Ron drops me off outside my apartment building, before he leaves, I say,
"Thanks man, for everything."
"Don't think about it too much, I'm sure you'd do the same for me," he says, with a faint smile. "See you tomorrow at the association?"
"Sure thing dude, see you there," I reply.
The car drives off and I stay standing in front of the building. 'Would Tom treat me the same if he knew? If he knew I was a murderer?' Shaking my head, I clear my thoughts and head inside. Once I'm at the door, I take a deep breath, and open it.
POP!
"Congratulations!" Tom is wearing one of those silly birthday hats that are made of cardboard. He just used a confetti popper, there is a small cake sitting on top of the living room table. The sudden noise scares me, causing me to flinch not so slightly.
"God damn Tom!" I yell.
"Hahaha, did you just jump? Why are you so tense scaredy cat?" he says, in between his laughter. "You did pass the exam, right? It would be embarrassing if I did all of this and you ended up failing."
"Of course, I passed the exam!" I retort.
"Did you get your license already? Let me see it!" he says.
"No, not yet, I have to get my picture taken," I answer.
"Okay, later then. For now, let's get to eating the cake," he says. Tom and I eat the cake while I tell him about the exam. Besides him, Alan appears and says,
"Do you deserve this? A happy family? What about my family, William?" Alan isn't alone, his friends appear too.
"I wonder if my little sister and your brother go to the same school," says one of them. "They might even share classes."
"Hey, everything okay?" Tom's words make the 3 vanish.
"Huh? Yeah, sorry, just spaced out a little," I answer. "Thank you for this."
"What are you talking about? Stuff like this doesn't compare to what you go through for me," he replies. "So, are you taking the day off?"
"I don't think so, I want to maintain the training habit," with that answer, I stand up and head out for a run.
During my run, I continue to practice enhanced absorption. I put all of my focus into the training, trying to keep my mind busy. My phone vibrates, it's a message from the association telling me they've dismantled the hellhound. Taking this as a good excuse, I decide to run all the way to the association. I'm surprised by how long it takes me to get there, I expected to take a couple of hours, but it only took 39 minutes. This is the first time I've done long distance running since becoming a hunter.
At the association, I ask the receptionist where I should go to receive the mana stone. She tells me they will bring it out for me and that I can wait in the lobby. After a couple of moments, an employee arrives and hands me the stone. Immediately, I go to sell the stone. However, on the way to the counter, an idea hits me. 'What if I try absorbing the stone, just like the monster meat?'
The idea of increasing my mana excites me immensely, but I am forced to contain my excitement. 'If people found out about a hunter who could get stronger, they would riot. Not only that, but my encounter with the ruins is still recorded, it wouldn't be hard to connect the dots.' I leave the building and take the subway back home. At the house, I exchange a couple of words with Tom and enter my room. 'If I can't even absorb the mana stone, there is no point in worrying. Here goes nothing…' I start using enhanced absorption, and instantly feel a significant amount of mana rush into me.
This time, there is no surge of mana in the surroundings, all I get is a feeling of being full. 'Let's see what's changed. Hmm, looks like I'm still E rank, but my mana has almost doubled. This is ridiculous, and it was only an E rank mana stone. I wonder what the difference would be with higher ranked ones.' With my new mana capacity, full body reinforcement becomes a breeze. Not only that, even spreading my mana like this, there's still a decent concentration of it on each limb. I grab my spear and imbue it with all my mana, a dim blue glow surrounds the spear.
'What? Since when do I have an affinity? It must be very weak though; my hair is still brown as usual.' Without putting much thought into my faint affinity, I swing my spear around, testing its new capabilities. Suddenly, my door swings open and Tom's head peaks in.
"Hey, you wa- oh. You are playing with your spear, I'll come back later," he says.
"Don't say it like that! What were you going to ask?" I quickly dismiss his joke.
"I wanted to ask if you want to order something to eat, we got that mana stone money after all," Tom looks at me with an expectant face.
Lacking the heart to tell him the truth, I agree, and we make plans to eat pizza for dinner. For now, I continue to practice, getting used to my new amount of mana. Thankfully, everything gets easier to do with this change, but I will also have to learn new techniques. Previously, I asked the instructor for some, but he denied me. He said it would be useless to show me any harder ones, without the mana to back them up, no amount of control would allow me to use them. 'But I won't be able to get any coaches, I'll have to rely on internet guides.'
