The Primal Hunter 11, page 56
Jake put on a serious face and spoke in a calm tone, “I have resigned myself to the fact that my Path to godhood will be one littered with corpses. I can—no, I must be able to face myself, even if such a thing happens. Your sacrifice would definitely be remembered eternally.”
“You know what? Now I nearly want to die just to keep this hanging over your head.”
“That doesn’t sound like something an esteemed figure would do,” Jake said with a smirk. “And why would I bother remembering someone like that?”
“Rude.”
“I never said anything rude. I just spoke my truth and was brutally honest.”
“People who say they are just speaking the truth or being brutally honest are often just saying that as an excuse to be horrible assholes to others without having to face the repercussions of their own actions.”
“Wow, that’s a brutally honest take for sure,” Jake said, nodding along. “And are we back to you being a massive bully again?”
“I always face the consequences. Well, the version of me that did something does. It wouldn’t be fair to get all of me involved just because one of me fucks up.”
“A great way to truly avoid responsibility indeed.” Jake shrugged as he kept relaxing. “Now, back to this labyrinth in question… you said it would be getting hard, but when exactly does that happen? Still waiting over here.”
“Some would argue it has already gotten hard. The traps can now prove lethal even to you, the teleporters aren’t as easily exploited, more features to slow you down have appeared, and the gatekeeper creatures can put up a decent fight… so isn’t it at least harder now than in the beginning?”
“Sure, it has gotten more difficult, but something going from easy to slightly less easy still makes it easy. I think the main thing right now is the length of the timers being more than ten times above how long it actually takes. Removes a lot of the pressure from the situation and makes it all feel a bit too relaxed and casual.”
“You do remember this is a maze, right? A labyrinth? You are just running straight for the end every time, already knowing the way. If I had to balance the timer around everyone already knowing the way, I would have put a damn map at the start of every section and not a magical problem to solve, now, wouldn’t I? Or maybe I should just make my next labyrinth a straight path for people to sprint down. Would that be better, huh?”
“I never said you had to change anything, just that from my very overpowered point of view, it has yet to be hard,” Jake muttered.
“Fair, I guess. But there are more things to come, so maybe you will face something that is actually difficult at some point? Heck if I know, though. Your overpowered Bloodline probably has some other secret aspect to overcome anything I throw at you…”
“You could always throw in a water level,” Jake said semi-jokingly. “That would sure slow me down.”
“I find the very notion you believe I could ever do that insulting,” Minaga said, getting himself even more worked up. “I have integrity! Integrity, I tell you!”
He remembered Minaga had already shown disdain for water levels and definitely believed he wouldn’t do that in his labyrinth. Also, even if there was a water level, Jake would still be beating it, though it would be a lot more difficult and time-consuming.
“Then I guess all there is to do is watch me continue to demolish your labyrinth. Hey, maybe you can use the data for an improved version in the next era? Find countermeasures to someone like me?”
“I think that if I implement countermeasures to actually hinder you, an unfortunate side effect would be making it utterly unbeatable for nearly everyone else…” Minaga said with a sigh. “Procedurally generating it won’t work, as that messes up many other legitimate scouting methods, and even if I did that, who is to say you won’t just know where to go anyway due to some stupid gut feeling or anything? Yeah, trying to make countermeasures is a waste of time. I would rather just hope there aren’t more people like you out there…”
Jake just smiled and shook his head as their conversation slowly died down. He knew Minaga had a hard time implementing any features to hinder him, and in all honestly, he saw himself as only having three true limiters in Minaga’s Endless Labyrinth—three things that could lead to him not completing a section in time.
The first one was his movement speed. Jake was fast, but he could be faster, especially with the mist slowing him down. That was why he worked on trying to speed up slightly by covering his body in a faint layer of destructive arcane affinity that seemed to help a little bit. Outside of that, it was just a matter of keeping good form and sprinting while conserving stamina and drinking potions whenever necessary.
Second was his fighting power. Jake had noticed that, at least so far, Minaga would never force him into a fight, but there were cases where not fighting a gatekeeper would require him to take a long detour. So when he began to meet foes he simply couldn’t beat, it would all come down to whether he was fast enough to do the detour in time. Jake was still not at this stage, but he knew it would come at some point.
