Chapter 63 - Experimentation

63 Experimentation

The country we were in was called King's Harbor. After moving away from the military sector and heading inwards, I was able to see groups of people and hunters celebrating their newly found freedom from the threat of beasts that were heading here previously Kazuhiko was walking besides me while talking about the power structure of countries in the United Federation and their dungeon diving system here. I recalled a news show I had watched back in Outer Bank X weeks ago that mentioned a similar topic about how hunters were restricted in the United Federation and had to turn half of their loot over to the government

It turns out that this system was placed to raise many peak hunters who were obligated to work for the government and defend the lower ranking hunters that contributed their loot

This was why hunters in the United Federation had much less mortality rates, as a stronger hunter who used up more of the resources was assigned to each of the teams diving in the dungeon.

This built up a system where many strong hunters dived into dungeons with weaker ones. Kazuhiko routinely had to dive into rank B dungeons with rank B hunters while occasionally clearing rank A dungeons with a government created fully rank A team

It was a good system that I applauded, as it produced many strong hunters and a level of responsibility that caused there to be less deaths in the United Federation when Apocalypse 2.0 occurred a week ago. There were many strong hunters spread out all over the countries unlike the cramming of powerful hunters into a few specific cities back in the Empire

Right now, we were heading to a rank A dungeon called [Babadook's Layer], which was a dungeon filled with strange dark furred monsters that had powerful offensive skills

Kazuhiko was very confident in my strength after he watched me take down the Black Dragon, so we dived into the dungeon by ourselves

The first floor was an expansive dark space that contained many of those dark furred monsters, and Kazuhiko moved first, trying his [Dominator's Dance of Death] for the first time

Since we finished this rank A dungeon so quickly, in less than half an hour at that, we dived back in right after. I had the goal of obtaining more rank A skills to play around with [Skill Combination] even more

The process would take time though, as I had to learn the skills and bring them all the way to 100 proficiency before I could combine them We dived into the rank A dungeon more than 10 times after that, only coming out some time in the afternoon. I was able to pocket five rank A skills for myself, leaving all the cores, three items, and 2 skill books that matched Kazuhiko behind I had already reached the peak that rank A cores could bring me long ago, and was now absorbing the rank S cores from the three powerful beasts I defeated

I also recalled some time back before I took down the rank S turtle and humanoid mosquito, I had gained a rank A skill book called [Void Slash] that I just tossed in my storage ring and forgot about. I looked at Kazuhiko and his katana, pulling out the skill right after and handing it to him

He looked at the skill description and turned all serious, giving me a heartfelt thanks for the gift. I shook off the gratitude and turned my attention to the horrendous looking Virulent Abomination to the side, as it had made the dungeon runs as effortless as they could be, and I could almost feel myself sinking into laziness as I watched the beast do all the work

We were heading in further into King's Harbor at the behest of Kazuhiko, it seemed the allied countries of the United Federation were planning an event to honor the great hunter that brought down the dragon

I wasn't into festivities though, and planned to not attend when something occured that gave me the perfect reason not to. The mysterious voice had returned yet again.

Kazuhiko saw my serious expression and stopped, and I told him that something came up, disappearing from his sight with [Dark Assassin] and flying into the skies

I floated high in the air as I felt my vision sinking and I found myself in that same blank room once more. Three figures were still visible in smaller rooms surrounding this one, with the hexagonal prism

slowly rotating in this main room

The voice rang out once more as I closely listened. It was time for answers.