Primal Hunter Volume 7

Previously on the Primal Hunter…

It’s with great sadness that I must recap this final book in the great Nevermore arc. Alas, all good things must come to an end, and at least we can all reminisce about the good old days for one last time, starting with Jake’s final Challenge Dungeon.

This last Challenge Dungeon, known as the Endless Journey (or Neverending Journey as it was also called a few times where I forgot what I’d named it in the first place) allowed Jake to experience the woes and adventures of being a delivery worker—better known as a Courier within the Challenge Dungeon itself.

In the beginning, Jake tackled minor, mundane tasks, and after doing a few, he unlocked his first Special Courier Job, which set him on a quest chain throughout the world within the Challenge Dungeon and forced him to get involved in—quite frankly—a stupid story filled with politics and plot twists that honestly didn’t make a lot of sense.

However, this line of Special Courier Jobs also forced Jake into interacting with people he couldn’t overcome with might; to use his head a little, and perhaps even get a little sneaky with his tactics here and there.

This first Special Courier Job eventually led to Jake meeting with someone known as the Infernal Baron, a powerful B-grade. Jake quickly learns that behind this Baron is a being known as the Duke of Flames, who’s nearly S-grade, meaning fighting really isn’t an option. Luckily for Jake, his identity as a Courier within the Challenge Dungeon gave him some level of protection, considering people don’t tend to randomly kill neutral parties delivering packages.

On his way to meet the Infernal Baron and Duke of Flames, Jake had to fight some people who wanted his package—a sealed elemental of some kind. After meeting with the Duke of Flames, Jake is tasked in making contact with that very faction, the ones who tried to steal his package, and act as some kind of double agent.

From there, Jake really got involved in all the political intrigue. He did as the Duke of Flames said and made contact with this mysterious organization, only to have them task Jake with going back to the Infernal Baron and acting as a spy for them instead. In other words, Jake became an official infinite loop agent.

Jake also very clearly concluded that of these two factions… he hated them both. Something that wouldn’t change as he continued progressing through the Challenge Dungeon over the next couple of years.

In between these Special jobs, Jake continued fulfilling regular Courier Jobs to unlock his next Special ones. They grew progressively harder and more time-consuming as Jake rose through the ranks of Courier, eventually earning a high rank within the Courier faction itself. Which then allowed him to meet the seemingly most powerful being in the Challenge Dungeon world, known as the Guild Founder.

Jake borrowed the clout of this Guild Founder to solve the massive conflict between several countries and factions that had been struggling for a long time. After that, it was back to regular scheduling, with Jake completing more Courier Jobs, before finally getting the last promotion to the highest level of Courier he could get…

Only for an old enemy in the dragon clan to invade in yet another plot twist.

In this final quest chain of the Challenge Dungeon, Jake was tasked with recruiting powerful S-grade allies to help in the conflict with the dragon tribe. Jake continued to do a banger job, being an overall skilled Courier due to his high speed and ability to remain undetected with his Unseen Hunter stealth skill, and of course, Shroud of the Primordial—the skill he received from his Patron, the Malefic Viper, upon receiving his True Blessing.

It all culminates in Jake being tasked to recruit the most powerful being in the world, a creature known as the Forsaken Dragonkin. Skipping over all the boring stuff, this dragonkin turns out to be a bit of a dick, even telling Jake to kill himself… or self-delete, as all the zoomers use these days.

On a totally unrelated side note that you are totally free to skip, I fucking hate that shit and all those other self-censoring terms with a passion. Look, I know people do it because of bullshit algorithms on social media sites that automatically demonetize and suppress content using “sensitive” terms due to advertisers, but it’s still bullshit that needs to be addressed, and people censoring the same shit on Reddit and the like belong in prison.

Anyway, rant aside, Jake tricks the dragonkin into thinking Jake knows how one can achieve godhood, something the peak S-grade is naturally very interested in.

Jake does this by pulling off a half-baked imitation of the Malefic Viper’s divine aura through channeling the drop of blood he absorbed from the Viper all the way back in book 2. This strategy only worked because there were no gods in the Challenge Dungeon world, so just witnessing that little bit of divinity was enough to convince the Forsaken Dragonkin.

With the help of the Forsaken Dragonkin, Jake completes his last Special Courier Job perfectly, and he didn’t even lie when he told the Forsaken Dragonkin he knew how to achieve godhood, as he tells the S-grade that all one needs to do is master the act of getting good.

Of course, Jake only said this because he had a prompt to leave the Challenge Dungeon just sitting there, allowing him to avoid losing one of his three lives allotted. Due to Jake’s performance, he ended up not having to spend a single life and left the Endless Journey Challenge Dungeon with another top-level Grand Achievement and a lot of Nevermore Points that surely would end up playing a large role on the Leaderboards.

Alongside these points, Jake also earned an upgrade to his Nevermore Challenge Dungeon title, bagging some nice extra stats. As with all the other Challenge Dungeons, Jake also got a mythical rarity reward that allows him to upgrade an item.

