Chapter 6
Day 9.
Agility reached 100.
Vitality reached 19.
But Hyeon-jun couldn’t hunt.
Delayed muscle pain hit him, forcing him to spend the entire day lying down.
Day 10.
Vitality reached 29.
He hunted eight Rune Rabbits.
He also sold his Agility Rune.
Rune sale price: 280,000 won.
Final payment: 196,000 won.
Day 11.
Vitality reached 39.
He hunted ten Rune Rabbits.
Final payment: 245,000 won.
Day 12.
Vitality reached 49.
“And now I’m sick again.”
Maybe it was because he had hunted two days in a row.
He had felt perfectly fine yesterday, but today the muscle pain returned.
“From now on, I should hunt one day and rest the next.”
Things might have been different if he had a party.
But hunting alone put a considerable strain on his body in many ways.
“Still, it’s not as bad as a few days ago.”
The day after his first hunt had been terrible.
He had genuinely been unable to move.
Other than going to the bathroom or eating, he had literally spent the entire day lying down.
“What a waste of time.”
His body was used to working every single day.
Even while suffering severe muscle pain, he couldn’t stop thinking about all the time he was wasting.
“I can’t spend today like that too. I should do something.”
Exercise was out.
That required using his body.
Studying theory?
He already knew so much that there wasn’t much more worth studying.
“Ah. Should I do that?”
Hyeon-jun sat down in front of his low table.
His hunting was gradually getting on track.
It was time to start planning how to reach E-rank.
“There are three requirements for becoming E-rank.”
Hyeon-jun wrote them down in a notebook.
1.
Raise the Soul Circuit to E-rank.
2.
3.
Complete the Hunter Academy beginner course.
4.
5.
Clear an F-rank Closed-Type Gate once.
6.
First was raising the grade of his Soul Circuit.
To increase his Soul Circuit grade, he needed to raise all five Major Stats to 100.
“That means I need a total of 500 Runes.”
In cash, that was worth over one hundred million won.
It wasn’t an impossible goal for ordinary Hunters, but it certainly wasn’t easy.
“That kind of money used to be completely beyond my reach.”
That had been true in the past.
Now, however, time alone would solve the problem.
“Agility 100. Vitality 49. The remaining Stats are all 10. I need 321 more Runes.”
Any Stat that stopped awkwardly at ninety-nine could be finished using the original Rune.
Thirty-two more days.
As long as he didn’t waste Copy on anything else, his Soul Circuit would reach E-rank on Day 32.
“That takes care of number one. Next, number two.”
He had to pass the promotion exam administered by the Hunter Academy.
The Hunter Academy was a government-certified educational institution that provided various forms of Hunter-related training.
It had originally been established to provide basic education regarding Awakeners and Other Spaces.
In practice, it was also a preventive measure designed to reduce pointless Hunter deaths.
That’s why anyone who wants to become a Hunter has to take basic classes and pass an exam.
Granted, the classes were online, so almost nobody actually paid attention to them.
Regardless, Hunters still had to pass the Academy’s promotion examination.
Its official name was the E-rank Hunter Qualification Examination.
As the name suggested, it tested whether someone possessed the qualifications needed to become an E-rank Hunter.
“I heard it isn’t that difficult.”
It wasn’t graded comparatively.
As long as someone exceeded a fixed passing score, they passed and could become E-rank.
“And it’s free.”
The second requirement didn’t seem particularly worrying.
The problem was the third one.
“Clear an F-rank Closed-Type Gate once.”
He absolutely didn’t want to enter a Closed-Type Gate.
However, if he wanted to raise his rank, there was no avoiding it.
“At least I only have to do it once.”
While worrying about it, Hyeon-jun also felt a strange excitement.
It was similar to what he had felt when he first dreamed of becoming a Hunter.
Unpredictable experiences inside unknown spaces.
Danger, in another sense, meant excitement and thrill.
Back when he had been an immature teenager, Hyeon-jun had dreamed of becoming a Hunter precisely because of that thrill.
He had only abandoned those feelings after tragedy struck and he gained people he had to protect.
“My situation hasn’t changed even now... but maybe I can afford to challenge myself a little.”
The past few days of hunting had given Hyeon-jun considerable confidence.
Even if dungeons were full of unpredictable situations, he felt he could handle an F-rank one.
“Of course, not right now.”
At the moment, only his Agility was high.
He needed to grow more.
“At minimum, my Soul Circuit should reach E-rank.”
Technically, if Strength, Agility, and Vitality all reached 100, it would probably be worth attempting.
But Hyeon-jun wanted something more certain.
More importantly, something safer.
“One mistake in there could kill me...”
Death.
The thought alone sent a chill through him.
But it wasn’t simply because he was afraid of dying.
There was something even more frightening.
The pressure the world would place on his younger sister if he died.
That was something he never wanted to leave behind for her.
“So I need to make it as safe as possible.”
Hyeon-jun added another section beneath the third requirement.
3-1. Safety goals.
3-1.1 Reach E-rank Soul Circuit.
3-1.2 Gain experience.
I still don’t have enough actual experience as a Hunter.
He had entered dungeons above F-rank several times before.
But only as a porter.
Even then, he had thought they were dangerous, so he hadn’t gone often.
And now that I’m actually hunting, the only monsters I’ve killed are Rune Rabbits.
There was no telling what kind of monsters would appear inside a dungeon.
He needed to personally fight as many different monster types as possible and gain real combat experience.
I know the theory extremely well, but actually fighting them is another matter.
Hyeon-jun added another line below.
-Once Vitality and Strength both reach 100, hunt in fields other than the Grassland Field.
It was a neat summary of his future plan.
“Ah. Once my Soul Circuit reaches E-rank, I should try party hunting too.”
Hunters weren’t allowed to enter dungeons alone.
It wasn’t a System restriction.
It was a legal restriction intended to reduce reckless Hunter deaths.
He thought it would be useful to learn how to hunt alongside other people before entering a dungeon for real.
