The Primal Hunter

Jake didn’t know how long they were falling. It felt like minutes, yet also hours. No notification ever popped up, and no prompt asked them to enter. They did not have to register or do anything to confirm they were a party, as the system handled all that. All they had to do was enter together and fall together.

Then, suddenly, Jake felt solid ground beneath his feet, and his sphere spread out to reveal the world around him. He also opened his eyes and was nearly blinded by the bright sunlight beaming down on him from above.

He and the others found themselves standing on a large rock in the middle of a giant desert-like landscape. Sand stretched infinitely no matter where one looked, and the wind was utterly still. Jake did not see a single living being anywhere either.

“So, this is Nevermore,” the Sword Saint spoke.

“It’s-“

Jake was about to say something when he was cut off by a notification.

You have entered Nevermore.

Welcome to the first floor of the C-grade portion of Nevermore: the Sunlight Dunes. In order to progress to the next floor, the main objective of this floor must be completed, and the entrance to the next floor must be entered together with all surviving party members.

Completing events, achievements, and objectives rewards points that count towards the leaderboards and final rewards.

Main objective: Defeat the Lord of the Dunes.

Bonus objectives: Gather at least 1000 Sunlight Fragments of the Dunes to open the Lord’s Treasury.

Current progress: Lord of the Dunes (0/1), Sunlight Fragments of the Dunes (0/1000)

Note: More hidden events, achievements, or objectives may be hidden on the floor.

Godspeed, Chosen of Vilastromoz; I look forward to your performance. Do not expect any assistance.

Current Nevermore Points: 0

Jake read the notification and smirked a bit at it getting personal towards the end. While this was indeed a mega-dungeon and a World Wonder, it was also the domain of the Wyrmgod. Even now, Jake felt an odd presence observing him. It felt different than when Villy looked and more like it was passive in nature. Rather than an individual looking, it was more like a trained AI kept an eye on things.

“Lord of the Dunes, huh? And a thousand of these Sunlight Fragments?” the Sword Saint once more commented.

“Ree,” Sylphie complained loudly.

“The wind is oddly silent, huh?” Jake commented. The lack of wind affinity energy in the air was an issue for Sylphie for sure, and when he looked at the Sword Saint, the old man simply nodded.

“I do feel this environment is less than beneficial than it could be,” he said. “However, it is not truly an obstacle. Besides, this is not one of the difficult floors, now is it?”

He then turned to Dina, who looked to be in thought. “How about you, Dina?”

“There aren’t that many here,” she said in a sad tone. “This land is… dead.”

Not good for her either, huh?Jake thought. He suspected she was talking about plants, so the environment was also bad for her.

“I am unbothered,” the Fallen King said. “How about you, hunter?”

“All good here,” Jake smiled. “Now, let’s not delay and get going right away.”

The environment was maybe shit, but they still had one thing going for them. Jake smiled as he closed his eyes and released a Pulse of Perception. Seven.

Instantly, he spotted seven identical shard-like items hidden in the sand, all about ten to a hundred meters down in the sand.

“Two sec,” Jake said as he quickly teleported over to the closest one and, with a blast of mana, blew up the sand and sent the shard flying into the air. With a string, he quickly caught the orange crystal, and the moment he did, it disappeared.

Current progress: Sunlight Fragments of the Dunes (1/1000)

Jake grinned even more as he quickly made his way back to the others. “Aight, the shards appear hidden beneath the sand and are pretty much indestructible. Should be easy enough.”

Once more, his Perception build proved supreme.

“Was the shard that orange thing?” Dina asked curiously.

“Yep,” Jake smiled, happy she was even talking to him. Progress!

Dina nodded. “Okay.”

She then took out a small pouch that she could somehow put her entire hand into. Then, she pulled out a handful of seeds and threw them onto the sand below. The moment they landed, she sent out a green blast of energy that soaked the hundreds of seeds she had just thrown out.

Within seconds, each seed grew as a stalk first appeared, then a flower at the head, and a wellspring of vines popped out everywhere. This happened to every single one, as soon there were several hundred. Jake curiously used Identify on one of them, not expecting it to work, and was surprised when it did.

[Vine Seed Soldier – lvl 194]

He saw it had a level, but he also felt like it was summoned and not a “true” creature. Closer to an ectognamorph drone than a truly living being.

“Go find the Sunlight Fragments,” Dina talked to the many Vine Seed Soldiers. Without any indication they even understood her, the many plants began wandering off into the large dune.

“Sure that will work?” Jake asked.

“They know what to do,” Dina said with confidence.

“Alright then,” Jake nodded, seeing no reason to question her. He did wonder how they would bring the shards, but he had no idea how long they would spend there, so it wasn’t a problem.

“Stop dallying, and let’s get this area cleared out already and move on to the next floor rather quickly,” the Fallen King said.