After very little deliberation, Jake uses it on his boots, with the hope that doing so will reveal more of the secrets his mysterious footwear holds. This turned out to be a good decision, as not only did Jake make his already awesome boots even more awesome, he also got a hint as to when he would finally meet the First Sage, the Malefic Viper’s teacher, who died back in the first era, face-to-face.

Sadly, it would have to wait till level 300, where Jake would get enough charges for his Path of the Malefic Viper to pull it off. So, yeah, not gonna happen in this book. Gotta wait for book 14 for that one. After his boots upgrade, Jake also has a discussion with the Malefic Viper about the potential upcoming meeting with the First Sage, as well as the conflict with Ell’Hakan and Yip of Yore.

While Jake is busy doing his thing, the divine livestream watching his antics is naturally still live with the regular divine commentary. His Nevermore teammates also finished up their Nevermore Challenge Dungeons, and while none did as well as Jake overall, they all came away with decent performances, especially the Sword Saint.

With the gang back together and roughly ten years of Nevermore to go, it’s back on the grind as Jake and company aim to clear as many floors as possible before the timer is up and the final score has to be tallied.

All the other parties competing for the top spots on the Nevermore Leaderboards enter a similar phase, where everyone rushes through the floors one by one, starting with floor seventy-one.

Jake and company do well, and with a power boost from these Challenge Dungeons, they have newfound momentum, and manage to clear up to floor eighty despite the increasing difficulty.

It quickly became clear this would be the final floor they had time to clear. As it’s the eightieth floor—a floor multiplicable by ten—a special hidden boss awaits the gang to try and take it down.

Skipping over all the details of how they got there, their party triggers a harder-than-usual version of the final boss, known as the Twinhead Emperor. The ogre proves to be quite the challenge, forcing Jake and his party to pull out everything they have, short of their most powerful trump cards that carry heavy penalties to use.

Sylphie, especially, ended up benefiting a lot from this fight, getting a crucial skill upgrade that allows her to shear the boss to shreds after getting her level of wind manipulation to the Authority level, granting her control not only over her own wind magic, but even complete control over the environmental wind energy.

Jake’s party’s competition also all end around floor eighty, with many failing to do the optional hardest version of the final boss; though they all tried to get as many points before the end as possible. Some factions, like the Risen and Holy Church, deployed questionable tactics to give some of their young geniuses a massive level boost. Special items, pre-prepared long before entering the World Wonder, were used with the hope that the points from these levels would push them a few spots up on the Leaderboards. This was done despite the consequences to the young geniuses’ foundations and future potential.

Even with these slightly underhanded strategies, most knew that the true winner was to be found amongst only a handful of people. More specifically, two people, and all eyes were on them:

Jake Thayne, the Chosen of the Malefic Viper (this is the good guy we root for!)

Ell’Hakan, the Chosen of Yip of Yore (boo, fuck that guy!)

The way the Leaderboard worked, though, was that there were actually three ranking lists to care about. The 93rd Universe Leaderboard was the first one and included only those native to the 93rd Universe—so people like the Sword Saint and Sylphie, but not Dina—making this the easiest Leaderboard to place on if one met the requirements.

Second, was the 93rd Era Leaderboard. This one was for everyone who completed the C-grade version of Nevermore during the 93rd Era, and included those from other universes, making the competition here far tougher.

Finally, there was the All-Time Leaderboard. This one was naturally the hardest, as it also included all prior eras and versions of the Nevermore competition, meaning that one even competed against individuals who had now become gods.

Placement on these Leaderboards anywhere toward the top—even just top 1,000—rewarded titles, and these titles would be given as long as one held the spot for just a fraction of a second.

That’s why, knowing they didn’t have time to do more floors, people entered time chambers to appear on the Leaderboard as quickly as possible, with the hope of getting ahead of others. Jake and company naturally did the same, going in order of who had the lowest to highest total Nevermore Points to maximize placements.

Amongst Jake’s party members, Jake naturally ended up the one with the most Nevermore Points, followed by the Sword Saint, then Dina, Sylphie, and the Fallen King, who found himself limited by his identity as a Unique Lifeform, making quite a few of the Challenge Dungeons not ideal for his skill-set.

For the reveal of all these Leaderboard positions, nearly all the major factions make their appearance to watch the outcome of the competition between the younger generation. A small party was even hosted, with Minaga gladly taking the role as host so he could over-dramatize everything and create constant cliffhangers. Alright, that last part was maybe a bit on me, but in my defense, I like cliffhangers.

Through much drama and suspense, the Leaderboards were revealed, and it was shown that Ell’Hakan stood at the top of the Era Leaderboards, and even in the ninth spot of the All-Time Leaderboard. A Leaderboard that his Patron, Yip of Yore, sits atop of… For now, anyway.

Because, while all this is going on, Jake was having a pleasant chat with Nevermore—the Bound God of the World Wonder, whom he also met back in book 11. Rather than being thrown out of the World Wonder right away, Jake was taken here, where he was held until it was time for the grand reveal that Jake had not only managed to snatch the top spot of the Era Leaderboard, but had even pushed down Yip of Yore to second place, making Jake the top scorer on the All-Time Leaderboard.

