A labyrinth was a labyrinth, no big way to really change that. Minaga hadn’t tried either, as they once more found themselves walking through winding hallways of mist, following after Jake, who had a nice mental map in his head. The difference this time around was that there was a ”correct” way right off the bat, with no rooms or anything to look for.
Instead, they just had to pass through a pretty big labyrinth to reach a gate at the end, but based on how long it would take to reach the gate, this could not be the entire floor. They also had at least three rooms to clear with difficulty ratings attached. The only challenge on this floor so far was the occasional trap, which they could have some fun with. Some of these traps were placed even on the fastest path to the finish and were quite varied.
Some were good-old spike traps, some released mana bolts from the walls, and a few even summoned enemies they had to fight. The fights and traps were all made quite a lot harder to deal with due to the mist, but they still easily managed and moved forward quickly – or as quickly as one could with the mist limiting their movement speed.
”This is quite familiar to what we have done before,” the Sword Saint voiced his thoughts.
”Ree!” Sylphie complained as she flew alongside them.
”Yeah, pretty damn similar, but we will reach the gate in just a bit, so maybe something will change then,” Jake shrugged as they did indeed soon reach the first gate. It had taken them nearly two-and-a-half hours to get there due to the traps while taking the fastest route, so he guessed this floor would be quite a pain for parties without what was essentially maphack.
A few minutes later, they turned the final corner and saw the gate before them. This gate was quite a bit different from those prior, and on the other side of it, Jake just saw an empty void of nothingness. On both sides of the gate itself were two large runes for four total that all lit up. Jake scanned them and quickly got the gist of it.
1. Puzzle (Easy)
2. Combat (Medium)
3. Crafting (Easy) 4. Random (Easy)
”We get to choose the challenge room type and the difficulty,” Jake noted as he looked over the four options.
”Not much choice when one considers the bonus objective,” the Fallen King said.
”True,” Jake nodded. ”Now, how do we pick…”
It took minimal figuring out before they discovered that three of them just had to infuse energy or touch one of the marks at once. They naturally activated the second option to do a little combat.
Once they activated it, the entire gate began to glow, and as Jake released another pulse, he saw a massive room appear on the other side. It extended even beyond his Pulse of Perception, meaning it had to be at least three-hundred kilometers long. He could see that it had a width of around two hundred kilometers, though.
When the gate opened, they walked through the usual fog gate, and Jake felt the pleasant wind hit him. They were in a mountainous environment, and when Jake looked ahead, he saw a pterodactyl-looking creature flying through the air. He naturally used Identify, and it had a quite disappointing level.
[Windborne Shrieker – lvl 239]
Moreover, he did not feel like it was a strong variant at all. Jake also quickly saw a whole lot of dinosaurs wandering around in the deep valleys below, and as he was still trying to figure out where all the enemies were, they got a system message.
Room Objective: Clear the room to unlock the teleporter.
841/841 enemies remaining.
”That seems simple,” Dina nodded.
”Yeah, I am surprised there is not some twist… I just think we have to kill everything here,” Jake nodded.
”It does seem as such… thus, we should get started immediately,” the Fallen King said as he reached out his hand towards the Shrieker Jake had Identified earlier. It abruptly stopped in mid-air many kilometers away as the King squeezed his clawed hand. The Shrieker struggled as the King lifted his other hand and made a tearing motion. In the distance, a wing was ripped off the creature as it continued to struggle, with the Fallen King’s hands finally glowing golden as he crushed them together; the Shrieker in the distance also getting crushed as it fell broken to the ground.
840/841 enemies remaining.
”City floor wasn’t entirely a waste of time, now was it?” Jake smirked as he also pulled out his bow.
”Meager improvements do not make up for time wasted,” the Fallen King shot back as he began looking for his next target.
Jake smiled a bit and nodded as he looked toward the sky. ”Considering we have to kill everything here… I guess finding all of the opponents is meant to be part of the challenge too.”
”Probably,” the Sword Saint agreed.
”In that case,” Jake grinned as he released another pulse, and as it released, he focused. Whenever it passed a creature, Jake made sure to note it as he activated Mark of the Avaricious Arcane Hunter, hundreds of marks placed within less than a second. With his high Perception, marking this many was no problem at all.
Using the Golden Mark, Jake shared the location of every single marked target with the party as Dina looked at him. ”Are you sure about all these locations?”
”Yep,” Jake smiled.
”Okay,” she nodded as she took out her staff and slammed it into the ground as a pulse of nature mana was released. Jake just shook his head and took to the air as the Sword Saint, Fallen King, and Sylphie also took off.
