The Primal Hunter 6: A LitRPG Adventure, page 1
THE PRIMAL HUNTER 6
©2023 ZOGARTH
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Also by Zogarth
Also in series:
The Primal Hunter 1
The Primal Hunter 2
The Primal Hunter 3
The Primal Hunter 4
The Primal Hunter 5
The Primal Hunter 6
The Primal Hunter 7
Contents
Previously on The Primal Hunter
1. Road Trip Entertainment: Vampire Lore
2. Unexpected Visitor
3. Visiting Skyggen & Skyggen
4. Family Reunion
5. Exploring Relationships
6. Umbral Lotus
7. Sorting Time
8. To Sell or Not to Sell, That is the Question
9. The Auction (Read: Alchemy) Begins!
10. A Brief Intermission
11. An Epic Mixed Bag
12. A Cursed Intermission
13. Actually Buying Things
14. Bees, Pants & the Geopolitical Landscape
15. The Legendaries Cometh
16. Scammed
17. A Unique Encounter
18. You get an item! And you get an item! Everyone gets an item!
19. The Good Stuff
20. Soul Renewal
21. Time Wizard & Future Plans
22. Jake's Laboratorium & To-do List
23. Oh, Gosh, It's a Time Skip!
24. A King Reborn
25. Jake vs the King (Rematch?)
26. Unique Lifeforms
27. A Truly Cursed Ritual
28. Hunger
29. Eternal Hunger
30. Progress Through Cursed Slaughter
31. Skills & Paths
32. Fumigation
33. A Path From Inferiority
34. First Contact: C-Grade
35. Underground
36. Onwards! To Haven!
37. A Good Eye For People
38. A Monumental Monument
39. Clearing Up Misconceptions Left & Right
Intermission - Holyland: All By the Grace of the Holy Mother
40. Off He Goes
41. Designing the School Uniform
42. To Feel the Shroud
43. The Weight of Time
44. Finding the Purpose
45. A Shroud of Stars & School Life Dangers
46. School Preparations
47. A New Era
48. A Diverse Crowd
49. Dungeon: Order of the Malefic Viper D-grade entrance-test
50. You Win Some, You Lose Some
51. Elective Tests
52. Readiness Not Found
53. Angry Transmutation
54. Pretty Easy
55. Dominating the Test
56. Meeting Expectations
57. Extra Credits Hydra
58. Beast vs Man
59. A Legendary Warrior
60. Fangs of Man
61. The Human Has Fangs
62. Academy Entry Token
63. A Different Time
64. An Uncertain Future
65. Rules & A Very Good Question
66. "The Positive Side"
67. Conversations Are Hard
68. Blaze It!
69. A Life of Punishment
70. First Lesson
71. Willpower, Flames & Dragons
72. Mysterious Senior
73. Soulflame & Exposed
74. A New Path
75. Windy Times Ahead
76. Bit of Dragon Lore
77. The History of Bloodlines
78. Relationships Are Hard. Oh, and Neurotoxins
Thank you for reading The Primal Hunter 6
Previously on The Primal Hunter
In book five, Jake did the Treasure Hunt…
Thanks for coming to this edition of Primal Hunter Recaps. I hope you all have a pleasan—
Oh, right, I guess I could cover what happened in the actual Treasure Hunt. Because in case you didn’t read the previous book (wait, why are you even reading this recap right now?), the last book was just the Treasure Hunt. Yeah, that arc went a bit longer than originally planned, but what can you do about it? Make it shorter? Maybe. But, if I had done that, I wouldn’t have been able to write a self-deprecating joke about it being too long, so it truly was a situation out of my hands.
Anyhow, the Treasure Hunt is the event chosen during the First World Congress and takes place within an ancient hidden world of vampires called Yalsten. The event is limited to D-grades, meaning only the current elite of Earth has a chance to participate, and every single faction present on the planet shows up in force.
Old friends also participate, as well as people whom Jake never had a chance to properly interact with. All prior meetings between the large factions have only taken place within a World Congress system event where combat was disallowed. There are no such rules within the Treasure Hunt, resulting in plenty of in-fighting. All participants do have an escape token if they are willing to surrender all their loot, though.