This granted him the Peerless Conqueror of Nevermore title and also fully pushed Jake to the forefront of everyone’s attention in the multiverse. Shortly after this reveal, there was a small gathering for all those with high placements on the Nevermore Leaderboards, which naturally included Jake and his entire party.

During this meeting, Jake met several of the top scorers on the Leaderboards, few of whom are relevant in this book, besides Jake Ell’Hakan, with whom he had another minor confrontation. Jake also met with Eversmile in disguise and learned that somehow, the Primordial felt a connection to Jake’s boots.

Jake did his best to keep anything related to the First Sage as vague as possible and got away from the conversation in one piece. This was naturally discussed with the Malefic Viper afterward.

Besides that, Jake had a few other minor encounters. This included the one ranking just below Ell’Hakan and Jake on the Leaderboards, a Demon Prince known as the Cerulean Demon. This demon asks Jake for help with a special ritual, hoping Jake’s unique qualities as a Harbinger of Primeval Origins, which allowed him to create Sylphie, Vesperia, and Sandy, would be useful. Something Jake agrees to do before returning to Earth.

After this party, Jake fucked around a bit in Nevermore City. He got a drink with the Malefic Viper, collected time magic manure from a hobgoblin mage, and spent quality time with Carmen—the Runemaiden of Valhal—before it was time to help the demon with his special ritual.

The ritual went, to put it bluntly, horribly. The Demon Prince wanted to use several Demon Lord hearts to empower a fragment of an ancient, dead devil, known as the Cerulean Devil. Seeing as devils were the name demons gave to gods, this was quite a bit more than the Demon Prince could handle.

Luckily for him, Jake was on site and did something most would consider insane: he entered the Soulspace of the Demon Prince and assisted him there directly. The final outcome of the reckless ritual, where they’d even signed a liability waiver beforehand, was the birth of a Cerulean Demon Lord, turning the Demon Prince far more powerful. As a bonus, Jake even saved the guy from turning into a mindless beast in the process, making it all a great success.

Plus, it gave Jake a bunch of levels, so, totally worth it. As for any potential consequences that assisting in this ritual could lead to… well, Jake didn’t really think about that.

With another ritual for the history books, it was finally time for Jake to leave Nevermore. First stop: the Order of the Malefic Viper.

Once back in his residence at the Order, Jake met up with Meira and Irin, who were both awaiting his return. Meira—the elf that had once been forced on Jake when he arrived at the Order—now the Chosen of Duskleaf, and Irin, the succubus who’d been assigned to Jake and later appointed official liaison, were naturally both happy to see him, and had evidently bonded a bit during Jake’s Nevermore adventures.

Jake was also happy to see that Meira had become the Chosen of Duskleaf, and he decided to make Irin even happier by giving her a token he’d been given by the Demon Prince, telling her to go there as his representative. After getting a bit of interesting lore on demon society, Jake headed back to Earth once more, where things naturally progressed quite a bit in his absence.

His home and city—Haven—had grown significantly larger, primarily due to the influx of gifted and now freed slaves, but also because of Jake’s appointment as World Leader, resulting in more wanting to be close to the leader of the planet.

Luckily, despite the expansion, his good old lodge remained the same, and once there, Jake made sure to give his banana musa the special fertilizer to hopefully allow it to grow even more.

Jake had returned to Earth with Sandy in tow. This is also around the same time we first meet Tom. Who is Tom, you might ask? Tom is Tom. Stop asking stupid questions that you already know the answer to.

Not long after, Jake and Sandy found themselves at Arnold’s place, where they discovered that the mad scientist and follower of the Void God Oras had also returned to Earth after a pretty damn good performance in Nevermore. While there, Jake learned Sandy had improved significantly in long-distance travel, opening up new possibilities for exploring the solar system…

Before that, Jake wanted a small break to relax after spending fifty years in Nevermore. It was also high time he visited his parents again, after not seeing them for so long, even if it had only been a few years for his parents due to the time dilation of Nevermore.

After checking in on Rick, the gardener troll below Haven, Jake was off. On the way to Skyggen, the Court of Shadows city where his parents live with Jake’s brother, Caleb, and the rest of his family, Jake stopped by to check in on a certain wyvern he encountered the first time he went to visit his old folk.

The wyvern in question turned out to be busy engaging a raid of vampires from the Sword Saint’s clan, who were trying to attack the Northpeak Wyvern. In classic Jake fashion, he decided to sit back and observe as the vampires were mostly killed off, with the only survivors frozen.

The wyvern noticed Jake after the fight and sought him out, which was when Jake learned that the damn thing didn’t even remember when it sent him flying with a frost breath all the way back in book… I think book 4? Definitely in that 3-to-5 range. Been a while, for sure.

Jake gave the wyvern a well-deserved scolding for being an asshole, freed the remaining frozen vampires, and headed off to finally go on holiday at his parents’ place.

Getting there didn’t take long, and Jake proceeded to spend much needed quality time just relaxing and bonding with his family.

Alas, nothing lasts forever. That includes both this recap, where I’ve definitely forgotten to mention a lot of important things, and Jake’s quality time with family. With the appearance of Sandy, Jake must once more answer the call to adventure.

As for the destination this time?

Straight to the moon!

Unlike my stock portfolio…