Hunt

Dante after becoming E ranker had unlocked an innate shield that will protect him just like that bastard Quin who survived his [Alpha] slashes easily.

His technique was unique and far stronger than normal Aurars due to the grade of his technique, as well as the meridian quality.

The innate shield ability was called [Star Shield] which has an alternate mode that protected people around him as well called [Star Barrier].

"Show me the innate ability. I want to check it. Why was it not included in the skills section?"

- It cannot be included in the skills section because you haven't activated it yet or used it for now. Activate it and it will show up in the perks section.- Pearl talked through telepathy.

"Oh, I get it. Only trained abilities are shown in the status section."

Dante was enlightened with this new information about the system panel.

"System show me shield status."

Dante breathed in and out while trying to use his innate shield ability.

A shield appeared around his skin like a light shirt that he was wearing over his whole body. It was a beautiful blue color shield.

----

[Star Shield: Innate shield Ability. It becomes stronger with the Rank of the user. The passive shield will protect the user from all harm as long as the attack does not exceed the shield damage limit.

Damage Absorption: 50 AE | Cost: 1A/3hours]

----

It should be noted that most E+ Rankers have Aura Emission power of only 35-40 AE. So he was pretty much safe in the same realm as himself. Besides his multicasting through parallel memory, he could attack all enemies at the same time. He was a monster in the same realm now. But no one is perfect and shit happens sometimes.

He could also survive attacks from D Rankers with his innate shield power. The Damage could be minimized alot but will be dangerous if multiple people attack who were at D Rank.

He had decided to not recover his left hand because he wanted to gain more affection points from people around him. He was playing a [Look how much I care About you and lost my hand] card. It was working.

Dante was happy with his new shield ability and he does not need any artifact to block damage from weak enemies.

Obviously, it does not mean he can let hundreds of enemies attack him. It just means he can ignore weak attacks and focus on important things in the middle of battle.

Dante came out of his tent and moved towards chairs near the bonfire where everyone was sitting.

It was a nice morning time and it looked like a good day to do a picnic.

Well, this wasn't a place or time to do any fun type of things. They were in dangerous and unknown territory. They needed to be careful.

Dante reached them and took a seat beside Razor who had come back from the pond after seeing Dante out of his tent.

"Everyone had a good rest?"

Dante smiled at everyone and stopped at Snow who blushed when she looked at Dan.

"Yeah, everything was comfortable and nice. It was a very good rest." Sarah said while smiling awkwardly. She had secrets now.

"Yeah, the bed was great. Never had such a comfortable sleep like ever. Where did this all come from? Do you carry it with you?" Razor was stretching his arms in delight.

"Yes, all of this is something I carry due to my sister and cousins. We always have a picnic every now and then, so it is a necessary step." Dante stated with a smile.

Everyone was feeling confused about the situation and didn't know where they were and how to leave the location for now.

"What do you think of our current situation?"

Everyone among kids was now obvious to the reality of the world. People in this world were cruel and merciless. Even demons were better than humans because they didn't torture humans and killed them directly in most cases.

The cult that attacked them, all consisted of humans and they wanted to sacrifice and rape them before killing them.

They had seen what had happened to Zebra. That guy was badly tortured before being killed.

They would rather prefer to die fast than get tortured for who knows how long and get killed mercilessly.

Dan had saved them all and they were thankful and grateful.

"That guy Quin said we are in a hidden realm. It means we are in a location where teleported people from the continent will appear." Sarah said while touching her glasses.

"I heard that hidden realms are created by ancient Aurar's who were at ranks unknown to current people. Hidden realms exist in different dimensions than our own. I thought it was a fake story." Snow had studied in school for kids and this knowledge was common to most people due to rarity and myth stories.

"Well, you guys are correct about it being a hidden realm in some space unknown. We don't know who made this realm. We do know that we are in a dangerous realm. I sensed a pretty strong Aura from north and east locations."

Everyone looked around at the north and east sides of the area where they were currently situated.

They were safe because of [Stealth Bracelet] hiding their life Aura from enemies.

"So I have decided to stay in this area until all of you become peak Zero Aurars, which basically means to Dmax Aurar or Limit Initate Aurar who is close to breaking through the official Aurar rank of the continent."

Dante said with a lazy expression. He never really cared about ranks and all that. He would try to become strong with his conditions. He wanted to be free from relentless training and constantly working towards a stupid goal.

Life isn't about becoming strong. Life is all about living the best way you can and want to. Enjoyment is the requirement for a fulfilling life.

What happens if you train and become strong while being unhappy and then die to a random higher realm young master? It is a stupid and hilarious situation.

You trained so hard and for what? Dying the very same moment to some random bastard.

Dante hated this type of stupid life. He would do what he likes and that is an adventure and eating new foods while discovering new mysteries of the world.

