12 - Aim-Bot Lv 5

"Hey Leo, why don't you let me kill 1 Star monsters?" Chris asked, confused.

Leo smiled and responded with a question. "Do you know how Awakened rank up?"

Chris thought for a moment and answered, "By killing monsters. The more powerful the monster, the more energy the Awakened receives. When this energy accumulates at a certain level, the Awakened receives a strength boost, officially rising to the Rank of 2 Stars."

Chris' answer was perfect. Then Leo finally answered, "And now tell me, if a person kills a monster bred in captivity, he will receive X amount of this energy. If the person kills a wild 1 Star monster he will receive Y of this energy, but let's say that even killing a 1 Star monster, that person doesn't become an Awakened. What could be the possible reason?" Leo asked as he shot an arrow at a 1 Star goat.

"The possible reason is that the person has no talent… or… the energy is insufficient!" Chris responded, shocked by this deduction.

Leo just cracked a small smile as he took the arrow from the goat he killed, not bothering to get the hooves of this 1 Star monster. "Yes, my sister who is Awakened once told me that there is a protocol they use for awakening soldiers, and the result is very similar to what you just deduced. So what we are going to do today is not kill 1 Star monsters, but kill 2-star monsters. Even if you need to kill three 2-star monsters, we'll do it. But if it really gets to that point, you'd better decide to become an ordinary worker."

Chris was excited to hear that he would definitely become an Awakened today, but he soon took Leo's advice to heart. If he needed to kill three 2 Star monsters, it would mean that his talent to move up Rank was very low, while a talented person would need to kill only a single 1 Star monster. If he needed more than three 2 Star monsters, it meant he would need multiple times more of the mysterious energy to rank up in the future.

Leo's information was correct. After all, the army actually had this protocol of increasing the strength of hunted monsters until the person woke up, but just like Leo said, people who needed a lot of powerful monsters would be ruled out as possible powerful Awakened in the future. Especially true for Leo, who had a System, he knew that by killing monsters people would get Exp; they just couldn't see it. But while Leo needed 500 Exp points to reach a 2 Star Rank, there were people out there who needed 1,000 points, maybe even 10,000 Exp points to Rank up because of low talent.

This was the biggest factor for those city gate guards being stuck in Bronze Rank 5 Stars for so many years. After all, they must have already racked up tens if not hundreds of thousands of Exp points during their several years serving in the army, but because of their low talent, they failed to rise to Silver 1 Star.

After understanding this, Chris' anxiety grew. The two walked in silence for a few minutes while Leo just killed the Bronze 1 Star monsters to make their trek faster until they finally entered a Bronze 2 Stars monster zone.

"Are you prepared?" Leo asked. Chris took a deep breath and nodded.

Leo pulled his bowstring and activated the Aim-Bot and Wall-Hack immediately. With Leo's strength improved to 2 Stars, the bowstring that was once a little heavy was now as light as stretching a rubber band. Leo's perception was also greatly enhanced, to the point where he was able to perceive things and react much faster than before. Bronze 2 Star Monsters that were once a little dangerous for him to deal with in large numbers were now as simple to tackle as the 1 Star Mutant Cows he was killing a few days ago.

This was a Bronze 2 Stars Mutant Deer zone. These monsters had two valuable parts, the antlers and the tendons, which could be used to make bows. But as the horns were too big and inconvenient to carry, Leo didn't worry too much about them, thinking only of the profit he could make with the tendons, which cost $600 a set of 4 tendons.

A Deer was drinking water in a lake 25 meters ahead, but as these monsters were very smart and skittish, Leo was slowly moving towards this Deer while using the Aim-Bot to aim at the monster's throat. Chris' hands were shaking as he knew that if he was alone against this 2 Stars monster he would definitely die.

Swoooosh!

As soon as Leo came within 22 meters range of the Deer, the monster noticed the human pointing something strange at him and started to run, but Leo was even faster, and when he realized that the Deer noticed him, he also ran forward and threw himself in motion.

Because of the Aim-Bot, the arrow didn't miss the shot, and because of Leo's great strength which was now that of a Bronze 2 Star Awakened, it perfectly pierced the monster's neck, causing blood to spurt out like a waterfall. Chris stood there in shock seeing how that scary Bronze 2 Star monster fell to the ground so easily.

"Go, stick the knife in the monster's eye before it dies!" Leo yelled at Chris, causing his friend to finally wake up and run over to the deer desperately.

Chris ran towards the Deer as Leo looked around with the Wall-Hack to make sure no other monsters were waiting to ambush him. In this ambush Leo was a little disappointed. Even with his improved strength he needed to get very close to the deer in order to attack the monster safely. If this deer were a Bronze 3 Star monster, it would likely have noticed Leo even earlier, not even allowing Leo to be able to shoot the monster before it ran away.

'I need to level up my skills…' Leo thought as he looked at Chris putting the knife in the Deer's eye and the message appearing in front of him.

[Congratulations, you killed a Bronze 2 Star Mutant Deer with the help of a companion. You received 25 Experience Points.]

