The Primal Hunter

The five Challenge Dungeons were something many parties attending Nevermore delayed doing for a variety of reasons. Partly because they were naturally easier once you got stronger. Even in the ones where your stats were normalized or reduced, your conceptual comprehension should increase over the decades of doing all the other floors. Another reason many waited was to do the entire Challenge Dungeon at once.

Once the seventieth floor was cleared by many groups, they decided, like Jake’s, to tackle them. Some also did the dungeons before, as while the fourteenth city floor did mark when all the Challenge Dungeon would be fully unlocked, some of them were fully unlocked even beforehand. As an example, the Test of Character was fully unlocked after doing the floors that were meant to teach “lessons” to the Nevermore Attendees, such as the one about Plagues. The Test of Character was also one that would either be fully unlocked or entirely unavailable due to how it worked.

Before that, the Minaga Labyrinth one was fully unlocked after the Minaga floors were done, making it the first Challenge Dungeon to fully unlock. The final one that fully opened in this incarnation of Nevermore was the Colosseum of Mortals, where one had to clear floor seventy to become able to challenge the Grand Champion. If one did the Challenge Dungeon without having done floor seventy, the Battlemaster would have said that the Grand Champion wasn’t available and to come back at a later date. Later, in this case, being after you had cleared floor seventy.

Many of the best parties had begun reaching this stage by now and were moving onto the Challenge Dungeons properly. As had been mentioned many times before, the Challenge Dungeons were where the true top of the Leaderboards would be found, and they were, by far, the most efficient way of getting points for those talented.

Each Challenge Dungeon could give a Grand Achievement upon completion, though it would only be a normal achievement without any percentage multiplier if the performance was too bad. The Grand Achievement usually ranged from 5-20%, with 20% being given if one fully completed the Challenge Dungeon with an outstanding performance. It was usually viewed as the maximum, though, of course, Jake knew there was one step higher. 25% was only given if one did the “impossible” within a certain Challenge Dungeon. If they achieved something that no one was meant to achieve.

With 20% usually considered the limit, the “maximum amplification” one could reach was thus 100% if one had a perfect performance in all five Challenge Dungeons. Needless to say, this never happened, as just getting a 20% multiplier in any of the Challenge Dungeons already put you in the top tier.

On that note, someone like the Fallen King was not expected to get a peak score. In fact, no one expected Unique Lifeforms to. Unique Lifeforms had very narrow Paths by definition, and while they could often do extremely well in some dungeons, they nearly always completely flunked in others if they didn’t suit their particular talents. They could still go pretty high, though, just not the peak.

An overall amplification of 30% from all Challenge Dungeons was considered excellent, as just getting 10% was extremely hard, and this was around where many would expect a Unique Lifeform to land. 40% was at the level of true geniuses and were individuals many factions showed interest in. 50% was where one reached the territory of truly versatile monsters. For reference, getting to the Grand Champion in the Colosseum of Mortals – while expending all lives - would give just 10%, so one had to be at that level in every single Challenge Dungeon. Most people would be over the moon for just beating the seven Champions, but one had to repeat similar feats five times over to reach 50%.

Above 50% was where one entered the realm of genuine monsters. Beings that already had high levels of divine attention on them who were already recognized by the gods. Some were expected to get at least 50%, such as Ghost King Azal, Davion of Valhal, and several other peak geniuses from major factions. Jake, Dina, and Ell’hakan also fell within this group, which was expected to reach at least 50% overall.

However, even if they were expected to reach at least 50%, reaching 60% would be considered absolutely exemplary. Anything above 70% was practically unheard of, and the stuff of legends. Those who reached that level were considered the true contenders for the very apex of the Leaderboard. Going above even this, one reached the level of being an all-time record contender.

So, with Jake being at 35% after only two out of five, he was definitely on track to make his dear Patron a proud snake. Even if he did believe that bullshit Test of Character had been complete bullshit.

He understood Jake’s frustration. The Viper truly did. It was an odd place, and in all honesty, one that he would argue didn’t truly fit that well in Nevermore.

