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 Jakeâ€...
2023-11-17 11:23:13 +0000 UTC
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If you stood before a rail with a switch in front of you, that could change the path of an oncoming train onto another path, with five people tied to the train’s original path and only one on the…
Okay, everyone knows the trolley problem. Apparently, the Wyrmgod did, too, as Jake was presented with one that was pretty much a magical carbon copy where he could choose who to teleport away from an incoming monster horde. As for Jake’s choice?
Why not just kill the monsters?...
2023-11-16 11:51:47 +0000 UTC
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Two beings appeared in the living room the six gods were sitting and relaxing in, the atmosphere instantly changing with their entrance. Unsurprising, considering both of them were Primordials that one rarely saw in a room together.
“What a joyous occasion. When was it we gathered like this?” the winged woman asked with a smile on her lips as she regarded all her fellow gods.
“Your rhetorical pleasantries are as nauseating as ever,” a ghostly pale elven man responded. “W...
2023-11-15 11:28:08 +0000 UTC
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Having an itch always sucked, especially when it was somewhere that was hard to reach, such as that particular spot on your back. However, Jake would argue that one of the worst places to have a serious itch was inside your damn eyeballs.
After getting the notification, Jake’s eyes subtly began changing, and with that came the intense itching. It made him want to scratch his own eyes out, but he resisted the urge as seconds that felt like minutes slowly passed. He had closed his eyes ...
2023-11-14 11:48:06 +0000 UTC
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Jake got really lucky in story number twelve. In that one, he was so fortunate as to be a suspected mass murderer who was thrown into solitary confinement for potential crimes against humanity.
Now, Jake had to admit this story was kind of interesting. Jake had arrived after the suspected crime was done and in the middle of the arrest, not knowing what was going on. What’s more, the character Jake was in didn’t seem to know if he had murdered anyone either. At least he claimed that ...
2023-11-13 11:18:09 +0000 UTC
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The people in the room stared at Jake, who inhabited the body of the guard, seemingly wanting him to elaborate. Something he gladly did.
Whenever Jake took control and spoke, his body morphed into his own, but nobody around seemed to notice at all. That made things much easier as he shared his thoughts on the matter, with everyone thinking it was the guard talking.
Jake began to explain his plan of attacking the Beast King with a squad of elites before it could get the chance to a...
2023-11-10 11:37:28 +0000 UTC
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“If it had been a Transcendent skill, it would be far less concerning, but the fact it is a Bloodline is… hm,” the Wyrmgod muttered mostly to himself.
“I already told you, Jake is a little monster with an utterly broken Bloodline, and thinking too much about how stupid it is will only cause you pain. Trust me. Been there, done that. I am just waiting for the day the system decides to delete him outright,” Minaga shrugged.
Vilastromoz just listened in as the two of them k...
2023-11-08 11:38:55 +0000 UTC
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Hope was such a powerful feeling, but it was very much a double-edged sword… because the disappointment and sadness when hope was squashed truly sucked.
And for Jake, things very much sucked right now. He had still held onto hope that he would be healed after leaving the Challenge Dungeon, but that had turned out not to be the case. In fact, it was nearly the opposite. Getting his C-grade status back had instead resulted in Jake feeling far fucking worse than before.
At least he...
2023-11-07 11:45:04 +0000 UTC
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Jake looked at the still-standing corpse of the Primordial as he tried to fully understand everything that had happened. Alright, that wasn’t entirely accurate… he knew what had happened; he remembered everything without any issues, but it all still felt oddly hazy. The same kind of hazy as his mind and vision currently were.
As he still stood there, taking in the atmosphere and collecting himself, a certain someone made himself known once more, kind of ruining the tense mood.
2023-11-06 11:48:45 +0000 UTC
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Jake had invited death nine times to learn about Valdemar and hopefully find a path to victory. He had done everything with the goal of somehow winning and defeating Valdemar, and in all honesty, he could see a scenario where he would have accepted his loss.
That is until he realized Valdemar had never truly taken him seriously. He had, through his own will, increased his fighting aura to a level far above anything he had done in the fight prior. Jake hadn’t forced him to either… he...
2023-11-03 11:49:04 +0000 UTC
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Jake was smart enough to know when he was outmatched, and despite all his boosts and the many injuries he had inflicted on Valdemar, he was still at a major disadvantage. The only reason he even had a shot was because of Valdemar’s fighting style being so damn straightforward and Jake having had nine whole lives to learn how to fight him. He could take Valdemar by surprise, a luxury Valdemar did not have.
