Jack rechecked the numbers, but it remained the same.
‘How can….’
How could a person who had Awakened two times possess the magic energy value of only 70?!
Jack was scratching his hair and was having a disappointing expression.
When considering the fact that the lowest average value for rank E – the bottom rank – was around 60 to 100.Ryan was no different from who he was before.
“Is it really a Re-Awakening? If it is, what could be my new rank now?”
Ryan’s hands were soaked in the sweat of anticipation.
Seeing the suspicious reactions of the two Hunter Association agents, the result must’ve been somewhat beyond their expectations.
Meanwhile, Jack was comparing the existing data on Ryan with the new measurement.
‘His first measurement was the value of 10. Five years later, it’s 70. It has indeed increased, but it is within the margin of error.’
In other words, the magic energy measuring device was working fine. Instead, it was Ryan’s magic energy that happened to be just illogically, nonsensically low.
It was a miracle that he had survived until now.
Jack rapidly realized that being here was a waste of time, so he got up from his seat.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jack and his lackey quickly packed up to leave.
“Uhm, excuse me. Can you tell me what it is ....”
Just as Ryan was about to ask, Jack bowed his head slightly and said….
"Oh by the way Mister Ryan, as Hunter to Hunter it Is my duty to tell you this…. you should really look out for yourself out there"
" What ? What do you mean``?''
"I'm talking about the "Dark House"
"It's an organization that had no interest in clearing Gates or hunting monsters. They used their skills to commit crimes, murder, and inspire terror in society. the members of this organization have the ability of monsters after undergoing experimentation at the hands of a person called 'the doctor' it seems that most of their leaders proclaim themself, "king" of this world. Some of their members can also interfere in a raid, killing hunters in the process and stealing their artifacts. We have tried to track down more information on them but have not been able to find any.“The Dark House have been causing all sorts of trouble these days,” Jack explained.
The information Ryan had just heard was startling.
“In other words, they're just bastards who want blood, death and control. »
“Yes, so be very careful when entering a dungeon.And dont trust no one. »
" Yes of course." Ryan replied.
"Thank you for your cooperation. If you remember anything else, please give us a call anytime.”
As if their rear ends were on fire,Jack decided to leave the room alongside the two men-in-black as soon as they put away the device, leaving Ryan alone.
Once he was alone, Ryan raised his head and seemed to stare silently into the air as if he was looking at something. This thing had appeared since Jack was about to leave.
"Well, that escalated quickly but... what's with this notification thing..."
It seems that Jack hadn't seen it, maybe only Ryan himself could.
He was seeing some strange texts written in the plain air.
"This is so weird..."
[You have a message]
As he read the words.
Huh?!’
He looked up without thinking, and then, saw ‘words’ floating in the air.
[You have several unread messages.]
***
“…..?”
He closed his eyes and opened them again.
[You have several unread messages.]
The words remained floating up there without a single change. He shook his head hard a few times and even rubbed his eyes, but they were still there.
Ryan massaged his aching forehead and lowered his head.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
‘It hadn’t been a long time since I started hearing weird things, but now, I’m even seeing them, too….’
Could something in his head really be broken?
There was a condition called PTSD, after all. People who experienced a huge accident or a traumatic event usually suffered from this condition.
It was only a few days ago since he witnessed the deaths of many of his comrades, not to mention he himself nearly died as well, so it would not be so strange to hear or see weird things as a possible side effect.
‘However….’
However, there were a couple of things that prevented him from dismissing this out of hand.
Ryan’s sight lowered to his leg – the leg that got cut in half by the shield of the stone statue was now all fine and dandy.
The voice he heard out of the blue inside the underground temple hidden within the depths of the dual dungeon; his completely-cured leg; and now, those words floating in front of his eyes.
Too many weird things were happening all at once.
‘What if….?’
There was a chance that all these things were not isolated events but linked to one another. When his thoughts arrived here, his aching head felt just a bit clearer.
‘Okay, fine.’
Ryan slowly raised his head.
Once the confusion in his heart died down and he felt calmer, he became quite curious about the contents of those so-called unread messages. There might be answers to his questions found within those messages, after all.
In order to confirm the messages, he reached out towards the words.
And his hand simply went past them.
‘It’s not touch-operated?’
It seemed that he got way too used to how a smartphone worked. He couldn’t think of any other way to access the messages other than tapping on the ‘icon’, though.
While he was deliberating on the means to access the messages, he recalled the memories from the moments before he blacked out.
“Right. That happened.”
Back then, he could only get his intentions across to that unknown voice by ‘talking’ to it.
‘Just like back then, I should either form the words in my head or speak it out loud.’
Thinking that this must be the case, Ryan then began to mutter the potential combination of words one by one.
“Wait a minute.."
When there are unread messages in a game, what should I do to access them?”
“Ah, I gotta ‘open’ the mailbox?”
Tti-ring!
As soon as Ryan said the word ‘open’, a clear beep entered his head and the hidden messages revealed themselves.
Ryan couldn't help but smile.
It was a page that displayed information about himself.
[Player:Ryan Armstrong]
[Race: Human]
[Level 1]
[Strength: 11]
[Agility:11]
[Stamina:11]
[Intelligence:16]
[Perception:11]
[HP:10/10]
[PM:10/10]
[Points to distribute: 0]
A smile appears on Ryan's mouth.
