Chapter 30: Grief and Acceptance

Jomar led Kal into the shelter hall. They went inside the previous office where Dante usually spends his duty as a shelter master and without his presence inside Kal felt somewhat sad. The only thing that was left of his presence was a wall frame of his portrait. Jomar sat in the shelter master's seat and stared at Kal with a heavy look in his face.

"Kal, from the past year and a half, where had you been?" Jomar asked Kal. Kal paused briefly as he thought in his head on how he could explain something that he knew was both unbelievable and confidential.

"I was transported by some unknown person who wanted my help and as a result he rewarded me by making me stronger." Kal couldn't make a believable story out of the blue so he made up a story that would be the very least a reasonable one. Suddenly, Jomar shot up in his seat and looked at Kal with open eyes like he had just solved the cure for eternal rest (Solo leveling reference).

"So Dante was right! You really were not dead but in fact had been teleported by someone!" Jomar exclaimed.

"What do you mean by that? I'm so confused." Kal was dumbfounded by the sudden reaction as he was expecting Jomar to not believe his story. But what happened was the other way around, in fact Dante also knew he had teleported though not by some unknown person but by the system.

"When the hunters that were guarding you from a far explained your disappearance, Dante felt awry. He had checked enough of your history to know that you didn't make someone angry enough to summon an undetectable pillar of lightning since he had studied majority of the powerful hunters in the world and for someone to do that was truly inhumane. Dante could've at least detect the summoned lightning since he was very sensitive to mana for a B-rank and even normal hunters could at least feel it's power yet no one was able to detect it other than the people nearby and the guards who had witnessed it. His only reasonable hypothesis was you being forcefully transported since teleportation powers needed space element to work and when a teleportation power is casted, the space on the area of the spell would be distorted as a result, mana would not be present in the area since the mana would usually built up the caster's area." Jomar explained.

"I see...but then what happened?" Kal asked.

"Dante, Lin Wei and Dontrelle were searching for you for 6 months and at that time, Dante had to participate in an expeditionary to the north east side of the Pacific since he was personally recruited by Peter Lincoln. Dontrelle had to go to the prestigious Hunter's University and Lin Wei had to return to Mainland China. That was the time Dante had face his fate. The expeditionary force was compromise of a thousand hunters mainly B ranks and some C ranks and majority of the hunters was from the Purple Guild lead by Peter Lincoln, the guild master. Their expedition was just to clean up a volcano island which was the size of old jeju island (old refers to before the earth expanded) and the volcano island had been surveyed in advance and estimated that there were fire type monsters in the island ranging from D to B ranks. But then chaos emerged, the active volcano which was supposed to erupt in a couple more years breath out an eruption. They were expecting that a volcanic eruption had occurred but what was bellowed by the volcano was a drake. A giant lizard monster that was bathe in flames. When the drake appeared, all of the monsters in the area suddenly went berserk and attacked the expeditionary force. They had no choice but to fight back because they weren't prepared their ships to leave. Peter had faced the drake by himself and the elite B-ranks had to fight the rampaging monsters until every other hunter had entered their ships. One of those B-rank hunters was Dante and with his swordsmanship expertise, he had manage to protect 200 hunters that entered their ships safely. Everyone had already safely entered their ships and quickly left but Dante who was about to enter one of the ships, sensed that Peter was in grave danger, although his teammates refrained him from leaving, Dante was persistent. He went over to Peter and saw that he was gravely injured from the attacks of the drake and carried his heavy and unconscious body to the ship before the drake could return. Things quickly take a twisted turn as the ship was already flying on standby, ready to leave in any second, the drake had arrived. It spewed lava breath that went straight to Dante's direction and in as split second decision, Dante threw Peter's big body right at the ship's open door to save him as a result, he was killed by the lava." Jomar sound saddened as he explained Dante's death and after Kal heard his story, tears fell to his eyes.

'After all this time, I only thought he treated me well because I was Dontrelle's first friend, I didn't realize he had went to such lengths to find me.' Kal was touched and gloomy. Dante and him had only met each other by a week yet he treated him like a member of his family. Even though Kal had spilled his secrets to him he realize that he was a trusted person and was one-of-a-kind man. Kal had never been treated this way by a stranger so felt touched but the thought of his death gave Kal a familiar grievance that he wished to forget. He had already overcame his trauma of death by dying a couple of times, the feeling of that death gave him from a closed acquaintance was far harder to overcome than any problem in this world.

