13 First Day

After watching Mike and Steven win the first round, John was dragged into a club members only area to watch the rest of the tournament. Someone was standing by the door and stopped John from going in, but after seeing his Tamer's Club badge and Snakey on his shoulder he waved him through. Sitting down on a nice leather couch and grabbing a drink, John sighed in relief. "Man, that crowd was insane!"

"No kidding!" Steven said as he plopped down on the couch and leaned back on it with a sigh. "I'm just glad we passed so quickly, I've heard these things turn into gigantic shit shows the longer they go."

"Congrats!" John said with a smile, digging around in his pocket to find a small box. "Here," he said, handing it over to Mike, "I should give these back to you."

Mike took the box and opened it up, noticing the two fire cores and closed it before handing it back. "Don't worry about it." Mike said with a lopsided smile on his face, "You have to understand, below boss level cores just don't hold any value outside of the beginner zones."

"Beginner zones?" John asked in confusion as he held onto the box, he really was greatful to Mike and his dad, but he hated owing people. Especially people he liked.

"Yeah, Gallandwell Forest is a beginner zone. They're places where monsters are all in the body refining realm. Dangerous to non cultivators, but to a Hunter they're just places to train kid's in. Think of it like a video game, the cities are safe zones, beginner zones are for noobs, intermediate zones are a little more dangerous but still survivable, hard zones are for the experts, and forbidden zones are for the strong, bold, and stupid." Steven said as he grabbed a drink for himself and sat down on a rocking chair as the second round was about to begin.

"Alright, that makes sense. Why aren't lieutenant cores worth anything in intermediate zones?" John asked.

"As monsters get stronger, so does their average rank. In a beginner zone it's almost impossible to find a Rank 6 monster, and Rank 5's rule the zone. In an intermediate zone, minions either die within a few days of their birth or evolve quickly because they just don't have the tools to survive. In expert zones it's even worse and almost every monster has an element, and only babies are at the minion level. That means that to an expert hunter like my dad, lieutenant level fire cores are a dime a dozen, he's got hundreds if not thousands of them at any one time depending on when he last emptied his spacial bag. Now Boss cores, those are worth a shit ton!" Mike said before noticing the next round was starting and cursing his luck. "Damn, I wish we'd been in on this one."

Steven nodded, turning to watch as prospective hunters struggled through a marsh with alligators and giant piranha monsters jumping out at them. John winced as he saw one fall under the water and get torn apart as three hidden alligators each grabbed a limb and pulled.

"Idiot." Mike snorted in disgust as he took a sip of his soda, "Why are none of them climbing the trees? Sure, there are some small time monsters you'd have to deal with up there, but at least you don't have to risk getting eaten by an alligator with every step you take."

John had to agree, watching as yet another candidate was torn apart. "Well, congrats guys but I'm hungry and need more than popcorn and candy." He stood, stretching his limbs as the 2nd round came to an end even faster than the first with the vast majority of the candidates being torn limb from limb underwater.

"We have to stick around till the end for the ceremony, see you later tonight." Mike said, waving as John walked out the door and Snakey lifted her tail and waved back lazily.

"I swear, that snake gets smarter every time I see her." Steven said with a smile before turning back to watch the third round.

A few days passed since then, John spent most of his time in the Hunter's Club using their facilities to train Snakey and learn everything that she could do. When he wasn't there, he was either hanging out with Steven and Mike, whose partnership seemed to have become a permanent deal, playing Taming Simulator 101, or memorizing more of his encyclopedia.

Snapping out of his meditative trance, John turned off the alarm and put on his school uniform of dark slacks and a white polo with the school's logo. Taking a look at it, he couldn't hep but marvel at it's design. It was an engraved depection of the forest with a faceless man hovering over it fighting a gigantic dragon. He'd heard that there was a dragon somewhere in Gallandwell several times, and given the fairly high levels of dragon blood in several of the monsters he thought the rumors might be true which makes this badge even more interesting to him. Shrugging off his thoughts, John placed his Tamer's Club badge on his chest before picking up Snakey and making his way to grab breakfast.

Sitting down at the table with a noticeably grouchy and groggy Mike along with a far too chipper Steven, he waved to Kara who was hanging out with some girls before digging in.

