“What the hell man! That's our son, why do you get to do the cool part?!” Dad said.
“We haven’t even told him happy birthday yet!” Mom said.
And I couldn't make out what Anthem and Aria said, but they were just as mad.
During everything this m I had totally fotten that it was my 16th birthday, and I could finally bee a hunter. But something came to mind.
“Wait, I ’t bee a hunter yet, the association is closed because its the anniversary of the first outbreak.” I say to the group.
This gets all of them off of uncle Gideon and to look at me.
“Well, Zenith, we were going to tell you this when you got back from the festival, but well, here we are. Sinother and I work here, we were going to do the registration for you today, as a kind of birthday gift” dad told me.
“We also got you a real birthday gift” mom added.
But I was so happy hearing the first part. I had wao bee a hunter since I was 10. I had studied and researched all of the best ways to level up a skills to be stronger.
All waiting for the day I could bee one.
And because of my parents, that day came one day early. And that made me unbelievably happy.
So much so, I started to tear up. What this meant to me became evident to my family instantly.
Through the tears I was able to say, “Thank you”. This also got both of my parents to give me a hug.
“Well, if all of that is dohe only thi before we do the status check is for you to take the test fhschoolers, just to make sure you know what your doing inside of the dungeons, then we ght over and finish everything” Uncle gideon said.
This test was something I knew about. To make sure that people under 18 don’t get themselves killed inside of a dungeon, there is a test on the proper procedure aions for dungeon crawling. After someourns 18 this isn’t mandatory anymore because they are a legal adult and the liability of them messing up falls on them now, not the people who let a child go into a dangerous dungeon.
This is ohing I have been studying for, to make sure I could actually bee a hunter right away.
And famously the test is really easy, since most of the rules in a dungeon are based on on sense.
So, followed by my family, I went to take the test, and from there, to bee a hunter.
?
“Well, that was easy” I say walking back over to my family. The test itself was just 15 random questions about the rules ihe dungeon. I had ended up getting all 15 right.
This test had bee something that a lot of people took, and to make it easier every question that could be asked osted on the association's website, so you could practice.
From there, someone even made a program that gave you a practice test. I had dohat dozens of times to the point where I think I had gotten every question it could ask.
“Good job, Zenith” my family told me.
“So, are you ready?” Aria ended up asking me.
“Yeah, let's do this” I say. The room where the status is unlocked was right door to the room where I took the test. Normally you would take the test, and if you passed, you would be added to the queue for the status room. But we were the only ones here so I didn’t o wait.
With excitement about to overe, I barely hold it together while I walk up to the crystal.
Back during the early days of the association, and the first outbreak, how someone unlocked there status was done differently.
If someone who was awakened killed a moheir status would open. This led the first huo be able to take out the monsters. That is when they learhat if an awakened persoers a dungeon, it does the same thing, unlog the status.
Then a few years ago, they learhat all they had to do was input aernal souragito the person and the status would open. That is what this crystal does. It lets a person absorb a very small amount of magilog the status.
As I walk up, I pce my hand on the crystal and suddenly a clear blue s opens in front of me. And I finally see my status.
Name:Zenith
Gender:Male
HP:100/100
MP:10/10
Level:1
Title:[None]
Strength:1 - (1)
Defense:1 - (1)
Speed:1 - (1)
Intelligence:1 - (1)
Luck:1 - (1)
SP:0
Intrinsic Skill:
Absolute Creation Lv.1
Skill:
[None]
And seeing this, I cheer. I then head back over to my family and show them the status.
“Wow, an intrinsic skill” Anthem said looking at my status.
“Yeah, and one I have never seen before” Aria said.
Mom and dad didn’t ent and looked over at uncle Gideon.
He then asked me a question. “Hey, Zenith you opeails on the skill.”
Every skill had a page you could open to look at its effects. I had never heard of ‘Absolute Creatioher so I was super excited about seeing what my skill do. And right away I open the page.
Passive Effect:All equipment and items created by absolute creatio a 2X bonus when used by absolute creation users. Iurn, all other items lose all bonus effects when used by skill users.
Lv.1 - Gives limited access to creation menu
Lv.2 - ???
Lv.3 - ???
Lv.4 - ???
Lv.5 - ???
Lv.6 - ???
Lv.7 - ???
Lv.8 - ???
Lv.9 - ???
Lv.10 - ???
With all of us looking at the skill page, I had the first question to ask.
“Does this mean I ’t use ons?” I ask them.