Jake was flying towards the far end of the room to mark all of the opponents, with the Sword Saint taking the left side of the room. Behind him, a giant tornado emerged on the left, with rain clouds gathering on the right. Yet before any of these had time to do much, death arrived from below as dinosaurs in the valleys down in the valleys felt the environment itself turn against them as Dina’s attack arrived and did quite a number on the local wildlife, as many died in mere seconds.
814/841 enemies remaining.
Seeing the others have fun, Jake also began to release death from above. Being inside the room, Jake could see the end and estimated the entire place was around four-hundred kilometers in length. That meant his Pulse soon allowed him to scan it all. Once he had marked all the dinosaurs present, Jake set up shop as he summoned a platform of arcane mana beneath himself. It was as sturdy as arcane mana could be after his mana practice, and with a proper foothold that could handle the explosions he was about to release, Jake began to act out his dream of being a living Arcane Powershot turret.
He started with all the flyers before moving toward those on the ground. Towards the entrance, a scar of destruction made its way towards him, wind, rain, vines, and explosions of force magic tearing up the land. Within long, they were done slaughtering the far too-easy room, with Jake finishing off the last few dinosaurs while the rest of the party made it over to where Jake was.
Room completed. Teleporter activated.
As they had all flown to Jake, they quickly got the teleporter that had been towards the far end of the room inside of a cave filled with what looked like temple ruins. Entering it and teleporting onwards, Jake saw the bonus objective update just as they disappeared from the room.
Current progress: Highest difficulty room completed (1/3)
They once more appeared at the start of a labyrinth with three paths to pick from.
”That was too easy… do we need to make our way through another labyrinth before the next challenge room?” the King asked, slightly impatient.
”Seems like it,” Jake answered after sending out a Pulse of Perception. ”But this one does have a shorter path. More traps, though, but it will still be faster.”
”Lead the way,” the Sword Saint smiled, unbothered.
Jake and company made their way through this labyrinth within only two hours. It was a bit annoying, but the one positive thing Jake could say was that at least it gave them time to properly regenerate their resources before the next challenge room. Not that they were in trouble when it came to enduring long battles – they always had potions if things went south.
Arriving at the next gate, they were once more met with four options.
1. Puzzle (Medium)
2. Collection (Medium)
3. Combat (Easy)
4. Random (Easy)
And this one was actually a choice. Both the Puzzle and the Collection one were of equal difficulty based on what Jake could see, though he did want to make sure that was indeed the case.
”Say, Minaga, when several options have the same difficulty rating, can we just pick ourselves?” Jake decided to ask the designer of the dungeon.
”Right on! I did tell you there would be actual decision-making on these floors, didn’t I? You can select whichever one you believe fits your party the best as long as they are all of the highest difficulty rating available. I do want to also add that I am not actually deciding which ones get the high difficulties here. I made it all pseudo-random to make every experience slightly different. Ah, for reference, you will be able to find this kind of floor with the same design even in other grades. It is quite popular if I say so myself,” Minaga gladly answered, even deciding to overshare a bit about the dungeon.
”Several grades, huh?” Jake said, nodding. ”Man, that must have been hard. Almost like it takes a godly level of power to design something like that.”
”I did say they were pseudo-random, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a backdoor where I can decide to make every single room the worst… say, how about we decide to make every single challenge room from here on out take place underwater?”
”You wouldn’t,” Jake said with not a shred of fear. ”I do not believe your integrity and professionalism will allow you to have water levels within your labyrinth.”
”I… you’re right,” Minaga surrendered. ”There are lines that simply shouldn’t be crossed, and that threat was in poor taste. From the bottom of my heart, I apologize. Though I will add that I can still change the rooms to something else that you will also hate.”´
”And I am forever grateful that you will not do that,” Jake smiled. ”Thanks for answering, and I hope you continue to have a great day.”
”Good to know we reached an understanding. Enjoy the floor!”
”We will,” he smiled before turning to the party. ”We should pick the Collection one. My gut is telling me that will be incredibly easy and cheeseable.”
”Oh, come on!”
Alas, his complaint was too late. They had all activated the Collection room, and the door opened to reveal another large, albeit slightly smaller room than the last. This environment looked like a large underground cave, but luckily there were no mushrooms anywhere. There was plenty of moss, though, and it grew in odd patterns, leaving natural formations all over the place and the air full of mana.
Room Objective: Collect all the Hidden Tokens.
32/32 Hidden Tokens remaining.
