Chapter 27: the new hunt

after finishing the rune classes for the day Cain went to his next class, hunting.

finding the class walked into what looked like a group of overly muscle man training and brawling with each other. hearing the door to their training space open and close they all looked over to see what was, in their eyes, a relatively tall but laky demi-human. if an onlooker were to see this scene they would relate it to a bunch of gym bros looking at someone coming to the gym for the first time.

dropping a pair of overly large dumbells made out of dark iron, a metal known for being 10 times denser than comment lead, the largest of the group wiped his sweat off with the towel hanging from a rack holding several weights, some of which made of even heavier metals such as blue lead and abys iron which where 20 and 30 times denser than normal lead respectively.

walking over to Cain he reached out with his hand for and handshake before speaking in a deep but friendly voice "You must be Cain. I'm Luke, head of the hunter's group." shaking Luke's hand Cain asked, "Where is the teacher?"

hearing cains question Luke pointed to himself before saying "Unlike standard classes the hunting class is run by the students that are part of it. The only time that one of the teachers is part of it is when we go on a hunt so they can supervise us." as he said this a man covered in muscles with a thick beard and plated beard reminiscent of the Vikings from the old world walked in before introducing himself.

"Hello class, I will be the supervisor for today's hunt. make sure you have all of your equipment ready in 15 minutes." before walking over to one of the seats and sitting down.

Looking back at Cain Luke explained "You're just in luck, we are having a hunt today. seeing as you don't have any equipment on you you can walk over to one of the weapon racks and borrow one for today but make sure that you have your own next time."

looking towards the weapon rack Cain just pointed towards his tail before shifting the end to a shaper blade while forming a thick carapace on his hands like gauntlets and said "i don't need weapons."

momentarily stunned by the change in Cains body Luke simply put his hands up while walking away while saying "Suit your self I guess."

...

after the said 15 minutes were over the class was standing in a uniform formation in front of the teacher with a myriad of different setups ranging from swords and shields to whips and one of them just had a giant fan on their back. armour wasn't needed as the school uniform was designed to act as armour while still being stylish. of course, some chose to bring their own armour believing it was better or just because of preference.

in cains case, his 'uniform' was made from his own body so it both perfectly protected him while not inhibiting his movements and he could change it as he wished from its current state to a bore bulky armour or a more specialised style for a different environment. it also had several other functions like self-repair as it was part of his body, incredible defence due to what he used in the making of it and a few others.

standing in front of the class the teacher began to speak "Today we will be heading to the redwood forest outside the academy, the more dangerous creatures are annually wiped out by the teachers so you won't haft to worry about something dangerous so long as you stick to the safe zones."

After saying this he brought out a large map from thin air, however, looking closer it actually came from one of the rings in his hand. thinking about it he had seen similar rings on other teachers and higher-ranking members from the military base. deciding to add it to his ever-growing research list he switched his attention to the map and begin memorising it.

Looking at the map, it was split into five rings of different colours. the first and outermost ring was a bright green and had the label 'safe zone' along with the information that it contained one-star beasts. now would be a good time to talk about the ranking system. beasts, monsters, spirits and the like were ranked on a star basis lining up with a human cultivation system. one star being body refining, two stars being qi absorbing and so on. there were also very rare types of beasts that would evolve into a special type different from a monster or spirit, these were called 'anomalys'.

(i have made the decision that mage levels will be based on rings, every rank will add a new ring, this is so it is easier to understand and I don't haft to spend five hours trying to figure out how to reinvent the wheel. meaning one ring will be body refining, two rings will be qi absorbing and so on. The levels are be based on their size, refinement and capacity. going through stages from one to nine. Cain is at stage two of ring one.)

once a beast reaches nine stars the next stage is becoming a monster or spirit. the difference is that monsters are more physically based while spirits are energy based. an example would be a spirit being something like a pixie or driad while a monster would be something like a leviathan or orc. though, these are extremely high-level examples.

back to the map, the second ring was a darker green labelled 'mission zone, as it was where most higher level missions where based. it had high power one-star beasts and the rare low level two-star. the next zones where not important for now as they were two high level for the time being.

after memorising the whole map cain and the rest began their march out into the nearby hunting zone. "remember, stay in the safe zone and pay attention to how deep in you are, the closer to the next rig you go the high level the beast you will find, only go as far as you can live."

after saying this the supervisor disappeared from sight, though he was still keeping watch of them. starting his first hunt cain ran away from the rest of the crowd as they were forming teams and began to loom for his first prey in this new hunting land