"What're you going to pick?" Steven asked John as he finished up his hash browns and was about to dive into an omelette.

"What are you talking about?" John asked confused.

"Cultivation techniques! I'm picking my families techniques, it was approved by the school since it allows me to reach the peak of the Soul Formation stage. After that, you have to comprehend a dao to advance, so techniques are irrelevant."

John shrugged his shoulders, "I have no idea, my parents are in the Maker's Guild, and while they're strong, there cultivation technique wouldn't help me."

"You really don't know?" Mike asked so surprised that he was dragged from his half awake, half dead stage. "The reason I came here instead of just testing out of normal high-school and becoming a hunter is my dad said the cultivation techniques here are some of the best. He went over all of it with me before I came."

John shook his head, "My parents just said to choose wisely, and that it's more important to find a technique that fits than to find the strongest technique."

"Man, I don't get your family. They obviously have some kind of power since they got you those contracts so fast, but they never bothered to talk to you about this stuff?" Mike said.

John just shrugged, not really bothered by it. His parents had supported him in other ways, if Mike knew about the books in his room he'd probably flip out.

Finishing up breakfast, the three of them put the trays up and headed to their first classes. "I'm in building 3, room 115." John said as he pulled out his phone to double check his schedule. "That's weird, I was in building 1, main auditorium the last time I checked."

Pulling his phone, Steven said, "Huh, my room changed too. I'm in building 3, room 114."

"Must be because we joined a major club, I did a little digging around and the clubs supported by the 4 major guilds have special privileges." Mike said, realizing that he'd been put in another building too.

"Makes sense, considering the graduation requirement is to join one of the guilds." John said, putting his phone away.

They continued to walk as they talked, passing a massive group of more than a thousand new students heading to building one and continuing on to building 3 where they found the front door locked. Confused, they looked around for a while before they saw 4 indentations on a medal plate next to the door. Examining it, they realized they looked like the badges for the 4 main clubs. Taking his badge off his chest, John put it on the spot for the Tamer's Club and was surprised when the door opened letting him in.

When the other two tried to walk through the door, a transparent barrier suddenly came into view kept them from entering. "What the?" Mike said as he and Steven were thrown several feet back and a couple upperclassmen laughed at them.

"Only members of the 4 clubs can enter building three." One of the nicer upperclassmen said.

"But I am a member!" Mike said in exasperation as he stood up and pulled out his badge.

The same upperclassmen looked at it for a moment then said, "Each person has to use their badge to get through the formation, this is because there are some dangerous and expensive things in building three that are provided by the 4 main guilds to help train the clubs."

As he spoke, the upperclassmen took out a Maker's Club badge and deactivated the formation so he could get in.

Smacking the dirt and dust off of their uniform, Mike and Steven followed him into the building and stood next to John who was staring up in amazement. From the outside, the building looked like a normal, 2 story building with faded brick walls and opaque windows. Inside, the building 20 stories tall with a giant tree growing in the middle. Treehouses had been built with rope ladders and bridges strung throughout the tree, classrooms and offices with giant windows surrounded the tree all the way to the ceiling where some of the rooms even had balconies and as they watched several people jumped off one of the balconies and floated to a landing spot near one of the tree houses.

"Holy shit." John said.

"Impressive work." Steven said.

Shaking his head, Mike grabbed Steven saying, "We'll be late if we don't hurry."

Torn from their reverie, they looked around before seeing a sign that said "FRESHMAN!" at the bottom of the tree. Jogging over, they saw an arrow pointing to the right and followed it down a small corridor where room numbers popped up one after another.

Reaching room 114, Steven and Mike waved as they entered. Walking about 50 feet further down the hall, it dead ended on a double door that John pushed open and walked into a prairie. The room was huge, the walls at least a kilometer apart from each other. Looking up, John saw clouds drifting by with the sun peeking out.

Snakey hissed in excitement as they walked in, knowing that she wanted down John lifted her from his shoulder and bent to place her on the ground. She shot off like an arrow, seeming to fly through the grass until she got to a massive boulder that she climbed and then lazed on it while the sun pelted her.

Looking around, John realized that several tree stumps had been carved into chairs with small cushions on them and he walked over to sit down and took out his phone to wait.