash
49. Package Deliveries
50. The Test of Character Begins
51. Confusing Stories
52. Gaze
53. Out of Hand
54. Reunion
55. Test of Character Fully Tested
56. [Redacted]
57. Super Secret Meeting
58. Shameless Recruiting Tactics
59. Aura-Measuring Contest
60. Planning a New Approach
61. Minaga's Nightmare Begins
62. Three Limiters
63. An Unmissable Opportunity
64. Birds of a Feather
65. The J***s Incident
66. All Good Labyrinths Must Come To An End
67. A Sandy World
68. Wise Ideas
69. House of the Architect
70. Nevermore
71. Merit Points
72. How To Not Find a Pet
73. A Cursed Student-Teacher Relationship
74. To Study the Curse
75. Classic Training
76. To Feed Thy Curse
77. The Prodigal Son Returns
78. A More Holistic Approach
79. Spectrum of Perception
80. Nearly Halfway
81. Unseen Arcane Hunter
82. A Sense of Progress
83. A Whole Lot of Mana
84. A Peculiar Little Thing
85. Checks & Balances
86. A Corrosive Idea
87. Temlat's Path
88. The Child Who Is Not Embraced By the Planet Will Spread His Plague
89. No Regrets
90. Brittle
91. A Black Heart
92. Evaluation (1)
93. Evaluation (2)
94. An Ingenious Mind
Thank you for reading The Primal Hunter 11
Groups
LitRPG
Previously in The Primal Hunter
Ah, Nevermore. Sweet, sweet, Nevermore. An arc that totally turned out to be the exact intended length, something I’m sure we all appreciate. I have heard rumors claiming the opposite, all of which I will firmly deny, and will consider taking any measures possible, including occult rituals, against all who keep ferrying around this false narrative.
With that out of the way, let’s revisit the start of Nevermore as Jake and his party members entered the first floor. For a little party member recap, we first have Jake, our main character, who I really hope you remember by now. If not, you have bigger problems and should seek medical attention; assuming you’ve read the prior ten books.
Second, we have the Sword Saint, Jake’s fellow human from Earth and one of the people who’s ever gotten really close to killing Jake during the Treasure Hunt event. As his name implies, he uses a sword as a weapon, along with a mixture of time and rain magic, and before the system, he was already a really old man, giving him that old man wisdom.
Third, is someone else who’s gotten really close to killing Jake in the past: the Fallen King. Well, alright, he was known as the King of the Forest back then, but through the powers of being a Unique Lifeform, he changed his name. The Fallen King has unique powers due to being a Unique Lifeform, focusing on force and soul magic primarily, while also being a really durable tree-looking guy.
Fourth, is the heart of the party—Sylphie, alias Best Birb. Despite her needing no introduction, for the sake of consistency, I will nevertheless introduce her. Sylphie’s a hawk who does wind magic, flies really fast, likes tasty stuff, is afraid of smelly pots, and sleeps best on top of her Uncle Jake’s head.
Fifth, and finally, is Dina, a dryad druid (yes, the entire start of her character design was because I thought this sounded like a fun combination to say). Dina is, as mentioned, a druid and the designated healer of the party, as well as a pretty competent combatant with her plant and life magic. As a descendant of Nature’s Attendant, she also possesses a variant of his Bloodline, allowing her to communicate with plants, who always tend to be rather helpful. Oh, and she has living armor called Bobo.
With the gang assembled, the five of them begin to take on floor after floor, where they, in the beginning, try to get a feel for what the others are capable of, each getting a chance to show off their skills.
Something they have plenty of leeway to do, as the floors are quite honestly rather boring to Jake and his party. They are far too powerful to be properly challenged in the early parts of Nevermore. In a showcase of my supreme skill as an author, I even managed to have this feeling of boredom bleed through the pages, effectively boring a large part of the readership reading said chapters. Truly an ingenious move. Anyway, this results in Jake and company pretty much speedrunning stuff while maximizing Nevermore Points gained—because, as a reminder, the entire purpose of Nevermore except getting levels is getting those sweet Nevermore Points for a better position on the Leaderboards.
While Jake and friends are tackling the boring floors, we’re also introduced to other parties entering Nevermore. They are sprinkled throughout, with Jake’s friends from Earth going with Nevermore parties put together by their factions. Quite a few notable participants here, including Arnold, the mad scientist who occasionally helps Jake, and is going with a bunch of other C-grades blessed by Void Gods.
Eron, Jake’s fellow Bloodline Patriarch, goes with the Dao Sect, another pinnacle faction of the multiverse. Others go with the expected, such as Carmen with Valhal, Jacob with the Holy Church, Caleb with the Court of Shadows, Ca sper with the Risen, and so on and so forth. Also, listing out character names like this, it’s quite evident I really like making up names starting with “Ca,” huh?
Moving on! The most important other person entering Nevermore is naturally Ell’Hakan, the only one besides Jake that many believe contends for the top spot on the Nevermore Leaderboards, especially seeing as his Patron was the one who claimed the top spot in the previous era. Ell’Hakan enters the World Wonder with a party of elites, most of them young geniuses blessed by powerful gods who back Yip of Yore, but to many people’s surprise, there is also a Saintess from the Holy Church with him, serving as his party’s healer.
Every single one of these parties entering the World Wonder goes through the early piss-easy floors for way too long until, finally, things begin to spice up a bit when they enter the wonderful world of Minaga’s Labyrinth.
