After a few hours of rest inside the camp, a truck came to pick us up, and the captain ordered us to pack our things up and ready ourselves to go. The truck is very large with small windows enough for each person to peek from the inside.
A guy beside me inside the truck suddenly leaned close to me and whispered, "You're a pretty amazing guy aren't you?" I gazed upon him and said, "What do you mean?"
"Well, you're like one of us now, and you even helped Lucia and Kisona defeat those twelve kuishinbo out there." I shook my head off and smirked, "That's nothing, really."
He peered his eyes into me, "Are you sure?"
I slightly moved away from him, "You're weird."
"Oh I'm sorry if I bothered you," He gestured his hands to me and smiled, "My name is Adam." I lent and shook my hands with him and smiled, "Vander."
"Where are you from?"
"I'm from somewhere you can't imagine." He giggled, "What do you mean?"
"I'm telling you the truth."
"Well, nevermind." He then twisted his lips with a half-smile, "To be honest, I'm jealous of you."
"Why?" His shoulders bowed, "You've done something I wish I could years ago."
"What is it?"
"Do something significant."
"Well, charlanders are all about team play, even the strongest one here cannot do something if he's alone, it may not look like it, but your presence makes difference."
He smiled with a sour expression etched on his eyes, "It's easy for you to say that, you don't know how it feels to be weak."
"Do you have a necro?"
"Of course I have, but it's not as many as yo-"
"Then you won't be able to understand me."
He wrinkled his eyebrows. "Why is that?"
"I have none."
I saw his eyes widened in disbelief. "What?" I showed him the lightborn I used earlier, "Look."
"Zero?"
"See that necro count there, it's zero."
He was shaking his head as he narrowed his eyes and stared. "That's impossible."
"May I see yours?" He then showed me his bow. "So you're a marksman?" I smiled at him as I saw the necro count indicator on his bow. "That's a lot."
"75 is nothing compared to Kisona and the others."
"What do you mean?"
"Well you see, necro count is very important in the military, for civilians the average necro count would be from at least 5 to 25, they are pretty much useless and usually at the bottom pit of the society, however, if they are smart enough, they work in strategy faction in Charlanders or a member of the research guild. Those who have above 25 to 50 necro count are recruited to join hunter's guild." He then twirled his pointing finger in the air, "Aaaand for anyone who has above 50 necro count are given a choice to join military or hunter's guild."
"You have a necro count way above 50, why is that bothering you?"
"There is also a rank set for all military personnels, those rankings are all applicable for guards, soldiers, and assassins."
"What are those three?"
"Oh, the guards, soldiers and assassins? They are the different military personnel classifications." He pointed his fingers, "Anyway, for people with 50 to 70 necro, they are C rank, 70 to 90 are B rank, 90 to 120 are A rank, 120 to 150 are S rank, 150 to 250 are double S rank, while 250 to 500 are triple S rank. In Lumiere city, there are only five triple S rank."
"Who are those?"
"Zyrus Valencia, Marco, the city lord and I forgot the other two, but they are the glorious five of the Lumiere City."
"Is there someone who's necro is above 500?"
"There is."
"Reeve Giraudus, I think he has more or less 1,200 necro."
"That's a lot." I shook my head off and smirked, "Guess there's no way to be like him eh?"
He snapped his fingers and grinned. "I wouldn't say that for sure."
"Why? Is there actually a way to increase necro?"
"There is, in fact I'm working on that right now."
"How?"
"It isn't easy, it requires a painstaking and long process of strengthening your soul. it is called soul cultivation." He raised his pointing finger, "Soul cultivation is a process of strengthening your soul in order to utilize the necro inside you better, strengthening your soul will help you control your necros, which will help you become stronger."
"Why is that?"
"Necros are basically a part of one's soul, you are aware of strange quarks right? Your soul is like a vessel for strange quarks, the stronger the soul, the more strange quarks or necros you can absorb."
"So what are you doing right now?"
"I am cultivating my soul power to buy necros and absorb them."
I was dumbfounded and lost my control that I stood up and shook his shoulders and shouted, "What? Is that really possible?" I saw everyone awkwardly gazed at me. I lowered my voice and bowed to each of them, "Sorry."
"Calm down man!" He taps my shoulders and faintly pushed me downwards to help me sit. "Yes, it is called the soul fragmentation, but I doubt you have the money for it."
