Hope found himself at the far end of the city, where people were gathered in a chaotic mass. He walked with the crowd, covering his wound, and saw many injured people, kids crying, and others searching for their loved ones. The air was thick with desperation and fear, and Hope felt a pang of guilt for being unable to help more. He kept his head down, but his mind wandered back to the incident earlier. The pressure he felt, the life-threatening danger—it was beyond anything he had experienced. He decided to avoid the hunters who had saved him, knowing the little elf girl leader had likely seen his Eater skill, which would only lead to trouble.
A sudden explosion diverted everyone's attention, and the people in the crowd scattered in fear, rushing to the safety camp. Even as they ran, Hope could see the terror on their faces, especially in the faces of children. He looked toward the explosion's source and saw hunters fighting off monsters approaching the crowd. Despite the large number of monsters, the hunters had the upper hand. Hope joined the fight and helped kill all the monsters, but his wounds worsened.
After some time, Hope reached a campsite where all the disaster victims had gathered. It looked like a battlefield camp. Injured people were everywhere, medics were helping those in need, kids were crying, people were searching for their loved ones, and some sat in front of their departed loved ones.
Hope sat near a broken car, finally allowing himself to release his fears and cautions. His eyelids were slowly closing, and then everything went dark. Suddenly, he saw a light getting closer and closer until he found himself in the same dark room he had seen when he first awakened as a hunter. It was the same man, chained up in the shadows. Unlike last time, the man was now visible, smiling at Hope.
The Man in Darkness: "You have grown more powerful since the last time we met. But you need to be even stronger. You need more power to kill them all. Be more powerful, be more powerful than all of them..." His laugh echoed through the black room like a wild beast's roar.
As the voice echoed, Hope fell into the darkness.
Hope woke up in a bed holding his head, shocked by the dream with green light shining all around him. He was covered with bandages and saw many people in similar conditions. A nurse treating patients with her healing skill saw Hope and came toward him angrily.
Nurse: "If you're injured, you should have come to the healing area. When she found you, you were in a near-death state."
Hope: "She? Who is she?"
Nurse: "She was with you until you woke up. She told me her name is Kara, and she said she's your neighbor."
Hope just smiled, feeling a mix of relief and embarrassment.
The nurse scolded him some more, but afterward, Hope got some information about what had been happening. He had actually slept for nearly a day. The neighbor girl found Hope and carried him with all her strength to the healing area. More than 70% of the monsters were wiped out by hunters, but some were still hiding inside the city. The association announced it would take at least three days to kill them all. People were living inside the camp, while others had moved elsewhere.
Hope wanted to help out, but he was in bad shape. He looked through his skills to increase the rank of his resting skill to heal quickly, but he saw a combinable option. He clicked it and saw the resting skill and Blood Power-Up skill. He combined them and got a new skill:
Healing Attack: Damage dealt will get converted to lost stats.
Hope: "I think I got a healing skill. Just by attacking, I can heal lost stats. I think it can also replenish my mana too."
Hope slowly got up from the bed in the medical tent.
Nurse: "Do you have a death wish or something? Get back in bed."
Hope: "No, I have a healing skill. It can help me heal up. If I hunt, I'll be healed."
Nurse: "Your rib cage is broken in two places, you have bruises all over your body, and there's a cut on you too. You can't hunt in this condition."
Hope's inner thought: She won't leave me alone if I argue. I need to do this.
Hope: "I will not fight. They will fight for me."
Hope summoned a skeleton. The skeleton kneeled before Hope.
Nurse (a little scared at first): "Okay, you can go. I can't force anyone to heal themselves."
Before he left, the nurse used her healing skill on Hope. He thanked her and asked for her name.
Nurse: "It's Joy."
Hope: "Thanks for healing me, Nurse Joy," he said, smiling warmly. As he turned to leave, he caught a glimpse of a tear in her eye. "Take care, everyone needs you here."
Nurse Joy: "You too. Be careful out there."
When Hope reached the city, he used his Detect skill, but no monsters were around, unlike yesterday. Hope searched and finally saw some snake-type monsters. He moved to their location and used Dash to kill them one by one, healing bit by bit. He continued his hunt and, in the middle of the street, saw a group of monster bodies. He knew many hunters were there and had killed off these monsters. He found many runes, and one monster even had a skill. Hope used Eater anyway and got a warrior rune, a mage rune, a berserker rune, and a beast tamer rune. The skill was:
Mana Manipulation (passive): The user has the ability to manipulate mana according to the user's will, and the user can manipulate raw mana.
Hope: "A mana-type skill, and it's passive. I heard of this skill from the hunter's handbook. It's a rare skill. Only about 30 people have this skill, and those who do are famous mages. I think Mom has a similar skill."