This section of Nevermore spanned from the thirty-first floor to the fortieth and was the first time there wasn’t only a step-up in the design of each floor but also the difficulty. At least, it would soon get quite a bit harder.
As for why this section was called Minaga’s Labyrinth, well, it’s because it was designed by a guy called Minaga. What is Minaga? Good question, Minaga is Minaga and a fanatic when it comes to making dungeons. He also really likes to get personally involved in the experience of those doing his dungeons by providing live commentary and really feeling like a sixth member of the party. In the eyes of many, he could also be seen as an overly meddling dungeon master who really wanted to railroad the members of the group into doing particular things, while begrudgingly acknowledging when they broke a scenario.
Oh, and did Jake end up breaking things. It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone besides poor Minaga, but Jake is quite good at solving puzzles and navigating a labyrinth. Seeing as he possesses a Bloodline which gives him an overpowered intuition and a massive Sphere of Perception, allowing him to immediately find the path, despite every method Minaga put in place to limit the use of skills that made navigation easier.
So, while even the Augur, Jacob, found it impossible to properly divine the correct path through the labyrinth filled with demons, Jake and his party breezed through until finally reaching the thirty-fifth floor, where they faced the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas to conclude their quest. All this coming after battling demons for some reason, infiltrating the harem of the demon lord, where they discovered the Sword Saint had quite the past, and a lot of other hijinks you can read about in the last book if you want to know more.
The evil Demon Lord Gubrothas turns out to be a classic multi-phase boss fight that totally wasn’t inspired by the author having played WoW for way too many years. In the end, Jake and friends win the first truly challenging fight of the World Wonder thus far, taking down the big bad guy. They then prepare to enter the second part of Minaga’s Labyrinth.
This fight against the Demon Lord also becomes the first time in the Leaderboards competition where a difference begins to be shown. Seeing as winning the fight in the hardest fashion possible awarded a special Grand Achievement giving a percentage amplifier to all Nevermore Points at the end of the fifty years they would spend in the World Wonder, it would naturally prove highly impactful down the line, so missing out on it didn’t bode well.
While people such as Jake, Ell’Hakan, Arnold, and many others win the fight without any losses, others aren’t as lucky, having to rely on their factions to replace members on the upcoming City Floor.
Oh yeah, City Floors are a thing in Nevermore. I should probably mention those. In my defense, they haven’t really been relevant until now, as they are just temporary rest zones that effectively serve as checkpoints one can teleport back into even if one left Nevermore to not lose too much progress. Also, to clarify here, leaving Nevermore while competing on the Leaderboards is not a thing, as the fifty-year time limit would keep ticking while outside.
Anyhow, as with the rest of Minaga’s section of floors, his City Floor is also different, and not somewhere Jake and his gang can just pass through while checking the current status of the Leaderboards.
They have to actually craft stuff and “sell” it to what are effectively NPCs in order to advance to the next floor. This entire thing ended up taking way too long, but hey, it was a great chance to get some profession levels done. During his time on the floor, Jake also has meetings with old friends and allies, catching up and getting updates on how everyone else is doing. Most noteworthy is a conversation with Eron, where the guy talks about his plans to help people avoid death… by effectively wanting to find a method to turn mortals into immortals despite not being gods. So, yeah, that’s definitely a major thing that will be further explored in a dozen books or something!
For a slight change of pace, back on Earth, stuff is naturally also happening while Jake and many others are away. The effects of Jake’s Chosen Ceremony in book 9 are finally felt, as Miranda is busy dealing with all the stuff coming from an influx of migrants, most of whom are slaves gifted to Jake during the ceremony.
Slaves she promptly frees and tries to integrate into society, but needless to say, things aren’t easy, even if some of these freed slaves prove competent and helpful. One thing is for sure, Jake is happy he fled to Nevermore and didn’t have to handle all that stuff himself, while Miranda can only begrudgingly do her best and find solace in the levels she would at least gain. Seeing as she had no plans to try and compete on the Leaderboards, she didn’t care about going above 210 for the cutoff to compete, though she will go to Nevermore later just for the levels.
Back with Jake, he and the others finally get done with the City Floor, only behind Ell’Hakan by a bit over two years, as that’s how long it took Jake and his party to pass the floor. Meanwhile, Ell’Hakan was just a dirty cheater who used his Bloodline to manipulate the NPCs to believe any crap he offered was worth enough for him and all his party members to pass the floor in one go. Truly despicable behavior from a dirty cheater…
Anyway, Jake and friends proceed to cheat their way through every puzzle and labyrinth they possibly can. In this section of Minaga’s Labyrinth, they can even pick their own way forward with different challenges based on their choices, varying in difficulty. In truth, this just meant they defaulted to the highest difficulty for more points with Jake directing them to take the shortest path possible, but hey, it was nice to at least have the illusion of choice.
These choices also end up being the right ones, as on the final floor of Minaga’s Labyrinth, Jake and company get the “true ending” because of their performance, allowing them to face the real final boss of Minaga’s Labyrinth: Minaga himself.
A battle that is quite a bit different compared to any other, as Minaga isn’t exactly a normal opponent. One of the special things in this fight is that no one can actually die during the fight. A system-imposed restriction, because if Minaga wanted them all dead for real and wasn’t after offering a good over-the-top boss fight… everyone would totally die.