"I'm sorry Kal. This must've been hard for you." Jomar patted his back to reassure him. Kal was given a room in the shelter hall to give him some space and although Kal hadn't left his room for a few days, nobody dared to disturb him, they'd only leave some food for Kal to eat but not once did Kal touched the food. Days passed, Kal had left his room to get some fresh air. He entered the training room which was owned by Dante to get some of that natural breeze and as he was relaxing in the greenery, Jomar arrived to check on Kal.

"It's been few days, are you okay now?" Jomar asked Kal who was laying in the grass.

"Yeah, I'm okay now." Kal responded with a smile.

"Since you're okay, I have to ask this question. A few days ago, you had made a hundred people faint and some even peed and soiled themselves, I knew that you were releasing a your aura since I had also felt and was also suffocated by the aura, how strong had you become in a span of a year and a half?" Jomar asked.

"You could say that I've become strong enough that I am able to protect myself from the majority of harm that may come in my way." Kal replied.

"Like how strong are you?" Jomar asked in curiosity. Kal simply responded to his question as he grabbed a leaf on the ground and imbued mana into it. Kal then shot the leaf upward and as it hit the ceiling of the training room, the glass barrier that an A-rank hunter could not even damage showed a large crack as a whole the same shape of the leaf could be seen. The training room suddenly echoed with blaring noises and Jomar quickly stopped the noise as his jaw fell on the floor and showed an awestruck expression.

"H-how is that possible? Did you become an S-rank hunter!? But you were only an E-rank just a year ago! How much did you improve to reach that level? What kind of person makes an low ranking hunter become an S-rank in just a year and a half?!" Jomar was filled with questions in his head but Kal simply smiled at him as he sat down and enjoyed the lively trees.

"How about you? How did you become the shelter master?" Kal asked. Although Jomar was still in disbelief, he sighed and replied, "This was supposed to have been a temporary role given to me by Dante since I was the only one he could trust and is capable to his level but still I had limits, I was only a D-rank and my seat could've been taken anytime but Ms. Lin Wei was kind enough to train me and after my reawakening I was lucky to experience a double reawakening and rose up quickly to B-rank. But you? I was gonna try and boast my power to you but it seems like I'm more of your junior than a senior."

(Note: A double reawakening is when a hunter is able to reach few levels at once. Like Jomar who went from D-rank and bypassed the next level to go to higher level and reached B-rank. This can happen once in a person's lifetime so every hunter can experience this event in their life. Though it will stunt their growth for half a year since the mana core of a person would be most vulnerable at this time so it was recommended to rest and not use their mana for 6 months until the side effect would disappear.)

"C'mon, that doesn't change the fact that you're still older than me so it's only normal for me to speak formally to my senior." Kal smiled and stood up from the ground and stretched his body.

"By the way, this is for you. This was supposed to be given to you before you had disappeared but since then, Dante had kept it in his drawer until the time you returned." Jomar handed Kal a white envelope. Kal opened the envelope and inside was certificate that would let him enroll in the prestigious Hunter's University.

"Use that so you can meet up with Dontrelle, I'm sure he'll be happy to find out that you're still alive. Don't worry, inside the hunter's university, neither his two elder sister and brother can touch Dontrelle so you can meet up with him safely well I doubt they could even harm you." Jomar said with a light chuckle. Kal had a bright expression in his face and immediately thanked Jomar. He wanted to meet Dontrelle in anyway possible but due to the restriction in the University, it was very hard for an outsider to enter the school premises.

"This is a sign of my gratitude." Kal opened his inventory and pulled out a red burning marble.

Ting~

[TRINKET OF FIRE (A)]

The trinket of fire had a massive effect of giving a person 25 points of fire affinity and increases one's fire resistance and damage.

"What's that?" Jomar asked as he inspected the floating flaming marble in Kal's palm.

"It's a fire pill. With this you will be able to obtain the fire element." Kal changed up some description of the trinket but what he said was true. Elements where compromised of built up mana inside a person's body that could open up an affinity to a specific type of power. Not does an element enhance the power output of a hunter, they had more higher chances of reaching boundaries and gain exclusive mana power that is not controlled externally but internally by the person. People who were able to unlock an element had high potentials of becoming stronger and they were sought out by guilds since they were considered a walking success. Elements are also hereditary so they could passed on by generations to come. They were some elements that were special, like poison which was unable to be passed on and is quite rare to find, it was like finding a black father that could quickly return home after buying milk. (I don't know if this is offensive or not but I thought it would be a good representation. All my respect to the single parents out there.)

