The Primal Hunter's
Everyone Likes Mushrooms

Dungeon Challenge Incorporated!

Objective: Survive until the end of the dungeon while completing all the challenges along the way. Failure to complete the challenge can result in death.

Jake felt his vision change as he fainted for a moment. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself standing in a gigantic hall. Looking around him, he only saw broken stones and broken pillars strewn across the ground, all of them the same monotonous gray in color. The only thing that is a little different is that the brazier hanging on the ceiling emits a dim blue light.

To his horror, the brazier radiates light not through magic or fire, but by being filled with a glowing blue mushroom, the same kind as in a cave. It seemed like even in the basement of a deadly challenge, one was unable to escape the power of the fungus.

He also notices that his bow, dagger, and tube are mysteriously missing, and checks his bag, as well as all of his potions. He really hoped the system would return it …

Turning his attention back to the hall, he began to search where to go. The only entrance or exit is through a hole that looks like there used to be a door. Walking past him, he entered a long passageway. It was filled with the same blue light, emitted from more fungi, but this time it grew on the wall. Not exactly a repair.

He found himself in another hall after walking through the hallway, almost identical to the one he entered. The hall was slightly cleaner, not too damaged, and even a few cracked pillars were still standing. Leisurely walking into the room, his sense of danger exploded as he quickly retreated into the passageway he had just entered.

A long metal nail pierced through the floor where he had just stood, piercing through the solid rock like butter. To make matters worse, Jake then hears a hissing sound as he watches the ground slowly erode. Stupidly, he decided to walk forward and take a closer look.

Before he could properly inspect it, another nail flew straight towards him. Like the first one, this one is also easy to avoid. Jake doesn't consciously have to dodge attacks like this; he just has to follow his instincts. At least that's how he justifies foolishly walking back to the room he knew wanted to kill him.

However, triggering the second spike was not entirely in vain. He had noticed that it came out of a small hole in the wall, which disappeared right after shooting. He did a few more tests and recorded where the nail came from.

After a while, Jake felt confident enough to run towards the exit of the hall. Running forward, he quickly dodged the three spikes that were fired afterwards. A few seconds later, a second attack came, and he dodged it easily.

As he moved between the two pillars marking the midpoint of the hall, the two of them shot spikes at him simultaneously. Jake is shocked when he is forced to knock himself to the ground before they hit him, barely managing to roll when another nail comes from one of the walls.

What the fuck is this supposed to be? he screamed in his head as he rushed back to his feet. Fortunately the two pillars did not shoot anymore, giving him enough time to keep going.

Without wasting any time, he continued to run as he approached the two pillars again right in front of the exit. What irritated him a little, the two of them did nothing as he ran safely past them, finally leaving the pointy hall behind. Only to find himself in another mushroom-filled passageway.

Nothing happened in the hallway as Jake heaved a sigh of relief, the blue mushroom now slightly alleviated the pain in the eyes. Without his bloodline, the first passageway would likely kill him, or at least leave him severely disabled. Is this place just a death trap nonsense?

One scratch from the nail was enough to scrape the stone floor, and as he looked back at the hall, he saw smoke billowing from where the nail hit. Anything that's on that thing is likely to eat it in seconds.

As he got up and walked to the end of the passageway, he met with another system message.

The Challenge of the Underground Prison: Gather at least four silver mushrooms in the next room.

0/10 silver mushrooms collected

What's with this dungeon and this mushroom, he's grumbling to himself. At least this is silver mushrooms. There must be an increase, right?

Standing at the opening of the challenge room, he inspected it closely. He saw a small pedestal scattered throughout the hall, each plinth holding one silver mushroom. He could currently only see seven pedestals, but he assumed there were ten in total based on the system message. The rest is obscured by pillars.

He felt like the system was mocking him by requiring only four mushrooms. He would, of course, try to collect all ten. There should be some sort of extra reward or bonus associated with not only doing the bare minimum. Also, it seems more fun that way.

The hall has the same design as the last two. But everything was in better shape, with its pillars barely having a slight crack. The floor also adds a lot of flavor to the room. Moving into the hall for just a moment, he made sure that this hall also fired spikes at people. Very rude.

After carefully planning his approach, a very detailed plan appeared in his mind. A plan that could roughly be condensed into 'wings only'. Entering the hall after starting to run, his ball told him that the wall behind him closed by itself when he was five meters away in the hall, leaving only one way out in the distance.

