The dust from the dungeon had barely settled on my boots as I stood before the Academys scoreboard. It was really quiet in the plaza. I mean it was so quiet that it felt weird. The Hunter Association people and the students and teachers from the Academy were all staring at the scoreboard. They were looking at the glowing screen that was floating in the air. The Hunter Association officials and the students and teachers, from the Academy could not believe what they were seeing on the scoreboard. The scoreboard was showing something that nobody expected to see.
[ 1st Place: Jin-woo — 55,000 Points ]
"This has got to be some kind of mistake" the Head Instructor said, his hands shaking as he looked at the logs.
The Head Instructor was really upset.
A student who is Level 12 should not be able to do this.
The student went into the parts of a D-Rank dungeon all by himself.
This is something that just does not happen.
The Head Instructor thought this was crazy.
A Level 12 student doing something, like that is just not possible.
The Head Instructor kept saying that this has to be a system error.
The high-danger zones of a -Rank dungeon are very bad news.
A Level 12 student should not be able to get through them.
Soo-yun came up to me she was still breathing hard from fighting her own battles. Her eyes looked really mixed up like she was confused and also really impressed. A little suspicious too. Soo-yun said to me "Jin-woo I do not understand how you did it. I saw you go into the woods all by yourself. Soo-yun would not have made it in that area for, than ten minutes it is really dangerous.
I gave a shrug and kept up my act of being a Level 12 hunter. I said to Soo-yun "I just got lucky. I found some monster packs and used the land to my advantage. When you are a hunter luck is really important Soo-yun. I mean luck is what helps a hunter, like me a Level 12 hunter succeed.
Ryan shouted from the crowd his face was really angry. "That is not true" he said. "He is cheating. Instructor he has to be using things that are not allowed. A porter who is not very good cannot get a score than the whole elite class. A bad porter like that cannot beat the class. Ryan was talking about the porter. The porter was not supposed to be better, than the class.
The Instructor gave him a mean look to shut him up. "The scoreboard is what shows us who has the Mana and who killed the most Ryan. It does not make things up. Jin-woo is the one who won. The scoreboard says so and that is what matters the Mana signatures and the kill-strikes and Jin-woo has the most of these things.
2:00 PM: The Sovereign's Assembly
The Academys Grand Auditorium was really packed. There were a lot of people. On the stage I saw boxes with velvet inside and what was inside these boxes was giving off a faint light that seemed kind of magical. This was a deal it was the ceremony for the people who did the best on the Rehabilitation Test. The Rehabilitation Test is what this whole thing was, about. These people were the top achievers of the Rehabilitation Test.
The Head Instructor walked up to the podium. Today is a day. We are happy about how we have come. We are also happy, about a person who is doing very well. The Head Instructor stopped talking. Looked right at me. Then he said "The person who got First Place is Jin-woo so Jin-woo please come up here!"
The hall was filled with loud applause but you could also hear people whispering and wondering if this was really a good thing. When I walked out onto the stage the Instructor gave me the rewards:
500,000 Gold Coins (Digital Voucher).
The Sovereign's Gold Medal (The Academy's highest honor).
The Grade-B Mana Healing Stone.
The moment my fingers touched the blue stone my Personal System started talking to me in my mind:
[ Scanning Artifact... ]
[ Item: Mana Healing Stone (Grade-B) ]
This stone is really useful because it can help reduce the amount of Mana that the Spectral Blade skills use by 40 percent. It also increases the amount of Mana you can have by 500 units. This means you can use the Spectral Blade skills often without running out of Mana. The stone is very good, for people who like to use Spectral Blade skills a lot. It helps with the Spectral Blade skills and your total Mana.
I said thank you to the man. Then I put the stone in my pocket. Every single student was looking at me. Some of them wanted what I had some of them were just wondering what was going on. Ryans eyes were different. The stone was still in my pocket. I could feel Ryans eyes on me and they were full of hatred. Ryan was actually shaking in his seat. I could tell he was really upset, about the stone.
4:00 PM: The Emergency Mobilization
The party had to stop because the Academys sirens were so loud. These sirens were not, for a prisoner escaping from the dungeon. They meant that the Military had to get ready to go to war right away. We had to go to the central courtyard of the Academy immediately. The Academy was calling all of us to the courtyard.
