Not so long after, Scarlett and Raven left the Golden Dawn Guild to begin hunting asap. The zone they just discovered would give them a lot of points, and they couldn’t hide their enthusiasm.
But guess what? They walked right into the aftermath of an unprecedented monster fight. Luke and Vivian had just defeated a monster and saved a mother and her child. Luke got 3,000 points, and Vivian got 1,700 points for the save.
Scarlett was glad that her team was doing well, but Raven wasn’t buying it. She accused Luke of being sneaky.
She said he only begged to join a squad so he could get the 100x multiplier and hoard all the kills for himself. But Raven was just being salty because there was no way Luke could kill every monster they encountered alone.
Now that they had their own monster zone waiting for them, everyone was going to get a fighting chance. The problem was, there were only a couple of hours left before the first day of the trial ended.
「Hunter Trial Day 1| Remaining Time: 4:59:59」
*******
The sky was turning dark as Scarlett’s car raced down the highway toward Skeleton Town. They had to beat both the clock and their curfew.
The Golden Dawn Guild had given them a secret route to bypass border security without setting off any alarms. The only problem was that it took longer, which was a blow to their time.
While watching the air turn green, Luke checked the leaderboard to see how the dust had settled. His jaw dropped. He had been kicked out of the top ten like he never even belonged there. First place had a whopping 25,000 points, while tenth place had already racked up 4,500!
「#1 Derek Cole - 25,000 pts
#2 Rake Cooper - 15,300 pts
#3 Ayn Nightjoy - 13,700 pts」
Having that many points meant those squads had already wiped out at least thirty monsters since they had to split the points with teammates.
Luke wondered what zones they were farming.
Monster zones are real-life places where monsters had settled. The monsters are usually remnants of past gate leaks that had escaped extermination, eventually gathering into colonies around abandoned abodes.
They are classified by color according to their danger, ranging from Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, and finally Red. The deeper the color, the deadlier the monsters lurking within. Red Zones are no-go areas.
Any student would be insane enough to even enter a Yellow Zone on the very first day, Luke was sure.
He guessed they must have prepared their grinding spots in advance, allowing them to hit the ground running and sweat the game.
Why were these students pushing themselves this hard? There was only one answer: power.
Not just power right now, but power in the future. The only guaranteed way to get it was by becoming the Dux or the Summa.
The Dux of a class is the best graduating summoner—kind of like a valedictorian—and the Summa is the runner-up.
For over seventy years, the academy has produced this pair of students every year. They will join the Confederacy council, becoming part of what you can call a superhero clique, and standing on the front lines as the first picks when defending the world.
Luke had dreamt of having that kind of importance since forever, fighting extraterrestrial threats and intraworld monsters. But he knew someone else who shared the same ambition.
Raven.
As the strongest Elder summoner, she thought she already had either of the two spots locked down, assuming her only rival would be Rake Cooper.
However, with so much competition rising, Raven realized it wouldn’t be as easy as she imagined.
Luke’s thoughts fizzled like the decay in Skeleton Town as Scarlett’s car arrived at their destination, but they weren’t allowed inside yet. Several men were stationed around the pentegate. They were mercenaries, not actual troops, which is why they all dropped to one knee the second they saw Scarlett.
"Lady Scarlett!" the captain reported. "All five floors remain stable and locked down as ordered."
"How far is the nearest manifestation?" Scarlett asked.
"About a kilometer away, my lady. An amusement park. Also, Director Srylac wanted us to remind you that there is no pressure to clear every single floor today."
Scarlett glanced at the timer on her drone. 「Hunter Trial Day 1| Remaining Time: 4:29:59」
"We don’t have time to waste," she said firmly. "We will clear as much as we can today."
"Yes, my lady!" the mercenaries bowed, leaving Scarlett to take in the sight of the apocalyptic building. Luke joined her side, staring into the dark.
It was a dilapidated parking deck wider than a mega prison, and it might have been even bigger because the shadows swallowed up the rest of it, one couldn’t even know its true size.
Sometimes multiple gates could appear in the same place without merging. Rather than combining, it was as if the apocalypse were sentient, splitting the gates into separate layers. This created mini-towers that could have anywhere from three to twelve layers before they were considered true towers.
A pentegate meant five floors, and that meant five dungeons. You couldn’t enter the second floor without clearing the first. Each floor had greater fortitude than the one before it, despite all of them being the same rank.
The only merit was that the rewards scaled up with every level—but so did the danger.
Before entering a zone like this, Luke’s party needed a plan.
Raven was the best person to lead the attack because her summon was solely offensive, even if she had less experience with dungeons. Scarlett would pair with Raven but would be her second because her phoenix easily ran out of stamina.
Meanwhile, Luke could play any part. Since he had varying armor pieces, he could handle different situations. Lastly, Vivian agreed to ensure the team’s safety at all costs.
Without further ado, the party found the entrance to the pentegate and walked in cautiously. They held their weapons ready, wanting to save their Aeon for the tougher fights ahead.
The parking structure was as black as night and enormous like a catacomb. Their footsteps fed the silence, echoing off every wall while emptiness watched them intrude.
To break the darkness, Vivian formed a bulb of light in her hand.
The light only revealed some meters ahead, but that was enough because the most dangerous part of a manifestation was often its entrance.
Experienced hunters often said there was no such thing as an easy dungeon entrance. If another hunter party hadn’t beaten you to it, and the Bureau wasn’t already waiting outside for whatever reason, then the entrance was usually claimed by something else.
A Guardian.
Guardians were monsters that naturally settled around manifestations and treated them like territory. Some are weak enough for rookies to overcome, while others could end your expedition before it even begins.
Luke stopped walking, and the girls followed too, bravery taking over as a creature slowly brought its head into Vivian’s light.
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A/N: Thanks for reading
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