The Primal Hunter

The further into the Challenge Dungeon Jake got, the more twists and turns Minaga began to throw at him. Quite literally, at times, as some of the sections outright twisted and turned, the labyrinth itself subtly changing as he moved through it. Walls would pop up, and others would disappear, shuffling themselves about in a set pattern that Jake could quickly figure out when he could take snapshots of everything with his Pulse.

Then there were the sections Jake dubbed the Labyrinth Archipelago, a name that Minaga liked so much he considered making it official for the next iteration of his labyrinth in the next era. Jake gracefully handed him the trademark to the name and didn’t even need to be credited if the Unique Lifeform did decide to use it down the line. Not that he would have said no to royalties…

Anyway, the reason Jake called it the Labyrinth Archipelago was because it wasn’t just one maze but several that were spread out throughout an area, all connected with teleporters. Each maze was a lot smaller than the others, but when you had to do several, sometimes even having to backtrack, one definitely got pressured on time.

Not to mention that many of these islands were fake, only having one teleporter on them, with the entire place just being a waste of time. Of course, you had no way to confirm this before fully exploring it or solving some more odd magical riddles and stuff.

Jake could definitely see why these were supposed to be a lot harder. Of course, for him, it was just an extra Pulse of Perception or two to check out everything. Sadly, he couldn’t see all the islands at once as they seemed to exist in separate spaces or were at least very far apart if they were floating in the same void. This meant Jake had to actually take a few wrong turns before finding the right path. Sometimes, anyway. More often than not, he intuitively just went the right way on his first attempt, which definitely got a few comments out of Minaga.

Oh, and then there were the labyrinths Minaga began to throw in around section forty, where illusionary arrays were spread throughout, creating illusions such as fake doors, fake barriers with gatekeeper creatures, and even fake traps that looked impossible to beat. Jake ignored all of these.

Aside from different layouts, the non-illusion enemies and traps also changed significantly. The traps had become deadly even to Jake – assuming he ever let one hit him – and were no longer made just to slow people down. Lasers that could cut Jake’s limbs off like butter began appearing around section sixty, and in section sixty-five, he encountered the good old lowering ceiling trap. Except it was entire sections of the maze that would begin to lower at once to crush him, forcing you to quickly find a way out as a mini-maze was created. What’s more, with the ceiling lowered, one of the paths you could potentially take got blocked off, forcing you to take detours around the newly blocked-off area.

There were many interesting traps for sure, but what was more were the creatures. At section one, Jake saw only foes around level 210, while at section seventy, they were between 280 and 290. Based on some quick math, the levels of foes scaled up by one every time he progressed a section, making the difficulty rapidly ascend.

When Jake reached section seventy-five, he did something he hadn’t done before. He took a breather in the “checkpoint hallway,” as he had dubbed it. For a good reason, too, as the last section had been quite arduous and annoying to get through after he decided to fight a level 293 turtle gatekeeper creature that had put up a good fight simply due to how durable it was. This section had definitely taken him far longer than he would have liked.

Labyrinth Section 74 clear time: 16:54:39

“Damn, nearly seventeen hours for one section,” Jake sighed as he took a breather in the hallway between two Labyrinth Sections. “I really need to step up my pace if I want to do just a thousand, much less several million sections.”

While it was true the Challenge Dungeon had given him 20 days to complete that section, he still felt like it was a little slow on his part to take the better parts of a day.

“… you’re killing me over here. Killing me, I tell you!”

“What’s one clone more or less to someone as esteemed as you?” Jake smiled as he closed his eyes to rest and fully restore his resource pools before it was time to move on.

These checkpoint corridors, or whatever he decided to eventually dub them, were pretty rare in the beginning, but by now, they pretty much appeared after every section. They were nothing more than hallways between two doors, but they did represent a place where no timer was constantly going down, putting pressure on you.

“Even if you think my clones have little value, are you truly willing to have the death of one on your conscience?” Minaga asked. “To live with the fact that you have killed me for the rest of your life… that you have killed such an inspiring figure?”

Jake put on a serious face as he spoke in a calm tone. “I have resolved 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,” Minaga chimed in.

“Wow, that’s a brutally honest take for sure,” Jake nodded 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 a bit. “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 has appeared, and the gatekeeper creatures can put up a decent fight… so isn’t it at least harder now than in the beginning?” Minaga tried to argue very flimsily.

“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 of the situation and makes it all feel a bit too relaxed and casual,” Jake argued.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“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?” Minaga said, sure winding himself up.

“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. That would sure slow me down,” Jake said semi-jokingly.

“I find the very notion you believe I could ever do that insulting. I have integrity! Integrity, I tell you!” Minaga said, getting himself even more worked up.

He remembered Minaga had already shown disdain for water levels prior 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?” Jake said, trying to be a little encouraging.

“I think that if I implement countermeasures to actually hinder you, an unfortunate side effect would be to make 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 Jake, 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 is 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 to keep good form and keep sprinting while conserving stamina and drinking potions whenever necessary.

Secondly 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 be down to if 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 levels to his profession 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 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 get 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!” Vilastromoz said, completely unable to hold himself back from teasing the Unique Lifeform.

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 couldn’t resist as he sighed. “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? How close is he to being the fastest to get to section seventy-five?” Artemis asked, a bit nervously.

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 as he smiled to himself… unable to avoid noticing how she hadn’t denied or shot down the notion of potentially carrying forward Jake's Bloodline.