“I would lean towards agreeing. Attempting to fully complete this floor would be a waste when all subsequent floors give more points,” the Sword Saint also voiced his thoughts.

“Fair enough. Let’s get this show on the road, then. First, we need to find the end boss, and I do still think we need to collect these thousand fragments, so finding this Lord’s Treasury is also a priority. That sounds good?” Jake asked the group.

He got three nods and a ree in confirmation. “Great. Aight, Fallen King, do your thing.”

The Fallen King nodded as he held out his ivory claw. Four golden orbs condensed and took on a solid, physical form before flying out to each of them. Once they touched the orb, they simply allowed it to be absorbed into their bodies as small golden tattoo-like drawings appeared for a moment before quickly fading.

“Testing, testing. We good?”Jake reached out.

“Loud and clear,” the Sword Saint said in a rather joking tone.

A major issue many parties faced on Nevermore was communication over vast distances. Jake had initially just wanted to bring in some walkie-talkies made by Arnold but came to learn that items like that were either not allowed or significantly weakened within the mega-dungeon. The same was true for many other supporting items, formation discs, and pretty much anything that one didn’t create themselves. Well, themselves, or someone in the party.

Luckily for them, the King was capable of condensing these golden orbs people could infuse into themselves and then communicate over pretty much unlimited distances due to soul magic stuff. This was one of the kingly abilities the King had, and as the Unique Lifeform explained, the skill was originally made to keep in contact with his servants, and each orb could also be used to track through. The entire thing functioned by using the King as the focal point of their telepathy which did have the slight drawback of everyone hearing everything anyone said through the orb unless the King purposefully blocked it. A small drawback, all things considered, as many other groups simply relied on something akin to signal flares by shooting magic into the air.

Oh, and on the topic of them being lucky… one thing many groups needed more than a proper method of communication in dungeons was consumables. More specifically, they needed that good shit Jake chugged down with reckless abandon without a care in the world: potions.

That’s right, even potions were restricted within Nevermore if they weren’t created by one of the individuals in the party. Their effect would be “capped” to be far worse and below that of what an average alchemist could make at their levels. All this was naturally an attempt by the system and the Wyrmgod to introduce some level of fairness for those who weren’t swimming in wealth or had huge backings. It was naturally impossible to truly curb all advantages people with deep pockets and solid backings would have, but at least it was an attempt.

With communication established, Jake did one of the jobs he had been assigned: scouting. Jumping, Jake took to the air as Sylphie threw a gust of green wind his way, propelling him up faster than he could possibly fly on his own. The others spread out in the immediate area where Jake had pointed out seeing Sunflight Fragmented with his sphere. As he took off, he also saw Dina take out more seeds to bolster her army of vine soldiers.

Jake kept flying upwards and felt the oppressive sun bear down on him more and more strongly the further up he went. As far as Jake could tell, it wasn’t even a false sun either, like what he had encountered in so many other dungeons sub-dimensions. No, this was a true star.

A true star that served as a limiter on how far people were allowed to fly up. Jake felt his skin begin to hurt a bit from the sheer heat, and he identified some other concept mixed into the rays. Scoffing, he covered his body in scales as the pressure instantly disappeared.

He kept going for several more minutes, but soon he had to stop. Using his stable arcane mana, he condensed a parasol to cover himself as he turned to look down at the desert below.

“We’re on a small planet,”Jake told the others through the soul walkie-talkie. “Got a diameter of around nine to ten thousand kilometers based on my estimates. Can’t spot any boss quite yet, but there are quite a few elementals spread throughout.”

“Go look for the Lord and this hidden treasury?” the Sword Saint sent.

“That’s the plan,” Jake smirked. He scanned the planet beneath him one more time before he began flying. Down below, the others got to work collecting fragments, with Dina covering a huge area with summoned vine soldiers while Sylphie kicked up tornadoes to send anything and everything hiding under the sand flying up into the air. The King and Sword Saint were not particularly helpful in this part but instead made sure no elementals or other creatures bothered anymore.

Not like that job was hard… Jake had not seen a single creature above level 205.

After flying for an hour while scouting the ground below, he finally noticed the environment truly begin to change in the distance. It wasn’t that it was no longer a desert but because a huge shadow stretched across the horizon.

Jake had moved to the other side of the planet. Seeing as the shadow seemed to get closer faster than he flew, he had also correctly flown counter to the planet’s rotation. The sunlight energy had slowly been weakening for a while now, and looking ahead, he felt a different kind of energy. Squinting his eyes, he spotted something interesting.

Ice elementals.

The energy he felt was dense ice affinity mana that dominated the other side of the planet. Jake informed his party as he kept flying into the darkness, and soon after, it was as if he had passed some threshold. The warmth of the sun was gone, and rime began to form on his body and even his parasol. Seeing no need for it anymore, Jake dispelled the magical construct and picked up his pace even more.

