บท 29: The fifth team leader
B-Rank gate clearance plan: Start.
Emily did her best to conceal the gate by purchasing most of the land around it, creating a private area inaccessible to outsiders.
Meanwhile, Hans managed to make a complete recovery by the following morning.
His immediate concern was enhancing his circle, meaning he would need to confront and win against a B-Rank monster alone.
Initially, he didn't plan to disclose his identity, but he ultimately revealed himself as the fifth team leader from the previous C-Rank gate raid.
However, he was reluctant to divulge his personal information or reveal his face, since it was embarrassing. So he sought advice from Emily, who suggested visiting the trading center.
As soon as he entered the bustling trading center, a spectacular sight was unleashed before his eyes, and soon he started looking around for what he needed.
Among the numerous shops, he stopped in front of a small one and observed the items that were displayed for the public, more specifically, he was drawn to a particular item that was being displayed.
A wooden mask, shaped into a face, with only small holes for the eyes and the mouth.
The tag under it stated:
[Item: Druid Skin
Item Type: Mask
Effect: Voice Change
Price: 39,989 $]
Seeing those perks, the mask already looked appealing, but under the precise observation of his skill {Piercing Gaze}, another secret was unveiled to Hans.
[Item Name: Druid's Skin Mask
Item Rank: Intermediate Rare Rank
Item Effect (PASSIVE): Voice change, the voice coming from the user's throat will be modified and indistinguishable to others.
Item Effect (ACTIVE): By imprinting your mana on the mask and continuously feeding it, the mask will disappear for others and instead, they'll see the face of someone else rather than that of the user.
A must buy, that was the only thought that came to Hans' mind after he read the item's description.
Hans obviously caught this crazy deal and equipped the mask before infusing his mana in it.
His face morphed, changing from the face of some eighteen-year-old guy to the face of a thirty-year-old man.
Happy with his purchase, Hans left the mall.
Something, however, had escaped even his watchful eye.
The middle-aged merchant he had just traded with left the counter of his shop, and walked further inside the building, his previous welcoming voice and smiley face changed into a serious and dangerous one before he picked up an old-style wired telephone.
"I found it," he said on the phone.
A mechanical voice replied from the other side, "Are we talking about the same thing?"
"Yes! The information the lady was desperately looking for, I have found the only S-Rank target."
"Great work, the lady will personally pay a visit as soon as her schedule consents," replied the mechanical voice.
"Clack!"
"Beep… beep… beep"
With the exchange of those few words, the call ended.
Meanwhile, Hans stood before a D-Rank gate, limited to this until a gate of a higher rank emerged.
Even if he couldn't obtain any wisdom right away, the reward for completing his class quest would give him all of the accumulated stats. So, even if not right now, clearing the gates and raising his level would eventually benefit his growth.
Ninety-seven minutes, that's all it took for Hans to clear the gate.
He didn't hold back at all, since showing extraordinary results would only increase the fame of his new identity.
From now on he planned each of his actions to be recognized under the name of the famed, fifth team leader.
With determination, Hans cleared four gates a day, not resting for even a second, and probably because the difficulty levels were too low, he didn't get any new skills or spell tomes.
Instead, he was rewarded with extra experience points, boosting his level exponentially before being capped to around ninety like the other stats.
Finally, after three days of arduous gate clearing, a C-Rank gate appeared, it was deemed as a property of the association and Hans was entitled as the leader of the raid team.
Leading a sizable group of almost sixty people under his command, Hans entered the gate, and curious to see the strength of their current captain, the team members also followed his orders flawlessly.
[You have entered the C-Rank gate: Veiled Colony ]
They were walking into a pitch-dark underground space and allowing them to see around them was the oil lantern they had brought along, its feeble flame lighting up the huge cavern.
Just as the name stated, the cave held an entire colony inside it, and they found many dirt shelters all around them, even though they looked refined, the shelters didn't give off the feeling of being built by human hands.
Soon their first adversary revealed itself, followed by many of its kind.