Another door that has opened is the usage of spells. It's still not to the level where I can become a full-fledged mage, but I should be able to use 1 or 2 without collapsing. 'I've grown fond of the spear too, even if I get enough mana to become a mage later, I won't change my fighting style.' Regarding spells, it's the same problem as the control techniques. Spells are very complex, for people with affinities, summoning their element can be easy, but that only creates some of it. To create fireballs, ice spears, etc. you need to rely on a spell matrix, expelling mana without a matrix is meaningless. 'Well, I guess you could use it a bit like telekinesis if you have enough of it. But that would be extremely inefficient and inaccurate.'
Time flies by as I practice in my room, it isn't long before the pizza arrives. Tom and I begin to eat it.
"So, when are you going to raid a dungeon?" he asks.
"Well, I don't know how long the license will take, but I'll start looking for a group as soon as they give it to me," I answer.
"Hmm, how wil yuu lok fr a groop?" Tom's mouth is full of pizza as he asks this.
"You know you should swallow first, it's nasty when you speak with your mouth full. Anyway, I'll look through the association channels, they are the ones that mediate for hunters," I answer. "The only difference from doing it like a porter, is that now they will consider my fighting type. It would be dumb for them to group 5 spear user's together after all."
After dinner, I text Ron to verify the time we should meet up for the picture. He wants it early in the morning, since his father already has some dungeons lined up and they want to start clearing them straight away. Hunters aren't immediately allowed to create a guild; they need to meet a certain number of dungeons cleared. The association has to spend quite a bit of resources to manage a new guild, they can't have any random hunter creating one. I agree with Ron's time, and he offers to give me a ride again. Considering it would be easier for both of us if he did that, I don't decline his offer. I set the alarm and head to bed.
Another dream, I'm standing in the middle of a battlefield. A countless number of corpses litter the grassy plains. I turn around, a massive army stands behind me, all of them are human and are wearing the same uniform. In contrast, the corpses in front of me aren't human, they are elves. Their armor isn't anything more than some colored leather, it looks cheap compared to the full suites of armor the humans have. The sword in my hand rises, a roaring yell comes from my mouth.
"KEEP IT UP! DO NOT LET ANY ESCAPE!"
I charge towards the fleeing elves, hacking away at their backs. My sword slices them in half without any resistance. At this point, this can't be called a battle, it is a hunt. Most of the elves aren't even holding their weapons anymore, they are fleeing with all their might. My sword starts glowing a dazzling blue, the light coming off it is like a small sun. I proceed to horizontally slash at the air in front of me, a torrent of water comes out of the sword, it chases at the elves' backs. When it reaches the first elf, she is sliced just as easily as the ones that were hit with the sword. However, the water is a lot faster than I am.
Without encountering any meaningful resistance, the water slash cuts down most of the elves. Only the ones at the very edge of the battlefield remain, those are pursued by the other humans.
"Your highness!" a person approaches me, he is a human, but he looks tiny.
'No, I'm just massive. Or rather, the king is.'
"The elven armies are no more, are casualties are minimal. Shall we proceed with the invasion on their mainland?" he asks.
Before the king can answer, a cough can be heard to the side. Its an elf, he must've been cut by the very tip of the sword since he is not cut in half entirely. The king walks towards the elf, as he gets closer, the rise and fall of the elf's chest becomes apparent. Once the king reaches the elf's feet, he raises his sword. The elf makes eye contact, eyes pleading for mercy. With the king's influence, anything short of reviving the dead is possible. But the king shows no mercy, as his sword falls onto the elf's neck, severing it.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
My alarm wakes me up from the dream, this time, I'm calm. My breathing isn't heavy, there is no sweat in my bed, nothing. As if what I saw did not merit any emotions. 'Will I become like that? A merciless machine that will do whatever it takes to achieve their goal?' My phone makes noise once again, this time it's a text from Ron.
[I'm on my way, you better be ready!]
I do my best to forget the dream and get up from the bed.