He ran towards the first silver mushroom and met with a few spikes heading towards him as expected. It took quite a bit of effort to avoid them with his high perception and agility, as he approached the pedestal carefully. He somewhat expected another trap but was surprised when nothing bad happened.

1/10 silver mushroom collected

One fell, he thought, while throwing mushrooms into his bag and running towards the next. Another surge was fired at him after only taking a few steps, followed by another shortly afterwards.

After collecting the four mushrooms, he confirmed that the frequency of the spikes increased with each mushroom obtained.

He danced across the hall while trying to get as far away from the walls and pillars as possible. There were several dangerous situations, one particular event stands out where he was almost hit by three spikes fired at once, one of which came from a very difficult angle.

He barely spared a blow during the final sprint as he rolled over on the 10th pedestal, using it to take cover and collect the last mushroom in one smooth motion. Those spikes were coming quickly now, and without his current stats and bloodline abilities, he doubted that he would be able to gather all ten without dying.

With all the mushrooms behind him, he galloped towards the exit, practically rolling into the next passageway. This one, to everyone's surprise, was also covered in a blue mushroom.

Checking his bag, he found eight expected mushrooms, the last two still held in his hand as he stuffed them into it. The system then once again appears by informing him of his completed task.

The Challenge of the Underground Prison: Gather at least four silver mushrooms in the next room.

10/10 silver mushrooms collected

Challenge over!

He was kind of hoping for a gift or something to collect all 10 mushrooms. He saw the mushroom and used Identification, only to meet with the common message [Mildew]. Frankly speaking skills do more harm than good at times.

He walked through the passageway, and the moment he reached the end, he half expected another challenge room like the others but instead met a new kind of hall. If it could be called that.

This hall is a bit strange. The walls and ceilings look the same as everything else, and they all have the same color palette, but that's where the similarities end. The pillars were now gone, and almost the entire floor space was replaced with a large basin filled with water, extending from wall to wall.

The only part of the floor that was not under the water were some platforms and the start of the hall itself.

Exiting the passageway would make him step onto a small ledge right in front of the many platforms. On it grew more of that damn mushroom. The hall itself was also much smaller compared to the others.

As he fully entered the room by stepping out of the hallway, a system message appeared.

The Challenge of the Underground Prison: Arriving at the other side of the hall using the platform. The time limit per hall is set to 15 minutes.

Arrive at the other side of the hall: 0/3

Time remaining: 14:59

But just as he thought 'it doesn't seem too difficult' , he was greeted with a follow-up message.

All stats reduced to 10 static. All skills are disabled. Statistics and skills will be restored after completing the challenge

He instantly felt a wave of weakness sweep over him as he knelt on the floor. His senses were dull as he contracted vertigo. His stomach was nauseous and wanted to vomit. It seemed like he had just finished running four marathons while lifting weights on an empty stomach.

Soon after, the feeling disappeared as quickly as it came. But that weakness remains. Jake tries to use Archer's Eye and turns out to be unresponsive.

It felt strange to lose her skills; in fact, everything felt bad. It seems like he has returned before the system and tutorials. Well, except for the small detail that he was trapped in a room that would likely kill him within fifteen minutes if he didn't make it through.

Having reduced stats, of course, made the whole challenge a little more complicated. But that doesn't mean Jake has time to waste when he starts analyzing the room. Using his Sphere of Perception, he sees that-

Waitwhat?

Flashing in confusion, he felt that his bloodline abilities were still active. It was not even weakened or affected in any way. Why does it still work? Is it not considered a skill? But even if not, he knew that perception increased his potential, but with his perception reduced to only 10, it worked as if he still had unaffected stats.

It was a mystery he could not answer, but it was still a pleasant surprise. What exactly is the bloodline's ability? Why does he have one while the other doesn't seem to?

Focus, Jake, focus, he reprimands himself as he forcefully dissipates those thoughts. He had more important things to deal with than contemplating a bloodline, such as how not to die. Walking to the edge, he began to inspect the platform and the symbols engraved on it.

The symbols were intricately made as depictions of various animals. Jake sees three different types, the first one a coiled snake with.

Suppressing his desire to shout obscenities, he checked the second type. It was another snake-like creature, but this one had wings and spines growing all over its body — a kind of winged snake. The snake flew over a myriad of other creatures. He saw both different animals but also depictions like humans.