"I am going to train you within this safe location and sometimes take you for Dungeon and beast hunting, for increasing your battle experience. Life is going to be hard. We have enemies everywhere after all." Dante explained the real facts about their situation.

All of them were now looking fearful of their surroundings.

"Humans are cruel and so are other races. People for their own goals and profits would betray everyone. You should have seen how quin didn't even blink on the death of his allies. That is what real aurar community is like. At end of the day, all of them live for their profits and for increasing their own strength." Dante stood up and looked at them with frowning eyes.

"I will never let my enemies live. No matter who they are. Even if they are family or someone I cared about. If someone ever betrays me, I will kill them no matter of who they are. This is real life and not stories of kids you have read about. Look at my hand which I lost to save your lives." Dante pointed towards his handless sleeves flying in wind easily.

"I could have decided to not save you all and let that attack hit you." Dante looked serious and looked at all of them while continuing. "Instead I saved your lives and lost my hand. I sacrificed my hand because I trust you and think of you all as friends. I believe together we can change the world. Together we stand a chance against cruel and merciless overlords who stand at peak of the mountain to throw us off from reaching that very same peak. Only together can we survive in this realm." Dante stopped while moving into the center where the bonfire was and it was not burning for now.

Dante shows his hand to them in a manner that asked them to hold it.

"So will you stand by my side now and forever? Will you follow me towards the very top mountain of strength and change the world?"

All of them stood up and said with complete determination and promising themselves.

"I will follow you now and forever, master." Elsa stated confidently and firmly.

"Yes, I will follow you and reach the peak with you," Razor said with a smile.

"I will also follow Dan Dan." Bella was also now ready to make a decision.

"Yes, I trust you Dante, and will follow you," Sarah said with a smile.

"Dan you save my life more than twice and even risked your life for me. I will return your friendship and care with my loyalty and

friendship. I will follow you forever as well."

Snow said with a blushing face.

All of them were ready to take the next steps.

"Good. I only want to te you two things right now. Never forget them ever, these things will save you from all disasters in the future." Dante looked at them all.

"First thing. 'Never trust anyone besides us people present here'. This is the most important thing. I mean you can not ever trust anyone outside this group of ours. Even if they are family. The reason is simple, on the path to reaching the top, the family might betray you. Only those who are contracted with me can be trusted and currently, only you guys are under contract."

All of them were astonished and lost in deep thought. Dan waited a few minutes before speaking.

"I am telling this from experience. My uncle and grandmother betrayed me." Everyone looked at Dante with complete shock.

"When I was a child of 4 years age. I was kidnapped by some bandits. My maids and the Kai were also captured. The bandits were AA-rank Aurars and very strong people. They humiliated me and raped my personal maids in front of Kai among which Kai's sister was also included." Dante looked sad while speaking.

"They beat me to a pulp and destroyed my meridians of low Grade 6 Quality. I became trash because no one helped me. No one came to the rescue. Don't you find it odd? Why couldn't my mother find me? Why was I not killed directly and just my meridians were destroyed? Why didn't they kill Kai and my maids directly, they didn't have any value?"

Dante exclaimed with a little bit of fury.

"Anyone with little intelligence could tell that this was done with help of inside help. How could anyone know where I was without someone telling bandits to kidnap me?" Dan's gaze moved in a questioning manner.

"After I was near death my uncle came to rescue me and killed everyone to remove evidence. Why would you kill bandits without first interrogating them?" Dan sat down on a chair.

"I investigated and found out that my uncle and grandmother did all this because they were scared of my potential. Sad right? Not really." Dante pointed at them.

"Lesson to learn from this is that even family will betray you for their benefit. Not everyone is bad, you can take my example for that, I didn't betray you and neither left you to die either. People like me do exist but we are pretty rare. Now let's move on to a second thing." Dante then waived his hand.

"Second lesson and thing you should never forget is 'We are not heroes'."

Everyone looked with confusion at Dante. They thought why is something like that important? They knew they were not heroes or even have any blessing from goddesses at all.

"What it means is that we won't be risking our lives to save people we cant save. We also won't try to make new enemies for people who mean nothing to us. I am telling you this right now, if you ever betray my orders for other's sake, I will not only break your meridians but also kick you out of my faction. So fix this in your brains that nobody is more important than me and the people around you right now." Dante states with seriousness.

"I am not saying that you help people, I am just saying that you should not risk your and your companion's life for other people's sake." Dante looked at Sarah and asked her after the explanation.

"Tell me Sarah did anyone came to help you when your family was destroyed and you were sold as a slave? Or you Snow did your father showed you any care or kindness? Elsa did anyone showed you kindness out in the world?" All of them had their heads down with sadness.

"I don't want to make you sad or feel shame. I am just telling you that the world outside is ugly and will eat you if you show them mercy and kindness." Dante showed his signature smile.

