After killing the boss of the dungeon, a chest appeared. This was the boss's reward. This chest could hold several different items. For the most part it was just a bigger magic stone. Sometimes items would appear, like ons. The higher rank dungeons have special rewards if you meet special ditions when you beat the dungeon.

  When I open the chest I find a group of potions and a magic crystal. This magic crystal was an e rank dungeon crystal. The stohe boss itself dropped was an e rank monster crystal. The dungeon crystal was equivalent to a monster crystal of the rank.

  Sihese crystals are the main powersource of the try, they are quite valuable. Rumors are that a S rank dungeon crystal run a major city for a whole week. S rank dungeons are quite rare. There is only one in the whole city and it takes a whole party of around 10 A rank to take it on. Aria and Anthem spend a lot of time there, but not even they clear it alone.

  The potions I got were mp potions that recover 25 mp, so quite worthless to me for now.

  In the back of the boss room, is a magic circle just like the one I saw in the beginning of the dungeon.

  “So that is the way out of here? I think it's time to go.” I say to my siblings.

  “I think thats a good idea. It is still your birthday, and we have more things to do” Anthem said. With that, we went through the magic circle and ended up ba the first room of the dungeon and we left.

  Right whe out of the dungeon, mom dad and uncle Gideohere waiting for us. Right away the questions started from them.

  “So how was it, your first dungeon?”

  “Did you level up?”

  “Did Aria and Anthem have to do anything? Its alright if you ’t ha.”

  They all said different things, w what had gone on.

  “Hey, give him some space” Aria told them.

  “It's alright. I had fun going there. I didn’t level up. And Anthem and Aria didn’t o do anything.” I tell them.

  But they all got stu one part.

  “What do you mean you didn’t level up?” Aria asked me.

  “Um, so the only accessory I make right now is a EXP 0 bracelet, which makes it so I ’t level up. I am using it to get a special skill.” I expin.

  All of them looked at each other after that.

  Then it clicked in Anthem’s head.

  “Yoing after MP growth” he said.

  “Yes. I tested it and I was able to get Sp without leveling up. This means I will be able to get the skill. It's also why I didn’t use the MP boost skill orb” I expin.

  “Why didn’t you just say so” Aria asked.

  “Because it's dangerous and I thought you might stop me.”

  “Well, if yoing for this, you o be careful. If you ever need help, you always ask” Anthem said.

  “Yes, exactly” Aria said.

  “Well, now that we know all of that, I think its time you move on with your day. Its still Zenith's birthday. I’ll cash out the stones you got and the money will be deposited in your at. You have a great rest of your day” Uncle Gideon told us, somewhat f us out of the building.

  ?

  The group of Mia and Noah’s friends were meeting the day after the festival attack. All of them except Mia.

  They were all there and questioned about the attack the day before. They came back together today to talk about what happened.

  But they all noticed that none of them heard from Mia. Over the st day they all texted her but got no respohat was their main topic they wao discuss.

  Sht when Noah got to their meeting pce, a random cafe they go to, he was immediately bombarded with questions.

  “Have you heard from her?” Katie asked.

  “Do you think she was hurt?” Rachel asked.

  “I haven’t seen or heard from her since yesterday, have you?” Abby asked.

  But without responding, Noah sat down, and took a breath. Then he responded.

  “I haven’t heard from her but her family says she is alright. They picked her up from the festival yesterday, after we got into a fight” he tells them.

  “What did you get into a fight about?” Katie asked, with an accusatory tone. She had seen herself as Mia’s best friend after they started highschool st year.

  “I did something dumb ao apologize about it. But that isn’t your business. Just know that she is fine”

  “They hell it isn’t my business. I'm her best friend” She said to him, getting mad.

  “I think you o remember who has knowhe lo. That's me. Not you. Not Zenith. Me” he said, getting mad at her.

  “Is that what this is all about? You're jealous that yirlfriend has other people in her life. You o realize, I’m not Zenith. I’m not some freak who is going to take up all of her time with my annoying tendencies. I actually care about her" she says to him.

  This gets him to back off.

  “You're right. But what I did is only between us. It's an ongoing problem.”

  “An ongoing problem, you've been dating a whole week and a half” David said uheir breath. Luckily, no one heard him.