These animals and humanoid creatures kneel or prostrate on the ground, looking up at the snake either in worship or fear. Some of them held weapons and appeared to be performing rituals, while others simply prayed.

The third and final engraving is what he identifies as wyvern. It had a small hand attached to its wings, and was like a winged snake, had spines growing from its spine. It looked murderous, to say the least. This Wyvern was on a mountain, roaring towards the sky. Like I was angry at the sky above.

Is this a depiction of the growth cycle of a small snake? Did it evolve from a snake to a wyvern? He assumed that evolution was a figure of speech used by the system, considering he had a race, and said races could level up. Big (G) in front of [Human] is also a big indicator. But it was still quite something if a small snake could turn into a wyvern.

He had the right intuition, but the problem was still what he had to do with these platforms and engravings. The only way he got to the other side of the room was by jumping from platform to platform. He had no desire to get into the water because he had a suspicion that it was not even water based on the nails that were obviously poisonous or drenched in the last few halls.

After looking around a little more, he realized how the blue light on each platform reminded him of the light emitted by the fungus. The mushroom grew around where he stood on a ledge, the only other type of thing that existed. When he saw the first symbol image with a snake eating mushrooms, he got the idea.

He covered his hands with some cloth from his robe as he picked up one of the mushrooms. He was still a little afraid that the objects were poisonous to touch with his bare hands. Fear that would be so bad to test with lower statistics. He returned to the edge of the ledge with a mushroom in hand and threw one of the mushrooms on the stage depicting a small snake.

Once the fungus makes contact, it is absorbed into the platform, and the blue light disappears. Waiting a little to see if something more would happen, the blue light returned after only ten seconds.

He tried the same thing with the other two types of platforms but got no response. The fungus is absorbed, but nothing else happens. Jake tries to throw the mushrooms onto a different platform for a bit and builds up the courage to finally touch the blue buggers without any protection. It didn't seem like it poisoned him, so maybe things weren't that bad?

With his testing completed and time running out, he had reached a conclusion. Once the mushroom hits the platform with the mushroom-eating snake on it, the blue light will dissipate for ten seconds, and throwing the mushroom onto the already disabled platform will refresh the countdown.

Noting the position of the platform, he saw some with mushroom snakes between him and the end of the hall. The room was brightly lit, and he could see the depiction of all the different symbols on all the pillars quite clearly. After observing for a while, it clicked for him.

It's definitely a labyrinth. Jake sets the glowing platform as a kill zone and the non-luminous one as safe. So, he needed a path where he only needed to jump between secure platforms. And such a path existed where the only pattern he had to walk on was the snake platform. He was a bit confident with his deduction, and to be honest he couldn't buy any more time when he saw the timer.

Time remaining: 3:24

He began picking mushrooms and stuffing a bundle into his bag and holding a pair in each hand. He threw the mushroom on the first platform, and saw the light disappear. Please don't kill me, he begged inwardly while jumping.

He landed safely on the platform without anything happening. He briefly thanked the decidedly evil, yet slightly benevolent, mushroom god, as he tossed the others and jumped onto the platform as the light disappeared as well.

After repeating the same for the next platform, he finally made it to the other side. He looked at the timer and rushed through the exit of the hall and found himself at another, almost identical exit, when the system appeared again.

Make it to the other side of the hall: 1/3

Time remaining: 14:59

The room also has mushrooms on the initial platform and a newly added pedestal with a beautiful red silk pillow placed on it. Lying on a pillow is what looks like a dagger. He quickly tried to use Identification on it but got no response.

Shit, he thought, after forgetting for a moment that the skill was disabled. The dagger was made of what looked like bones. Decorative markings depicting a snake adorn the handle, giving Jake a very cult vibe.

He picked up the dagger, momentarily afraid of being cursed or something, but fortunately got nothing. Staking out of the room, he quickly deduced that there was no path with just the mushroom-eating snake symbol, meaning he could not repeat the same tactic.

He kept picking up a few more mushrooms and also tested throwing one at the snake platform, making sure it was disabled for 10 seconds like in the previous room. Other platforms also ignore the fungus as before. The size of the room and the layout are also almost the same. Indeed the only difference is the pattern of symbols and keris.

As the counter kept counting down, his mind worked too hard to figure out a solution.