'Actually, experience is shared when a group of Awakened hunt together. That's why Awakened who only hunt in large groups need much more time to advance in rank,' Leo thought as he looked at the message.

If the experience was divided by the amount of people that attacked the monster, hunting alone was at least 5 times more efficient than hunting in a group of inexperienced hunters. Of course, if the group was experienced, they would need less time than a single Awakened alone to kill a monster.

'But this rule doesn't affect me, as I usually kill monsters with just 1 shot since I never miss,' Leo thought.

Seeing the big smile on Chris' face, Leo didn't even have to ask if he'd managed to awaken. "How long for your Quirk and Talent to be decided?"

Chris looked at Leo excitedly as he answered, "A half hour."

Leo just smiled back and decided to take Chris back to town as the task was already done.

"If you need help you can talk to me tomorrow at school. But for now, use that money to buy some decent gear. A Bronze 1 Awakened doesn't need anything too fancy. Just wait for your Quirk to be decided first, and then buy corresponding gear," Leo responded as he handed the tendons he had collected to Chris.

"This…this is very expensive…" Chris was shocked when he saw Leo had just given him these tendons, as he knew they cost $600.

But Leo just replied, "You killed it; the loot is yours."

After saying that, Leo threw the bag where the tendons were to Chris and walked back into the woods while waving his hand at his friend. Chris didn't say anything else and just nodded. He was determined to pay back the help Leo gave him some time in the future. As long as Leo needed something, Chris was determined to help without a second thought.

After Leo returned to the forest, his hunting speed greatly increased. As he was alone this time, he could run at the maximum speed his Bronze 2 Star body could handle and shoot multiple monsters at once.

As the experience he could gain from killing Bronze 1 Star monsters had dropped by 50%, Leo just ignored these monsters and ran while killing Bronze 2 Star monsters. After seeing that his range was still too low, Leo decided to ignore the deer and went back to hunting the rats he was killing when he was with Professor Edward.

Leo's stamina was much higher than the day before as he moved up in rank, so he was able to hunt even more rats. While the day before he had caught 17 of the rodents in an hour, this time Leo managed to catch 27 in just under an hour, and he wasn't even as tired as he was the day before.

As he stopped to rest, Leo opened his stats screen.

[Leonardo Lentz

Age: 17 Years

Rating: Bronze 2 Stars [0/2,000]

Talent: Hack

Experience Points: 1458

Quirks: Aim-Bot Lv 02 [0/200]: In a 20 meter radius around the user, anything the user throws or shoots will hit the target with 100% hit rate. With each level the distance and accuracy will increase.

Wall-Hack Lv 02 [0/1,000]: Within a radius of 20 meters around the user, any being will be visible through a red outline as long as the target is at most 3 Stars more than the user. With each level the range distance increases.

Available Quirks: Speed-Hack (1,000 Evolution Points), Inventory-Hack (5,000 Evolution Points), ????????? (??????? Evolution Points)]

Leo started looking at his skills tab and got thoughtful.

'On the one hand I can level up the Aim-Bot a few times and increase the Wall-Hack. On the other hand I can also unlock the Speed-Hack… What would be more useful to me in the short term?'

Leo was very confused by this. The amount of Exp he was getting per hour was very high, to the point where he could level up skills very quickly, but from that a doubt arose the question between increasing the level of skills he already had or unlocking a new skill.

After thinking for a while, Leo made up his mind. 'For now I will increase my Aim-Bot and Wall-Hack. When I'm done here I can leave some Exp points stored to unlock Speed-Hack at home, as this may cause me some discomfort in my body, which wouldn't be very safe in a forest full of monsters.'

Having made up his mind, Leo started to spend his Exp points.

[Do you want to spend 200 Exp Points to raise 'Aim-Bot' to level 3?]

'Yes,' Leo answered mentally.

[Do you want to spend 400 Exp Points to raise 'Aim-Bot' to level 4?]

'Yes,' Leo answered mentally.

[Do you want to spend 800 Exp Points to raise 'Aim-Bot' to level 5?]

'Yes,' Leo answered mentally.

As the Wall-Hack would need 1,000 Exp points, Leo preferred to spend all his Exp points on Aim-Bot first, so he wouldn't have the problem of being able to see the enemy and not being able to shoot, just like when he helped Chris kill the deer.

So the Aim-Bot was updated for these stats:

[Aim-Bot Lv 05 [0/1,600]: In a 50 meter radius around the user, anything the user throws or shoots will hit the target with 100% hit rate. With each level the distance and accuracy will increase.]

Leo's stored Exp points, which were previously at 1,458, had now dropped to just 58 points, but seeing how good it felt to hold the bow and aim at very distant targets, Leo's smile couldn't be contained.

Listening to his own body, Leo knew he could handle another 1.5 hours of hunting. If he stopped to rest in a few moments he could extend this to another two hours of high intensity hunting.

'I'll only leave here with at least 2 thousand Exp points!' Leo thought excitedly as he started to run through the forest.

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