Not to say there was much to learn about Valdemar’s defensive style. Shit, the...
2023-11-02 11:51:13 +0000 UTC
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During the first era, humans had been viewed as a weak race. Even weaker than the other enlightened races. They lived for a short time, especially at lower grades, and the only real thing anyone agreed they had going for them was their higher reproductive speeds. They didn’t have any good racial skills, and their stat distribution was spread out to create jacks of all trades but masters of none. Moreover, as enlightened, they leveled slower than beasts or monsters and had to adopt a far mor...
2023-11-01 11:15:20 +0000 UTC
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To use his own life and death as a mere resource in his preparations did feel odd to Jake, but in truth, he had no other choice. Valdemar was simply too overwhelmingly powerful for Jake to possibly defeat him in a single attempt, and Jake also suspected he was just a straight-up cheat, as while he didn’t use any skills… well, it wasn’t like the S-grade Valdemar fighting the Malefic Viper in the vision had used many either. The only real thing Jake remembered him using was that Fang of M...
2023-09-29 11:21:59 +0000 UTC
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Three minutes and fourteen seconds.
That’s how long Jake lasted in the first fight against Valdemar before he found his skull crushed. Not even by an axe either, but from a fist smashing his head into the sand so hard his face caved in. Three minutes and change didn’t seem like a long time, but when he mentioned it to Artemis, she had been damn impressed he had even survived that long.
At the beginning of their fight, Jake had held on well. He had kited Valdemar around, avoide...
2023-09-28 10:18:39 +0000 UTC
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”Valdemar is a fucking monster in human form, plain and simple,” Artemis said in between her bites of food. ” Mind you, I am not saying that he is the Grand Champion, but if that is the case, you have quite the battle ahead of you, and, well… be happy you have multiple lives.”
Jake nodded, fully knowing that was the case as he chilled in the healing pool a bit away. ”Say, if you fought this theoretical Grand Champion version of Valdemar… how would you rate your chances?”...
2023-09-27 10:26:31 +0000 UTC
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The Warmaster, still on the ground, raised one of his swords toward Jake as it began to shine with mana. Jake temporarily abandoned his attack and dodged to the side as the entire blade was shot out like an arrow, as the man kept holding onto the hilt.
Jake thought he would have a chance to attack, but the Warmaster twisted his wrist as Jake’s danger sense warned him and made him duck right as a whip-like blade flew in from behind. The blade he had shot out had segmented itself into s...
2023-09-26 10:44:15 +0000 UTC
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”I told you it would be easy, didn’t I?” Artemis grinned as Jake entered her mansion. Without even thinking about it, he had just headed there by default when he thought about “going home.”
Jake did feel a bit bad about bailing on Owen and Polly, but after his match, he saw the two of them walking around hand in hand. They looked like they were in their own little world, so, in reality, wasn’t Jake just being a good friend by not following them like a third wheel? Yep, defin...
2023-09-25 10:30:39 +0000 UTC
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Out of all the beings in the Colosseum that Jake was aware of, Umbra was the most powerful, at least on the outside. She was a true pinnacle being who stood side-by-side with the Primordials. Yet, despite knowing this, Jake never really felt any trepidations when he was about to face her.
Artemis also seemed very unconcerned with the fight itself but was more interested in how Umbra would address the fight. She couldn’t say anything directly, though, as she was still under the influen...
2023-09-22 10:41:33 +0000 UTC
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”You really gotta be like that?” Minaga complained. “We were just about to get to the good stuff!”
“I question why we had to cut the feed too,” the Wyrmgod chimed in, as he had nevertheless done as Vilastromoz asked. “Not that I see any value in observing it either, but there is no purpose in not simply continuing like normal.”
”Because if you kept recording, I would be the one who would get shit for it from Jake later on,” the Viper grumbled. “Plus, wouldnâ€...
2023-09-21 10:33:18 +0000 UTC
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A question had been gnawing in the back of Jake’s mind for a while. One that had been further amplified by Sim-Jake whenever he first met him and made even worse as he rose through the grades and went through the many opponents in the Colosseum of Mortals:
Did archers suck in the multiverse?
