My hands that were holding the book were trembling. If what I had right now was the real deal, then I would be the happiest person in the world. Even before the Great Awakening sixty years ago, people trained in many fighting techniques to fight. Even then, many of these techniques were closely guarded by their owners. Naturally, the ones that were available to the public weren't as good in quality. After the Great Awakening, the already secret techniques became even more guarded because Hunters with fighting techniques were vastly superior to those without it. 

 

Looking at the technique's name and the material the book was made with, this was not your run-off-the-mill battle technique. This had to be one of superior quality, one of those safely guarded ones. Even the name sounds dominating.

 

I wanted to open the book and start practicing it immediately, but looking at the time, I knew I had to get back to the dorms. Since this wasn't my first time sneaking into the school after curfew, I sneaked into the dormitory without any problems.

 

Once in the dormitory, I couldn't resist the temptation anymore and started reading the book. The Imperial Kingdom's Soundless Sword Technique was a sword technique that focused on attacking without making noise. Since the technique was a sword technique, naturally, it requires the trainee to have a sword. The book suggested using blades of lighter weight and length. This worked out for me because my sword was already relatively short, only around the size of my forearm.

 

I knew that I should be heading to sleep right now, but I was too excited to be able to fall asleep. For the entire night, I followed the scriptures in the book. I was imitating every stance, movement, and attack. The technique was separated into five distinct levels. These sections were respectively beginner, novice, advanced, expert, and lastly, master. Each following section was naturally harder than the previous one, but its techniques and attacks were better.

 

Before I knew it, the sun has already risen over the horizon. I was dripping in sweat from training the entire night. I took looked at my Hunter System with high expectations.

 

Name: Gideon Lenoir

Age: 15

Title: Death's Acquaintance (C)

Bloodline: N/A

Class: N/A

Strength: F+

Agility: F+

Endurance: F

Intellect: E-

Wisdom: F

Luck: B+

Abilities: Battle awareness (E-), Sprinting (F+), Observe weakness (F-)

Techniques: Unarmed Combat Fundamentals (F-)

Status: Tired

 

Nothing had changed. I had hoped that I would gain the soundless skill, but I was too impatient. I reasoned that as long as I trained diligently, soon enough, I will obtain the technique. For now, I had to remain patient. It's not good to rush things.

 

The first half of school passed very quickly. I was doing well in those classes. Nothing too interested ever happened in those classes. Now it was lunch, and today the school was serving spaghetti. Not my favorite dish, but I've never been picky about my food, so it didn't matter.

 

As I sat down in the cafeteria with my food, Jack sat next to me. Over a month, we warmed up to each other and became friends. During lunch, we talked about our earlier classes and other stuff going on in the world. From him, I learned that recently a group of world-class Hunters had finally slain a dungeon boss they've been struggling against for months now. We continued talking about Hunter related news. Before we knew it, the bell had rung, and now it was time for the general knowledge class.

 

As both Jack and I got to class, we saw the teacher writing something on the board. The teacher wrote the following words, Hunter Systems. Those words immediately piqued my interest. I had many questions regarding the Hunter System that I had no answer to. After all the students settled down, the teacher swiftly started his lecture.

 

The teacher announced to the class, "Since we've all had the hunter system for a little over a month now, today I will be explaining the many things displayed in the Hunter system."

 

The teacher paused, observing the students' reactions. The teacher continued in a monotone voice, "I assume that all of you already understand what the stats in the Hunter System mean. They reflect your physical and mental capabilities. Today I will be focusing on the other aspects of the Hunter System. I will teach you what a title is, how you raise skills, the difference between skills and titles, and how the grading in the Hunter System works and symbolizes. After the Great Awakening, many things happen without our understanding. One such case is titles that one can achieve by overcoming challenges or accomplishing something great. Titles grant people a unique effect and but the method of getting it is different for everybody. What might've caused one person to earn an event might not do the same for another. So, there is no guaranteed way of earning titles. The Hunter System assigns titles a grade. However, titles are incapable of rising in level." The teacher's words helped me understand why I was able to obtain a title yesterday. It seems like my near-death experience was seen as a significant challenge for me.

 

The teacher continued, "Next, I will teach you about skills. The Hunter System will judge skills and assign them a rank. Unlike titles, skills are capable of rising in level. This typically happens when one becomes more proficient in the skill or makes the skill stronger. Skills have a maximum rank, and we only know this because some skills never rise beyond a specific rank. Skills can also evolve into higher-level skills, but the condition for that to happen is not yet clear. Lastly, I will discuss the letters the Hunter System grades stats, skills, and titles with mean. For both skills and titles, the system will assign better letters to reflect how strong or valuable the skill or title is." With that, the teacher quickly concluded the class. I found today's lesson to be very helpful. It helped answer many parts I didn't know or wasn't sure about the Hunter System.

 

The rest of the day was uneventful. Immediately after the bell sounded, I went to an open space in the school grounds and continued my training with the battle technique, except instead of my sword, I was using a branch around the same length. I continued this schedule of going to school then spending the rest of the day training for a few weeks until I finally accomplished learning the battle technique.

