The Primal Hunter 11, page 50
Jake knew one of the reasons he had kind of hated the Challenge Dungeon was simply due to how “complicated” it was. He liked to keep things simple, and some grand social experiment mixed with a personality test wasn’t something he liked at all. If it had told him how to perform, he would have taken it as a challenge, but what even was the challenge in this Challenge Dungeon? He still didn’t fucking know.
But… oh, well, he had at least gotten some more Nevermore Points and another multiplier, so that was nice to see. With this, he got his points above nine hundred thousand, rapidly closing in on a million.
Nevermore Points: 907,602
There was also no title this time around, and from the looks of it, there were no levels either. This did make him question if any of these Challenge Dungeons even gave experience, but surely, the Minaga one had to, right?
Anyway, Jake was complaining a lot internally, but it wasn’t all bad. Especially when he got the other reward from the Challenge Dungeon besides the points.
Right in front of him appeared what looked like a single blank page ripped from a book. At first, Jake was confused, but when he used Identify on it, a small smile snuck onto his lips.
[High-Quality Storybook Page (Unique] – The page of an unknown storybook containing empty Records of a tale yet untold. Allows you to infuse the Records of a skill into the storybook page. Ripping a page infused with the Records of a skill will grant you an opportunity to upgrade the skill. The effect is lowered as the rarity of the skill increases, and the page will not accept Records of certain skills. It will have no effect if used on skills at or above legendary rarity. Skill upgrades are not guaranteed.
Requirements: C-grade. Soulbound.
Now, this was something actually useful. Items like this were incredibly rare to find in the multiverse and would allow him to potentially even upgrade skills where he wasn’t sure where to take it. Yep, definitely a good one.
Do you wish to exit the Test of Character Challenge Dungeon?
No further actions can be taken within this Challenge Dungeon.
Jake, standing in the void, sighed, happy he was finally done with the damn Test of Character Challenge Dungeon. Looking up, he stared straight at where he knew someone was observing him. Definitely the Wyrmgod recording.
“I give that damn Challenge Dungeon a two out of ten,” Jake said. “It’s shit. The novelty quickly wears off, and then you are just doing chores. Definitely one to go back to the drawing board with. And if you say that my not liking it is proof I shouldn’t have gotten a better evaluation, then I guess my character just sucks, and I’ll happily accept that if it means not going to that shithole again.” He felt it was a very fair and accurate review of the Test of Character Challenge Dungeon.
If they wanted to do a damn live documentary of his life, he should at least have the right to get a few jabs in, right?
Ultimately, he just decided to mentally write off the entire Challenge Dungeon. Yeah, it had just been a place for him to waste some time while recovering from the Colosseum of Mortals—nothing more, nothing less—and it wasn’t like it hadn’t still been efficient when it came to making Nevermore Points. He’d even gotten that storybook page. Yep, it was definitely not a waste of time. Definitely not…
Seriously, what kind of person would like that shitty place?
Jacob appeared in the white void, a pang of sadness hitting him as he realized the Test of Character Challenge Dungeon was over. He had genuinely enjoyed the entire experience, and despite it giving him no levels, he felt like he had progressed plenty. The Paths he had seen, the fates he had divined, and the worlds he had experienced were invaluable. To stand in the shoes of another person and truly experience life from their point of view was simply incomparable, and something he would gladly do again if given the chance.
He had barely considered what rewards the dungeon would offer, so he was taken aback when the system presented him with his final evaluation.
Grand Achievement earned: Successfully completed the Test of Character with a near-perfect performance. You have shown yourself to be a guide, a teacher, an observer, or whatever role you needed to adapt. You have proven you can understand every story and guide it toward an ideal future, your every decision guided by comprehension, empathy, and logic, your thought process adapting to each scenario. Throughout the Test of Character, you have grown and adapted to every challenge, never once faltering. 88,201 Nevermore Points earned. Due to completing a Grand Achievement, you will receive a 20% multiplier to all Nevermore Points at the final calculation.
Reward gained: Test of Character: Near-Perfect Empath.
Test of Character: Near-Perfect Empath – You have proven yourself a Near-perfect Empath during the Test of Character Challenge Dungeon, truly displaying compassion and understanding of every story, earning more than 80,000 Nevermore Points. Only one Nevermore Challenge Dungeon title can be held at a time. +175 to all stats.
Not to mention the odd page he got when everything else was said and done…
[Exceptional Storybook Page (Unique] – The page of an unknown storybook containing empty Records of a tale yet untold. Allows you to infuse the Records of a skill into the storybook page. Ripping a page infused with the Records of a skill will grant you an opportunity to upgrade the skill. The effect is lowered as the rarity of the skill increases, and the page will not accept Records of certain skills. It will have no effect if used on skills at or above mythical rarity. Skill upgrades are not guaranteed.
Requirements: C-grade. Soulbound.
Despite his gratitude for these rewards, Jacob admittedly would have gladly traded them for another chance to do the Test of Character Challenge Dungeon. He was not a contender for the Leaderboards anyway, and getting more power through titles and such mattered little to him or his Path.