"From now on we are the only people who can trust each other. We will grow together and only by reaching the top of this continent can we bring true change to this world." Dante sat down and asked them to sit down as well.

Everyone was quiet and lost in their own thoughts for a few minutes.

Dante was hungry but there was no food in this place and nowhere to buy food.

'All my plans are ruined now. If they don't grow up. I will leave them and find a place to survive myself. I do like Bella and Snow but no one is more important than my own life.'

Dante was exhausted from such a brainstorming lecture.

"We understand what you are saying, Master. We will do our best to not be tricked by people." Elsa said with a smile.

"You saved my life while risking yours. I would beat anyone who says me to betray a friend." Razor was also confident.

"Dan Dan, when can we escape here? My mother is still a slave to a bad noble. I want to see her safe..." While Bella said this everyone looked at her with worry.

"Don't worry, I already ordered Kai to save your mother and free her from the nobles' grasp who captured her. Your mother will be fine Don't worry." Dan was lying through his teeth and kindly smiling.

Dan didn't give a shit about her mother. He hated her mother because she was the cause of all this stupid drama of poisoning and him being dead in his 2nd life. The only reason he didn't kill Bella was that she was his half-sister and he cares a little bit about her.

"All right let's eat everyone. Is their food available?" Dante looked with a puzzled expression.

"Nope, there is nothing to eat," Sarah said with a straight face and sighed.

"Okay don't worry. I will find the food in the forest. You guys stay here and do not leave this area and keep this artifact with you." Dan gave them a lower grade 1 artifact to Sarah who was the oldest among all present here.

While moving away from them Dante was stopped by Snow who hugged his hand and looked at him with worry.

"Don't worry, I am strong and made a breakthrough last night. I can defeat that Quin guy in 1 move if he appears again haha." Dante pointed towards his sword "Wolf" and stated firmly with a smile.

"You said there are strong monsters in the forest," Snow said with beautiful green eyes looking at Dante.

"I can escape strong enemies. So stay here and wait for me to return." Dante moved away from them and used his stealth technique to vanish toward the forest.

----

While in the forest, some people were chasing after someone.

They all had white faces and the only thing different about them was that they had long ears.

They all had strength at the level of F Rank and looked extremely swift for their sizes.

They were huge in height of 2 meters and had slim bodies. They looked beautiful and charming.

They were forest elves. This whole area belonged to them. Out of 5 areas of the ancient realm. 1 area belonged to forest elves.

"Where did that kid run off to? We need to find her. The chief wants her to die so that he can have no rivals in the future." One man with black hair and yellow eyes said he was also wearing weird clothes of leaves and cloth that was dark brown in colour.

"Josef, find her and we can have fun before killing her. Her mother is hot af and I always wanted to make her suck my cock." Shady and a hideous-faced guy with one eye missing said. He used to be handsome in past but now he was ugly fack.

"Shut up Jakuu! This is no time for a stupid lust tour. We need to kill her before she reaches her mother's party near Lake Berrymerry." said the guy who was most handsome and wore the same clothes which looked like soldiers.

"Come on Gast, we have all day to ourselves besides that girl is already 7 years old and ready for a sex test haha." While licking their lips Jakuu said.

The other 5 members who followed them were disgusted by them. They all were normal 1-star F-rankers. While Jakuu was 2 Star F ranker and Josef and Gast were also peak 2-star F rankers. A total of 8 guys were chasing some little girl through the forest.

"Look there she is, time for an end to this." Josef moved with haste.

Normal Aurars didn't have movement techniques at low levels before becoming official Aurars. So they moved just like normal humans with twice the speed of humans.

----

Dante was inside the forest now, sitting on a tree branch. He was not sure where to go.

He could see ahead up to the 3km range but it was not much.

His map could only scan a few hundred meters of area. He was not good with directions in his last life. He played the Assassins seed game which was a popular open-world game. His map was similar to that game's open map.

"Damn it where to go now? Hey, pearl any solution for this stupid forest maze?" Dante looked around while scratching his head with his only hand.

"You should buy the whole area map from the system shop. The system has everything after all. You can even buy whole continents maps and all hidden locations with special artifacts locations as well." Pearl stated while looking around the beautiful and calm forest in her spirit form.

"You are right, thanks. Without your help, I would have wasted time here." Dante decided to ask the system to search for the whole ancient realm map.

[Affirmative. Searching...]

[Found Realm map with all locations marked]

[Ancient Realm of Salvador Unlocked Map:

It has all artifact locations, artifact dungeons, dungeons, trials, realm core fragments locations, Aura Mines, and hidden locations marked.

Cost: 1000 SP]

"Buy it now and sync it with my map right now." Dante was really happy his life became far easier with this map. He could now go to areas that were marked as safe and hunt beasts and dungeons for new artifacts and mysteries.

