Jake felt like this would perhaps be the first “real” job. It gave him a different feeling compared to all the ones he had done prior, and after accepting it, he was more sure than ever these Special Courier Jobs were a bit like those special fights in the Colosseum. In more ways than one.Based on the words of the Guild attendant, Jake suspected that all of these Special Courier Jobs were linked. A part of a longer quest chain of sorts. He believed he had only been offered this job because he had made the run with that Space Magic Locator, and it was even probable that his speed in that task had been factored in. In fact, Jake wouldn’t be surprised at all if these jobs changed based on how a person performed beforehand, meaning he would have gotten an entirely different—or maybe just slightly easier—job if he hadn’t been as fast as he was.If all of this was true, it made sense the difficulty had a big spike with this job. He even had to potentially interact with a B-grade. Of course

The scalekin sure hadn’t been the most talkative, so Jake hoped to get some information out of the bearded man who’d originally greeted him. He and all his friends were trying to run away now that the mage had died, knowing that they didn’t stand a chance even if they got involved.Power differences, especially at higher grades, weren’t just a simple math equation. Two people with half of Jake’s stats wouldn’t be equal to one Jake, and even if a few hundred of them came at him, Jake was confident in smacking them all down. There were certain conceptual gaps caused by higher stats and grades, resulting in far less damage being dealt by those who were a lot weaker.Jake had ways to close the gap between himself and someone at a higher level, but such a thing was generally considered quite rare based on what Jake had seen, likely because, in order to get stronger against higher-leveled opponents, you had to get used to only getting anything out of higher-leveled opponents.All of this is

Jake definitely felt like he had unlocked some secret quest chain or something. Delivering to a B-grade through a Special Courier Job this early on was already a pretty big achievement, but now even an A-grade had appeared before him. Plus, because Jake knew a bit about the world he found himself in, he understood how important someone like a duke was.The country Jake found himself in had only three dukes and one king. All the dukes and the king were A-grade, with the strongest fighting force of the entire kingdom being part of the duke factions or directly under the king. This is to say, someone with the Duke title was pretty much at the top of the Challenge Dungeon world in both power and influence.There were also some S-grades out there, but they were few and far between. Some were hidden Lord Protectors, some were like the Founder of the Guild and did their own stuff, and others were in isolation or had left the world for the stars, with no one knowing where they were.However,

" You two had a lot of fun with this one, huh?” the Viper commented as he watched Jake perform Courier Job after Courier Job. Despite it not being outright confirmed yet, he had the strong impression that both Minaga and the Wyrmgod had been heavily involved with this particular Challenge Dungeon.“Fun? Do you have any idea how much work it was?” Minaga said with a sigh. “Out of every Challenge Dungeon, this one took by far the longest. Well, besides the Test of Character, but I wasn’t much involved with that, so it doesn’t count.”“I take it Nevermore itself also got quite involved with the balancing?” Vilastromoz further inquired.“The sheer complexity of having so many starting points, all the quest paths, and keeping it all dynamic and adapting to the Nevermore Attendee required far more work than initially estimated,” the Wyrmgod explained, offering some insights into the World Wonder for the many gods capable of listening in. “The original plan was to have this Challenge Dungeon

Jake, of course, knew about Shroud of the Primordial. He’d used it all the time during this Challenge Dungeon so people couldn’t tell when he was lying while manipulating it, so it didn’t block whatever truth-telling ability was being used when he told the truth. He didn’t know how to make Shroud display his lies as true answers, only how to block it from giving any response at all… but he did have a feeling this was something he could learn to do at some future time. Considering it had taken him many decades to learn how to manipulate the responses from Identify, however, this definitely wasn’t the time or place to try and teach himself that ability.However, one part of the Shroud he had borderline forgotten was its ability to block anyone’s ability to detect karma-related stuff. One had to remember that Shroud’s primary function was to hide Jake so people couldn’t find him unless he allowed them to. It was a counter to divination first and foremost, but in the process of blocking t