Monster Paradise

It was 8:40 a.m. and the Demonic Crystal Spaceship arrived on time at the central plaza of Baqi City. Lin Huang and Lin Xin scanned their barcodes and boarded the spaceship. They watched as the spaceship ascended into the air and saw Baqi City become smaller and smaller as they got higher. Lin Huang had spent his whole morning familiarizing himself with the spaceship.

Lin Xin’s excitement wore out after lunch and she followed Lin Huang back to their rooms. The room numbers were printed on the Demonic Crystal Spaceship’s ticket. Each ticket was printed with a different room number depending on where you were staying and was only meant for the person whose name was on the ticket. Everyone had to have a ticket, even infants!

Their rooms were both on the 7th floor, Room 156 and Room 157 respectively. There was a wall partitioning their rooms but Lin Xin did not want to stay alone. There was only one bedroom in his room and so he let Lin Xin have the bedroom while he slept on the couch in the living room. Lin Huang wanted to train in the morning undisturbed so hoped Lin Xin would be in her own room during the day.

After lunch, Lin Xin was playing Gun Master in her room. Lin Huang locked his room door and began his practice of Army Attack Tactics . During his days in Baqi City, he spent all his time accompanying Lin Xin to the point where he neglected training. As his journey in the air would take seven and a half days, he had planned to level Army Attack Tactics at least one or two levels. Although he had mastered level one, he was still unfamiliar with the skill rotation. He needed half an hour to go through the skill cycle to obtain one card piece.

He did his calculations, if he got one card piece every half an hour, he would need 200 card pieces to be able to level-up to level two - it would take him 100 hours. Even if he trained 15 hours a day, he would still need seven days to get to level two.

He sat with his legs crossed in the living room and soon, he activated his Life Power to train for Army Attack Tactics . He trained from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., five hours passed by in a blink of an eye. He obtained 11 card pieces and successfully shortened the cycle from 30 minutes to only 25 minutes.

After dinner with Lin Xin, she went back to her own room. She did not ask to go to his room this time which surprised Lin Huang. He arrived in his room and locked the door. Four hours later, it was 10:30 p.m., Lin Xin knocked on his door. The skill rotation improved as Lin Huang trained his body, it was now 22 minutes per skill cycle. Within four hours, he managed to obtain 10 card pieces.

He opened his door and saw a giddy Lin Xin. He asked, ”Where did you go? You seem happy.”

”I didn’t go anywhere, I was playing Gun Master in my room all day. I didn’t lose at all today and I even got a new high score!” Lin Xin was clearly proud of her small victory.

”Brother, I think I’m gifted. I’m destined to be a gunmaster.”

”I think so too. When the summer break ends and you’re back to school, tell your teacher about it and get them to assess your skill. However, whether you can become an actual gunmaster one day will depend wholly on yourself.” Lin Huang encouraged her.

In a world like this, it was impossible to avoid monsters completely. For a profession that focused on long-distance attacks like the gunmaster, it would be relatively safer compared to other professions. Although there were very few female gunmasters, Lin Huang hoped Lin Xin would plan her future towards that goal.

”I’ll talk to my teacher then.” Lin Xin nodded. She would be back in school this September and would be in the graduating class. It was time for her to think about her future. There are three options after she graduated from the Hunter Reserve College. One was to enter a more prestigious school such as the military academy which was under the wing of the Union Government, the Hunter Association or other academies that were established by organizations to further her studies. If she was bronze-level, she would be an official member of one of the organizations. Each organization has vast resources to cultivate talents in the field they specialize in and would train outstanding students to achieve either iron-level or bronze-level.

The second alternative would be to participate in the assessment by the Hunter Association or other organizations to become a reserve member before slowly climbing her way to the position of an official member. It would be harder because she would have to bear all the cost on her own before she was bronze-level. These were usually students that were rejected by prestigious schools.

The last one would be giving up on getting to bronze-level, be an ordinary person and live an ordinary life. Of course, that would require her to reside in an area that was not prone to attacks by monster hordes. Lin Huang was wanted by many organizations because of his great score in school. However, when they discovered that he had a broken Life Wheel during a routing body check-up, he was rejected. That was the reason why he went for the second alternative which was to join the reserve hunter assessment.

Lin Huang hoped she could get into one of the prestigious schools to receive professional training so that she would not have to suffer like he did. If her talent of being a gunmaster was scouted, she would have a higher chance of entering these academies in the future. However, Lin Huang was happy with his current condition as it would only be a matter of time before he reached bronze-level. If he entered one of the prestigious schools, he might not have been able to level-up to iron-level as quick as he did because he would not have had any flexibility in his daily schedule as he would be bound to the arrangements made by the school.

”I managed to upgrade to iron-level rank-3 from an ordinary person within a month, that’s kind of ridiculous.” Lin Huang said while patting Lin Xin’s head. He smiled and said, ”Enjoy yourself these two months, don’t think about school. After all, you only have one year of fun until your graduation.”

”Brother, why did you not choose to enter one of the prestigious schools?” Lin Xin finally asked the question that had been bothering her. She was under the impression that Lin Huang gave up on his studies and she did not know about his broken Life Wheel. Lin Huang had kept the result of body check-up confidential.

”It’s not that I did not want to study, it was because they didn’t want me.” Lin Huang shook his head.

”How is that possible, you bagged first place in your graduation. The people who were in the top 10 went to good schools. Could there have been a mistake somewhere?”

”No, I had some health conditions. They found out that I would not be able to get to iron-level during the body check-up so I was rejected.” Lin Huang told the truth.

”What happened to you? Is it serious?” Lin Xin asked.

”I’m all good now.” Lin Huang waved his hand, he did not want to talk about it anymore.

Lin Xin insisted on her question so he had to stop her, ”I’ll tell you more when you’re at iron-level, you wouldn’t understand me even if-if I told you now.”

Lin Xin did not push any further. The conversation went on until Lin Huang forced himself to go to bed at 11 p.m. at night. Lin Xin showered too but she could not sleep. She was not sure if it was the coffee that she had during the day or something else. She rolled around in bed until 1 a.m. but she was not sleepy at all. Instead of trying to sleep, she decided to play Gun Master again...