{Piercing Gaze}
[Race: Earth Worm
Level: 124
Strength: 145
Dexterity: 115
Endurance: 84
Wisdom: 301
Skills:
{Blessing of the Earth (ACTIVE)
Effect: The user will be able to manipulate the earth, however, they can't create any out of nowhere.
Conditions: To use the skill, the user must remain underground.}
Description: A worm that has lived its entire life without seeing light, it neither has eyes nor vision.
The creature has the ability to detect what's happening around it through sound waves.
Evaluation: A Low C-Rank.]
This time, the hunters weren't divided into teams; they all received direct orders from Hans.
Without hesitation, Hans commanded all the knights to rub their swords against their shields. Although many were confused by his instructions, they followed as asked, resulting in incredibly loud and annoying screeches echoing through the empty subterranean tunnels.
The monster was immediately immobilized and easily gotten rid of.
The three spy headhunters, sent by the three major guilds in order to monitor the new rising star of the city, were all thinking in unison:
'He has a terrifying deduction ability!'
'Seeing that the cave is filled with darkness, he hypothesized the monster lacks senses apart from its hearing, and immediately verified it by attacking the creature with seemingly harmless methods.'
'What an incredibly sharp mind!'
From then on, they considered Hans to be a candidate to be hired as a vice guild master, someone who even without any physical strength could change the course of a battle.
Hans was indeed quite smart, though this time his observation skills played the biggest role.
As the raid continued, the raid team members remained quite disappointed by the ease and the speed of the gate clearance.
All the members regrouped, which included people who were curious about Hans's powers, so even powerful peoples of high C-Rank and over participated in the raid.
But unfortunately, this also meant that the leader didn't even need to step in.
When the boss monster appeared, and all the other beasts had been defeated, the entire corps reassembled itself into a battle formation ready to take it on, expecting as usual that their captain would not take action.
Unexpectedly, Hans stepped forward, waving down at the others, signaling them to relax.
"You all can stay still; I'll take it from here," he announced.
Confused eyes followed his every move.
'He hasn't fought anything by himself and now he's taking on the boss?!" thought one of the surprised members.
While the others were worried about what would happen to him, Hans continued advancing, closing to the gigantic worm in the middle of the cave room.
[Boss Monster
Race: Gigantic Earthworm
Level: 131
Strength: 212
Dexterity: 123
Endurance: 110
Wisdom: 621
Skills:
{Blessing of the Earth (ACTIVE)
Effect: The user will be able to manipulate the earth, however, they can't create any out of nowhere.
Conditions: To use the skill, the user must remain underground.}
Description: An old worm who has lived for countless years, even if its body has weakened due to time, its wisdom is higher than ever; very dangerous when paired with {Blessing of the Earth} and the terrain around it.
Evaluation: Low B-Rank.]
Hans' objective was clear: he needed to kill the disgusting creature to advance to the fourth circle.
Despite the monster's incredibly high wisdom, there was a reason why its rank wasn't higher, a weakness that only those with keen observation and astute minds could exploit: although the earth blessing granted the worm incredible control over the surrounding earth, in exchange, it took away the monster's ability to cast spells independently, which meant, when isolated, the monster's fighting power would be greatly reduced, probably diminishing to that of a C-Rank if not lower.
Hans exploited this weakness and initiated the battle in the best possible way.
{Blizzard}
The third-tier spell froze the entire surface of the cave, including all, the ceiling, the ground, and even the walls.
This move made the monster's ability completely useless as its mana couldn't interact with the earth at all.
Meanwhile, the team members who remained outside this ice cage were amazed by such an incredible display of magic.
Inside the cage, Hans activated his spell {Ice Armor} and engaged the monster in combat, throwing punches and spells on it for ten continuous minutes, before finally finishing it.
As the ice layer created by Hans's blizzard started to shatter, the fear of seeing the boss monster still alive entered the hunters' minds, but it quickly dissipated when Hans emerged out of it, almost unscathed.
Behind him lay the giant corpse of the beast, covered in ice and bruises, which started to turn into an abominable pile of flesh as the ice thawed away.
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