  “So Mia is ok, then how about we talk about what happe night” Isaiah brought up. “I saw on the hat it was the Kings end guild who attacked.”

  “Yeah, and I saw that they were after Anthem.” Abby said.

  “Oh, yeah, how was being protected by your knight in shining armor” Hunter said, making fun of her. She was going on and on about it before Noah arrived so they had already gotten tired of it from her.

  But in respoo his dumb ent, Abby hit him upside the head.

  “Sorry, sorry” Hunter said.

  “So, you think of a pn to keep Zenith away from him?” Noah asked Abby.

  “I think I have one. I don’t want Ao know about it, since he seems niough to not realize that Zenith is bad, so I think I'm just going to tell Zenith to stay away from him. It seemed to work when we did the same with Mia” Abby said.

  “It might work, but it is at least a good pce to start. Unlike me, you aren’t that close with Anthem yet.” Noah said.

  “Well, I think it's going to work. I haven't sent him anythi so I don’t thih will know it's me.” Abby said.

  From there, the group talked about their pns for hunting over the week. They were still low level so they wao get some practi, and the few of them who wao get extra skills were able to start learning them from teachers.

  ?

  The rest of my birthday was very fun. We went out to my favorite restaurant for dinner. Mom and dad had gotten me something for my puter as a gift. Aria and Anthem had already given me my gift.

  Whe home, we had cake and hung out some more. I really enjoy bames and yed oogether, something we ’t do that often with everyone's work.

  The only big thing that we discussed was the idea of me taking the test to skip the rest of highschool. With my newfound focus on Hunting, I was actually really ined to take it now. The ime I could try was the sed of January, so we agreed that I would take it then.

  After everything finished up, I decided to head into my room to figure some things out.

  It had taken me around 2 and a half hours to finish the association dungeon. That one was about the regur size of E rank dungeons, so that was a good base lio work with.

  I had spent that time killing everything I came across, even going out of my way to find monsters. If I didn’t do that a right to the boss room I could probably finish in about an hour. And with 999 more runs of that dungeon, I would get the skill in 167 days if I do 6 runs a day, or 84 if I did 12 a day.

  It was being clear I would need a different strategy to figure this out.

  But I could push that back for now. From there I look at my other skills to see what I do. That is how I learn two things.

  Luck boost Lv.1 - 56/1000

  Turns out that luck boost went up with every monster I killed. I figured that it was going up every time a ce event happened. Every slime had a ce to drop a stone, but none of them did, only the boss. The hing I saeed boost.

  Speed Boost Lv.1 - 1/1000

  I had checked while in the dungeon and before the boss room, that was still at 0. They only Idea I had was when I ran at the boss. If I was right, I would o run a lot to level up that skill.

  Looking at the other skills, I learhat item box needed 100 exp to level up to 2, but it gained none. Light magic, the one I used as an offense gained 10 EXP, one for each time I used it. It needed 500 exp to level up.

  The big one was Absolute creation. Each Item I made gave it 1 experiend I had made 9 items.

  Absolute Creation Lv.1 - 9/10000

  It needed an absurd amount of experieo level up, especially since I was currently bound to only the begiems. The highest rank item I could make right now was the crystal ons.

  Crystal sword - MP:10,000 - EXP 1000 - Strength +5000

  Normally to get 10000 mp you would o be level 1000 or have a high level mp boost skill. And to level up the skill I would o make 10 of them. The exp I gained from the o from 1 to 10 to 25 to 50 to 100 to 250 to 500 to 1000 so there is a mix of amounts I could get. The armor seemed to be pretty varied as well so this would require a lot of testing to find a good path through.

  When I lie in my bed after looking at all of this, I get very excited. This was the part of being a hunter I was looking forward to. Pnning the best build for me and training. Getting cool skills.

  And I couldn’t be happier.

  Before I fully go to sleep I notie other thing in my status. The amount my strength is going to go up when I level up ged from a oo a two, meaning. This normally happened around level 3 for people, but since I was alone in hunting, it might happen sooner for me.

  And finally, before I fall asleep, I receive two texts. One from Willow and one from Liliana, both saying happy birthday. I respond by telling them thanks and go to sleep, happy with my day.

  NamelessAlter