"I really can't believe it. »
It was like a video game he played when he was younger. These kinds of games were the only ones that could remove the boredom he had, that could help him forget the sufferings he was experiencing since he had no friends at the beginning and those around him, treated him like a dog.
On the screen he could see that he was level 1, and all of his stats were extremely low, well that was acceptable since he was a beginner.
If he thought about the current reality of what he looked like, where he was ranked as the weakest even among the Hunters, then there was nothing surprising about that.
On the other hand, when he saw the word [Skills], he decided to skip it since he had nothing new to see in the statistics.
The screen switches to the skill page.
" Hmm "
[Skill: Locked]
[Skill: Locked]
[Skill: Locked]
Ryan didn't find anything. All of his skills were locked, but of course a beginner couldn't have skill. Ryan knew it very well, but he wanted to see if he had one in case.He could unlock skills by beating bosses and by leveling up. It was the only way. Ryan knew that too.
Anyway, it was good news for now but the system still didn't tell him how to get stronger, because in most RPG games he knows, the system can tell how to get stronger sometimes, this system only showed him his stats and locked skills.
And that's when Ryan remembered the system telling him he had unread messages when he was with Hunter Jack.
Ryan therefore pronounces.
“Open the message box. »
Speaking its words, the skill page quickly changes to the messages page.
[You have unread messages]
Ryan smiles. He then opens the first message and these words appear.
[There are two unread messages.]
– Congratulations on becoming a [Player] (unread)
---[The system will help the "host" become stronger. ]
– [Daily Quest: Preparations to become strong] is now available. (unread)
On that sight, he smiled.
‘Finally!’
His eyes widened brightly.
“Hehehe, this is what I wanted to see.”
Ryan with his finger starts scrolling down the screen to see more messages. And that's when he saw these preparations.
[100 push-ups: 0/100]
[100 sit-ups: 0/100]
[100 squats: 0/100]
[10km run: 0/10km]
Ryan lets a stunned smirk come out of his lips seeing these messages.
“Oi, oi, you want me to become Saitama or what?How could I do 100 push-ups, 100 sit-up squats and 10 km runs? I couldn't even do 5 push-ups in the past. »
Should this be the feelings of disappointment?
To think, what the grand-sounding, the one titled ‘Preparations to become strong’, was nothing more than a list of physical exercises to train his body….
Well, for sure, if he did as the quest said, then his body might get a bit tougher.
Was this what that growth and reward thing the System was talking about?
He wordlessly stared at the flying words.
“…..”
He wasn’t doing anything important, yet the time continued to tick by.
Just as he began to feel the weight of the stillness filling up his hospital room….
‘But, what if….’
What if something could change?
After saying that, Ryan lowered his eyes to his muscular body.
As his thoughts were filled half with the uncertain expectation and the other half by unconvinced curiosity….
"No, if it was the past me, I couldn't, but what about the present me?"
His current body could probably do it, Ryan wanted to test that but his body was so weak from the dungeon incident that he didn't even have enough strength to get off the bed.
"Seems like I'll have a lot of work to do huh?"
Anyway, if his exercises help him get stronger, he starts doing them tomorrow morning. He had found what he wanted.
“There was a second message, right? »
Ryan opens the second message. Opening it, he was greeted with new messages.
"Huh? I thought I didn't receive any skill but I did?"
[Congratulations, you have acquired the skills [Bloodlust: Lvl 2] and [Fury: Lv.1]
Again he became happy.
“Seems like today is a good day for me."
Indeed, he received the two things he coincidentally wanted today. His quests to become stronger and new skills.
But how did he acquire skills when he hadn't fought a dungeon boss yet and he was still only a level 1.
Ryan couldn't find an explanation for that. So Ryan started reading the explanations given for his skills there.
[Skill: Bloodlust Lv.2]
[Mana required to activate: 4]
[While this skill is active, your opponents will be thrown into horrific fear. The effects of his attacks and their physical resistances will be reduced by 30%.]
[ Skill: Fury Lv.1]
[Mana required to activate: 10]
[When this skill is activated, the user's attack power and stamina will increase by 10%. When activated, 1 mana will be spent every minute.]
“Oh now, I understand. »
Ryan now understood how he got them. First he saw that Bloodlust was in Level 2, which means he acquired this skill before, probably in the dungeon test but Ryan couldn't fully remember as he didn't pay attention to his stats before. When he was fighting powerful monsters that he couldn't kill. He always intended to kill and fought them with rage. Maybe it was how he acquired the skills [Bloodlust: Lv2] and [Fury: Lv1].
Ryan lets out a small breath. He became happy, so much that his heart started racing like crazy.
Now his chest ached.
He really couldn't believe it, the weak he was now could become stronger? He might even upgrade to A or S rank in the future. It was too good to be true.
But if he can really get stronger, his life will change completely. For him, this system was an opportunity.
After checking everything the system had to tell him, he therefore decided to close it without regret, and leaned his back on the bed.
Ryan had come to the conclusion that the system was going to help him by giving him quests to complete, and by completing these quests, he would eventually become more powerful and gain more superpowers. And by becoming more powerful, he will be able to protect the world against the monsters.
Ryan yawned for a long time. He was now sleepy, his body was too tired, and learning even more news today, his body was even more so.
His eyelids began to close slowly and for a few seconds he fell into a deep sleep.