Their objective was to find all the hidden tokens throughout the large cave. These tokens were all hidden inside natural formations, below the ground or inside walls, with some even floating inside odd green clouds that permeated the air.
Anyway, a few Pulse of Perceptions and a Dina who kindly asked the moss to lend a hand later, and they teleported to the next labyrinth.
Current progress: Highest difficulty room completed (2/3)
”I do hope the difficulty increases,” the Sword Saint said as they began walking through yet another labyrinth. ”After the Demon Lord, this seems far too straightforward and easy.”
”Ree!” Sylphie also complained, saying that the later opponents in the arena on the city floor had been harder and a lot more fun.
”Variance is welcome when it comes to the rooms, but in order for the variance to hold meaning, there has to be an element of challenge to the variance. If not, it is simply going through the motions,” the Fallen King joined in.
”Well…” Dina said as she fidgeted with one of the flowers growing from her hair. ”I think it’s okay. The Demon Lord was a big outlier in difficulty, and if this floor didn’t start easy, it wouldn’t have space to get harder later on. We are pretty good at these rooms too, and I do think there is fun to be found in seeing how fast we can go.”
”See, that is a good mentality to have!” Minaga swooped in to agree.
”Oh, so you do like it when we speedrun the floors and cheese them?” Jake shot back with a grin.
”Anyway, please continue,” he backed off as fast as he had come.
Jake shook his head as the party kept up their high speed through yet another labyrinth before they arrived at their third gate and choice of the day.
1. Traps (Medium)
2. Crafting (Medium)
3. Combat (Medium)
4. Random (Easy)
This one had the most interesting choice so far. They didn’t want to waste too much time discussing, though, and ended up just going with the combat option as the Fallen King and Sylphie both heavily advocated for it. Jake had a strong feeling they just really wanted to kill stuff and blow off steam after the city floor. Hopefully, they would calm down shortly.
This combat room also proved itself easy, though it was slightly harder than the first one they had done, despite both being medium difficulty. After clearing it, Jake had to confess he had kind of expected the floor to be over. They even completed the bonus objective.
Bonus Objective Completed: Complete three rooms of the highest difficulty. 500 Nevermore Points earned.
However, despite the objective getting completed, they found themselves facing yet another labyrinth. Jake frowned, wondering how many they had to do, the others thinking the same thing.
”Is it possible this is part of the labyrinth?” the Sword Saint theorized. ”That we can’t just pick the fastest path every time? Also, is it possible there was more than one exit in any of the prior labyrinths?”
Jake considered for a bit and used another pulse. Ultimately, he went with his gut and shook his head. ”No… no, I think we just have to keep going, and that were are just more than three.”
”How many do you think there are?” Dina questioned.
”Hm,” Jake thought. Then a light bulb went off in his head, and he spoke with certainty. ”There are six rooms total we need to clear.”
”Okay, how in the cursed name of evil Demon Lord Gubrothas did you cheat yourself into figuring that out? Seriously, how utterly overpowered is that Bloodline of yours to-”
”It’s the thirty-sixth floor,” Jake interrupted him. ”Thirty and six . Hence six rooms as having thirty-six total would honestly be too much. Shit, there are probably seven rooms on the next floor.”
Silence followed for several seconds as the Sword Saint just smiled, and Dina did all she could to suppress a giggle.
”Am I… am I that predictable?” Minaga questioned his entire existence.
”A better question is if I am indeed just incredibly smart,” Jake joked back.
”Considering that is an impossibility…” Minaga roasted him. ”I… Did the rest of you also figure it out?”
”I hadn’t really thought about it,” Dina answered.
”Ree,” Sylphie said, also not really caring.
The King stayed silent as expected, with the Sword Saint smiling. ”Such an idea never even crossed my mind. I had considered there was some hint in prior words you spoke, a clue in the number of difficulties and how all the options got harder with time. Alas, all in vain, as it seems I merely do not have a mind comparable to you two.”
”I am pretty sure he just insulted us both,” Minaga said.
”Same, man,” Jake nodded.
The old man just kept smiling as he motioned forward. ”Should we not get going? We have three more rooms next, do we not?”
He spoke the last part while looking up toward the ceiling of the labyrinth.
”You know, I am beginning to hate your party more and more…”
”Nah, he loves us,” Jake joked with the Sword Saint.
”You know, I am definitely filing a complaint with Vilas and Aeon both after this.”
Jake kept smiling as they walked, holding himself back from pointing out how referring to two Primordials using their names was definitely the behavior of someone who wasn’t a god. Definitely.