"How much?"
"A hundred thousand gold, basically a million silver coins, also ten million bronze coins for each necro count"
"It doesn't matter, what you have to think about is how you'll be able to succeed in soul fragmenting, man, it has a 97% failure rate."
I wrinkled my eyebrows, "Huh? Is it that hard?"
"Yes, it is tough; and, actually there are two ways to do it. The first one is you must master soul cultivation to enhance your soul power. Enhancing your soul power will increase the number of quarks in your body. Soul fragmentation is the absorption of another person's strange quark. I'm sure you know that a necro is a soul or to be precise a normal quark embedded with strange quarks. You have to absorb a few of their strange quarks to your normal quarks, increase the number of your necros. That is " He raised his palm in front of me and said, "However, if your soul power is not strong enough, absorbing a strange quark will damage your own soul, which will forever cripple your cultivation. Your soul should have the right number of quarks to absorb your ideal number of strange quarks.
I sighed, "That's fucking hard, not to mention, it requires a lot of money indeed."
"I know, even after ten years of my work as a charlander here in Lumiere City, I still don't have enough, Considering that charlanders are the highest paid soldiers. But oh well, the higher-ups are forgetting us."
"Charlanders are the highest paid soldiers?"
"Yes, since we are the elites, actually every military class has their own group of elites, but these elites are not classified by their necro count, but by their talent, perseverance, determination and level of soul cultivation."
"I see, I understand now, maybe it's hopeless for me." Or maybe not. If his basis was 50 years ago, perhaps it's cheaper, or maybe not, but if I can get out of Lumiere City and find a decent job in other cities, maybe I can actually earn a decent amount of money while I strengthen my soul.
"Well if it's true that you don't have any necro, maybe you can start by earning money to buy strange quarks."
"Yeah, I guess, maybe I can work as charlanders' strategist."
He snapped his fingers and clapped his hands while smiling as he speaks in a loud tone, "Oh right! Perfect idea, I think you are more than qualified to become a strategist."
"Buckle up! The ride is about to get bumpy!" The captains shouted from the driver's seat.
Seconds later, we slowly feel the sunken road, and our heads hit bumped here and there.
"Hey, you newbie! There's a seatbelt behind you, wear it!"
"Oh right, thanks!"
As I fastened my seatbelts, I hit my head at the roof of the truck when suddenly, I felt strong vibrations underneath. I looked at Adam behind me, and it seems like he knows what I was about to say.
"I know," Adam stood up shouted, "Everyone! Ready your weapons!"
I looked behind me to see what's going on, and I noticed the ground surging. "What's happening?"
"A kuishinbo attack."
"What? I thought the attack would be at least three days from now?"
Adam's face went blank. I can feel he is scared. "I don't know either." However, I am not even half-frightened since it is just training.
'Oh crap, I almost forgot that part.' This virtual world is just surreal that I almost forgot that everyone here is only a visual representation of themselves, and everything happening is all fake.
"Everyone! Buckle up! The information we received is wrong! The kuishinbos' attacks are now!"
Adam clenched his fists, "Damn it!"
"Sir! What should we do?" I heard some of them shouted from the back.
"Just hold on to your weapons, prepare for any unprecedented attacks." Marx replied.
"Copy that."
I leaned my head towards Adam and said, "I have an idea."
"Well, I don't know if it will work, but it's worth the try. All of us here has a weapon, we can stick our weapons around the truck to enhance the truck's endurance against a few attacks from kuishinbos."
"How can we stick it?"
"Well, we can use our own force, we can push our weapons to different parts of the truck we can reach, that way, we can strengthen our defense from the inside as well."
I saw everyone who was staring at me shifted their glance towards the captain. "Go, do as he say, we don't have a choice."
"Copy that!" After that, everyone started to put their weapons around the truck. A minute later, almost everything was covered with the weapon as everyone kept pushing their weapons around the truck.
The captain continued to drive the truck, the kuishinbos attacks are still quite observable, but the interior defense is still impenetratable. A few minutes have passed, the ride is still bumpy but the attacks from the outside seem to have ceased a bit.
"Good job Vander, you reall are something aren't yo-" Adam was smiling and he's about to finish his statements when I felt something enormous stomped nearby, when I tried to look back, I realized...
It was too late...