[Bought 'Ancient realm of Salvador' map and syncing with map feature of the system now]

The map of Dante changed. He could now see everything on the map and all dangerous locations were marked with red. There were '?' Mark signs in golden and one of that locations was blinking rapidly.

"Hurry and go to this location. This is a golden opportunity. Just like those in a game where you find key characters to save." Pearl shook Dante from head to toe.

"All right stop shaking me, I am going." Dante vanished in smoke using his stealth movement location.

He was moving towards the location. When he reached the location it was a little open area and had some aura beast looking at Dante with hate.

"Scan them System."

[Blue Horn Rabbits:

Battle power: 20AE, Damage resistance:25AE

Pros: Fast speed, Horn penetration

Details: Good for eating as a delicacy. The meat is tender and delicious. Mostly in packs and attacks from undergrounds.]

"Am I in fackin Polemon game or something? Wtf are these cute monsters? I want to hug them...." While Dan was talking a rabbit attacked underground using his horn.

"Kewkiii"

"Maybe not." Dan dodged using blink and appeared on solid bolder.

"That rabbit definitely said 'Fack you' to me. He looks so cute and angry haha."

Dante raised his hand and excitedly said [Star Projection: StarBullet]

The rabbit was blue and had fur all over its few meters long body, having a body as big as a cow.

"Come here food." Dante waved his hands in criticizing manner and bunny ran towards him with his horn.

Before the bunny could reach him. A little light pierced him and the bunny fell to the ground without moving and started bleeding from his head.

All the other bunnies were shocked to see their friend die.

[StarBullet: pierce the enemy with a fast, stealthy, and quick attack to kill them.

Spell power: 30-40AE | Cost: 0.1-0.2 AE ]

The bunny was dead. Everyone else present looked at Dante with hatred and dug into the ground to attack from the inside ground.

"Haha, it won't work little cuties. Attack."

Dante had a system that marks all enemies and they cannot escape his [Scan] ability. Even underground they appeared as naked as on earth.

The stars in the sky attacked all bunnies on the ground who were as many as 30 and all of them were killed without even being able to make any damage to the environment.

[Remaining Aura: 33]

Dante could recover 5A units of Aura every hour which was not great but manageable for now. He decided to buy skills for this problem in the future. For now, he had a very high Aura capacity value.

He nearly killed 30 Blue Horn Bunnies and only used 2 units of Aura which was greatly efficient from his point of view.

"How the hell will I take them out of the ground now..." Dan was puzzled about this situation. He didn't have any technique to bring things out of his sight.

- You can always buy a skill to extract things within an area.- Pearl was spitting facts right now.

"Hey, sweet system. Scan for extraction skills within the area. No matter what it is." Dante presented a prompt command to the system.

[Affirmative Searching... Found skill]

[Extraction: Can extract anything depending on users' desire and store it within system inventory. The range increases with the level upgrade. The skill capabilities increase with the level upgrade. At level 0 can only extract nonliving things without Aura.

Cost: 20,000 SP | Grade: customized skill | Range: 100 meter/ 1 A units | Level 0 ]

"Buy and upgrade to Level 2 with an upgrade token." Dante wanted this skill to increase its range and capabilities.

[Affirmative. All changes applied]

----

[Extraction: Can extract anything depending on users' desire and store it within system inventory. The range increases with the level upgrade. The skill capabilities increase with the level upgrade. At level 0 can only extract nonliving things without Aura. At level 1 can extract things with Aura. At level 2 can extract hidden Artifacts and all hidden items within the range.

Range: 10 Km/ 1 A units | Level 2]

----

"Can it also extract Aura crystals from mine? Also, can it extract formations within the designated area?" Dante wanted too much for using too little money.

[Everything is Extractable. Unless the rank of the item is higher than the user rank]

"So this is the nerfing effect of the system. Nice cheat nerfing you got there Pearl."

While Dan was extracting all bunnies and things within the area in his Inventory. Some scenes were happening a few kilometers away from his location.

A little girl of age 10 was running throw the forest with fast speed and technique and some beasts were chasing her.

Coincidentally, this girl arrived at the area where Dante was currently extracting the bunnies for food and contemplating life. He had lost 20,000 SP for stupid loot extraction and he was sad about this scam by the system. He thought he would have the heaven-defying ability but it was nerfed version.

The girl came out of the forest and saw Dante sitting near a boulder and ran towards him while shouting.

"Help help. Bad bunnies are after me..."

"F*ck my life..."

Dante knew this was a damsel in distress type of situation and he was cringed by this event.

[New Mission: Save the damsel in distress]

Nothing was to be said because Dan wanted a new mission to earn more SP and a chance of getting some tokens.

"Come here and hide behind me. I will protect you, cute lady." Dan said with his signature kind smile while happy inside for the new mission. He was delighted beyond measure because missions offered good items always.