The Primal Hunter Volume 3

The Power of Haven System Announcement: The Treasure Hunt Special Event will commence in: 23:14:53 All qualified participants will be invited at the allotted time. Those within the territory of a Pylon will be able to enter together, while any not within a Pylon’s territory will enter as individuals by default. N eil, Christen, Eleanor, Silas, and Levi were all chatting in the room, waiting for the rest to arrive. It was right next to the newly expanded City Lord’s office, where a large meeting hall had been made, primarily for this day. The five of them had all gotten the notification about the Treasure Hunt along with every other D-grade in the city. Likely across the globe. "Gotta say, Miranda ain’t a slouch either," Levi commented as they chatted about the other D-grades from Haven who would join the Treasure Hunt. "You totally got a crush on her," Christen teased the man, who had made similar comments many times before during their hunting trips. "No, I’m simply acknowledging reality," Levi defended himself, faking offense. "By the way, you know who else is coming? Besides those randoms, that is.” The randoms, in this case, were something entirely unexpected. Around a week before the Treasure Hunt began, D-grades had started appearing at the Fort and Haven. All of them had come for a few reasons. One of them was that they weren’t sure if they could enter the Treasure Hunt without being within the area of a Pylon and had come to make sure. That reason had now been debunked, but another purpose was to hopefully enter with a stronger group and team up with others. All the big cities wouldn’t just enter with a dozen people. The party of five had spoken about how Sanctdomo, as an example, apparently had D-grades in the four digits associated with their city enter. Not all of them were members of the Holy Church, but a lot of them sure were. Independent parties who didn’t want to join some powerful faction needed somewhere else to go, and it appeared that Haven became one such place. No doubt, along with a lot of other smaller settlements around the world. So far, a bit over forty D-grades had come to Haven. That didn’t sound like a lot, but it sure felt like it was, considering Haven didn’t even have half that. Haven only had their party: Lord Thayne, Miranda, Arnold, Sultan, and those two creepy women, along with one other guy who had joined a month or so ago. Phillip was one they had expected to enter too, but he wouldn’t come. Christen had heard he was retiring, so that was a bit weird. "Just those we discussed," Neil answered. They kept chatting, only stopping when another person showed up. "Ah, you guys and gals are already here," Miranda said as she entered. "Good, the rest should be here within the next half an hour, then we can get started." Her words proved true when, not even a minute later, two men wearing medium armor and sheathed swords entered. Two minutes after that, a man and two women came, and five minutes after that, Sultan arrived. The room kept filling up, and close to the half-hour mark, Lillian entered, practically dragging Arnold, who had his head down and was reading on his tablet. This would ordinarily not cause much of a fuss, except… Arnold was the highest-leveled person in the room, and practically none of them knew about him. He was the kind of guy who stayed hidden away in his workshop months at a time, so only people like Sultan—those who had gone to sell him stuff—knew the man properly. Despite quite a few individuals with decent levels coming and Miranda herself having a respectable aura, however, the forty or so independent D-grades did notice an issue: Haven was weak. Their strongest party was decent, but there was another traveling party present equal to them in power. Miranda, Sultan, and Arnold were perhaps powerful in their own right, but ultimately they were outnumbered heavily. Confusion and some discontent spread in the hall as people talked. Many had come to Haven because of rumors of the city’s power and now found themselves incredibly disappointed. Five minutes passed without anyone showing up. Ten minutes. Fifteen. They all just talked and discussed, their voices getting louder as many stopped bothering to hide their discontentment. "Why is Lord Thayne not here yet?" Silas asked in a low voice to his party. "I don’t know… but looking at Miranda, I am pretty sure she has something planned," Neil answered in an equally low voice. They could only trust she had predicted this would happen and made an adequate plan. None of them except Silas and Eleanor had met the owner of the city recently, and the last times they did, he’d just been shopping or interrogating Sultan. They knew he was strong… but was he strong enough to handle a hall of nearly forty D-grades who had come to believe Haven wasn’t all it was made out to be? Jake put the last batch of poison in bottles as he prepared to head back. He had gone a good distance away from the city to not contaminate anything as he crafted his uncommon-rarity Necrotic Poisons, and had now stocked up with a few dozen bottles at least. He didn’t know if it was enough for the entire Treasure Hunt, as he had no idea how long it would be, but he had a feeling he could just craft some more in there if it came down to it. Through this last push for more stats, Jake had gone on a full-on crafting spree to get out as many Perception elixirs as he could. This meant Jake had consumed twenty-two uncommon-rarity Perception elixirs and a bunch more of the common-rarity ones during this time. In the end, through consumption of Perception-increasing elixirs, Jake had gained a total of 440 Perception over his crafting frenzy throughout this last month. Unfortunately, that was all he had time to make enough elixirs for. Yet, he had still wanted to get as strong as possible, so he decided to just cap himself out before the Treasure Hunt. The rest, he had chosen to fill out with Agility. 40 uncommon-rarity Agility elixirs and 41 common-rarity elixirs had gone down his throat, and quite honestly, he was damn sick of the taste by now. He was now fully capped out at the 900 stats he could get from consumables. Additionally, he still had quite a few Vitality-based elixirs left, as well as plenty of Agility ones. He would have to hand those out. Finally, he had gained a single more level in his profession, bringing him to 130. He was now officially at a stage where his profession was ahead of his class again. Something the Treasure Hunt would very likely change. For the first time in a while, Jake opened up his full status and did a final check of everything before he headed back to Haven and that meeting. Status Name: Jake Thayne Race: [Human (D) – lvl 129] Class: [Avaricious Arcane Hunter – lvl 129] Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper – lvl 130] Health Points (HP): 29573/29580 Mana Points (MP): 39888/40812 Stamina: 20021/24870