Three big military trucks with lots of armor were waiting at the gates. A man wearing a black uniform got up on the stage. His eyes were really tough and being, near him felt like something was pushing down on you. This man was Colonel Vikram.
"Pay attention, cadets!" his voice was really loud. It sounded even louder because of Mana. The borders are getting attacked badly right now. We have found out that a new Wave is coming at us from the frontier. The government has decided that the top 20 students from our group have to go to the frontline to get some experience and help out. You all have to pack your stuff and get ready in 30 minutes so you need to hurry up. The top 20 students are going to be right, in the middle of this Wave so you have to be prepared for it.
Panic erupted. The Frontline was a bad place. It was not a dungeon where people could go in and come out alive. The Frontline was a place where a lot of hunters died every day. People went in. Never came back. The Frontline was, like a machine that kept killing hunters.
When everyone else got scared and started running I saw something that nobody else did: a message popped up just for me to see.
[ MISSION ALERT: SUPREME CHECK-IN ]
Location: Army Frontier - Sector 7 (The Death Zone).
Details: Host you have not checked in for thirty days. The System put all your rewards together. If you check in at the Front Room of Sector 7 you will get a Legendary Weapon Chest. You will really get this Legendary Weapon Chest if you do what you need to do at the Front Room of Sector 7.
Note: If you do not do what you are supposed to do you will lose your Mana Healing Stone away and you will also get a permanent stat penalty. This means your Mana Healing Stone will be gone forever and your stats will be lowered for good.
I thought to myself the System is not giving me any option. A sad smile came on my face.
I ran fast as I could to my dorm. I only had thirty minutes to get my things. I had to make sure my five hundred thousand gold was safe. I had to grab my new Mana stone and all my gear. When I was heading back to the trucks I saw Ryan on his phone talking to his father. He was really upset and begging his father to help him get out of going to war. Then Colonel Vikram came over to him. He took the phone away, from Ryan. Crushed it in his hand. Colonel Vikram said "Here we only take warriors. We do not take people who're cowards."
6:00 PM: The Road to Sector 7
The trucks roared to life. They left the safety of the Academy walls behind them.
The city skyscrapers got smaller and smaller in the distance.
Now the Academy trucks saw cliffs and scorched earth all around the trucks. The city was. The trucks were really out in the open now. The trucks kept moving away, from the Academy and the city skyscrapers were just a memory.
The air inside the truck was really bad. Soo-yun sat across from me. She had a grip, on the hilt of her sword. Her knuckles were white because she was holding it hard. Ryan looked sick. He was staring at the floor of the truck. Did not say a word. The truck was quiet. Soo-yun and Ryan and I were all just sitting there. Soo-yun was still holding her sword really tight.
Colonel Vikram was sitting at the front of our truck cleaning his combat knife. He was looking at us. It felt like he was looking right through us. Colonel Vikram said Sector 7 is called the Death Gate for a reason. The Rock Gorillas that live in those hills do not care about the grades you got at the Academy. If you want to stay alive you need to stay alert all the time Colonel Vikram told us.
The truck stopped moving fast. Then a huge explosion happened on the ground in front of us. It was so loud it sounded like BOOM!
The Colonel yelled loud "AMBUSH!" He said "Everyone get out! Get out now!"
We jumped out of the truck that was tilting to one side and the hills, around us started to move. There were lots of Rock Gorillas, the 10-foot-tall Rock Gorillas coming down from the hills. These Rock Gorillas were really big 10 feet tall and they were coming for us. The skin of the Rock Gorillas looked like stone. It was shining a little in the fading light. One of the Rock Gorillas jumped right at Soo-yun, who was standing still and could not move. The Rock Gorillas were a problem Rock Gorillas and they were getting closer.
I moved my wrist fast nobody noticed and I said something quietly to my Mana. I told it to do something called "Spectral Finger: Air Pressure".
An invisible blade of compressed air cut through the beasts neck before it could get to Soo-yun. The beast fell down away. Soo-yun was really surprised she thought the beast had just tripped. Colonel Vikram looked very closely at the beast that had fallen down. And then he looked at me. Colonel Vikrams eyes got smaller as he looked at the monster that was on the ground.. Then, at me.
He knew something was off. And my journey into the heart of the war had only just begun.