“Maybe? I think that your skill might be able to make them though. You should probably look at this ‘creation menu’” uncle Gideon told me.
So that is what I did. The menus for extra skills are like the status s. To open them you just have to think of their name, like status, with the iion of opening the s.
So thinking ‘creation’ a new s opens.
It has several tabs at the top. One looked like a sword. Another armor. The third like a potion. And the st one looked like a ring. Starting with the sword, I found a list. Every item on the list has a mp cost, an exp amount, and stats. The very first item is.
Beginner wooden sword - MP:10 - EXP 1 - Strength +1
Right uhat ohere are several inner wooden items. A spear, twin daggers, a bow, arrows, a staff, and gaus. A on for basically every fighting style. The only item with a different description was the staff whistead of giving plus orength, it gives plus oelligence, so it makes magic stronger.
Uhe beginner wooden items, there are stoems, then iron and so forth. When I scroll far enough, the items bee bcked out, meaning I don’t have full access yet.
Then I move to the es. The armor one has a list of armor I could make, starting with a basic cloak, which gave plus 1 defehere was ohat gave plus one speed as well. This meant I could create ao boost every stat except luck.
The third page had potions. Each of them regened a set amount of hp or mp. The first one each cost 10 mp and regened 10 of the amount, both hp and mp.
This led me to a different question. “Does this mean I ’t use potions?” I asked, kind of scared. If I couldn’t use potions I was kind of screwed, sihese weren’t that good.
“No, I don’t think so, the skill only says equipment. You know, make an item so we see what it looks like” Uncle Gideon said to me.
“Alright” I said, going back to the first page aing the ‘beginner wooden sword’. When I hit it, I felt drained, but right in front of me, a wooden sword appeared. It seems really basic, but definitely made with high craftsmanship. It was even kind of sharp.
When I looked back at my status, I see this.
Strength:1 + 2 - (1)
This meant that the sword was equipped and the passive effect of the skill was w.
“Yep, my strength is now 3” I tell my family.
“Ok” Anthem said, pulling out a sword from his iory. “Here, try this. It has no level requirement so you use it”
“Ok” I say, grabbing the sword from him and giving him my sword. When I look at my status again I don’t have the plus 2 anymore and the sword isn’t giving me a boost. “So I don’t get the bonus from this one” I say.
“Ok then, you drink this.” Aria said, giving me a potion. When I drank it, i notice the bizarre taste and then looked at my status again.
MP: 10/10
This potion. Normal time for a base mp recharge is about 1 hour to fully recharge. That be shortened with skills, but since I don’t have any of them, I wouldn’t get my mp back for a while.
“Ok, so I use potions. That's good” I say.
“Cool, now how about the st page?” Dad asked.
When I looked at the st page, there were accessories listed there. This would be the st piece of equipment. But currently there was only oem I could make .
EXP 0 Bracelet - 10 MP - 1 EXP - 0x Level EXP gain.
When I looked at the bracelet I realized something really cool.
Quickly moving over to the skill shop, I scrolled through until I found what I was looking for.
MP Growth - Rework of MP growth, away from level and skill growth - 10,000 SP - level requirements: 1 - notice: only avaible at level 1 and with no other mp growth skills.
This had been a rumor that I had seen on several message boards. A skill only avaible at level 1 and with seemingly no way of getting it. No one knew what rework meant but several people had tried to get it.
The reason no one had was the fact that the only way to get SP was to kill bosses in dungeons. Eae gave a certain amount of SP which then could be used for new skills or leveling your own skills.
And killing a boss mo level 1 100% meant that you would level up. The amount of EXP o reach level 2 was only 100 EXP. The general rule for EXP to the level was 100x current level. And the lowest rank dungeon boss gave exactly 100 EXP, for everyone involved in the fight. Meaning to get any SP you o level up at least once. And that only gave you around 10 SP.
But if this bracelet did what I thought, it meant I could kill a boss without getting the EXP. I could potentially get the skill.
Based on the requirements to get the skill, it was supposed to be super powerful.
Thinking about this, I start to ugh. I immediately make the bracelet and look over at my siblings.
“ we go to a dungeon now? I want to test something.”
?
“What do you mean there is something we o do before we go to a dungeon?” I say, kind of annoyed with my siblings.
“Well, we still o give you our presents for your birthday” Aold me.
“Yeah, we've been pnning this for years” Aria said.
“You got me something?” I ask them.
