Chương 30: Book 2: Chapter 1 - Rank Three Beast

A rather large and fairly extravagant carriage could be seen speeding through a forest. It was being pulled by two wolves with glistening white fur, both of which were larger than your average adult horse.

There were two males at the front of the carriage. Steering was a young man with spiky brown hair and piercing purple eyes, but his most distinctive attributes were his animal-like features. Everything from his long, pointy ears to his plump protruding lips to his golden-brown fur made him look as though he were half man and half monkey.

Beside him was a young boy who looked no older than 10. He had long, shoulder-length curly jet-black hair and was dressed in a plain white t-shirt and plain black cargo pants tucked into the top of his black boots.

"Hunting magical beasts in the second rank is getting too easy." The boy on the right said casually, looking off to the side at nothing in particular.

"Then hunt rank three beasts from tomorrow." The Ape like man lazily answered as he sat with one leg stretched across the rest of the seat and the reigns leisurely hanging from his right hand.

An excited smile appeared on the boy's face when he heard that. "Rank three beasts, huh…"

The young boy smiling excitedly was Ace, and the furry man sitting lazily beside him was Wukong. Their group had been travelling smoothly for two weeks now.

At first, Wukong did as he originally planned. He forced all three children to find their own food each day, but between Killian's lack of actual combat ability, the ease with which Ace was hunting rank one and two beasts and Alissa's willingness to do nothing, Wukong felt the need to make a change.

From that day on, Ace was responsible for hunting enough food for the rest of the group. Killian, who had decided to choose the axe as his primary weapon, was told to cut wood every day whilst Ace was away, and Alissa spent that time sparring with Wukong. Well, calling it sparring was generous. Wukong would lower his strength to match hers and also use twin daggers to imitate her.

It was during those sparring sessions that Alissa could fully appreciate how talented Wukong was. As an assassin, she'd been trained in the art of close combat to a very high standard, especially when it came to wielding daggers. So on their first day, when she saw Wukong wielding daggers for the first time, she could see he was an amateur. But after a few minutes, she could actually see his improvements, and after 10 minutes, he was no worse than her.

What surprised her most was that it almost felt like she was fighting herself. Wukong had copied everything from how she held her daggers to her form when slashing and even dodging.

After a few days, she felt as if Wukong's ability to wield a dagger had completely eclipsed her own.

Seeing her mood plummet, Wukong decided to explain. "In terms of actual technique, this king is, at best, equal to you. The reason this king can dominate the flow of the battle is experience. This king has over ten times as much combat experience as you.

Even after this king limits his strength to match yours and uses a weapon he's not used to, those years of battle experience are still there. Thinking you could beat me is just pure, unwarranted arrogance on your part."

Despite his words being blunt, they seemed to work as intended. Alissa stopped trying to win and focused on learning as much as possible, and at least in terms of technique and experience, she improved far faster than she had in the past.

Each day after they finished eating, Alissa and Killian would then start their mage training whilst the carriage moved. It took a little while for them to understand what they were doing, but with their innate talent, they learnt to sense their respective elemental essences and absorb them after a few measly days.

Whilst they did that, Ace wasn't lazing around. He would sit at the front of the carriage with Wukong, asking him as many questions as possible so that he could get a better understanding of his new world.

After he felt he'd bothered Wukong for long enough, Ace would turn his focus to his [observation haki], which still had room for improvement after his breakthrough to the 2nd rank.

"Just try not to go and get yourself killed!" Wukong said, noticing Ace's apparent excitement. "I'm the one who'll have to answer your mother if you go kick the bucket."

"I won't!" Ace said, trying to suppress his anticipation. "By the way…"

"Shoo shoo!" Wukong interrupted Ace as he motioned for Ace to leave. "This king hasn't got the energy to listen to your non-stop questions tonight!"

"Tch. Fine, I'll go!" Ace said, disappearing into the back of the carriage.

'These two are working hard as usual.' Ace thought to himself when he noticed Killian and Alissa sitting cross-legged on the carriage floor, deep in meditation.

"I hope you weren't troubling Mr Wukong too much?" Milianna said, looking up from the top she was halfway through knitting.

"No trouble at all. We were just talking about my training." Ace innocently replied.

Lance, who was sitting beside Milianna, looked at Ace, not believing him but said nothing.

Ace then took a seat beside Killian and Alissa and began his haki training.

Lance and Milianna didn't have to ask to understand what he was doing. As the only people who knew the truth about his abilities, they knew he was training his '[observation haki]', as he called it.

The only thing Lance and Milianna didn't understand was why he had access to his '[armament]' and '[observation]', but Milianna didn't.

To that, all Ace could do was feign ignorance. How could he tell them he already knew how to use it from his past life?

At the same time, at the front of the carriage, a curious light flashed in Wukong's eyes as Ace began training. 'What exactly is that brat up to?'

The following day, when the carriage made its usual morning stop for the kids to do their training, Ace hugged Milianna before grabbing the glaive he took from the assassin he killed and left for his hunt.

"Rank three beasts today, huh? This should be fun!"

Ace appeared completely carefree as he leisurely strolled through the forest, but the truth was he would spread his [observation] every minute or so, not only to search for his prey but also to avoid being caught off guard by anyone or anything unexpected.

"There you are!"

As Ace found his target, he shot forward, not bothering to hide his presence. "Finally, a real challenge!"

It wasn't clear if it was out of excitement or hunger, but Ace licked his lips when he saw what looked like a 10-foot hippo with dark brown fur and a single horn above its eyes lazing around under a tree.

When it noticed him, the hippo hurriedly rolled to its feet and began growling. Seeing the little human ignore its warning, the wild hippo charged toward the child it'd decided to make lunch.

Not daring to hold back against a beast of a higher rank than him, Ace jumped as high as he could in the air in an attempt to use gravity to increase the momentum of his attack.

As he descended, a hint of a smile could be seen on Ace's face, 'so this is what pops felt charging in with nothing but his glaive.'

Ace coated the blade of his glaive in [haki], swinging it down with all his strength, doing his best to imitate the man he respected most from his previous life!

But as the glaive and horn made contact, shock could be seen on Ace's face. "Shit, that thing's stronger than I thought!"

Despite using everything he had, Ace was still forced to take five steps back before regaining his footing.

And if that wasn't enough of a surprise, his opponent didn't take a single step back. "A magical beast of the 3rd rank is no joke."

Whilst Ace was getting over his shock, the hippo seemed to be hesitating as it looked at the child in front of it. It expected to send the boy flying with one hit, but instead, the child it saw as no more than an easy meal managed to stop its charge dead in its tracks.

A magical beast's instincts tended to be superior to humans. It's how they can tell whether or not they should run from other more powerful beasts in the wild.

The horned hippo's instincts told it that the ugly ape in front of it was weaker than it was, but as they were about to clash, his instincts flared up, warning it of danger, but now its instincts were once again saying the weird-looking ape was too weak to pose a threat.

It had never experienced anything as confusing in its life and was struggling to decide whether it should escape or not, but when it saw the excitement on Ace's face as if this weak ape was the predator and it was the prey, it growled in anger.

"HAHAHA, COME!" Ace roared in excitement.