The third and last limiter Jake saw was Minaga introducing a new element he had no way of cheesing. The Labyrinth Archipelago was already pretty good at delaying him. Still, it didn’t impact him more than anyone else, but if Minaga added elements Jake couldn’t do anything about, he could also see himself being fucked. He wasn’t sure what Minaga could add, but it was definitely possible.
However… if number three didn’t come into play, Jake felt extremely confident he wouldn’t just be going for a high score, but perhaps the highest score anyone on the Leaderboards could get. He did believe there were level 349s out there who didn’t compete on the Leaderboards and could do better, but those didn’t matter. As long as he could beat all his peers, Jake would be more than happy.
His confidence was far from unfounded. One would have to be a complete cheat with a Transcendence or a Bloodline to even stand a chance against him, and even if they had one, Jake believed his Bloodline was better. Jake was also a speed-focused built, having even put all the Free Points gained from the profession levels after he visited the gods into Agility to move just a little faster through the labyrinth.
He had everything going for him in this Challenge Dungeon, almost as if he was born to utterly dominate it. He truly had no excuse if he ended up with a poor performance. If he couldn’t get the top score, then what the hell kind of living cheat did you have to be in order to do so?
Alright, there was one more potential kind of person who could overtake him. While talking with Casper when they met up in Minaga City, the Risen had talked about how he had certain advantages as a Dungeon Architect. That he could also “cheat” in the dungeon and find the way easily.
Casper himself wasn’t a threat when it came to being number one, as the Risen, quite frankly, didn’t have the speed required to be at the top. Even if he knew the way, Jake could see him getting stuck on levels with limited time quite easily, a sentiment he shared with many others with dungeon-making focused Paths. Such Paths tended to focus on mental stats over the physical ones, after all. Plus, while someone like Casper could cheat as a Dungeon Architect, Jake’s level of cheating was still far superior.
So… to summarize, Jake was going for the top spot. He wanted the best Grand Achievement he could get… and he couldn’t lie; Minaga’s constant complaints only served as further motivation.
After his rest, Jake stood back up and stretched as he looked at the next gate. Let’s see if I can do this faster than the last one.
“How long has it been since he entered?” Vilastromoz asked with a big smile. He naturally already knew, but he wanted to ask just to make Minaga vocalize it.
“Twenty-five days or so,” Minaga said, not elaborating further.
“And, color me curious, how long does it usually take for the average person?” the Viper asked.
“More than that…” the Unique Lifeform said in a small voice.
“How much more, I wonder? A week more? Oh, maybe an entire month! Pray tell, pray tell!”
Minaga just stared at him for a bit before crossing his arms. “Not saying. Figure it out yourself. And Wyrmgod, you better not say a word either.”
“How petty.” The Viper shook his head as he turned to his secret weapon. “How about you two? Aren’t you curious?”
He naturally spoke to Nature’s Attendant, but more importantly, Artemis. The old druid just smiled, while Artemis didn’t even try to hide her interest as she nodded enthusiastically.
As expected, Minaga sighed, unable to resist. “First of all, the Viper’s question is flawed. The usual person never even gets this far. And for those who do, the average time for doing so is just around thirteen months, give or take.”
“So, Jake is just fifteen times or so faster than the average person?” the Viper asked with a smile. “Not too bad, I guess.”
“Faster than the people who make it this far,” Minaga corrected him. “Considering it’s only the above-average Nevermore Attendees that get above section sixty, with many entirely flunking out within just a few, I guess some would argue his performance is even better than expected.”
“If… If I may, how does he compare to the other top contenders?” Artemis asked a bit nervously. “How close is he to being the fastest to get to section seventy-five?”
Minaga just threw her a deadpan look. “How close? Come on, are you also teasing me now?”
Artemis looked genuinely confused as the Wyrmgod spoke up. “He is the top contender.”
“Oh,” Artemis muttered with a nod.
“Man, he sure is a cheat. That Bloodline of his is totally broken.” Minaga sighed loudly. “Hey, Artemis, can you do me a favor?”