Hope: "After I got the skill, I can feel a change in my body. My body is getting stronger, and I can feel my skills are strengthening. So it's true, if you input mana into a skill, it will have more power."
Hope continued hunting monsters. He saw some hunters searching for monsters and thought the association had sent them to kill the remaining ones. He decided to avoid them. Finally, at night, he sat on top of a building.
Hope: "During the daylight, some monsters are hiding, and at night, there are more monsters and more hunters too. I should avoid them and hunt quickly."
Hope: "I should organize my skills. My main attack skill is Blade Art, and I should get more. My escape and close-distance skills are Camouflage and Dash. The Undead Summon skill, Detect skill, and Growth skill are all-rounder skills, and the Mana Manipulation skill is a power-up skill. My Eater skill works on undead and their summons, and I think it worked last time because I targeted the summons of the lich, causing the skill caster to be devoured and, by that, the summon was also destroyed."
"I need to get a subspace skill. It will help me collect bodies. Unlike low-rank monsters, other monsters have a high price in the market. I need some more escape skills, attack skills, and mana skills too."
As the sun went down, the monsters came out of hiding. The hunters started their hunt too. As the peaceful day was forgotten in the screams of night, Hope used his Detect skill to move toward the monsters and killed them using his skills and summoned skeletons.
He sat in an empty spot, using Detect to ensure there were no monsters nearby, and decided to look at the spoils of war. He looked at his bag and found 12 warrior runes, 4 mage runes, 4 berserker runes, 1 beast tamer rune, and 1 Blood Warrior rune.
Hope: "I got this much; even one costs a lot. With two rare classes, I will be rich. But let's try combining."
After some time...
Hope: "I pretty much got the idea. When I combine two of the same runes, I can get the same class or an upgraded class rune. For example, if I combine two normal classes, I get a slightly better rune or an uncommon class. Now I have some uncommon classes like Swordsman, Assassin, Weapon Master, Archer, Martial Artist, and Knight. I think if I get the same class, I could upgrade them to rare classes."
"And for the mage class, I got normal classes and rare classes like Fire Mage and Dark Mage. And for the berserker, I got Magical Berserker and Wild Berserker."
Hope's inner thoughts: How can I sell this? I need to re-register in order to sell it, but by doing a large mana stone sale, I'll get on the monitoring list of the association. The only way to sell them all is the black market. And for the rare classes here, I need to do something. Oh, I know—I should try it on my skeletons.
The Dark Mage is supposed to be a top class with debuff and attack skills. I wonder if it will work on the summons.
Hope summoned the skeleton. The skeleton was healed up; even without activating his skill, it was healed. Its bones were fixed, its cracks were gone, and its bones were pure white. Hope placed the Dark Mage rune in the skeleton's hand and said, "Crush it." The skeleton followed Hope's orders. After crushing it, a dark smoke emerged from the broken rune, enveloping
the skeleton. When the dark fog lifted, there were significant changes to the skeleton. The body was covered in dark cloth, and the skeleton's eyes had a dark cyan glow. Just by seeing it with its old self, Hope could see how powerful the skeleton had become.
Species: Low Ranked Skeleton
Class: Dark Mage
Status: Undead
Health: 0/ -30
Mana: 0/50
Strength: 10
Defense: 10
Agility: 10
Luck: 0
Intelligence: 0
Skills: 0
Mana Stone: 0
Items: 0
Hope: "Wow, even though you are a low-ranked skeleton, you have good stats. The stats changed so much." If I upgrade you, you will be more powerful, and it will be easy for my hunt.
Hope: "After all this, I still have XP. I must use all points to get my stats to 40. Then I think I will be a D+ ranker. To be a high-level hunter, I need to hunt more."
Species: ???
Class: None
Status: Normal
Health: 54/60
Mana: 1/40
Strength: 40
Defense: 40
Agility: 36
Luck: 38
Intelligence: 35
Skills: 10
XP: 0
Unallocated stats: 0
Skills
- Dash E
- Camouflage F
- Appraisal E
- Healing Attack E
- Growth
- Eater
- Blade Art F
- Detection F
- Undead Summon F
- Mana Manipulation F
As the sun started to come up, Hope thought, "I should go. I killed many of the monsters, and the other hunters can handle the few monsters left. I should go and meet Kara. I left her without saying anything."
**EXTRA**
Unique Skills - Skills that are specific to a person or a monster, though other individuals may possess different variations of these skills.
Rune rank
- Colorless - Common
- Green - Uncommon
- Cyan - Rare
- Purple - Higher
- Red - Epic
- Golden - Unique
- Black - Hidden
- White - ???