SSS Awakening: Creating Primordial Beasts To Be My Summons-Chapter 8: Hunt Turned Competition

He gestured toward the group, where a young man and woman—both likely in their early twenties—were talking to each other.

"This is Dana and Scot. Both Level 5. They work as warriors."

"Good morning."

Scot nodded at Cohen while Dana replied, "A good one for killing those mutated animals, right?"

Cohen gave her a suspicious look. ’Is this what they call the dangerous kind?’

Dana laughed at his reaction. "I’m just pulling your legs! Looking forward to working with you."

Dax immediately guided Cohen to the next member.

Another young man, lean and quick looking, a Level 4. He was also 19.

"This is Abraham, our quick damage dealer."

"What’s good, man?"

He extended a fist bump which Cohen returned.

"Interesting build you seem to have. Can’t wait to see your skills," Cohen said, genuinely curious, as a DPS build was his other line of interest.

With a playful salute, Abraham looked at Bobby and replied, "Likewise."

Finally, Dax gestured toward the last member, who stood a little apart from the others.

She was lithe, with short, dark blue and baby blue eyes, holding a finely crafted longbow.

"And this is Maya. She’s the highest level among everyone; she hit Level 7 this morning. As her bow suggests, she’s a ranger."

Maya offered a curt nod, her eyes scanning Cohen from his dirtied joggers to the bobbing slime on his head, resting longest on the bloodstain on his shoulder.

"Hi. Nice to meet you." Her tone was simple and sweet.

Cohen nodded in return, "Same here. With the way things are, we’re handling the backlines together it seems."

Maya nodded, before turning away towards the gate.

Dax whispered to Cohen, "Unlike her looks, she’s 20."

’That sounds weird,’ Cohen thought.

As the introductions concluded, the murmurs from the other Outliers intensified, settling into a low hum of frustration.

"Level 7 already? It’s just been three days," someone muttered.

"See? The strong always get stronger."

"They’re the Heavenly Spire’s new darlings."

Cohen overheard the discussion clearly, the passive effect of Perception of Grays picking up every word.

’How bitter,’ he thought with a quiet sigh.

Just then, Brawn clapped his hands, the sound cutting through the forest air like a gunshot.

"Attention, Outliers! The preparation period is over. As you know, this is a Tier 1 Dungeon Gate harboring monsters up to level 15. Be careful, this is your training ground for the next eight hours."

Brawn pointed toward a shimmering, unstable rectangle of dark purple energy deep within the cave structure—the dungeon gate.

It looked like a tear in reality, humming with low-grade ambient mana.

"Your goal is to enter, engage, survive, and level up. This is where you learn to use your skills practically."

He looked directly at Cohen’s group.

"Parties are already formed. Work together efficiently."

As the first few, more eager groups began to cautiously approach the swirling gate, Cohen, Dax, Maya, and the rest of their team fell into formation.

Just as they reached the shimmering boundary, ready to step through, Bobby, the purple slime perched atop Cohen’s head, suddenly ceased its cheerful bouncing.

It contracted, its pseudopod eyes narrowing into slits, and it emitted a low, vibrating rumble—a sound that was less a gurgle and more a low, territorial growl.

Cohen patted the slime, his eyes instantly growing cold as he stepped up to the entrance.

"I feel it too, Bobby," Cohen murmured, his voice too low for the others to catch over the hum of the gate.

He subtly activated his Perception of Grays, not to sense the immediate space, but to project a feeling of awareness outward, confirming a faint sense of multiple people focused intensely on the group.

"And I’m not surprised. There are multiple people watching us—the Outliers, and me especially—right now."

Cohen was an insightful individual.

He knew from the start that these sessions were to monitor the Outliers like lab rats.

- - - - -

They were in the second zone of the dungeon, where the second-strongest group of monsters lived.

They were in a maze of narrow stone tunnels, the walls close enough to brush both shoulders at once.

The air was thick with fine grey dust that hung at eye level and made everything beyond arm’s reach look hazy and uncertain. It smelled like wet stone and something animal.

’This session is an absolute waste of time.’

