February 20th, 2226
Central Trancosco (Sector A)
Casa Estrela, a casino made by Hunters for the Hunters
In this casino was a man in a black suit. He had several guards near him as he sat on an opulent chair. He was in a luxurious room with a transparent window in front of him. If one were to look closer, they would see that this transparent window was just a mana barrier separating the man from an auction happening outside.
"Our next item…is someone any hunter would desire, something mysterious and powerful...it's...a Rank A evolution stone!"
The hunters who were gathered began cheering, and they all looked at the strange transparent orb in Auctioneer's hand.
The auctioneer was a beautiful woman with blonde hair wearing a sexy red dress.
She continued
"This Evolution Stone can evolve any B-rank skill into an A-rank skill. Such an item is rare even in the black market, so the price will start at 100 gold coins."
The room silenced for a bit, and this was the beginning of a fierce auction.
The stone was eventually sold for 1200 gold coins.
The man in the luxurious room was looking at the chaos below him with disinterest; he seemed...almost bored.
At this time two youngsters enter the room, and they greet the man in the suit with the utmost respect.
"We greet Lord Viscount!"
If Ray were to see this scene, he would immediately recognize the two youngsters who greeted the viscount.
They were Davi and Mendes.
The man spoke without even looking at them.
"Did you find it?"
Davi looked at Mendes for a moment before handing the viscount an egg.
This egg was the size of a toaster, and its surface had tiger-like stripes on it, and these stripes were glowing like lava.
"That woman had hidden it quite well; it took great effort for…"
Before Davi could finish, the man tossed him a vial with an ethereal purple liquid inside.
Davi caught this vial as if his life depended on it, and when he got it in his hand, he couldn't help but grin.
"Thank you so much, Lord Viscount!"
.
At the same time, in another building in the same city, Ray was taking his hunter license examination.
He did quite well in the written test; his aunt had taught him the basic knowledge a hunter should have, which was more than enough to get him a score of 89 out of 100.
Now he is waiting for his Mana Application Test.
This is what determines one's rank
The rank isn't fixed and gates aren't restricted by ranks; in other words, anyone with a hunter's license can enter any gate, but it was still good to get a higher rank, as it could earn the support of nobles and even the royal family in some cases.
Inside the examination room, a lady in a black sleeveless dress asked Ray to put his hand on a crystal ball.
The test was simple: the crystal ball will measure the quantity and quality of mana, and an F ranker will have between 1 and 10 mana, and Ray currently had 6, so he was put into F rank and received a silver metal plate with a golden sun in the middle. This was a license plate, and the golden sun was the symbol of the Sunstone Kingdom.
This test was not only a method to verify hunters whose status window cannot be seen by anyone else but also a method of recruitment.
Ray got what he came here for and didn't stick around; his destination was a gate on the beach side of Trancoso.
An F-ranked gate, which was known as the 'goblin tunnel,' was what they called a newbie-friendly gate!
The security was quite lax. Just two guards were stationed to prevent non-hunters from entering, and these guards weren't even awakened.
They immediately let Ray in when they saw his license plate.
There was a reason why the security was this lax.
A gate like this one, which was already cleared, had never collapsed since the first Apocalypse.
In front of Ray was a huge black sphere that was 6 meters in diameter.
Ray has heard about gates from his aunt before, but this is the first time he is seeing a gate.
He reached out to touch the gate, and a system panel opened up in front of Ray.
Goblin Tunnel (F)
Party size: (1/4)
Restriction: None
Ray found an 'enter' button at the bottom of the holographic window, and he didn't need to think twice before pressing it.
Now he is inside the gate, and the reason the goblin tunnel was called the goblin tunnel was because, well…it is a literal goblin tunnel!
In front of Ray was a long tunnel and a green, grotesque humanoid creature the size of an eleven-year-old, and some of them had strange knives in their hands—no, it's more accurate to call them sharpened stones.
The goblins rushed towards Ray as soon as they saw him.
Ray didn't intend to waste time; he summoned Aries immediately.
Aries was too big; she was barely fitting inside the tunnel, which made her lose a lot of mobility, but the goblins still stood no chance.
Ray was currently out of mana (summoning Aries exhausts all his mana), so he strategically walked behind Aries and picked up pebble-shaped light green mana stones.
These mana stones were an item dropped by the goblins.
And they could only be obtained when a monster or an OHWL is killed inside a dungeon. In other words, hunting monsters roaming outside won't give one any mana stones.
Ray opened his system panel and saw that he could use these mana stones to update any of his stats.
These stones were called mana stones only because they have mana concentrated in them. In fact,they had another lesser-known name, 'attribute tokens.'
Ray invested all his mana stones into mana.
He has a total of 12 mana stones; the first 8 increase Ray's mana by 3, and the 4 increase it by one.
This made it clear that the more his status increases, the harder it will be to raise it.
Ray and Aries made their way up to a large door. Ray remembered what his aunt taught him and understood that this was probably the boss's room.
Bosses are of two types. lone bosses and leader-type bosses
This one was a leader type!
When Ray opened the door, he saw at least 20 goblins standing in front of a goblin mage who was a bit larger than the rest; this was a commander-level boss.
Ray and Aries fought well together, and since the boss room is very spacious, Aries could display his agility.
They dodged various attacks, including a bunch of fireballs that were cast by the boss.
20 goblins were hard, but the goblin mage (boss) was still tricky. Aries was an E+-ranked beast, and even she took some time to bring it down.
A Rank skillbook: Fireball
The boss dropped a skill book!
Ray immediately absorbed the skill. This mage-type skill required 2 MP (mana) per cast.
Ray exited the dungeon and waited for him to recover and tried again.
Ray raided the dungeon about 6 times in the last 3 hours.
He figured out that his mana recovery speed is 0.1 mana per second; in other words, every ten seconds he will recover 1 MP. Ray currently had 10 MP, so it took 100 seconds, or 1 minute and 40 seconds, to completely recover, and when he increased his wisdom, the recovery speed also increased; now it's 2 MP every 13 seconds.
Ray not only increased his stats, but he also got 3 more skills, 2 accessories, and a knife.
The skills are Stone Skin, Strength Boost, and Night Vision.
The accessories were a bronze ring and a jet-black pair of boots.
Ring of Morjul (Common): Increases the attack potency of fire magic by 8%.
Boots of Casimire (Common): agility +3
And the knife was just a longer, more refined version of the goblin knife.
Goblin Chief's Knife:
A Refined Knife reserved only for the strongest of goblins
.
Name: Raymond Castro
Age: 19
Sex: Male.
Strength: 7
Wisdom 8
Agility: 7+3
Senses: 6
Mana: 10
Innate skills:.
Inversed Tower of Manas (Rank:???)
Acquired skills:
Summon Shadow Wolf (Rank: E+)
Minor heal (Rank: F)
Stone skin (F)
Night vision (F)
Strength boost (F)