 

Name: Gideon Lenoir

Age: 15

Title: Death's Acquaintance (C)

Bloodline: N/A

Class: N/A

Strength: F+

Agility: F+ → E-

Endurance: F

Intellect: E-

Wisdom: F

Luck: B+

Abilities: Battle awareness (E-), Sprinting (F+), Observe weakness (F-)

Techniques: Imperial Kingdom's Soundless Sword Technique (D-) (Beginner), Unarmed Combat Fundamentals (F-) → (F)

Status: Healthy

 

Imperial Kingdom's Soundless Sword Technique (D-) (Max: A+) (Level: Beginner): A battle technique that enables the user to attack swiftly and deadly while producing minimal noise. Currently in the beginning stage.

 

I was ecstatic to see the sword technique in my bio. I was also happy to see my agility stat finally graduate from the E grade. I felt good about myself looking at the progress I've made since starting high school. I decided that I should take a break from training and head back to the dungeon.

 

The same day, I donned my armor, hoisted my blade to my waist, and headed to the skeleton dungeon. Heading down the dungeon, I was a walking calamity toward the skeletons. It didn't matter if they were full sized or small. Before they could even attack, I had already sliced their heads off. Very soon, I arrived at where that one skeleton badly hurt me using the longsword. I paused there for some time, thinking back on what happened that day.

 

After reminiscing on the past, I continued my journey, going further into the dungeon. In my path, I met many skeletons, and they were all of the bigger variants. They started attacking me in groups. I would often have to defend against multiple skeletons simultaneously, but I could still make quick work of them with my new power.

 

Not long after, I stopped in front of a large arched door. In the next room lay the boss of the dungeon. I had done research on the internet regarding this dungeon and was confident in taking it down. Without any second thoughts, I pushed the door open and walked into the boss room.

 

In contrast to the rest of the dungeon, the torches lighted the boss room very well. The torches illuminated all corners of the room. In the center of the room stood a skeleton donned fully in armor. I could only tell that it was a skeleton wearing armor because I saw glimpses of bones through the small cracks in the armor. The armor resembled that of what knights wore in the middle ages. Except it was apparent that time has taken its toll on the armor since some spots on it were rusting. The skeleton held a great sword whose length and width were almost the same as mine. To my surprise, the boss skeleton easily lifted such a gigantic sword and rested it on its shoulder.

 

I shifted into one of the battle stances I learned from the Imperial Kingdom's Soundless Sword Technique and prepared for battle. One of the biggest strengths of the technique I'm learning is that it has a lot of counter attacking potential. Due to the technique's significant emphasis on evasion, the technique thrived by attacking from all different kinds of angles.

 

The boss skeleton approached me menacingly. I waited for the skeleton to come a little bit closer before bursting toward it. The skeleton immediately kicked towards me after judging it wouldn't be able to swing downwards fast enough with its weapon. In response to the skeleton's leg sweep, I hopped over it and dished out an attack on my own.

 

I swung my sword toward the horizontal crevice on the skeleton's helmet. Bang! A loud sound of metal hitting against metal occurred when my sword made contact with the skeleton's helmet. I didn't manage to hurt the skeleton; however, the force of my attack was enough to disrupt its balance.

 

Taking advantage of when the skeleton was still recovering its balance, I slipped next to the skeleton, and without it being able to defend itself, I kicked its leg. Now, with its front side on the ground and its back fully revealed to me, I went to work.

 

I kicked, I stomped, and I slashed with my sword. I didn't give the skeleton a single change to get up. I had also distanced the skeleton's weapon from itself, lowering the skeleton's overall combat capabilities. Although my attacks weren't doing much damage to the skeleton due to its sturdy armor. But, over time, the cracks on the armor became larger and larger. I focused most of my attacks on the armor covering the skeleton's neck, so it wouldn't be much longer until I can kill the skeleton. Just as I was thinking about when the skeleton's neck would become exposed, with a clink, the armor which had protected the skeleton's neck snapped in half, revealing the skeleton's fatal spot. Without hesitation, I stabbed my sword into the skeleton's neck, effectively dislocating its skull, killing it.

 

The fight wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Although this skeleton had great defense, it had no movement nor techniques to fight against me with. The moment the skeleton lost its balance was when the fight was over. This skeleton's skill didn't even come close to the one that had nearly killed me. That skeleton not only had techniques, its battle awareness was also unprecedented. It understood its weaknesses and protected them while exploited my weakness at the same time.

 

Without dwelling on the past for much longer, I walked toward the boss skeleton's corpse and harvested its core. Unlike the cores I have harvested before, this core was larger and had a deeper shade of purple. At a glance, I could tell that it was definitely of higher quality than the other monster cores.

 

I was a little bit disappointed by this fight. Deep down, I had hoped that it would be just as dangerous as the fight I had with that other skeleton. Even though I almost died from that fight, I had also gained a lot from it. Besides the title and the skills I acquired, the battle experience I obtained from that duel was beneficial toward my development. Truthfully, looking back, even though the fight was perilous towards me, it also felt exhilarating. The feeling of walking on a tight rope between life and death is not only hard to replicate but also exciting.

 

With the monster core in hand, I took one last look around the room for anything of interest before heading out of the dungeon.