Cohen commented from the backlines, Maya standing by him, as they attacked brought down some Level 8 and 9 Dustmane Jackals.

It had been seven hours, the session was nearing its end, and Cohen was only just approaching Level 5.

Bobby was now pushing Level 13 after stealing the EXP from everyone present.

If the monsters here hadn’t been lower level than it, Bobby would have leveled up much more.

Cohen wasn’t too bummed either because the EXP he received from Bobby’s kills was apparently higher than what a normal Tamer would gain.

At some point, the hunt had turned into a fierce, almost absurd contest between the party’s two range damage dealers, Bobby, the Rift Split Slime, and Maya, the Level 9 archer.

Bobby, perched atop Cohen’s head, attacked in a strange way that barely involved movement.

A stored stone would vanish into a small spatial gate the moment it left its gelatinous body, only to reappear a hairsbreadth above a Dustmane Jackal’s body.

It accelerated downward with lethal force, dealing large damage to its body.

Maya, operating with silent, intense focus, responded in kind.

Her longbow sang with a resonant hum as she eagerly launched a blue energy stick that exuded heat. Plasma.

Her projectiles were charged with enough power to damage multiple monsters grouped together.

Two or three Jackals would feel their legs gone, their dust-colored fur scorched.

Even the jackals seemed confused, caught between spatial projectiles from above and scorching arrows tearing through the tunnels. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

The rest of the party—Dana, Scot, and Abraham—were reduced to a scrambling cleanup crew.

They darted in, trying to secure the kills, only managing to finish off the monsters that Bobby and Maya had already mortally wounded. They recently just reached Level 6.

Dax, meanwhile, worked tirelessly to aggro the next wave, luring them into the path of the relentless, competitive storm unleashed by the slime and the archer, only for the monsters to die in a few seconds.

Cohen, having introduced himself as a Tamer, found himself relegated to the role of a heavily-armed spectator and Bobby’s carrier.

He had little opportunity to engage in close combat without overtly showcasing physical capabilities far beyond the expected Level 4 range.

He watched the slaughter, a wry smile forming on his lips, realizing that his initial goal of leveling up quietly was now secondary to witnessing the spectacle of his Mythic Class benefits in action.

’Hopefully, it’ll be harder to not look unnaturally overwhelming at later levels.’

After dealing with the monsters in this tunnel, the group gathered.

"You guys should leave some for us goddamnit!" Dana said in frustration, only managing to enter level 6 after all this while.

"Please, we beg of you. Stop going nuts!" Abraham added.

Scot nodded in agreement, seeming a little dejected by not leveling up.

They looked at Cohen since he was the trigger of it all.

"I’m sorry! Even I am barely leveling up. It’s Bobby that’s doing all that!"

Bobby, who had been causing chaos from Cohen’s head, bounced around as if happy by the situation.

"Where in the world did you even find such a broken monster to tame?!" Abraham asked.

Dana wanted to complain more, but seeing Bobby move around, she couldn’t help but adore it for a bit.

Instead, she turned to Maya.

"Bluey, please, pity us. Calm down!"

Maya looked at Dana with a blank gaze before genuinely replying to her.

"The slime started it. It was stealing my targets. It was trying to prove better than me."

Everyone was shocked by the absurdity of her words.

’This girl... she’s not normal.’

Dana shook her head. "It’s the cute-looking ones that turn out to be beasts."

Maya turned to Bobby, her gaze locked in with the slime’s rift-like eyes.

Dax stepped forward, raising his hands in a gesture of peace and desperation.

"Guys, guys! We’re running out of monsters faster than they’re respawning! At this rate, the other Outliers won’t have anything left for the rest of the session. We need to throttle the damage, just a little, for the sake of the grind!"

He looked from Maya to the slime.

Bobby, the purple blob of destruction, simply bounced once on Cohen’s head, an unnerving, silent affirmation of its intent.

Maya, not even bothering to turn around, notched another plasma arrow.

"I won’t lose," she stated, already aiming at the next corner.

The silent competition between the slime and the archer was clearly far from over.

Cohen looked at Maya with a smile.

’Still, this girl and her powers are quite interesting.’