Chapter 42: Hunter Ranks

"That's not how you do it!" Caera shouted in exasperation before glaring at Jash and taking the bow from his hands.

Holding the bow with its grip in her right hand, she slanted it a few degrees before drawing the bowstring and nocking the arrow.

As the arrowhead rested on the grip of the bow, she fixed it using her left thumb before closing her left eye and aiming for the target.

—Whoosh!

The arrow pierced through the air as it made Caera's hair flutter in the wind even though she had already tied it primly. It truly made for a picturesque scene.

—Bam!

A small sound echoed as the arrowhead struck true to the wooden target's head.

The arrow fell to the ground before the training dummy recovered its previous state, but it took a few seconds, unlike when Caera used a fireball spell against it.

"Hmph! That's how you do it!" Caera said with a proud smile as she crossed her arms and held her head high.

Alas, her pose broke as veins popped on her forehead when she turned to look at Jash, only to notice him in a daze.

Unaware of the danger he was in, Jash wondered just what went wrong yesterday.

'Why am I here? Why did she drag me? I could've slept instead of being here...'

Many such thoughts swirled in his mind as he got lost within them from the moment he misfired an arrow.

'Even missing a shot on purpose didn't get me any rest,' lamented Jash inwardly, noticing Caera's unique form.

Although he used swords and various melee weapons in his past life, it didn't mean he had never met archers or fought them.

He knew a thing or two about the importance of posture and movement in weapon wielding, so he didn't really need to be taught.

It's just that he couldn't just magically know it.

'That'd be way too suspicious and no way my genius can explain it! Maybe seeing things and learning at once, but that's the extent of it. Improving something would be stretching it already, let alone having prior knowledge.'

Jash had come to that conclusion already, but he really disliked the idea of training.

In the end, his mind replayed the scene of his morning.

…

Jash lay sleeping peacefully in his bed in light, breathable pajamas yet it seemed someone didn't really like that.

Before he could wake up by himself, he was jolted awake by a sudden splash of water hitting his face.

Jash's eyes shot open and he sat up with a start, looking around for the perpetrator in confusion, only to find Caera standing next to his bed with her usual stoic expression.

Yet her twitching lips made it obvious she was having a hard time holding in her laughter.

Although she might look cute to an onlooker, Jash could only see the face of an evil girl enjoying irritating him.

"You're so lazy, brother. You're always sleeping," she said in a sweet and playful way.

Despite her nice behavior, Jash chose to stay quiet and ignore her provocative look.

Getting out of bed, he ruffled her hair before dashing towards his bathroom.

As he turned around to see her surprise and shock, he couldn't hold his laughter at her messed-up hair.

He didn't wait for her to regain her bearings and entered his bathroom, but not before cheekily saying, 'Way to go, lil sis, way to go. At least fix your hair before waking someone up."

While Jash enjoyed the shower, he ignored the banging on his bathroom door and Caera's shouts which got muffled by the sound of water hitting the hard tiles.

However, his plight didn't end with waking up early as he was thrust into forced training by Caera at 5 AM.

"It's just five in the morning, who even wakes up so early?" Jash grumbled all the way to the training ground.

…

By the time he remembered how he found himself here, he felt a sharp pain in his forehead, jolting him awake from his reverie.

"Owww"

Another sharp pain rose from his chest before he could even make sense of the forehead one.

"That's what you deserve for ignoring my kind teachings," Caera said with a smile that wasn't really a smile as she removed her fist from his chest.

"Urgh," Jash grunted, not because of the pain, it was not even painful. It was more so from the suddenness of the pain.

"Why!?" He asked in indignation.

"Hmm? What do you mean why? You haven't trained at all for as long as I remember! Even your bookish knowledge is limited and won't be of any help!"

After Caera vented her frustration at him not understanding something so simple, she looked to find his expression, saying he didn't agree with her.

"You don't agree, right?" Caera asked rhetorically, yet her smile grew dangerous after seeing him nod.

"Just answer this question and I will stop. It's basic, nothing no one our age doesn't know."

Despite the smile on her face, Jash felt uneasy at her truthful words, but chose to shrug it away, thinking, 'Nah. I'd know.'

The nonchalant smile on his face crumpled the moment he heard her question.

"What are all the hunter ranks and their difference?" Caera asked with a smug smile.

'Uh, no, what? I have no idea!' Jash thought in panic as he truly didn't know much about the topic.

"What happened, genius? Don't know?" Caera mocked him with a grin upon noticing his panicked expression.

Before he could retort or say anything, she continued proudly, "Hmph! It seems this great little sister of your has to teach you everything!"

"Ahem," Clearing her throat dramatically she started with a warning. "Listen carefully, or else..."

"Starting from the basics, the ranks go from G to A, then the Integration Rank before the S, SS, and SSS ranks."

"Besides Integration Rank, each rank has the same three sub-ranks; Early, Mid, Late."

"Also, the color of one's mana defines the ranks and subranks, the denser the color, the higher the subrank."

"While the ranks from E to A correspond to a major color change:

A-rank is violet

B-rank is indigo

C-rank is blue

D-rank is green

E-rank is yellow."

Caera paused her explanation to confirm if he was paying attention, and only continued after confirming it.

"Well, the G-rank is nothing more than what you are at now. G refers to the glass mana core as it remains transparent and glass-like instead of a mana core with some color. Only after you change your entire mana pool to a light-red color, can you then breakthrough to F-Rank."

"It doesn't follow the same rule for sub-ranks, as it has six of them: Light Red, Red, Dark Red, Light Yellow, Yellow, Dark Yellow."

"That's all. As it will take a long time to even reach A-rank, let alone Integration-rank or above, it makes no difference to know about it."

Caera stopped her explanation and smiled as she looked at the contemplative expression on Jash.

Yet she found herself dumbfounded the next minute at Jash's questions.

"Why is it so complex? Instead of letter coding, can't we just use the color of the mana to define the ranks? Won't that save a lot of time and effort?"