X-Rank Hunter

"Whe...where am I?"

Standing in a place where utter darkness embraced the surroundings, Jim opened his eyes and found himself in the midst of it.

Whether he closed his eyes or not, the sight didn't change at all. Only coldness and empty space were beside him and Jim really felt completely alone.

When Jim was as if grieving the loneliness he was experiencing, he saw a blue light appear so suddenly not too far away from him, dancing in the midair.

"A blue light?" Jim narrowed his eyes in wonder. But it didn't take long for him to realize what was it. And his eyes had immediately widened in horror. His lips quivered as he wanted to say something only to swallow his words.

Jim could tell that this blue light was only here just to cause trouble since it only appeared before him to give him harm.

But then, Jim knew nothing about the blue light and he was curious about it. So as the curiosity hit the max level, Jim couldn't suppress it anymore and asked it.

"What are you!? What do you need from me?" His expression was as if tough but deep inside he wanted to cower away already.

On the other hand, as the blue light was dancing in the dark, it started to fly away from him. To his curiosity, Jim followed the blue light.

"Hey wait for me! If you can speak, at least answer me first!" Jim shouted.

Everything around him was darkness and he could only see the blue light he was following. That being said, he didn't notice that he was getting more and more drawn in by following the blue light stupidly.

So as he was running after it, he didn't expect that there was actually a pit lingering ahead.

And he fell on it.

"Aaahhh!" Jim could only shriek as he reached up his hand while he was falling but then...

Jim opened his eyes as he was having shortness of breath. He was relieved that it was just a dream that he found himself falling to the pit. Jim felt a bit dizzy, nevertheless, he got up from his bed and sat on it, cross-legged.

However, the matters about the blue light had immediately entered his mind as he felt that this thing was always causing him harm. He was helpless. He didn't even know whatever the blue light really was.

Was it a dream? Or not? Or both? The more Jim thought about it, the more his head hurt.

"But where the hell am I?" When Jim opened his eyes, he was not in his room anymore. He looked around him and a white and small room greeted him. At that time, he immediately realized that he was actually in the hospital. But then, there was no one around.

The fresh wind breezed into the widely opened glass window as it managed to graze past through Jim's body. Jim felt good and was enjoying the smell of the fresh wind.

Was he really in the hospital? But why did he end up in there?

He only remembered th..that... Jim cursed as he found that he couldn't remember anything at all.

But actually, he remembered clearly what had happened to him when he was in his room before he lost his consciousness, but he was bewildered if he was just hallucinating or not so he didn't pay much attention to it.

"Argh... My head hurts, just where in the world is the doctor here?" Jim held his head down for a moment then he turned his head up again trying to relieve the pain.

After which, Jim shouted to call for the doctor, but no one was answering him. He tried to louder his voice but he felt rather weak. As if a meow of a cat was actually much louder than his voice.

He was just about to stand up when he noticed that the book that he saw last time was just beside him, lying leisurely on his bed.

As if it was saying, "Good morning!"

"What the... You again?!" Jim immediately felt goosebumps from head to toe as if something bad was ready to happen at any moment.

Jim knew that he already saw it before. He recalled that in his room before he passed out, the old book that he found on his table became so strange. It floated and fell. And all of a sudden it opened up on its own, revealing some unknown words. The words then floated on their own as they surrounded the book. When he tried to ignore it and turned away instead, he suddenly felt an unimaginable amount of pressuring pain all over his body that caused him to lose his consciousness.

At that time, he didn't know that the unknown words had entered his head, making him unconscious.

Jim didn't believe it at first, because he thought that he was just hallucinating. But now, he was so sure about it, "It really is real!"

Though Jim was a little frightened, his curiosity beat him that he unwittingly picked up the book holding it with his two hands. He stared at it for a moment and instinctively grazed his finger on its cover contemplating what kind of book was it.

He recalled that when he first opened it, there were no words written on it but when it opened on its own, some kind of unknown words suddenly appeared on it, and those words actually left the book and floated in midair!

"..."

He tried to turn the book on its first page and there he saw the words, but at that time, he was able to understand the words written on it as clear as one could see.

Did the words just change on their own? Jim couldn't help but frown

The words written on it were still the same, it was only that he could now understand the words on it. And there was no doubt that it was the words that entered his head was the one that enabled him to do so.

But what was this? X-Rank Hunter? What was that? Jim was confused by what he just saw on the first page. E-rank, A-rank, S-rank, SSS-rank, he already heard all of them. But X-rank? He never encountered one before.

He knew that there were X-rank dungeons created by the First Awakeners, but X-rank Hunter? Just what was that?

The school never mentioned anything about X-rank Hunters before, he never heard it as well from his mother or the other Hunters or even in the hearsays.

SSS-rank Hunter was now the highest known rank that a Hunter could ever reach, so he really knew nothing about this X-rank Hunter.

Currently, there were only eight 'known' SSS-rank 'Hunters' scattered around the world, traveling and clearing high-level dungeons or staying in their own country to protect their people from the wave of beast's attacks.

Here in Maharlika, they were just lucky enough to have an SSS-rank Hunter as their King.

It was said that before the Forsaken Age where people lived without any kind of abnormal powers, there were several billion people around the world. But now, there were only several hundreds of millions left.

About 70% of the population were just normal citizens. 15% of them were just Low Rankers (E-rank to C-rank) whereas 5% of them were in the Middle Rankers (B-rank to A-rank) and only a few thousands of Hunters in every generation could become a High Ranker (S-rank to SSS-rank).

And the other 10% were awakeners with different professions other than a Hunter.

The road of the Hunters was undoubtedly insanely difficult and many had given up on it. Dangers and death were always by your side if you took the path of the Hunters.

That was why Academies were born to help and guide newly awakened people to become stronger Hunter, and help them to make use of their awakened ability and their World Energy.

Those who had just awakened their ability were naturally graded as an F-rank, and normally, they were 5 to 10 years old.

If one's age exceeded these limits, then there was 'almost' no chance that one would ever awaken their ability anymore and enjoy the use of World Energy.