Cold energy began to condense in the air in front of him, and finally, Jake faced his first enemy. A floating ghost-like creature slithered towards him in the sky, and Jake quickly Identified it.

[Ice Wraith – lvl 202]

He didn’t even bother stopping as he simply summoned two spears of destructive arcane mana and blew it up. The creature’s form was dispersed, but it managed to reform itself behind him. Luckily for it, Jake was long gone, and he had no interest in finishing it off.

The cold intensified, but Jake easily handled it. He did begin flying a bit closer to the ground as the constant drain on his resources to fight off the unfriendly environment was an annoyance, but he still had an easy time spotting anything of note on the planet below.

Jake noticed that more creatures gathered towards the north pole, and Sylphie also confirmed this was the case as she was scouting south. This made him question if this was also where this Lord of the Dunes was. However, not long after, this theory was dispelled as he saw something on the horizon. A large mountain of some kind of limestone-looking rock appeared, the entire thing covered in dense ice. At the peak of this mountain, on its spire-like tip, was a large six-legged chameleon-looking creature. Its entire body had a blueish hue, and Jake quickly Identified it.

[Lord of the Dunes – lvl 205]

“Boss spotted on the dark side of the planet. How about you guys?” Jake quickly reached out to the others.

What he got in return was a mix of images from Sylphie. It seemed that while he had flown around the planet, she had reached the southern pole and found a huge mountain, far larger than the one Jake was at. Inside the mountain, she had then found a ritual circle requiring a thousand fragments. Likely the treasury.

As for fragments…

Current progress: Sunlight Fragments of the Dunes (654/1000)

It turned out that having an army of vine soldiers scouting was pretty damn overpowered.

“Can you slay the Lord of the Dunes on your lonesome?” the Fallen King asked Jake. “Travelling to you would be a wasted effort.”

Jake just grinned. “I’ll be done in a jiffy.”

Still flying far up in the air, Jake pulled out his bow and took out a well-poisoned arrow from his quiver. He nocked it and activated Arcane Awakening at the stable 30% as he began charging his Arcane Powershot. Below, the creature seemed to be in some kind of hibernation with its eyes closed, and it didn’t react before it was too late.

An arrow tore through the sky as it descended upon the unsuspecting dungeon boss. The chameleon was slammed right in the head, its eyes opening in a panic as it was blasted off the mountain. While still in mid-air, it was struck by a barrage of arrows, sending it tumbling toward the ground.

It hit the frozen sand and sent it flying everywhere, but it didn’t even have time to stabilize as even more arrows stuck it, slamming it deeper into the sand. The boss let out a loud screech as ice magic condensed around it, and hundreds of ice elementals rose from the sand all around it, but its opponent was simply too far away. The chameleon struggled and tried to defend itself, but every barrier was broken, and every attempt to dodge stopped.

Jake had to admit it took longer than expected, but the takedown never even turned into a fight.

*You have slain [Lord of the Dunes – lvl 205] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level*

Achievement earned: Slay the Lord of the Dunes before it ever sees the sunlight. 3 Nevermore Points gained.

Achievement earned: Slay the Lord of the Dunes within 24 hours of entering the first floor. 1 Nevermore Point gained.

Jake saw the notifications come in, and he also quickly got a ping from the others.

“I see you are done on your end,” the Fallen King sent him.

“I take it you all got the achievements too?”

“Yes,” the Sword Saint came in and confirmed. “We are all moving towards the south pole as we gather the rest of the fragments. Can you check out the northern one?”

“Sure thing,” Jake answered.

It seemed like everything was going smoothly. Jake flew down and quickly stored the corpse of the large boss monster while also checking if it dropped anything. The answer to that was a big no, so he took to the air once more and flew towards the northern pole. On the way, he also checked a new part of his interface.

Nevermore Points: 4

Four points. Yay. Jake did find the name of Nevermore Points a bit lame, but hey, it was descriptive and easy to remember, so who really cares?

His flight towards the north was uneventful, but once he got closer, he did spot something interesting. Not unlike what Sylphie had shown him and the Lord of the Dunes had been sitting on, a large mountain appeared, and Jake flew closer to investigate. On this one, he also found a large cave to enter. Just as he walked into the cave, he got another round of notifications.

Bonus Objective Completed: Unlock the Lord’s Treasury. 5 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Unlock the Lord’s Treasury within 12 hours of entering the first floor. 2 Nevermore Points earned.

Jake saw the notification appear as he netted himself another seven points, bringing him to 11 total.

“Anything good in there,”Jake sent to the others.

“I do not find myself impressed,” the Fallen King answered. “Nevertheless, we shall bring what is here. Now, all we need is to find our way to the next floor.”

“See, funny you should mention that,” Jake grinned, having made his way into the mountain’s depths.

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