"What is it?" Sungjun asked with a frown on his face. He wasn't displeased because it was Sun Xiao who wanted to talk to him, but it was because he was almost at the doorstep of his next breakthrough.
Mana condensation is a technique that constantly improves the body's capacity to hold the Mana particles. For example, if the capacity of the body is a bucket, then the water is the Mana particles.
Upon every breakthrough, the bucket becomes bigger, and then, human cells will interact with the existing Mana particles attached to them in creating more Mana particles, thereby increasing the reserves of a superhuman.
For almost every superhuman, whatever profession they are in, their capacity will reach its peak when their growth also stops.
Based on their potential, they develop techniques.
While having higher Mana particles doesn't mean the user is stronger than peers with lower reserves, it is believed that the former type of people usually have higher potential compared to the latter type.
And Sungjun managed to break those shackles with a modified otherworldly technique.
Through hard work, he actually managed to improve his reserves to 92554 MP.
Sungjun aims to cross 100k before they confront the werewolf lord. Usually, it would have been impossible at that underground facility, but as Sungjun felt the richness of natural energy in the sea, he was confident about making the breakthrough with ease.
But now, this girl disturbed his progress. So, how could he not be displeased?
On the other hand, Sun Xiao has no idea what's going on with Sungjun. So, she misunderstood that this young man didn't want to see her. Unfortunately, it is important. She had to meet him in person or else, she felt like she would regret it.
Taking a deep breath, she handed him a letter. "This is serious." She gave a warning and ran away.
"Eh? A letter?" Sungjun looked back at the letter.
For a moment, it felt like a scene from Sungjun's memories from middle school, where a girl handed him a love letter before running away in shyness.
Locking the door once again, he opened the letter in curiosity. "Whoa." He exclaimed as he read the contents of the letter. It was a simple but powerful warning.
"You might be abandoned or worse, sacrificed at the temple before we reach the heart of the dungeon. Trust no one but Cyro."
The meaning was quite clear. Sungjun could also guess the identity of the one who will be digging his grave.
However, Sungjun has no plans of depending on someone's mercy from the start, anyway. So, it didn't bother him at all.
He continued with his training for a couple of hours more before stepping out for lunch.
Instead of going to the cafeteria for a full meal, he just went to the grocery store and bought instant cup noodles. The kettles are obviously available there. So, he managed to fill his stomach as quickly as possible and returned to his room before proceeding with the training.
The evening arrived, and Sungjun continued eating the same thing during dinner, skipping the meals with the teammates.
Jaden Wong was happy that the rookie wasn't there.
Xing Lin felt pity for the rookie and wondered whether she should have a talk with him to show that she is friendly.
Sun Xiao misunderstood that her ex-roommate was ignoring everyone due to her letter. She felt proud of her act.
While Cyro opinioned that it isn't good for Sungjun to eat instant noodles all through the day, the others assumed that Sungjun was probably nervous because of the mission.
None of them knew that Sungjun's agenda was something else. Without taking any rest for the whole night, he continuously absorbed the natural energy and spontaneously refined it into Mana particles inside his meridians.
The time was around 3:40 in the morning. More than half of the crew was sleeping while the other half was on night duty. The aircraft carrier continued to sail in the sea.
Inside Sungjun's sleeping cabin, the bluish aura around him was deep blue. It has been getting deeper and deeper for the past few hours, and finally, the aura shed its bluish color and turned green.
Feeling a surge of energy in his body, Sungjun let out a smile and opened his eyes, "22k Mana particles improvement in a mere one day here. Now, that's a record. However, it isn't that much change from yesterday. At most, I can use big moves like Absolute Reality a couple of times. If I put it aside and just focus on minor illusions combined with minor hypnosis, I might hold my ground. Anyway, there's still time. Why waste it…"
He closed his eyes once again and continued to practice the Mana Condensation technique to increase his Mana particles limit as much as possible.
City of Napzu, Vashia;
Four days ago, as the news of the dungeon break became public and reached the World Hunter Council (WHC), they posted an announcement on all of their social media accounts and also gave an official press conference about hiring Hunters from all over the world.
Of course, the Hunters associated with government agencies were kept away because they are considered the assets of their respective nation.
Only the ones that belonged to private Hunter agencies and freelancers were hired at a price that was suitable for their rank.
And there's another requirement posted by WHC. It is that only B and above Rank Hunters could apply for this task, not just because of the risk factor but also due to the number factor.
There are over 60 million official active Hunters in this world, spread over 84 countries, of which 55 million of them are actually below C-rank, and 4.9 million of them are under B-rank.
Why such a huge number?
It's because a Hunter license doesn't have any expiry date. It can only be canceled when one Hunter gets convicted, dies, or voluntarily retires.
Hence, the majority of those Hunters, who either don't have much talent or are not interested to risk their lives, use the license for their resume in applying for jobs, or in a grocery store for a special 10% Hunter discount, or getting a special tax cut from the government, or getting a loan from the bank in case of a bad credit score.
Hunter license can be used for a number of things, and people take advantage of it. Governments all over the world clearly know about i,t but they wouldn't take any necessary steps to stop it. Why?
The Hunters are considered the reserve forces of the country, and they will have to answer when they are called to duty in case war breaks out and they are needed to protect the citizens. Then, these people would be left with only two choices. Either retire voluntarily and cancel the benefits of the license or answer the call of the nation.
Anyway, as it would be tough for WHC to pay for them if they show up in large numbers, they kept out the lowest class Hunters from this war and hired the higher class Hunters.
But at the same time, they also need to worry about the attacks of dark guilds and terrorist organizations, which will try to cause chaos within their respective cities if the guilds there sent away their entire force. So, WHC was clear in its hiring process and gave warnings beforehand to the private agencies not to send every Hunter that is available.
In the end, the city of Napzu saw an influx of thousands of Hunters over the past week, and about three thousand of them managed to register themselves one after another at VHA (Vashia Hunter Association).
At around 9 o'clock in the morning, whoever registered so far was gathered at Napzu International stadium, the biggest sports field in the city, which is used to host international games for soccer.
There, an old man in his mid-eighties was waiting for them alongside the other staff members.
He looked frail, and wrinkles were all over his face. His eyes aren't even widely opened properl,y and he just gives off the vibes of a harmless-looking old man. In a simple way, he just looked like a person who might die at any time.
However, no one in the world, not even an S-rank Hunter, had the guts to look down on him.
Whether it was the young orthe old, B-rank or A-rank, every Hunter just stared at him in admiration from a distance and started murmuring about how they were lucky to see the living legend, the one who was considered to be the guardian of the world.
Using a mic, the old man addressed all of them, "Hello, young fellas. Some of you might have heard of me, and some of you might not. Well, it has been more than two decades since I retired. So, I won't blame you. Anyway, let me introduce myself. My name is Lewis Knigh,t and my codename is Zero.
First of all, I thank you for joining the war that was not yours in the first place. But before leaving for the war, all of you must understand that the dungeon boss, Werewolf Lord, isn't a simple monster you can fight. He is considered a Class-0 monster.
He didn't have just millions but tens of billions of Mana particles. What's worse is that he has the ability to share it with fellow allies. Regardless of their strength, you will be fighting the enemies who will have way above your reserves than yourselves.
So, be smart while engaging the enemy, and those who were trained in firearms, make sure to depend more on ammunition. That's all I have to say. Thank you."
*Clap* Clap* Clap*
All the Hunters started clapping for the retired Hunter as he finished the speech.
Soon, the General of Vashia's Special Forces took over the command, transporting all of them in large transport helicopters and vehicles to go to the temporary military bases set near the temple of Horus.