Ray had already finished making his report to the hunter at the desk when the hunter quickly wrote something on a piece of paper and quickly put it into a can and shoved it inside the tube next to his desk.
This was one of the methods of sending information inside the building, there were different color tubes each one belonging to a different department and some were probably linked to the Head of departments but it was nothing new.
"Ray, do you mind if I call you Ray?" asked the middle aged man at the desk.
"Not at all" replied Ray.
"Good, it's not the first time that we have had a repot like this and it seems like the size and intelligence of the horde is building up, as for this piece of information we, the Hunters Association would like you to keep it to yourself as the higher ups are holding a meeting on this particular matter but you should not be worried about anything" replied the Middle aged man.
"Can you do that for the Association?" he asked.
"Sure, I guess I can so long as it's not anything too serious" replied Ray as he took a step forward.
"Good, you may leave, if we need to talk to you we will send for you" said the middle aged man as he expertly kicked Ray out of the room seeing that he had made his point clear that the information about the horde and their movement was to be kept a secret.
Ray quickly left the office as he headed out of the Hunter Association building making his way back home. The streets were still busy and life kept moving at its slow pace but who would believe that something terrible was about to happen when he looked at people going about normal life in a ruined world.
Entering the house, he took off the clean shirt he was given at the city gate as he went straight to his bathroom to take a shower.
There was still a lot of brain matter stuck in his hair and as the hot water from the shower poured down on his head, lumps of brain matter and the blood which had stuck to his hair slowly dissolved and beneath his feet the bloody water slowly disappeared through the bath drain.
His mind became clear and his body truly relaxed for the first time in three days. Exiting the bathroom, he fell on his bed completely nude and fell asleep.
The days ticked by slowly and Ray still found himself confused about how he was able to enter blood state.
From all the information he was able to gather, Blood state only enhanced one aspect of abilities, if it was speed then it was only speed and no additional strength and vice versa, it was not able to affect all abilities but for some reason his blood state was clearly different it felt more balanced.
It was as if he was maintaining the same rating for all his stats, be it his speed, strength agility, hearing even.
There was no information on such a kind of mutation in the Blood state.There was nothing he could do about it and the only way he could get more information was by rising higher in his ranking as a hunter as that would give him the chance to get in contact with other hunters who had the Blood state as for how hard carrying this task was, it was still doable at the end of the day.
It would not be a simple and safe task as leveling up a rank was harder not to mention for someone like Ray who was only a D rank hunter, just getting to the C rank would be tough.
Leaving the house, Ray wandered around the city not realizing what day it was and was only occupied with figuring out how he was able to unlock his blood state but form everything he had gathered it was because he had pushed himself beyond his limit and had someone how unlocked it.
It was not even possible to unlock it that way but he had, any other person would have died even if they had successfully unlocked their blood state in the middle of such a fight but he had survived by some miracle.
"Yo, Ray!" shouted Victor when he spotted him from the corner of his eye.
Turning around Ray spotted Victor who was putting on very flashy clothes which was unlike him;
"What's happening Victor? Why are you dressed like a Christmas tree?" asked Ray as he lightly laughed.
"You're the one I'm supposed to be asking that question" said Victor, "I thought you did not like the gauntlet battles?" asked Victor.
"Yeah, I don't it's just an excuse to have different rankers fight against each other for a chance to increase their ranks and it's like some kind of sick form of entertainment." Replied Ray as he shook his head.
"Then what are you doing here on today of all days?" asked Victor with a laugh.
"What day is it?" asked Ray confused.
"It's the annual gauntlet battle" replied Victor stunned, "Looks like you've had a lot of things on your mind that you even forgot about today" said Victor.
"What?" asked Ray stunned, because of the following events the past couple of days he completely forgot about the gauntlet battles.
The Gauntlet Battle was an annual event that presented hunters with the opportunity to increase their ranks even without completing a specific number of tasks and accomplishments necessary for a rank upgrade.
Hunters with similar ranks are allowed to challenge one another and the most powerful top hundred hunters in each rank are directly promoted and for someone who was a D rank hunter like Ray, it would mean a direct upgrade to the C rank and access to more information.
Thinking about it Ray thought it would be incredible if he was able to participate and increase his rank, plus although he did not like it, it was the fastest way to check how strong he had gotten after unlocking Blood State.
"I have something to do" said Ray as he turned around and left leaving the stunned Victor alone in the street.After ditching Victor, Ray made a turnaround as he ran to his house.In the house Ray thought about only the benefits of the Gauntlet.
[This is perfect, even if I am unable to reach the top 15, I will be able to tell how strong I have gotten and the gauntlet allows participants to participate with masks not revealing their identities. Victor would not recognize me even if I participate] he thought as he rummaged through his clothes.
He was searching for a commonly seen shirt which was easy to see in the city making it even harder to connect him to the participant even if someone saw him outside with the shirt outside.
He quickly found himself a simply black shirt and picked up one of the most popular leather jackets which was sold last year, his was red but it did not make any difference since there were a lot of red ones sold too. It was perfect.
The only problem left was his weapon, he could not afford to use his own sword since Victor would recognize him immediately.
"Looks like I have to do this with my bare hands" Ray looked out his window before he dashed out of the house in a hurry.
[If I arrive too late I might not be able to register for the gauntlet] he thought as he picked up his speed as he weaved his way through the crowd of people who were busy making their way through the streets to watch the gauntlet.
The crowd was bustling with excitement and the whole city seemed to be in a festive mood which was hard to picture because they were leaving in a world overrun with zombies and loud noise was not something common but today it was as if the city had forgotten about that.
This was no surprise because ever since the creation of the gauntlet, it had always been like this and nothing was like it, this was a day just as festive as Christmas before the zombie apocalypse.After running through the crowd he finally arrived at the dome where the gauntlet was being hosted.
Although it was a dome it was more or less like a huge stadium not a small dome like your mind would think of. It was on the same scale as a large soccer stadium before the apocalypse.
Sports like soccer are not even on the large scale since everyone was too preoccupied with surviving the sport slowly died with time and the new sports people cared about were survival sports and the gauntlet was the biggest and most anticipated one held within the city.
The Gauntlet was held in every city and on amazing scales, the biggest one would be the Tournament held for all the winners of the gauntlet in each part of the country, there would be one held later for those who qualified and won in the southern part of the country, then the tournament for the entire country which would have all of the greatest hunters in the country.
It was a good way to get ahead and become well known but it was one of my least favorite sports and something I would have never pictured myself joining and yet here I was.