The Test of Character was an odd Challenge Dungeon by design. Jake’s inability to understand why it worked as it worked was entirely purposeful, and while it did provide part of the challenge, it was far from the whole reason.

Vilastromoz knew that out of all the Challenge Dungeons, it was the one the Wyrmgod had exerted the most control on to turn it into exactly what he wanted. To fulfill the role he desired for it to fulfill. And that role wasn’t necessarily to offer a challenge… that was just a requirement by the system to turn it into a Challenge Dungeon that qualified to be part of Nevermore. It offered some diversity in what kind of dungeons there were, but it was also a Challenge Dungeon archetype that had been around for almost every single era.

In reality, it wasn’t really made for the benefit of the ones actually doing the Challenge Dungeon. Not really. It wasn’t even made for people like Jake or the other people who it was expected to get a high score. Instead, it was created solely for the Wyrmgod’s own goals.

The Test of Character did an acceptable job of assessing someone’s character and allowed the Wyrmgod to get certain data points. It allowed him to categorize people who even got “low” scores based on their personalities and character. It allowed him to learn of their morals, quirks, mental thought processes, and sometimes even red flags that one had to be worried about. Not red flags, as in someone turning out to be a psycho killer, but red flags, as in potential weaknesses that would display down the line, such as an inability to show patience or deal with long periods of nothing. Something anyone who truly wanted to reach the peak had to be capable of to not go insane. And with the system actively not allowing someone without a mentality capable of evolving to evolve, it could potentially be the doom of a talented prospect.

This information would then be sold to whoever was interested. Some factions had an open subscription of sorts to get information on anyone from the faction it was worth getting information on. Especially places like the Holy Church used this data to weed out or address people who could turn into dissidents or problems for the faction in the future, but even places like the Order of the Malefic Viper also made use of it.

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Other factions had open calls on interesting new prospects. Someone getting a very high score in the Test of Character could indicate someone had a unique talent or was suited for specific Paths. The personality and character of some people even resonated with some extremely powerful Paths, to the level that such a personality and sense of character was the only requirement they had to fulfill.

Jake’s former coworker, the Augur of Hope, was a brilliant example of this. His talent in magic was nowhere near good, he couldn’t fight for shit, he wasn’t adequately assertive at all but a total pushover, and he entirely lacked the ego someone like the Viper was looking for in those he believed could become truly strong.

Yet he had gained a Path many sought after. One recognized as a peak Path among mortals. Because what he did have was an uncanny ability to understand others, an unwavering will to guide them, and a selflessness that was almost nauseating. He would do what he believed was the best for others, even if it meant setting himself on fire. The Augur was simply born to be an Augur… but he did need a little push to get there. He needed the interference of the gods in the Tutorial to set up the scenario for him to realize his Path.

Many of those who did the Test of Character could be close to such a realization. They just needed a small push that some factions would gladly give them. The Primordial Church was a big recruiter of people who were just a single step away from being fanatics and recruited them almost en masse after they participated in Nevermore.

If Vilastromoz had to explain Nevermore and especially the Test of Character to Jake, he would very much compare it to those social media things his planet used to have. Nevermore was free to enter and participate in, but it still had to bring in resources for the Wyrmgod and others who were involved in developing and maintaining it, and one of the best ways to earn Credits was to sell information. As the saying goes, if something is free, you are the product. This was also why the Wyrmgod sent tokens to enter the World Wonder all throughout the multiverse. He wanted every C-grade in the entire multiverse to come to Nevermore if he could.

Of course, despite this data-gathering, some people still had special privileges to not get theirs sold. Usually, the Wyrmgod would refuse to sell any information on young prospects to rival factions, while he would never sell anything related to someone like Jake, considering he was a Chosen. He would keep all that under lock and key and only give it to the Malefic Viper. Save for a few scenarios like the Colosseum of Mortals, where others had made deals to still get notified when certain things happened, nothing would get out.

All of this is to say that a situation where several gods actively seemed to want information on someone they, under normal circumstances, wouldn’t get was odd… but what was even weirder was that they actually got what they wanted.