“We got you a few things” Aria told me. Thewo of them pulled out several different skill orbs.
“It’s not much, but we thought giving you a little boost to start could be helpful” Anthem said.
“Yep, we’ve been colleg some low level skill orbs for a while. They are pretty on in S rank dungeons.” Aria said.
Looking through the skill orbs, I see several I thought about getting as skills pretty quickly. But now with my new pn, I had to rethink all the SP I was going to use for a while.
The skills I was given were,HP Boost, MP boost, Strength Boost, Defense Boost, Speed Boost, Intelligence Boost, Luck Boost, Item Box, and two magic skills, both light and dark magibsp;
The boosting skills were even more valuable for me. They gave a +10 bonus to every stat at level 1. Item box was helpful as well, being able to carry more items, something that seemed really helpful with a skill that makes items.
The strange one was the light and dark magic. Even I know that they were not tellihe truth with those skill orbs. All light and dark magic is extremely rare and super powerful. pared to the other skills they were givihey did not e across these easily.
“So, you guys find a lot of copies of light and dark magic?” I ask them, poking at their lie.
“Umm, yes we did” Anthem said.
“Yeah, they show up. A bunch” Aria said.
“Ok, Thank you for this” I tell them, and give them a big hug.
“Happy birthday, Zenith” They both say.
So I end up taking all of the skills except MP boost, sihat could ge how I get the MP growth. After everything my status looked like this.
Name:Zenith
Gender:Male
HP:110/110
MP:10/10
Level:1
Title:[None]
Strength:11 - (1)
Defense:11 - (1)
Speed:11 - (1)
Intelligence:11 - (1)
Luck:11 - (1)
SP:0
Intrinsic Skill:
Absolute Creation Lv.1
Skill:
HP Boost - Lv.1
Strength Boost - Lv.1
Defense Boost - Lv.1
Speed Boost - Lv.1
Intelligence Boost - Lv.1
Luck Boost - Lv.1
Item Box - Lv.1
?
“So, we go to a dungeon now?” I ask the two of them again.
“Well now you ” Uncle Gideon said, walking in with our parents. They had go of the room to finish up my registration. They came ba with my Hunter Id. “Did you fet you need one of these to get into a dungeon?”
“No, I'm just kind of impatient.” I said ba.
“Well, with this, we go” Anthem said to me.
“Wait before we go, I borrow some MP potions?” I ask.
“What do you hem for?” Aria asked.
“Items. I want to test them all out” I say. They agree and give me a massive pile of the potions. WIth them I am able to make both the defense cloak and speed cloak, and every type of on. They are all basic wood. The daggers e in a set of 2. The same with the gaus. The arrows create 10 arrows. They all seem like nice beginner ons.
I also look at the level of ons and they cost 100 mp to make.
With that the three of us go to the beginner dungeon.
Dungeons have the same rank as hunters, going from E rank to S rank. Your rank as a hunter means you go to the rank above yours, so currently I go to E and D rank dungeons. Outside of the official rules, there are also the level reendations for each dungeon. All E rank dungeons have no level reendation and D ranks start around level 25 but go all the way to around 100.
The duo us was right uhe association. The association ecifically built here because of it. It was a rank E duhat they used to teaew hunters.
Whe to the sub basement the dungeon is in, we find a big door in the wall. This is the only duhat doesn't have an attendant outside. The attendants are the people who s your Id to make sure you are allowed ihe dungeon.
They are also the ones who buy magic stones from you. On top of w as an Id the hunter card is also tied to a bank at. When you sell a magic stohe money goes directly into your at. Most E rank magic stones sell for around a dolr, with the boss stone selling for around 5. There are also item drops from the monsters, but they have to be sold to shops directly. The only item that the association bought was skill orbs, whily show up at k and above dungeons, usually as a boss reward.
“Ok, so this is a test for you. We want to see how well you do this” Aold me.
“Yeah, we will only step in if you are about to die” Aria told me.
“Got it” I tell them. I then put on the cloak for defense and both of the gaus. Since I don’t have any idea how to use a sword gers or a spear, I go with hand to hand bat.
We open the door and we find a set of tunnels. From what I have learned, most E rank dungeons have 3 levels, the third being just the boss room. When I look around the first room in the dungeon, I see a magic circle to the side of the room. That is the return circle from the boss room.
Seeing it for the first time, it really reminds me that everything about this is designed like a video game.
And from here the dungeon crawl starts.
?
Its only a few minutes before I find my first monster, a small blue slime.
