Hunters: The Prequel - Chapter 250

Within a small courtyard, there was a straw dummy. There was nothing particularly fancy about the dummy. It was crudely made and was nailed to the ground by a large iron rod. This dummy was positioned at one of the four corners of the courtyard. Usually this dummy was all alone, but not today. Today, there was someone standing right in front of the dummy. This person was a tall teenager with curiously good looks. The teenage boy was focused on striking the dummy in front of him. His brilliant golden hair swayed with every strike, and his steely blue eyes were filled with determination. His young face looked a tad bit more mature because of his beard. Every now and then, he’d stop to wipe off the sweat that got into his eyes. Then, he would continue. This boy was obviously Mane.

*Bang*

*Bang*

The loud sounds of the dummy being struck filled the courtyard for a good dozen minutes. Other than the few times Mane stopped to clean his sweat, he never gave himself any rest at all. When Mane finally decided to take a breather, a small winged figure that wasn’t with him initially, flew onto his shoulder.

“I’m sweaty,” Mane tried to advise the fairy sitting on his shoulder to get a new spot because he was filthy.

“I don’t care,” Hildegarde plainly stated and proceeded to lay down comfortably on Mane’s shoulder. She was tiny, so it wasn’t cramped for her at all.

“This is so uncomfortable. Your shoulder is no longer a pleasant resting place” Hildegarde was full of complaints as she tossed and turned upon Mane’s shoulder, seeking for a comfortable position.

“What did you expect? I’m growing after all” Mane smiled bitterly at her complaints and defended himself. It had been a month since he came into this world. Within that brief period, he had grown stronger, and his body was showing signs of this growth. When he first arrived in this world, his body was similar to one that had never seen any hard work before. Since Mane became a body wielder, such a weak body was not a great thing for him. After all, even his 11 year old body in the real universe was ripped. Unfortunately, although he had been given his actual face and looks for the test, the body he was given was devoid of any training or strength. So Mane decided to train. Luckily for him, although the Edict and its rival, Chaos, had no influence here, there was someone more than willing to teach Mane what they referred to as ‘Body Strengthening’ in this world. This teacher was naturally Dan.

Body Strengthening was similar to Body Wielding in Mane’s universe. It was just that instead of training one’s body for the sole purpose of making it adapt to the vibrant outer energy, Body Strengthening focused on training the body without outer energy. So obviously, it wasn’t as powerful as being a Body Wielder, but it was good enough to survive in this world. With Body Wielding, although one trains the body, the focus is on increasing one’s affinity and control for outer energy. Body Strengthening had no such focus. With Body Strengthening, one trains the body constantly, pushing past his/her limits so that he/she can draw out the potential of his/her body. That was what Mane was doing right now.

“Heads up,” Hildegarde whispered. “Dan’s back,” she finished. Although Dan wouldn’t be able to hear her, she had developed the habit of whispering in his presence so that she wouldn’t distract Mane when Dan was around. Mane was happy about it of course. He was thankful for her consideration.

Dan showed up in less than a minute, with a large bull on his shoulder. “Are you done with the morning’s drill,” Dan approached Mane with a smile and asked. He casually dumped the bull onto the ground and sat next to Mane.

“Yeah,” Mane nodded. He and Dan had grown close over the past month, and Mane no longer felt awkward around the older man. The fact that he reminded him of Uncle Jake also helped, making it easier for Mane to open up to Dan. Of course he didn’t tell him any of his secrets, or his background, but he was open to him about everything else; especially his training. Dan smiled at Mane and proceeded to interrogate him

“100 Handstand pushups?”

“Done”

“200 Jump squats?”

“Done”

“1 hour of Wire Skipping?”

“Done”

“Jogging?”

“Done”

“10 minutes of Dummy Strikes?”

“Done”

Dan nodded his head after Mane’s final reply. He didn’t doubt Mane’s answers. He learnt much about Mane during this one month period, and one thing he realized was that the boy was always eager for more when it came to training. Although he had assigned repetitions to each of the exercises, he knew that Mane always did more. So the question wasn’t whether or not he had done the drill, but how many times he had done it.

“How many times did you perform them,” Dan asked

“Four times,” Mane replied

“That’s unbelievable,” Dan sighed. “To do four sets in just an hour and 30 minutes is amazing,” Dan patted Mane’s shoulder and praised the teenager. He had never met one as dedicated as Mane when it came to training. The young boy trained and trained and trained, and cared little for anything else. He wasn’t interested in meeting the other members of the village, neither was he concerned about his looks. It wasn’t like that was a problem since he was very good looking, although Dan did think that he could do with a trim for his beard. Of course what Dan didn’t know was that Mane wasn’t a member of this world, and was going to leave eventually. To Mane, it wasn’t necessary to grow attached to a world he would eventually abandon.

