NOVPUB
Chapter 76: The Day Hunt & Improvements (1/2)
John didn’t return to the initial mountain, but to a different location where he found weaker Gold-rank Monsters in their young-stage and Silver-rank Monsters.
’The goal is to collect at least 100 Silver-rank Soul crystals as fast as possible.’
John wanted a speed hunt in an area with sufficient Silver-rank Monsters.
He found such a place.
It was at the northwest base of the second mountain. It was a valley with thick greenery and a river flowing through it like a snake.
It was approximately thirty kilometers wide but stretched 120 kilometers in an arc between the initial mountain he landed, and this second one.
In that valley, John designed his speed hunt as it was filled with Silver-rank Monsters in high numbers, while young or rarely adult Gold-rank Monsters were in low numbers.
That was because this valley was a great moving space for monsters, and also breed. It was a whole moving ecosystem of flying, ground, and water monsters.
The variety there constantly changed every month, every sixty days, and the concentration of spirit energy was also high there, as there was a leyline stretch in that valley.
There were multiple such leyline flowing locations in this Starfall Mountain range, and this was one of them.
John strategized as he landed on a hilly area in the valley that had tall trees. Getting an overview first.
"This will be a long but fruitful run." John looked in the southeast. "We’ll cross 80 kilometers in a sweeping fashion."
John waved his hand, summoning the Monsters.
"Sony, and Crocky. This is the last adventure in your Silver-rank. After this, I’ll evolve both of you to a new monstrosity. And you," John looked at the new gang members.
Some monsters were dumb. But some were smart. The intelligence gap existed in monsters, the same as in humans.
The recently captured Twin-Fanged Snake Panther was the smartest one of the bunch.
After being able to talk in the Monster Paradise, it didn’t take long for him to approach Alfred on his own and request to be on the frontline.
"I’ll evolve to you if you can hit 100 Geno points in this run. You lack 7, and that will require super intensity in this long run, but if you hit that, I’ll make you the strongest fucking Gold-rank Monster," John grinned. "Of course, you’ll be strongest until my own Pets become Gold-rank."
The Panther growled before bursting its nostrils like a roaring engine.
’I’ll beat your Monsters when they are in Gold-rank too, as long as you don’t pull punches on my evolution.’
This Monster was freaking ambitious and had a great thirst for power!
John grinned. "Fuck you."
"I won’t pull punches."
’Homie, we are the seniors, so hold your horses. You’ll have to beat us first,’ Crocky snorted.
The Panther’s eyes flashed with disdain. ’Trash.’
Metal Merc Tiger roared, expressing its ambition as well.
John laughed and looked at the silent one. It was a Ghost-type Monster, one of the three that John had captured on the island. He had made sure to capture a wide variety when he captured those 100 monsters and knew they would become useful to him eventually.
And this one was a great addition to the field.
Spooklepop Phantom Owl.
"Spook, you’re ready to rumble too, right?"
The own nodded, its ghastly glimmering green-blue feathers looked kind of beautiful despite its spooky face with hollow eyes which had glowing gems, and a black ghastly hat atop its head.
’Ready to spook, milord.’
"Alright. Let’s begin."
...
Amidst the thick valley. A group of Silver-rank Prime-stage Aquaflame Nox Fox had nestled to rest after a fulfilled hunt as the bones and leftover meat of some monsters were piled at spots.
Spook flew past them while dropping a bomb that changed its colors rapidly.
Boom.
All eight Aquaflame Nox Foxes instantly jerked their bodies while trembling as intense fear spooked into them with Spook’s skill showing them a nightmare where they see the monster they fear the most.
This type of skill worked great on wild Monsters.
The follow-up was easy. To finish them off silently and swiftly, Twin-Fanged Snake Panther used its lethal poison, shooting eight pinpointed darts from its snake-tail mouth.
The foxes died instantly.
But not all battles were like this.
In some, John used Crocky’s sand dune traps and sound wave attacks or sound hypnotism of Sony.
Sony’s Wood and Sound attributed skills were quite handy, especially since the natural skill-change and new combo moves they developed by simply fighting under John’s command and doing training, and playing football.
All of that influenced the changes in both Sony and Crocky.
Pymon and Owl mainly did the scouting while John wanted to constantly move and operate his body at a high level, so he remained on the ground, using Strider’s Gaunt to increase his proficiency.
The more he used it, the less stamina consumption he felt. Moreover, the increase in stats greatly helped him develop his stamina to new heights.
And he couldn’t wait to reach 100 because that would mean he would be twice as strong as he was now!
Naturally, he also didn’t neglect training to increase his Blood and Metal Mastery.
He gained Blood Master level 1 but has yet to reach Metal Mastery level 1.
As such, he was also constantly fiddling with bullets, using the Blood Alloy Sculpture technique to modify gun and bullets both.
And it actually helped him.
After two hours of fighting and resting occasionally for recovery in the middle, John collected a total of 37 Soul Crystals and reached Metal Mastery level 1.
But the day had just begun. John continued.
By the next five hours when the clock hit 1 p.m., John had made a breakthrough in his Soul Technique, and tremendously improved his own combat power, aside from training Pymon to reach Prime-stage and developing his combo moves.
About John’s own power, he successfully created two new magazines for his gun and also improved his gun.
Reaching Blood and Metal Mastery level 1 just opened a new manipulation door for him, allowing him to design the improvements.
John got ideas during combats with Monsters, and he applied them during breaks.
He also decided to create a special function for himself in the Monster Paradise. A sort of research center for his personal improvements.
Since whatever he asked for or imagined could be created, he asked for a super-computer with an AI designer who could use the given data according to his idea.
The price was 25,000 Molding Essence. John had fortunately gathered them since Molding Essence’s production speed had been through the roof, thanks to the three trees in the garden, on which had six King-ranked fruits dangling on them.
This AI helped him in his imagination and design so he could properly manipulate Blood and Metal to create the bullets according to his vision.
Basically, John used the functions of AI to create a blueprint and then manipulated Blood and Metal with focused training using the Blood Alloy Sculpting technique to upgrade his gun and bullets.
And that increased the speed of his hunt to stupendous heights.
Rustle
John was chasing a group of three high-speed cheetahs while Pymon and Owl flew up, following.
Alfred and others were inside since they were going through a thick quagmire uneven patch in the valley where they couldn’t move.
John was also moving like a monkey, but a cool monkey as he used the giant plant-like in this location to move swiftly, covering great distances with high-speed swinging flights using the giant flower plants and other plant life in this quagmire muddy area.
The Spring Wave Leaf-Cheetas of Mud and Hopwind attributes dominated this area and were super fast while also being deadly because their whole body was like a machine as these cheetahs could shoot high velocity exploding apple-sized bombs.
Damage was guaranteed, but if the mud struck anyone, it would quickly grow leaves to wrap around the targets, and could restrict movement quite a lot if this happened at high-speed chase, and any Monster fell into this area’s quagmire, it’d be game over.
If John fell, he would be chewed to death in seconds by the monsters below.
Swoosh!
The cheetah’s body opened up the holes, shooting another batch of bombs at him.
John landed on a flower’s petal and used its bounce to jump higher before shooting at another giant flower’s petal.
This bullet had a thread extending from it that remained connected to the gun. Once it struck the flower, it hooked it by expanding as John swung like Spiderman, steering away from the incoming mud blasts.
But despite being in their ideal biome where they were the hunter, they were the ones running.
John was chasing them while they ran for their lives as John had already hunted half of their group.
The hunter had become the hunted.
"There you go, it’s game over now."
A perfect open patch was coming to finish this hunt nicely and swiftly.