“Hm?” she responded. “If it’s within my capabilities, I will do my best.”
“Great,” Minaga said as he put on a massive, teasing smile. “If you two ever have kids that inherit his Bloodline, can you give me details on it or at least some tips for countermeasures?”
“I… What?” Artemis exclaimed as the tips of her ears turned red before she gathered herself. “Please stop joking around like that; I find it highly inappropriate. Also, you know as well as I that sharing the secrets of others, including the details of their Bloodlines, is not something one should do.”
“Right, right, how rude of me.” Minaga put up his hands defensively as no one continued the subject. Jake standing up in the recording to continue the labyrinth served as a nice distraction.
Vilastromoz just shook his head at the interaction between the two gods and smiled to himself… unable to avoid noticing how she hadn’t denied or shot down the notion of potentially carrying forward Jake's Bloodline.
Chapter 63
An Unmissable Opportunity
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 just as the barrier finished manifesting fully, blasting Jake further down the labyrinth hallway but failing to penetrate the barrier.
He knew he couldn’t land on the ground since spikes would pop up, so he 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, gritting his teeth and blasting 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. 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 to get around the corner.
Right as he did so, an explosion sounded out. 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,” Jake said with a smile. “Yeah, definitely picked the right hallway.”
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-precognitive instincts. He had noticed that some attacks could still be blocked even if he should logically not be strong enough to do so, the barrage of small mana spikes being one such example. If it was dungeon fuckery or some unique property 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.” With a smile, Jake continued onward. Walking forward, he saw a hole in the ceiling, and without further ado, he jumped and went up a floor.
A new kind of Labyrinth Section appeared at number one hundred. One that Jake hadn’t even considered before, but honestly, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It was a multilayered labyrinth with two floors. It was as if the labyrinth had gotten a basement that one had to use to pass certain sections.
This in itself wouldn’t be that difficult… except the walls could move up and down, with some of them being triggered by the person doing the labyrinth. However, you could only trigger a gate on the floor opposite the one where you needed to move the wall, making it all quite a complicated puzzle. Well, it was complicated for regular people. Jake, on the other hand, could easily piece together which walls he had to move and see all the trigger mechanisms right as he entered the Labyrinth Section.
So section one hundred hadn’t added the feared third limiter obstacle Jake hoped wouldn’t come. When he reached section one hundred and three, the labyrinth was expanded once more as a third floor was added. At one hundred and seven, a fourth one came, and at one hundred and ten, the fifth one arrived.
Jake realized that Minaga had decided to increase the difficulty of the labyrinth not by simply making it longer, but adding an entirely new dimension. A usual labyrinth was very much a two-dimensional puzzle, but the further he got after section one hundred, the more it became a cubelike, three-dimensional labyrinth.
It only got more and more complicated as he passed more sections, and soon even Jake had to admit he began to struggle. It had to be mentioned that even if Jake had an overpowered Pulse of Perception, the labyrinth could still get so damn complicated Jake still had to take his time and think about how to solve it.
He had to consider which walls to raise and lower, which teleporters could potentially be used, which paths he had to avoid entirely, and finally, how to create an entire route that he could complete in time. Okay, the time limitation still wasn’t a real problem quite yet, but he had a feeling it would be soon.
Because right now, Jake was in Labyrinth Section 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, which was often incredibly far away, with a shitload of near-impassible obstacles in between. These trap hallways were something Jake could still do, but he had reached his limit somewhere.
Jake, having run for a few hours and with a newly 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 hallway wasn’t going to happen, after all. Especially not when it came to the kind of gatekeepers Jake now found himself facing if he wanted to pass these barriers.
What stood in there was a large, mammal-like beast with massive arms, each with long blades growing out of them. 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. Standing on two legs, it was reminiscent of a werewolf, and even with the shimmering wall, he could subtly feel its presence.
[Scytheborn Gatekeeper—lvl ???]
He had been right… After facing peak C-grades since around section one-forty, he had now truly graduated beyond the grade and found himself before a true-blue B-grade. And based on what he guessed, it wasn’t necessarily a horrible variant either.
“Hey… Minaga…” Jake muttered.
“You’re thinking about doing it, aren’t you?”
