A Different Direction

'I hope this is worth it,' Ray thought to himself as he stood in front of the elevator door, waiting for it to open.

He didn't choose to take his test in the Obsidian Hunter Testing Center in his previous two lives. This was mostly due to the fact that most of his friends with whom he had formed bonds with were part of the Alliance Guild, which was funded by the United Korean Government, compared to the Obsidian Hunter Guild, which is fully funded by Paul Heydrich, a West German Billionaire.

Ray didn't wish to abandon his friends this time, but he had already failed twice; thrice if he counted his first life, which he could only recall fractions of. He couldn't afford to make any mistakes, and that meant that he had to do things differently.

Ding!

Ray got in the elevator as soon as the doors opened and pressed the button to head to the second floor. The interior of the elevator was spacious, but there was no one else with him, which made it feel as though there was excess space.

'It wasn't this empty when I last entered one of these places, though..' Ray couldn't help but let out a soft chuckle as he remembered his previous life, back when he first walked into one of the Obsidian Hunter Guild's buildings.

One of the Alliance Guild's recruitment targets had suddenly switched their interest to the Obsidian Hunter Guild, and Ray was sent to meet with the young hunter before he signed with them and try to persuade him to return to their guild. The building that he entered at that time was filled with people; young hunters who wanted to join the Obsidian Hunter Guild, which suddenly grew in popularity due to the immense support that they provided to their recruits, offering them top of the line equipments and protective gear, along with high grade potions and state of the art tracking systems.

Ray exited the elevator and walked towards his room, as he reminisced about his past life.

In the end, he failed to change the mind of the young hunter. But I mean, how could he? He knew very well that the Alliance Guild wouldn't even dream of offering a similar deal to the one handed out by the Obsidian Hunter Guild.

Their investment in their hunters changed the hunting landscape completely, with most guilds that were not within the top ten rankings having trouble keeping up with the crazy spending habits of the Obsidian Hunter Guild owner. It was only a handful of guilds that could actually compete with them, and that was purely through their connections with the government, which provided a far more secure and stable position.

"Welcome. You must be Ray Park." A man in a white coat greeted him as soon as he opened the door to room B-5. "Please take a seat on this chair while I set up the system." The man pointed his finger at a white chair that was placed in the middle of the room, and Ray nodded his head and walked towards it.

Of course, these investments won't start until two months afterwards, when the Faraday Public Investment Fund of the United Nation of America and Arabia (UNAA) would lead a consortium that purchased 75% of the shares of the Obsidian Hunter Guild, and that's when the situation actually starts to shift.

'I have to get their attention before all that happens,' Ray told himself as he placed his hand on the scanner that was placed on the table in front of him.

This was another reason why Ray chose Obsidian Hunter Guild. Most people would usually sign up for the hunter program through government funded guilds, and each new hunter is given an internship at one of these guilds. During the course of this internship which lasts a year, the entire data, achievements and growth pattern of a hunter is transferred to a government database, which is then monitored by a scouts agency under government who classify the interns and form a rank list with the help of a computer program.

This classification starts from day one of the internship program, and the data is then sent to various government aided guilds as well as guilds who have signed to cooperate with the government, who could then choose to pursue the interns who have caught their attention.

"Scanning…" The man in the white coat mumbled under his breath before tilting his head up and looking at Ray, continuing, "It'll only take a few seconds, so don't remove your hand."

Ray nodded his head in response.

One disadvantage of signing up for the government internship program was that the talent pool was extremely large, so it would be extremely hard to get noticed right away. Even Ray Park, someone who had reincarnated and could use his knowledge of the future to get ahead of his rivals, had to wait 5 months in order to get noticed by the government guilds, out of whom he chose the Alliance Guild. That was the level of difficulty within the government internship program.

Obsidian Hunter Guild on the other hand was an independent guild which was new to the whole hunter program. This made people not consider joining the guild, as signing up for an established guild would be much more beneficial. And the fact that the guild was only working in cooperation with the government made the accessibility of dungeons a lot more tight, with easy entry only being allowed to certain dungeons. Add to the fact that they had the image of being an extremely exclusive guild for rich hunters, and it was safe to say that there weren't too many people who were looking forward to joining them.

All this would change though, as the sudden buyout of the guild by the UNAA would see the two countries work out a deal, which would result in the Obsidian Hunter Guild being the first guild in the world to have access to the dungeons of both the UNAA and United Korea.

And with a far smaller talent pool of hunters under them, you had a better and faster chance at attracting the attention of the scouts, who were directly involved in the classification program of the hunters, as opposed to the scout agency who work under the government, who act as the middleman to sort out the hunters for the various guilds.

"....And… Scan complete!" The man in the white coat spoke with a satisfactory smile on his face before beginning to read out the results shown by the computer.

"You currently have a… D-rank mana core with a specialty of… neutral!" The man in the white coat seemed surprised, but Ray didn't even show a single change in his expression. "Huh, haven't seen that one in quite a while. Lucky you, that's definitely a unique one!"

"I hope so," Ray acted nervously as he got up from his chair, and the man in the white coat laughed loudly. "Hahahaha! Cheer up! I've seen worse ranked people. And besides, you can always level up!"

That I can, Ray said to himself.

After exiting the elevator, Ray walked towards the front desk, where the receptionist was waiting for him with a gold card in her hand.

"Here you go, sir." The receptionist said as he handed over the card to Ray. "Your hunter license card."

"Thank you." Ray spoke softly as he grabbed the card and stared at it for a few seconds.

This is the fourth time that I'm staring at this card, Ray thought to himself. Will I be able to save the world this time?

'I guess there's only one way to find out,' Ray let out a long sigh before exiting the building.