"What!? Are you joking right now? Do you think something like that exists? If it was then there'd be millions of hunters with elemental powers." Jomar doubted what Kal had said but his eyes couldn't bat away from the floating marble.

"Just eat it, I promise you, I wouldn't dare to harm anyone who was close with teacher Dante." Kal said to the doubtful Jomar. Jomar sighed and accepted the pill.

'It's not hot, it's warm.' Jomar touched the pill and admired it's beautiful color. He didn't hesitate and swallowed the trinket into his mouth and he immediately felt the burning sensation in his body rising.

"Oh if forgot to tell you, your body will become so hot since every liquid inside your body will be boiling like water. Don't worry, that effect will disappear shortly." Kal said with a smile.

"Why...didn't you tell me...sooner!" Jomar had red eyes as his body had turned red from the heat. The sweat in his body quickly turned to steam and his clothes burned into ashes. Jomar was gritting his teeth as he looked around the training room for a place to cool off and as he saw the small riverbank he immediately dive down with his naked burning body,

Tssssssss....

The river bank made steaming noise as bubbles burst through the bodies of water. 10 minutes passed, the water had all evaporated as the entire riverbank had been been dried up. Below was the the river bank was a naked man covered in mud as he was exhausted by the heat. His body had now cooled off and Kal used his wind element to give Jomar a refreshing breeze and to also give him a dry cleaning as he gave him a spare of clothes.

"You basted! I thought I was gonna die! That was no pill, that was straight up poison!" Jomar exclaimed to Kal as he held him by the collar.

"I'm being honest with you, try and feel the fire element in your mana core," Kal said to Jomar. Jomar focused his sense and as he followed the trail of his mana flow to his mana core, he felt a resurging of heat source coming from his mana core,

"This is...the fire element!" Jomar was shocked and awe. He immediately tried to conjure up flames in his hands and although it didn't work since he still didn't had the hang of his newly and quite elemental power, he could feel his right hand glowing in red as it heated up. His hand felt warm but it didn't harm him at any way in fact he felt stronger than ever. He throwed a punch to Kal's chest and instantly, his whole hand went to flames. Seeing the incoming attack, Kal simply caught his fist with his hands and extinguished the flames with his wind that coiled through Jomar's hand.

"Why did you try and hit me?" Kal asked as he let go of Jomar's hand.

"Well, I was trying to test out my new powers and you were the closest I could find as a test subject. Seems like a truly did get the fire element! So you have the wind element?" Jomar asked to Kal.

"I'm not a lab rat for you to test your skills on and yes, I have the wind element." Kal said.

"Those pills, if I may guess, the wind element was given to you by that pill, did that man who you helped gave it to you? And do you have more of those?" Jomar's eyes were glowing in greed and his mouth looked watery. Kal knew what he was thinking and simply sighed.

"Don't be greedy, I only have that one left and even if I did have more, I would've already eaten it myself, I wasn't even sure if your body could control the fire element and you almost died from heat exhaustion, don't expect getting another one if you don't wish to destroy your mana core." Kal said to Jomar who looked disappointed and shocked at the same time.

"Wait! Does that mean you have other elements?" Jomar was curious. Kal knew that Jomar was trusted person and Kal also wanted to show off his powers a bit so he conjured a green flame in his hand.

"This is the result if you mix poison element and fire element." Kal said. Jomar immediately bawled his eyes out after hearing what he said.

"You have fire and a special element, poison? You just be talented with mana to be able to control three elements! No, you are truly a genius of a millenia!" Jomar was in a state of awe and looked at Kal as if he was looking at a monster. Although Kal already had Wind, fire, and poison, he also had Hell and light element. He also still had a few trinkets in his inventory that he would consume in a latter date since he would want to use it wisely since the temporary effects it gave was very useful for Kal.

**************

Kal spend a week in the shelter and decided to enroll for the Hunter's University, although he was a bit late in the enrollment, it was still opened until next week so he immediately book a travel to the US and with the unused money in his bank account that was given to him by Dontrelle, he had a pocket money to bring and incase if he had to pay a larger sum, he could sell some of the items that he might not use.

He drove a passengers ship to the us which momentarily arrive by 5 hours of flight. With a spaceship that went on lightning speed, they would've already revolve the entire planet a couple of times but since the planet was so massive, they still arrived by a few hours.

