21 First Mission

Friday came, and John couldn't have been happier to escape from classes. At first, he'd been thrilled to begin school but by this point his head hurt so badly that he was beginning to worry. Everyone had heard stories of people who started cultivating only to have their heads explode after deviating during cultivation. Formation class had been tough, but runesmithing was insane. The class only had 15 students, and he was the only one not in the Maker's Club.

It was obvious from the beginning that he didn't belong, and to make matters worse in order to read runes your soul needs to be both strong and stable. For his age John's soul was incredibly strong because of his experiences and dedication to training. Unfortunately, it was also unstable because he'd just contracted his first ever monster. To make matters worse, Snakey is a Rank 8 monster. John didn't really understand why everyone was so adamant that taming a minion first is the way to go until now. Thankfully, the teacher had understood what was going on and was able to explain to the class that this was a common occurrence for all runesmith's and they would experience periods of instability making it impossible to read or write runes until they reached the peak of the Soul Formation Realm.

"Are you sure I'll be able to catch up?" John asked Mr. Collins after class ended.

"Yes, your first monster is a Rank 8. That means that you have a very powerful soul for your age, by next week your soul will be stabilized and you'll catch up quick. You are a Caplin after all." Mr. Collins smiled knowingly.

Unfortunately, John didn't get the chance to ask him what being a Caplin had to do with Runesmithing because Mr. Collins turned the corner in a corridor and disappeared.

Several hours later, John was laying down outside the battle building after marksmanship training rubbing his head and wishing he could just knock himself out at will like some higher level cultivators are supposed to be able to. This migraine had lasted nearly three days by this point, and every time he thought about runes or formations it just got worse!

"Cheer up." Mike's voice said from above him, "It's Friday, which means we can go hunting!"

Steven walked over and grabbed John's hand, lifting him to his feet. "Yeah man, we just got some missions from the Hunter's Club and are headed to the registration office to check out what missions they have. You're coming right?"

"Of course he is!" Mike said, "He's our teams monster expert, plus Snakey must be bored as hell lounging on your shoulder all day long."

Sighing, John rubbed his head and said, "Fine, but we're taking food though. I never want to have to eat that shit we made in survival cooking ever again!"

Mike paled slightly, his adviser had made him take Survival Cooking too. Apparently, it's a mandatory class that everyone in the school has to take eventually, but they force all the freshman who join the Hunter, Defender, or Tamer Clubs to take it immediately due to their increased time spent in danger zones.

None of them had recovered from being forced to use a pocket knife to cook a maggot with lime juice and eat it in the first class.

"Yeah." Steven said, "Even my Mom's cooking was better than that, and she once blew up our house trying to make toast. Seriously, how do you fuck up toast?"

"I'm more interested in how she blew up the house making toast." Mike said with a chuckle.

"Well, she made the toast took a bite and got angry. She's a Fire Elemental Cultivator, when she gets angry shit explodes." Steven said.

"You guys have really weird families." John said shaking his head, trying to imagine his mom blowing anything up. Then again, she was in the Maker's Guild so who knew what she'd done in her youth.

Stepping into the mission room, they headed to the freshman area ignoring the basic missions like, 'Clean the freshman dorm bathrooms.' or 'Deal with the monster lice infestation in the 4th year dormitory.'

"I've got one!" Mike said with a grin, pulling it out.

'Cull the rabbit population.'

'Details: The monster rabbit population is getting out of hand again, turn in horns as proof of kill. 15 Academic Credits per horn.'

Handing it to John, he said, "This should cure your migraine! Plus, we've got several herb gathering missions from the Hunter's Guild that are in their territory."

John was smiling insanely as he stared at the request hungrily. Ever since Sam had shot that rabbit during the Tamer's Examin whenever he had the nightmare where the bunnies surrounded him, instead of hiding in the trees John would dive down and rip them to pieces with his bare hands feasting on their blood! John'd always known his phobia of bunnies was illogical, but sometimes logic doesn't matter. If Sam killing a bunny had helped that much, killing them himself might just set him free from them at last. John'd always known his phobia of bunnies was illogical, but sometimes logic doesn't matter.

"Don't you think he looks a bit insane." Steven asked as he shivered a bit, watching the myriad of emotions cross John's face.

"Yeah, maybe we don't want to go on this mission with him after all. I think he might go a bit overboard..." Mike said.

Before they could stop him, John had already rushed over to the receptionists and signed the three of them up for the mission.

"Too late now." Steven sighed, "Let's try to keep him alive, it'd be boring if we didn't have his neurotic ass around to keep us entertained."

Mike laughed as he held out his shaking hands. "You know, going overboard isn't that bad an idea after all. I haven't killed anything in almost two weeks, I'm starting to get withdrawal symptoms."

A couple hours later, the three of them had packed everything they needed for their expedition tomorrow and were sitting around the TV in the common room outside Mike's dorm room.

"In other news, monster attacks have increased and are nearing the highest level of frequency in a hundred years. Several analysts believe a new World Boss has been born. As you may know, World Bosses have incredibly large territories and every time a new one is born monsters across the globe go into a state of frenzy until territorial lines are redrawn...."

Mike muted the news as he yawned, "That's total bullshit, the reason the monster's are going crazy is we've expanded too much in the last few years. We might not consider World Bosses to be sentient, but they are smart enough to know when it's time to stamp out the cockroaches. I wouldn't be surprised if we have a major war soon."

"What makes you so sure?" John asked, surprised at Mike's analysis.

"My dad got promoted recently and got access to knew information from the Hunter's Guild. The Human and Beast populations have been expanding steadily for the last 400 years ever since we rediscovered cultivation and began the land reclamation. It's like that mission to cull the rabbits we accepted earlier, they don't want to let our population. The World Bosses don't want our population to get out of control and threaten the ecosystem. Fortunately, we have people strong enough to take on the World Bosses now which is why they haven't come to take us out themselves. Instead, they're inciting their subordinates to attack the cities while the keep the strong humans and beasts occupied elsewhere. This has happened before, the signs all point to a monster wave within the next year or two." Mike said, standing up and shutting off the TV. "Forget it, that's WAY above our pay grade anyway. Lets go to bed, we're leaving bright and early tomorrow."

John smirked at the look of pain on Mike's face as he said bright and early. Since meeting him, he hadn't seen Mike out of bed before 9 and they were leaving before dawn tomorrow.