With gratitude for being allowed the Test of Character Challenge Dungeon, he left with a smile on his face, hoping others would find as much enjoyment in the experience as he had.
Arnold appeared in the white void, having completed the Challenge Dungeon with an approach he deemed the best. Besides that, he didn’t really have many thoughts of the last roughly two years of his life, as he hadn’t really done anything he deemed especially noteworthy. This did make him display some surprise, raising a single eyebrow, when he got the final evaluation.
Grand Achievement earned: Successfully completed the Test of Character with an unquestionable performance. You have shown yourself to be an analyst of all stories. Every story was approached with logic, and every decision was made only according to the data provided to maximize benefits for your character. Your own personal beliefs or sentiments never once influenced your decision-making, allowing you to always remain impartial. Impartial enough to only make decisions that benefitted the character you inhabited, with no regard or care for any other living being. Throughout the Test of Character, you have been a beacon of consistency. 88,758 Nevermore Points earned. Due to completing a Grand Achievement, you will receive a 20% multiplier to all Nevermore Points at the final calculation.
Reward gained: Test of Character: Unquestionable Analyst.
Test of Character: Unquestionable Analyst – You have proven yourself an unquestionable analyst during the Test of Character Challenge Dungeon by displaying an analytical and logical mind that defies comprehension, earning more than 80,000 Nevermore Points. Only one Nevermore Challenge Dungeon title can be held at a time. +175 to all stats.
What’s more was the Exceptional Storybook Page he received, which would allow him to upgrade one of his research-related skills that usually had an excessively time-consuming progression path. This would save him a lot of time and allow him to proceed more quickly with some of the experiments he had hypothesized but lacked the means to adequately collect empirical data on and form a proper theory. As for his thoughts on the Test of Character itself?
In truth, he didn’t really have any. He didn’t believe his own thoughts on the matter had any bearing on the actions he had taken, after all. However, he could admit he did find some level of happiness with his gains. Especially after the entirely lacking performance he’d displayed in the Colosseum of Mortals, which had proven to be an entirely unproductive endeavor.
Chapter 56
[Redacted]
The five Challenge Dungeons were something many parties attending Nevermore delayed doing for a variety of reasons. Partly because they were naturally easier once you got stronger. Even in the ones where your stats were normalized or reduced, your conceptual comprehension should increase over the decades of doing all the other floors. Another reason many waited was to do the entire Challenge Dungeon at once.
Once the seventieth floor was cleared by many groups, they decided, like Jake’s, to tackle them. Some also did the dungeons before, as while the fourteenth city floor did mark when all the Challenge Dungeon would be fully unlocked, some of them were fully unlocked even beforehand. As an example, the Test of Character was fully unlocked after doing the floors that were meant to teach “lessons” to the Nevermore Attendees, such as the one about plagues. The Test of Character was also one that would either be fully unlocked or entirely unavailable due to how it worked.
The Minaga Labyrinth one was fully unlocked after the Minaga floors were done, making it the first Challenge Dungeon to fully unlock. The final one that fully opened in this incarnation of Nevermore was the Colosseum of Mortals, where one had to clear floor seventy to become able to challenge the Grand Champion. If one did the Challenge Dungeon without having done floor seventy, the Battlemaster would state that the Grand Champion wasn’t available and to come back at a later date. Later, in this case, being after you had cleared floor seventy.
Many of the best parties had begun reaching this stage by now and were moving onto the Challenge Dungeons in earnest. As had been mentioned many times before, the Challenge Dungeons were where the true top of the Leaderboards would be found, and they were, by far, the most efficient way of getting points for the talented.
Each Challenge Dungeon could give a Grand Achievement upon completion, though it would only be a normal achievement without any percentage multiplier if the performance was too bad. The Grand Achievement usually ranged from 5 to 20%, with 20% being given if one fully completed the Challenge Dungeon with an outstanding performance. It was usually viewed as the maximum, though, of course, Jake knew there was one step higher. 25% was only given if one did the “impossible” within a certain Challenge Dungeon. If they achieved something that no one was meant to achieve.
With 20% usually considered the limit, the “maximum amplification” one could reach was thus 100% if one had a perfect performance in all five Challenge Dungeons. Needless to say, this never happened, as just getting a 20% multiplier in any of the Challenge Dungeons already put you in the top tier.
On that note, someone like the Fallen King was not expected to get a peak score. In fact, no one expected Unique Lifeforms to. Unique Lifeforms had very narrow Paths by definition, and while they could often do extremely well in some dungeons, they nearly always completely flunked in others if they didn’t suit their particular talents. They could still go pretty high, just not the peak.
An overall amplification of 30% from all Challenge Dungeons was considered excellent, as just getting 10% was extremely hard, and this was around where many would expect a Unique Lifeform to land. 40% was the level of true geniuses, marking individuals many factions showed interest in. 50% was where one reached the territory of truly versatile monsters. For reference, getting to the Grand Champion in the Colosseum of Mortals—while expending all lives—would give just 10%, so one had to be at that level in every single Challenge Dungeon. Most people would be over the moon for just beating the seven Champions, but one had to repeat similar feats five times over to reach 50%.