While exploring Yalsten, Jake and the other participants come to discover the fate of those who had once lived there. Most had chosen to become vampires, but with time, an insidious curse had taken hold, corrupting the entire world with resentment. Resentment towards the vampires and their very existence.
This has left the land filled with corrupted vampiric creatures and beings formed from the curse itself. The first part of the Treasure Hunt passes with most factions, along with Jake, slowly learning more of Yalsten’s history and discovering the clues to fight the strongest bosses and whatever rewards defeating them could give.
During this period of discovery, Jake finds an old tower filled with living armor, all running on pure curse energy. Atop this tower, he encounters a Shade of Eternal Resentment, an elemental of sorts representing all of the curse energy in the world of Yalsten. Jake ends up convincing this curse he is an enemy of the vampires and will kill them all for it. To assist him in his quest and to slay the big bad final boss of the Treasure Hunt, the elemental gifts him something known as the Root of Yalsten’s Eternal Resentment. A root capable of housing near-infinite levels of curse energy. With it in hand, Jake truly begins his hunt as the curse that weighs down the land now barely affects him as the root simply absorbs it. Who knows what kind of things Jake can use an ancient curse for, one that has consumed all the curse energy in an entire hidden realm once occupied by powerful vampires? Definitely seems like an item to keep in mind… hint, hint.
All participants of the event soon know that the first phase of the Treasure Hunt includes killing Vampire Counts who have been slumbering within hidden chambers to avoid the curse. Through a variety of means, these chambers are opened, and a rush to gather as many keys to unlock the next phase begins, each faction competing. During this period, Sylphie – also known as the best bird – meets up with Carmen, and they begin to hunt together. Slowly they bond, as the Runemaiden from Valhal finds herself absolutely incapable of resisting the hawk’s charm. Jake also ends up meeting up with the great-granddaughter of the Sword Saint, Reika, where they work together to solve magical puzzles, learning from each other. However, with the pleasant encounter also comes the unpleasant ones, as Jake has to deal with thieves trying to steal his stuff and independent factions viewing him in a less than favorable light, trying to kill him. So, yeah, Jake kills quite a few people in this book too.
While collecting keys to unlock the chambers to kill these vampire Counts, Jake ends up hitting some difficulties when he is met by his fellow Bloodline Patriatch, the seemingly immortal Eron, who delays him long enough that he fails to kill more Counts than the Noboru Clan and the Holy Church, who had teamed up. This results in Jake losing a bet to the patriarch of the Noboru Clan, the Sword Saint.
Luckily, the old man’s prize isn’t worth anything as the second p
Meanwhile, the undead faction – also known as the Risen – led by Casper and Priscilla is working towards its own goal behind the scenes, seeking to claim the slowly dying core of Yalsten to create a miniature world for their kind once back on Earth. Upon entering the event, they had instantly become aware of where they were and sought to claim what may be the ultimate prize of this entire system event. From the very start, they had headed for certain vaults to claim the shards of the world core, only waiting for the second phase to begin.
Everyone else also moves to claim their own Vaults and all the sweet, sweet loot that can be found within. Jake does so, too, and gets a lot of useless stuff, along with many things he can’t use for anything. Luckily, there was an Auction event that would begin shortly after the Treasure Hunt (which happens in the first parts of this book!).
Phase two of the Treasure Hunt was just Jake and everyone else doing a bunch of vaults and getting loot until finally, they had done enough to unlock to the final phase of the Treasure Hunt event:
The big final boss.
With every major character from Earth together, they awaken a severely weakened former A-grade vampire known as the Monarch of Blood as a long-ass fight begins, with lore about the vampires and their downfall sprinkled in, but mainly just a lot of fighting in this part. To the surprise of no one, the people from Earth win, but a few people, including Casper, have to flee from the event in order to not find themselves killed by the Monarch. Despite the long fight, Jake did not feel overly satisfied as the Monarch of Blood actively avoided him throughout the fight, knowing he was the biggest threat.
After a brief break with everyone who participated and made it through the fight with the Monarch relaxing together, there is just one more thing to do. With the world of Yalsten slowly coming to an end, Jake and the Sword Saint decide to finally have their duel and figure out who the strongest human on Earth is. As the two main contributors of the final boss battle, this duel was also to decide who would get the best loot from Monarch of Blood: a divine item connected to the creator of the vampiric race and the first vampire, Sanguine.
