"But still, a D-rank mana core, huh…"
Ray Park chuckled while looking at the golden hunter card in his hand. In his previous two lives, Ray had gotten a C-rank in his awakening exams, but that was because he had reincarnated a week or two before taking the test, which gave him enough time to improve his mana core rank and upgrade his abilities.
"It's not a big deal, though.." Ray shook his head. It only took him ten days to upgrade to C-rank in his second life, and five days in his third life. He was already close to becoming a C-rank, and Ray was confident in his skills to upgrade to the next rank within four days this time around.
'And with the support of the Obsidian Hunter Guild, I can probably speed up my progress this time.' Ray thought to himself.
In his past two lives, Ray Park had worked under the Alliance Guild for ten years until he became strong enough to take on Dark Aurous, the boss of the final dungeon. It took him five years to get to S-rank during his time in the Alliance Guild, but Ray wanted to reduce that time period even more.
The reason he hadn't thought about switching to the Obsidian Hunter Guild in his previous two lives was because almost all the Guild members had lost their lives during the infamous 'Highwater Dungeon Disaster,' when a dungeon outbreak resulted in the destruction of Horizon City and the death of countless citizens. It was a national tragedy, one that happened due to the expedition party that was dispatched by the Obsidian Hunter Guild not being able to handle the boss monster and its army properly.
Of course, this would only happen about seven years from now, which meant that he had time to make an influence and change the future, and that was exactly what Ray planned to do.
'Now that I've gotten my hunter license card, I shouldn't waste any more time…' Ray said to himself as he placed the card back in his wallet.
However, it was at that moment.
Ray suddenly stopped walking after realizing an important fact. It was something so shocking that he couldn't believe he forgot about it.
'Hold on. Wasn't there an entry fee for first time hunters in every dungeon?'
Ray raised his eyebrows as he remembered his previous lives. That was indeed the case. But the problem was that he had spent all his savings on the test and the membership fees, which meant that he had no money left in his wallet anymore.
Ray didn't have the same problem in his two previous lives because the government test centers didn't charge any fees.
Now, this was a problem. Forget about getting inside a dungeon, he didn't even have money to get on a bus right now!
Ray could only sigh after remembering this fact.
Should he ask his parents for money? Ray shook his head after thinking about it for a few seconds. They had already given him money to spend for his first dungeon expedition, which he had combined with his savings in order to pay the test and membership fees of the Obsidian Hunter Guild. He couldn't ask them for money again.
'I guess the only thing I can do is trespass into a low level dungeon without getting caught and pick up some mineral stones.' Ray could only let out a helpless sigh.
Trespassing into low level dungeons and hunting monsters was what Ray used to do before he got the hunter license in his past two lives, although the process involved grinding for hours with little improvement in abilities and skills after every single monster fight.
That was why it was a better choice to enter a much higher level dungeon, as the hunting process would produce a significantly higher improvement yield than in a lower ranked dungeon. But of course, the higher the dungeons were, the more difficult it was to trespass.
'Damn it, why did I not keep a note of all the winning lottery numbers…'
However, as Ray Park was regretting his past decisions of not properly utilizing his knowledge of the future…
"Hey! Ray Park! You son of a bitch!"
A loud voice calling for him echoed throughout the street, forcing Ray to turn around with a confused look on his face. He didn't know for sure, but he couldn't help but feel that he had heard the voice before. He could see a group of people in the distance who were staring at him, and a frown appeared on Ray's face while looking at them.
'Those bastards… I don't remember meeting them again this early in my previous life, so how come..'
The people who were calling him were his classmates from highschool who were exploiting Ray during this time.
In other words, they were bullies.
He didn't know exactly what they wanted now, but he knew it wasn't so they could hang out and have some fun together.
But Ray didn't remember meeting them so early in his previous two lives. He did meet them in his previous lives, but by then, Ray had already become a B-rank hunter, and they wouldn't dare mess with someone like him. Did the situation change because he had gone to a different testing center?
They were staring at him, attempting to intimidate him with serious expressions which only succeeded in getting a short chuckle out of Ray.
"Whatever. I don't have time to deal with those buffoons today.." Ray snorted with a disdainful expression on his face, and was about to turn around when all of a sudden, he stopped abruptly.
"Wait a minute," Ray's gaze shifted back to the group of school bullies, and his eyes narrowed. 'Didn't they take a lot of money from me when I was in school?'
He had remembered right. The bullies didn't take money just from him, but the entire classroom. And if they're still the same people, then there was a good chance that they had a lot of money in their wallets right now.
'I wasn't planning on getting involved in troublesome situations since it would only be a waste of my time. But in this case, I guess getting involved might actually save more time..'
Ray started to smile as he stared at the group of wannabe gangsters before walking towards him with his fists clenched tightly.
'I guess there's nothing wrong with being a Robinhood every now and then.'