Above 50% was where one entered the realm of genuine monsters. Beings that already had high levels of divine attention on them and were already recognized by the gods. Some were expected to get at least 50%, such as Ghost King Azal, Davion of Valhal, and several other peak geniuses from major factions. Jake, Dina, and Ell’Hakan also fell within this group, which was expected to reach at least 50% overall.
However, even if they were expected to reach at least 50%, reaching 60% would be considered absolutely exemplary. Anything above 70% was practically unheard of, and the stuff of legends. Those who reached that level were considered the true contenders for the very apex of the Leaderboard. Going above even this, one reached the level of being an all-time record contender.
So, with Jake being at 35% after only two out of five, he was definitely on track to make his dear Patron a proud snake. Even if he did believe that bullshit Test of Character had been complete bullshit.
He understood Jake’s frustration. The Viper truly did. It was an odd place, and in all honesty, one that he would argue didn’t truly fit that well in Nevermore.
The Test of Character was an odd Challenge Dungeon by design. Jake’s inability to understand why it worked as it worked was entirely purposeful, and while it did provide part of the challenge, it was far from the whole reason.
Vilastromoz knew that out of all the Challenge Dungeons, it was the one the Wyrmgod had exerted the most control over to turn it into exactly what he wanted. To fulfill the role he desired it to fulfill. And that role wasn’t necessarily to offer a challenge; that was just a requirement by the system to turn it into a Challenge Dungeon that qualified to be part of Nevermore. It offered some diversity in what kind of dungeons there were, but it was also a Challenge Dungeon archetype that had been around for almost every single era.
In reality, it wasn’t really made for the benefit of the ones actually doing the Challenge Dungeon. Not really. It wasn’t even made for people like Jake or the other people expected to get a high score. Instead, it had been created solely for the Wyrmgod’s own goals.
The Test of Character did an acceptable job of assessing someone’s character and allowed the Wyrmgod to get certain data points. It even allowed him to categorize people who got “low” scores based on their personalities and character. It allowed him to learn of their morals, quirks, thought processes, and sometimes even red flags that one had to be worried about. Not red flags like someone turning out to be a psycho killer, but red flags like potential weaknesses that would manifest down the line, such as an inability to show patience or deal with long periods of nothing, which was required of anyone who truly wanted to reach the peak without going insane. And with the system actively not allowing someone without a mentality capable of evolving to evolve, it could potentially be the doom of a talented prospect.
This information would then be sold to whoever was interested. Some factions had an open subscription of sorts to get information on anyone from the faction it was worth getting information on. The Holy Church in particular, or factions like it, used this data to weed out or address people who could turn into dissidents or problems for the faction in the future, but even places like the Order of the Malefic Viper also made use of it.
Other factions had open calls on interesting new prospects. Someone getting a very high score in the Test of Character could indicate someone had a unique talent or was suited for specific Paths. The personality and character of some people even resonated with some extremely powerful Paths, to the level that such a personality and sense of character was the only requirement they had to fulfill.
Jake’s former coworker, the Augur of Hope, was a brilliant example of this. His talent in magic was nowhere near good, he couldn’t fight for shit, he wasn’t adequately assertive at all but a total pushover, and he entirely lacked the ego someone like the Viper was looking for in those he believed could become truly strong.
Yet he had gained a Path many sought. One recognized as a peak Path among mortals. Because what he did have was an uncanny ability to understand others, an unwavering will to guide them, and a selflessness that was almost nauseating. He would do what he believed was the best for others, even if it meant setting himself on fire. The Augur was simply born to be an Augur… but he did need a little push to get there. He needed the interference of the gods in the tutorial to set up the scenario for him to realize his Path.
Many of those who did the Test of Character could be close to such a realization. They just needed a small push that some factions would gladly give them. The Primordial Church was a big recruiter of people who were just a single step away from being fanatics, recruiting them almost en masse after they participated in Nevermore.
If Vilastromoz had to explain Nevermore and especially the Test of Character to Jake, he would very much compare it to those social media things his planet used to have. Nevermore was free to enter and participate in, but it still had to bring in resources for the Wyrmgod and others who were involved in developing and maintaining it, and one of the best ways to earn Credits was to sell information. As the saying goes, if something is free, you are the product. This was also why the Wyrmgod sent tokens to enter the World Wonder all throughout the multiverse. He wanted every C-grade in the entire multiverse to come to Nevermore.
Of course, despite this data-gathering, some people still had special privileges to not have theirs sold. Usually, the Wyrmgod would refuse to sell any information on young prospects to rival factions, while he would never sell anything related to someone like Jake, considering he was a Chosen. He would keep all that under lock and key and only give it to the Malefic Viper. Save for a few scenarios like the Colosseum of Mortals, where others had made deals to still get notified when certain things happened, nothing would get out.