Kal had packed lightly since most of his items where in his inventory. He only packed clothes and such incase if they were to check his bags. After that, Kal went into a couple of registrations which was done shortly since Jomar had done the paperwork in advance.

After that, Kal rode a ship but it was not a space shuttle of any kind, it was literal ship that traveled in the sea as most flights were banned on entering the University. The ship was as big as 5 evergreen ships, and it looked far advanced than the modern ships we had in the 2000s.

Kal encountered a lot of people and they were mostly in the ages of 18 to 30. There where also some middle aged and old people and each one looked like they were family heads. The younger people also displayed their richness and it seems like they take pride on themselves. Kal was probably the only odd-one out of all of them since he was wearing typical clothes and didn't wear fancy clothes as he wasn't the type that would dress to impress. Kal simply sat on the bench as he watched the vast sea while the ship started to move.

"The man said that it'll take a week for the ship to arrive at the University. Hmm... I wonder what it looks like, I never saw a good picture in the Internet all I heard that it was like heaven and hell at the same time. Heaven for those who hailed from rich families and hell for those who only passed by the test examination and had no good background." Kal decided to check out his inventory to see what the rewards he hadn't checked the last time.

"Oh yeah, I had some skill slots opened, I should check on some skills." Kal went on to check the skills he earned and decided to go with these three skills that he immediately learned,

Ting~

[Aura Manipulation

Grade- S

Type- Control

Active: Be able to freely control the movement of your aura that includes the mana, element and power. By controlling the aura, you can use it as a type of offense, defense or buff. You are able to control the aura of anyone nearby but you need higher proficiency with the skill and understanding with the target to control their aura.

Mana cost: 1~max

Cooldown: None]

[Deathly Blows

Grade- S

Type- SPD/DMG

Active: Deal 15 consecutive attacks with each dealing 150% of the user's damage. There's 30% chance of dealing critical damage that increases the damage dealt by 500% (+200% strength) (+300% agility).

Mana cost: 130

Cooldown: 1 minute]

[Eyes of Greed

Grade- S+

Type- Buff

Passive: You are able to see fortune in anywhere a meter from you. The higher the quality of the prize the brighter it will glow.

Mana cost: none

Cooldown: none]

'With this, it should help me a lot especially [Aura Manipulation]. If I could be as proficient as Socram, I could be able to form my own aura blade and use it against strong opponents with high defense. This should also be useful in hiding my strength since now that I'm S-rank there might be some people who will be alerted and I might even set the ire of those dark organizations like the one Dante told me about, the Gluten Organization.' While Kal was minding his business. A young man in his 20s arrived in front of Kal.

"It seems like you're alone young man, would you like to have a chat with me? My name is Austin T. Lucas and I'm the second eldest of the great Lucas family. What family do you hail from?" The young man asked.

"Nietes." Kal briefly replied.

"Ni-yetez? Is that from a native Asian family? Butler, have you heard of the Ni-yetez family?" Austin asked his butler who was a middle-aged man in his 40s and began to scroll into his window tablet.

"I don't think so young master. It must've been from a small family since I didn't see any relevance of such a family." The butler replied. Austin quickly quivered his eyebrows and mouth as veins bulged in his forehead.

"Are you kidding me? And here I thought I was talking to some rich Asian family, but it seems you were just a commoner! Pah! I can't believe I was trying to chat with low lives like you." Austin rushed away as he left Kal with discontent but Kal felt somewhat annoyed and cringing at the spoiled kid's attitude. He decided to let it go since he didn't do anything to Kal that seems somewhat direct assault but just said some offensive words of insult. Suddenly more young men arrived at him and each one looked furious.

"You dared to make young Austin angry?"

"Show some respect to the young master!"

"Apologize to him now if you don't want to arrive at the University in a vegetative state!" They were all making murderous stares and cracked their knuckles as if they were ready to brawl. Since weapons were banned in the ship they'd use their fist to beat Kal up so Kal simply coldly gaze at them with his deep brown eyes and spoke.

"What if I don't want to?" Kal controlled his aura to spread around the young men and suddenly, an intense pressure pushed the young men into the ground as their body couldn't move like they were being crushed by the gravity. There were people nearby who saw the scene unfold and we're in complete shock as they saw a young man casually sitting on a bench surrounded by young men fashioned like gentlemen laying on the ground flat.