“Oh, Jake is done with the Test of Character Challenge Dungeon now!” Minaga said with a big smile, getting the attention of the others in the room. It took some of them a second to remember that Jake was the name of the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, but once they did, their curiosity peaked.

By now, it had been nearly two years since the Holy Mother and Blightfather had arrived, and things hadn’t gotten calmer. Nobody had left, as frankly, two years was barely any period of time to them. As immortals, their sense of time was entirely warped, and even just sitting still and staring into nothingness for a century or two could go by entirely unnoticed. Especially when one had several avatars at the same time. The primary focus of the god could always just shift elsewhere as one waited for something to happen with one avatar.

With no one leaving, it had only made the room more packed, though naturally, the Wyrmgod could just spatially expand it if he saw fit. As the Viper had expected, the gathering of five Primordials and Nature’s Attendant in one place did not go unnoticed. In the first few weeks, factions were apprehensive about doing anything as some sent representatives to figure out what was happening, which was when the Wyrmgod just decided to effectively say “fuck it” and just allowed any god who wanted to enter to do so.

This had resulted in the room now having around fifty gods present, as they saw this as an invitation of sorts. Even the Dao Sect had sent one of their Wanderers, as they called them. People who actively trained out of the Dao Sect’s controlled territories and were more in tune with the rest of the multiverse.

No other Primordials had shown up, which honestly didn’t surprise Vilastromoz at all. The Starseizing Titan, Rigoria, and Aeon never showed up unless expressly asked to, Stormild didn’t show up even when asked to, and Eversmile and the Daofather were both too unpredictable. As for Yggdrasil… well, she always just sent Nature’s Attendant as her mouthpiece whenever anything happened, and he was already there, making it as if there effectively were half of all the Primordials in the room.

The gods that had arrived were all unknowns that the Viper didn’t care to know but were all representatives of major factions, including different internal tribes of the United Tribes, the Altmar Empire, and many smaller and larger Pantheons. These gods were naturally not at the level of someone like himself, and this had resulted in the room effectively being split into two parts. One where the Primordials, Nature’s Attendant, Artemis, and Minaga were, and one where everyone else gathered. As for their objective for coming?

It appeared not even they knew… as the Viper came to learn that most were just there, so their faction felt they were present if anything important did happen. The chances of something noteworthy happening when half of the Primordial’s meeting had to be high, right?

That’s why anything that was said or done caught their attention. Minaga calling out that Jake was done with the Test of Character were the first words said to everyone in over a month, as most gods only directed their conversations toward certain individuals.

“Indeed he is,” the Malefic Viper nodded at Minaga’s statement. “And his performance was pretty much as expected.”

10% was really good for Jake in that one. Jake wasn’t particularly suited for the Test of Character Challenge Dungeon, and in all honesty, the Viper didn’t put much stock in the place at all. It was a useless trial for someone like Jake. It didn’t align well with his Path, and it wasn’t like the Test of Character was any indication if one had the mentality to become a god as long as the person got above a certain score. In fact, the Viper remembered that some currently living Godkings only got 5% or even no evaluation back when they did Nevermore.

“His review was pretty harsh, though,” Minaga said. “Harsh, but fair.”

The Wyrmgod grunted disapprovingly, but before he could say anything, Valdemar spoke up. “If he is done, then what are you waiting for?”

With confusion, the Wyrmgod looked at Valdemar. The Malefic Viper instantly understood as he brought his palm to his face. Yeah, there was no way the Wyrmgod would agree unless-

“Very well,” the Wyrmgod smiled in response.

… unless the dragon god was being unbelievably petty because Jake didn’t like his dungeon.

Jake stood in the white void and was just about to leave the Challenge Dungeon for good and get out of that horrible place when the notification in front of him suddenly began warping as another sentence was suddenly added on, and he was given a choice.

Do you wish to exit the Test of Character Challenge Dungeon?

No further actions can be taken within this Challenge Dungeon.

You can choose to either exit and appear at the Challenge Dungeon entrance or at [Redacted]

He looked at the changed message for a second, threw a glance at where he was being watched from, and shrugged as he accepted to go to the very exciting place known as [Redacted]. Eh, sure, what’s the worst that can happen?