The duel begins, but it quickly finds a winner as Jake proves superior. Discussing the old man’s loss, Jake points out some things he questioned about how the Sword Saint fought. This makes the old swordsman ponder his Path.
Through his pondering on memories from the past, the Sword Saint experiences an epiphany and gains what is known as a Transcendence – a type of skill that breaks some of the established rules of the system, always at a significant cost to the user. This allows the formerly ancient man to turn into a younger and far more powerful version of himself, thus finally turning him into a worthy opponent.
A second part of the duel ensues. This comes following the very long fight with the Monarch of Blood and the small fight with the Sword Saint, turning roughly the last quarter of the entire book into just one long fight. Unconfirmed rumors say some people believe this was too much fighting, but I would never believe such unfounded speculation.
After a long back-and-forth, the fight eventually ends inconclusively, with both parties pretty much dead as the entire world of Yalsten crumbles to nothing around them. The event ends, healing and teleporting them both back to Earth in a totally not contrived way for the fight to finish on a high note while creating ambiguity as to who was truly the strongest.
Jake spends some time dealing with what he perceives as a loss, while the Sword Saint deals with the backlash of using his Transcendence, including a large temporary level drop he has to make up for. Thus, he spends his time meditating and training until he can go hunt to fully restore himself.
Our main character decides that his best course of action would be to take a nice trip and go visit his brother and parents in another city. Totally not because his brother, Casper, gave him shit for not visiting earlier. Definitely not. Jake’s plan is to spend his time there until the Auction Event that follows the Treasure Hunt begins, and he is looking forward to bidding on some of all the sweet loot people obtained in the Treasure Hunt. Who knows, maybe the system even decides to throw in some extra goodies due to how well they performed?
Anyway, this is where we are at.
Commence the road trip!
Chapter 1
Road Trip Entertainment: Vampire Lore
Jake had never been the type to enjoy road trips much, most likely because they always included being cramped in a car with too many other people, and there were always at least a few he didn’t know that well. He had still gone on a few, and the times he’d gone with his family were fine, but extended periods of nothing did weigh you down.
Traveling across the landscape as you bent space to your will and teleported one step at a time did seem different, but it turns out it really wasn’t, besides it being a one-man road trip. The first few hours had been just fine. Heck, the first day had been just fine, as there were many interesting sights and new creatures to see. Still, it did begin to get a bit samey, especially when he reached a long stretch of empty plains with pretty much no creatures aside from the occasional hole leading into a vast underground area filled with insects.
None of them bothered Jake, and he didn’t head underground to bother them either. Perhaps there would be foes worth fighting deep underground—in fact, he was certain there were—but he was just as certain that a foray down there wouldn’t be a brief one.
The only thing keeping him kind of sane was Sylphie still mentally poking him once in a while to update him on her victories or encounters with something interesting. Jake learned a lot about the diversity of "super-weird" trees in the forest.
He did try to find things to do, like improving his One Step Mile or his flying skills, but it was a slow grind without much progress, if any at all. On a side note, it also quickly became clear that using any sort of boosting skill during travel was a waste of time, as it would just wear him down faster overall.
This meant Jake just ran with One Step Mile and sometimes flew while consuming a potion once in a while. He really, really tried to keep himself engaged, but it was so damn monotonous seeing the same open plains over and over again.
After the second day, having grown bored of the same repeating landscape for thousands of kilometers in a row, he finally decided to ask Villy something he had been holding off on.
"Hey, Villy… I have been meaning to ask, with the Treasure Hunt and all, if you can, like, give me a brief history of vampires? Are they still around and stuff? I feel like that place, Yalsten, was isolated a long-ass time ago."
It didn’t take long before the amused voice of the Viper descended on his mind. "So, my little Chosen is bored after only a few days without proper stimulation and comes crawling to his gracious and benevolent Patron god for comfort and entertainment."
"Not my fault I don’t have any audiobooks after the system. Man, that reminds me, I never found out what happened towards the end of—"
