30 Solo Hunter Challenges

The world changed once again, and John found himself standing on a mountain cliff overlooking a gorgeous view. He stood above the cloud layer, looking down on trees standing hundreds of feet tall covering the sides of the mountain and lakes such a gorgeous blue that John found it hard to look away. Suddenly, a monotone voice came from mid air. "Hunter's Challenge #1 - kill 5 monsters and survive for at least 4 hours." John blinked, surprised that the mission was supposed to take so long. Then he remembered that time in Hunter's Paradise was much faster than in real life.

Three tables materialized infront of him, holding weapons, ammo, clothes, a backpack, and some supplies. Thinking for a moment, he looked at his hands and noticed that his pistols had actually followed him into the game. Sending mana into his hands, they materialized and the other weapons on the table disappeared in a flash. Picking up 10 clips of ammo, 5 normal, 5 armor piercing, John smiled as he put on the scentless clothes and picked up a backpack filling it with enough supplies to last for several days. With a smile, John ordered Snakey to take the lead as he followed along behind her at a sedate pace enjoying the view.

Tamer's have a major advantage when it comes to scouting, which is why almost all of them tame several small monsters like snakes and rodents to scout ahead. The first challenge was a joke for John, he didn't even bother to kill anything, leaving it up to Snakey to find and eliminate the monsters. She'd been itching for a fight anyway, monsters are meant to fight for survival on a daily basis and feel something is wrong if they don't hunt or kill anything for a while. Climbing a tree, John laid down on a particularly sturdy branch and closed his eyes to take a nap. He'd been working extremely hard the last week, getting only a couple hours of sleep every night and he needed a break.

A few hours later, he startled awake as the world shifted around him and he found himself standing on a small boat in the middle of a gigantic lake. Turning to look, he couldn't see land in any direction.

"Challenge 1 completed. Challenge 2 initiating - catch a fish within 2 hours."

As the voice spoke, an old man carrying two fishing poles appeared out of no where on the tiny boat with a giant grin on his face. "Howdy, I'm Old Man Number 528, call me 528 for short."

"Why 528?" John asked in surprise.

"Because that's how many versions of me are in use right now." The old man's face seemed stiff, his lips moving out of sync with his face.

'This is poorly designed for such an immersive game.' John thought, but shrugged it off as he grabbed a fishing pole. "What're you here for?" John asked.

"Not many think of fishing as important so I'm here to help teach you the basics. In order to catch a monster fish you have to use your mana to support the line so it doesn't snap instantly." As the man spoke, he demonstrated. Pulling a foot of line off the reel, it started to glow slightly in the early morning light. "You do this by focusing your energy on the reel, these are Spirit Tools so they do the rest of the work for you. Give it a try!"

With a shrug, John took one of the poles and focused on the pole. If it wasn't for Soul Bullet teaching him how to gather energy inside his pistols he would've been clueless.

"That's it." 528 said with a grin as the line began to glow, "Now, you just put a little bait on it." He grabbed one of the 5 monster's that Snakey had killed in the first challenge and cut a massive chunk off it before putting it on the hook. "And we're ready to go." He flicked the line sending flying several hundred feet before splashing into the lake.

528 started to slowly reel it in with a smile on his face before suddenly jerking and nearly flying out of the boat as something grabbed hold of the line. "Now you have to be careful not to be dragged out of the boat. Monster fish are carnivorous and will tear you to pieces in an instant if you're not careful." Letting out some slack, 528 let the line run for a bit before braking it slowly and beginning to reel in the monster. The closer it got, the stronger the monster fought back. It was so strong that it actually jerked the ship nearly a hundred feet in its direction at one point.

Finally, 528 managed to lift the fish out of the lake and John's jaw dropped when he saw a 3 inch long, 1 inch wide monster fish glaring at them. "Don't be fooled by it's small size, this bastard would eat you whole in seconds." As if to prove his point, the fish then somehow freed itself from the hook and started biting 528 who screamed in agony, becoming nothing more than bones in less than 10 seconds leaving the fish flopping on the deck of the boat.

Freaked out, John didn't think to stop the fish before it managed to flop itself over the side of the boat and into the lake. "Mission timer begins now." The voice said and John cursed.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me. I've never been fishing before and that thing was scarier than a Night Rush Panther!" Looking over the edge of the boat, John could see hundreds of the tiny fish swimming around lazily. Every now and then, one of them would get hungry and launch itself at another before they'd fight to the death.

"Fucking cannibals." John griped as he followed 528's instructions and started fishing.

An hour passed, and John was down to just a few scraps of bait. The fish here bite the bait really easily, but they also are incredibly strong. The first time the line broke because he didn't distribute his energy properly along it. The third time, he hadn't had a good enough grip on the pole and the fish ran off with it, thankfully 528's pole had been left behind so he had a spare. The 6th time, the boat nearly capsized before it got away. It wasn't until John's 10th attempt that he got one of those little fuckers into the boat after struggling with it for nearly 10 minutes. Instead of holding it up and letting it free itself like 528 had done, John instantly threw it in the cooler not even bothering to unhook it from the line before sitting on top of the cooler to keep it from opening the lid and getting out. The damned thing was flopping around with such force that he was nearly thrown off the boat a couple of times...

A few minutes later the fish finally stopped moving and the world flashed again and John appeared in a jungle. "Challenge number 2 completed. Challenge number 3 initiating - extract the beast. A beast has been born in the danger zone, help it escape before the monster's kill it."

This was a really important mission for the Hunter's Guild. The vast majority of animals turn into monsters, but when the rare beast is born it's almost always torn to pieces by the surrounding monsters before it can escape. Thankfully, several beasts gain the ability to sense when one is about to be born as they get stronger, so the Hunter's Guild is alerted ahead of time to rescue it. Every Beast Cultivator is incredibly important because they tend to have innate talents and advantages that human's don't possess.

Taking a close look around, John picked up a backpack that held a map, climbing gear, and 10 clips of ammo. Nodding to himself he said, "Snakey, we need to find and protect a new beast. Monsters should be able to sense him when they get close, so it'll be up to you to find him."

Taking out the map, John noted that it was impossible to tell where he was on it due to the incredibly thick foliage. "Find water first." He said, and took off at a jog following behind Snakey.

Having a monster is incredibly useful in situations like this. They had an almost innate ability to find water and food no mater what environment they were in. Research on the topic had found that the Monster Cores worked as homing devices and that while they could be fooled using formations it was incredibly difficult to do so. In fact, it was through using their innate ability to sense danger and resources that the schools formation kept higher level and ranked monsters from approaching the barrier.

It wasn't long before they arrived at a cliff overlooking a slowly moving stream. Pulling the map back out, it took John a couple of minutes, but he found the cliff and stream on the map just over 4 miles from the predicted location of the new beast. Orientating himself, John pulled out a compass and said, "North, north west." and started walking.

A couple hours, several monster encounters, and at least three wrong turns later John and Snakey found themselves standing on top of a tree looking down at a mob of nearly a hundred monsters sniffing and scratching the ground. "Well fuck." John said, observing the situation carefully. These monsters were all body refining level 1 or 2, with the highest being a rank 8 level 2 rat. Given enough time and ammo, he could take them all out but according to the information he had the new beast would be born within 10 minutes in this area.

With a sigh, John said, "Snakey join them and protect the new beast as best you can. I'll take out as many of them as I can before they notice me."