As in, was it just a worse way to fight than most others? Jake did have to admit that the number of archers he had seen or knew of that were at the pinnacle was limited at best, and not a si...
2023-09-20 10:46:13 +0000 UTC
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The Lord of the Hunt was an opponent Jake had been interested in for a long time. Well, alright, not that long, but ever since he heard of the title, he had been interested in fighting the one who held it. He already knew a bit about her, as she had shown up for every single one of his fights so far to scout him out, which had also given Jake the chance to check her out in turn.
She was an elf who really gave off those traditional wood elf fantasy vibes. She wore a hooded dark green clo...
2023-09-19 10:04:09 +0000 UTC
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Exactly how long is this gonna take? Jake wondered as he balanced atop the pole of stable arcane mana, holding his bow ready. It has to have a time limit or something, right?
Staring down, he observed the arena below, mainly using his sphere as the dense miasma covered pretty much everything. Inside this cloud of thick miasma, right smack-center of the arena, lay a torso with only a head attached. Fifteen meters away to one side was a leg, an arm was nailed to the wall...
2023-09-18 10:34:39 +0000 UTC
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<AUTHOR NOTE>
What, another note? Yes, because I may or may not have slightly forgotten during all this moving stuff that Audiobook 7 is out today on Audible! Once more narrated by Travis Baldree, this one starts around the time Jake just entered the Order of the Malefic Viper and covers his trip to deal with Carmen’s family issues and the Seat of the Exalted Prima event.
Check it out if interested: 2023-09-15 10:43:49 +0000 UTC
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<AUTHOR NOTE>
Hey, yo, brief message here. There will be no chapters on Thursday and Friday (23rd/24th of Nov) as I am finally moving to my new house. It took a lot longer than I had wanted to get everything ready, and needless to say, publishing/writing while moving isn’t really feasible.
Anywho, enjoy the chapter!
<AUTHOR NOTE OVER>
Polly cheerfully wanted to cook for their group that night to celebrate the death of her...
2023-09-14 10:49:59 +0000 UTC
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”You know, I am not even sure if I should be angry or happy with this outcome,” Owen muttered while Jake scarfed down his lunch. ”I know that I said I wanted you to convince my father to no longer attempt to become a Grand Champion… but did you really have to convince him to try and make me one?”
Jake finished chewing as he answered seriously. ”In all honesty? Yes. You kind of said it yourself, but for the last many years, your dad had made his quest to become the Grand Cham...
2023-09-13 10:41:26 +0000 UTC
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Jake was arrogant; no two ways about it. But his arrogance was also always backed with a certain level of well-earned confidence and a powerful intuition. He did not declare others weak or strong or claim himself superior based on pure narcissism, but his own reading on his opponent… and while the Lightning Monarch was powerful, Jake had full confidence in himself. Especially when he saw the man be momentarily surprised at Jake’s charge… oh, and the fact that he had a damn good plan.
2023-09-12 10:44:45 +0000 UTC
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Vilastromoz had to admit that the Wyrmgod had managed to gather quite the respectable images to be used as Champions. To see Gudrun had already been surprising, as she wasn’t really known to be that huge of a fighter these days. Even before she became a god, she had been more of a shaman or leader than a Valkyrie that used a spear. Well, it was not like she could have been one, as Valkyrie wasn’t really a term before Gudrun, as she was the one who more or less created that Path.
Yet...
2023-09-11 10:46:02 +0000 UTC
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Jake spent far longer than he would have liked to get home. How in the hell did an entire crowd even manage to gather outside the arena in the relatively short time spent just talking to the Battlemaster? He had no idea, but they somehow had. There were thousands upon thousands of spectators who wanted to see the new Champion and to celebrate him.
While he had wanted to avoid them entirely, Jake somehow ended up spending nearly an hour placating the crowd before using his injuries as an...
2023-09-08 10:52:10 +0000 UTC
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Jake walked with steady steps out of the large arena, which was quite frankly a mess by now. Gudrun’s formation had screwed it up a lot, and Jake’s subsequent barrage of exploding arcane arrows certainly hadn’t helped. Javelins were also lying haphazardly everywhere, and he did not envy whatever clean-up crew was in charge of putting the arena back to how it was.
As he walked out, the announcer naturally also did his thing.
“We have a winner! No, not just ...
2023-09-07 10:37:56 +0000 UTC
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