“The way you train is exceptional. You train like a madman” Dan laughed and said. Handstand push-ups were upside down push-ups and were challenging. Not only did one have to be strong, one also needed to have good balance to keep from constantly falling.

The dummy that Mane trained with was covered in straw, but that was only on the outside. It was entirely made of crude iron on the inside. The straw only served as its ‘skin’. If Mane had his original level of skill, destroying iron would have been easy, but with his puny power now, it was very difficult to even dent it. All he got for his hard work were calloused knuckles that hurt every time he trained, and bleeding fists. Although to be fair, training with the dummy allowed him to hone his fighting skills. Now his punches and kicks were faster, and his tolerance to pain had improved by a great deal.

As for Wire Skipping, it was similar to jumping ropes in Mane’s world, but it was more dangerous. Instead of using a rope and jumping over it, the object that replaced the rope was a wire string that was capable of easily splitting a rock into two. A moment of carelessness and one could very well lose their legs. Although Dan was against using the wire rope, Mane constantly sneaked into his room for it whenever he wasn’t around. In the end, Dan couldn’t do anything but have Mane promise that he would always be careful. Even Hildegarde didn’t understand Mane’s obsession with the dangerous tool. When she asked him, he answered thusly

“Don’t you know that Protagonists have fate swirling around them? There is no way anything would happen to me.”

After his reply, Hildegarde didn’t bother asking him about it anymore for fear of losing control of herself and punching him in the face, which would disqualify her from being his chaperone. So when Dan said Mane trained like a madman, she butted in. It was a pity that the only person who could hear her was Mane.

“I agree,” Hildegarde’s unhelpful contribution caused Mane to smile wryly, something he found himself doing constantly these days.

Mane shrugged and opened his ‘Status’ window.

Name: Mane

Age: 15

Current Setting: Healthy

Physical Attributes – Strength: 3.2

Agility: 3.2

Stamina: 3.9

Test Difficulty: Chaos

Testing Ground: Chaotic Era

Goal: End Goal – Become Chaos

Completion Rate: 4.12

Mane had grown greatly over the past month. This month of training allowed him to appreciate the absurdity of Dan’s stats more. It took him a whole month of gruesome training and occasional spars with Dan to move his stats by just over about 1.2 overall. And that was only possible because of the reward he had gotten for finding out what the end goal ‘Become Chaos’ was.

As expected, it was a hidden quest, and solving it granted him a 0.5x multiplier whenever he trained. As for the daily quests he solved every day, the rewards were minuscule and the best he got so far was 1.5x healing rate for all injuries. However, according to Dan, the current Mane was strong enough to handle an average Low Class Magical Beast.

“Is that a Rage Bull,” Mane carefully examined the dead bull on the ground and wondered? The village they lived in wasn’t very far from an Enchanted Forest. The village was far enough from the forest so that they weren’t threatened by the Magical Beasts, but close enough so that any adventurer could travel there in about 30 minutes. It was the very same Enchanted Forest where Dan found Mane.

By now, Mane had studied the books he had received from Dan over and over again. He was knowledgeable in the information about Magical Beasts. The Rage Bull was a Middle Class Magical Beast that commanded herd of Low Class Magical Beasts called Dark Bulls. Dark Bulls were strong and fast, and had devilishly powerful horns that could split iron into two. They were called Dark Bulls because of the black color of their skin.

Rage Bulls usually commanded a herd of 10 Dark Bulls. Just like Dark Bulls, they were also strong and fast, and were black in color. But they were two times stronger than the regular Dark Bull. Their horns were also more powerful, and they turned a bit red whenever they got mad, losing their reasoning and making it even more difficult to fight them. They were definitely stronger than most Middle Class Magical Beasts and weren’t to be trifled with.

“Good eye. You are really making use of the books I gave you” Dan smiled and praised Mane.

Mane sighed in admiration after hearing Dan confirm his suspicions. Rage Bulls were delicacies, and were highly nutritional, making them the right choice of meat for anyone undergoing strenuous training. It was clear that Dan got the bull for Mane. Although it was true that they were great sources of nutrients, Rage Bulls were usually ignored because of their herd. Even if one was capable of handling a High Class Magical Beast, he/she wouldn’t want to be surrounded by Dark Bulls. Yet Dan had killed a Rage Bull, and even retrieved its carcass.

“What did you do to its herd,” Mane lightly kicked the dead bull and asked?

“Gave them to the Village Head. We mustn’t keep everything to ourselves” Dan laughed as he replied.

“You are a good man,” Mane praised.

“I am,” Dan nodded his head with no indication of denying the compliment.

He laughed when he saw Mane’s brows twitch in annoyance.