These are really on e rank monsters. And our battle begins. When he jumps towards me, to test my defe, I let it hit me.
The way damage works is straight forward. Everything has a strength and defeat. Damage is calcuted by the differen the attacker's strength and the defender's defense. If the attacker's stat is higher, damage is dealt. The slime should only have an attack stat of 1-5 and with my defense currently at 13, it deals no damage. I then hit it oh my attad it flies back. My basich is around 13, so with the slimes defense being around 1-5 as well, it should take around 7ish damage. Slimes have 10 HP so one more hit and it would die.
It jumps back at me and I move out of the unch it again, while it is in mid air. As my sed hit makes tact, the slime dies and fades away, leaving nothing behind.
When it dies, I get a message from my status.
LV.3 Slime has died.
You gained 0EXP
Skills have gained EXP
Looking at the message, I open my status and check 2 skills.
Strength Boost Lv.1 - 2/1000
Defense Boost Lv.1 - 1/1000
It seems that my bracelet only blocks level experienot skill experiehis meant that even while going for Mp growth, I could still get stronger.
Looking at what skills got EXP I figured out that strength got a point for every hit given and defense for every received. I don’t know what would upgrade the other yet, so I just started to gh the dungeon.
A little ter I found another slime. This time, I wao test out my magic. Light magic was great at creating little energy bsts, something I knew instinctively, so I shot ht at the slime. Since my intelligence is lower than my strength. This did less damage, probably around 5. So I shot another o it and it died. Two hits to kill it.
LV.3 Slime has died.
You gained 0EXP
Skills have gained EXP
Looking at my skills again I chetelligence boost.
Intelligence Boost LV.1 - 2/1000
After killing that slime, I decided to test out speed boost. But even after running into a few more slimes, and killing them all, I get nothing for speed. No matter what I do while killing the slimes, I don’t get points in speed.
So I just kept going forward. By the end of the first level, I killed around 25 different slimes. After the first I didn’t let any hit me so I got no more points in defense. I was only able to kill around 5 with magiy intelligence boost is sitting around 10/1000. The real ohough was strength, which got up to 40/1000. At this point I figured out that I got one point for every Mp spent to cast magic for Intelligence boost. One point for every hit I gave in Strength boost.
Si takes two hits to kill a slime, I would o kill 500 slimes to level up the skill, which then makes it easier to kill them, boosting my strength from 13 to 23.
It took me around an hour to get past this first level, so if I stayed up here, It would take me almost a whole day of non stop hunting to kill enough slimes to level up the skill.
But I couldn’t do that today and moved on to the level.
There I found red slimes. They still died in 2 hits from me, but I did get a different message when they died.
LV.5 Slime has died.
You gained 0EXP
Skills have gained EXP
These slimes were stronger. Slimes move slow enough that the normal people could doge their attacks, so they still are weak enough that even low level hunters could kill them in a few hits. I don’t know how much EXP you get when you kill them, but it seems that you could level up easily by killing them.
During the sed floor, I kill around 30 more slimes, all with physical attacks, so now my strength boost is at 100/1000, 10% through the level.
And I found the stairs to the boss room.
?
“Well, here we are” Aria said, looking at the door at the bottom of the stairs to the third level of the dungeon.
“You’ve done well so far. But I noticed that you didn’t use magic all that much” Anthem said.
“Yeah, I ran out of MP ba the first floor and decided to focus on strength right now.”
“Ok, Have you leveled up yet?” Aria asked.
“Um, no not yet” I say, looking away from her.
“Really? The slimes on the sed level give 5 EXP each, and if you killed more than 20, you should have leveled up at least once?” she brought up.
“Well, something must be different for me. Well, let's go in and kill the boss” I said and opehe door before anyone could protest.
Wheer it, I find a slightly bigger slime than the ones I have killed before. This one is purple.
From what I know about this dungeon, this is a greater slime at around level 10. Slimes have stat growth like humans outside of hp so it should have all of its stats around 10.
It quickly jumps at me and I punch it back. It should only take me around 4 hits to kill it so I then quickly rush towards it instead of letting it jump back towards me. And si was against the wall, I was able to hit it 3 more times just as quickly and it fades, leaving only a sione behind.
Greater Slime Lv.10 has died
0 EXP gained
Skills have gained EXP
10 SP gained
Slime Cave has been cleared
When I get that message, I fully learn that I will be able to get the MP growth skill, with a lot of work.
NamelessAlter
