You expected me to die?
Ten minutes later, Niklas returned with his game. His game was an unfortunate deer, which he chanced upon when in search of food in the periphery of the forest. The game didn't come easy for him because he didn't have any hunting equipment. He had to chase and hunt down the animal with his bare hands. His clothes were evidence of this adventure; there were patches of dust on them and on his face.
He set up a fire and set his game to be cooked over the flames. A few minutes later, he found himself salivating over the smell of almost cooked meat. It occurred to him that he was really hingry. He couldn't wait any longer, as he grabbed the meat away from the flames and devoured everything within two minutes.
[Your condition has been stabilized! You have taken optimum nutrients.
You gained 40kg in weight after digestion of ingested food!]
'What! 40kg? Wouldn't that make me fat?' Niklas looked at his arms. They looked bigger than before. He had the feeling that he didn't look lanky anymore. He pulled up his general information window.
[NAME: Agu Niklas Vox.
AGE: 20 years old.
HEIGHT: 6'2 feet.
WEIGHT: 78 KG.
****
CLASS: Lightning-mancer.
Class level: 0.
Class evolution: 2/100
Use and perfect your proficiency in handling lightning in order to evolve.
****
RACE: Human/Demigod.
Prominent race: Human.
Level of Prominence: 8.
Current level: Demigod, level 0.
Next level: Demigod, level 1.
Progress towards evolution: 167/10000.
Affect the world around you and obtain evolution points.
Since you are aligned with good, you have to affect the world around you with your goodness to obtain evolution points.
****
PHYSICAL QUALITIES;
STRENGTH: 15+2
SPEED: 5+10
AGILITY: 5+10
STAMINA: 5+10
PERCEPTION: 1+10
VITALITY: 5+5
Free stat points: 5.
(Complete missions and stand a chance to be rewarded with stat points that can be assigned to any of the qualities.)
****
MANA AFFINITY: 12>15
MANA VOLUME: 1300>5000MP
Complete missions, and you stand a chance to be rewarded with stat points added directly to your mana affinity.
Mana affinity affects mana volume, negatively or positively.
****
SKILLS;
Buff skill name: Demigod's will.
Tier: SS rank.
Information: It allows the user to use their will to tap into powers that are beyond the natural laws. These exceptional powers help the user accomplish acts that are beyond explanation.
Availability: 0/1
Cool down: 1 month. Timer: 701:12:10
Information (2): When availability is 0, the user can use his will to affect, at most, the attacks from rank-C creatures or objects.]
Niklas was surprised to see that there was just a 20-kg difference between the last time he looked up his weight and now. It suddenly dawned on him why the system had urged him to go find food.
'I lost a lot of weight after I evolved. For a normal adult, this spells doom. I'm very lucky,' Niklas mused.
"I have to head back home. It's getting late."
Niklas went home. The rest of the day was uneventful, and the next day gradually rolled in.
####
At 9:00 a.m. in Blue Box Minicity, Niklas arrived at this settlement via train. He alighted off the train at Pen metro station. He walked out of the metro station and reached normal ground. He looked around, looking for a nearby hotel. He wanted to check in at a hotel. This was to gain a bit of privacy to use his phone. He suspected that spies from Kernel Village could be spying on him.
Niklas checked into a hotel that wasn't too far from the subway station. He got into his hotel room and made sure he secured the lock on his room's door. He closed his curtains and proceeded to enter the bathroom with his backpack. He pulled out his phone from the backpack. He intended to contact someone for a favour—one of the strangers he met yesterday, Gabriel Nnaji.
'I hope his phone is available.' Niklas called Gabriel's number. The phone briefly rang before the user at the other end answered the call.
"Hello," said the baritone voice at the other end. In the background, rap music was playing. "Who am I speaking with?"
"My name is Niklas," Niklas wasn't sure that he was speaking with Gabriel. The other user's voice sounded different from what he remembered. "I got this number from Gabriel. I met him yesterday at the central hunting guild building. Do you know him?"
"Uhh, you are with Gabriel," the other user said, albeit with slight ridicule.
"You are really Gabriel? You don't sound like how I remember," Niklas said.
"I lost my voice because I screamed a lot yesterday. I was running for my life," Gabriel explained.
Hmm, that's true. Niklas nodded.
"I'm sorry, I don't recall who you are... Mr. Nicholas?" Gabriel said.
"It's Niklas," Niklas corrected. "I'm the slim red-haired guy that you urged to follow the Knife-Edge clique on the mission to rescue the city from the Uncharted Beasts raid."
Now that he mentioned 'Uncharted Beasts raid', his' heart skipped a beat. He prayed that the minicity didn't witness any Uncharted Beasts raid today.
Gabriel recalled meeting with Niklas yesterday. "Oh, I remember you. Right now, I'm surprised that you are speaking with me."
Niklas giggled. "I don't really know anyone in this minicity."
"No, no, not that. I'm surprised that you are alive," Gabriel said.
Niklas was briefly dumbfounded. He told Gabriel, "Were you expecting me to die?"
Gabriel hesitated before slowly saying, "Kind of."
"Why?" Niklas blurted. He couldn't think of any reason why Gabriel expected him to die.
"Look, I'm sorry that I had low expectations of you, but it was because you didn't look strong enough to me," Gabriel said.
Niklas wanted to ask, 'Even after my show of power to organise the crowd, you still didn't rate me?', but he restrained from doing that. He had an objective that he wanted to put on track to accomplish. He said,
"Forget about whatever you thought about me. I told you that I would kill a lion-head bison, and I did. I want to thank you for encouraging me to join the mission."
Gabriel didn't trust Niklas. He felt insecure, thinking that the hunter at the other end was lurking around. He anxiously apologised.
"Dude… I mean, Nicholas... No, Niklas, I'm sorry for—"
Niklas interjected, "Dude, send me your account details. I told you to forget whatever you thought about."
Gabriel didn't say anything; he kept quiet. Niklas waited for a few seconds for a reply. He thought that the call was off, but it was still on when he checked his phone.
"Hello, are you still there?
"Gabriel!"
Gabriel sighed, having come to a conclusion after a while of thought. "Niklas, you can send me whatever through my hunter's profile on the Blue Box Hunting Guild website."
Niklas said, "That's better."
He didn't cut the call. His phone was using the hotel's WiFi, so he could conduct activities with a data connection without the need to cut the call. Gabriel heard the other hunter tap some keys on his phone. He was anxiously waiting and hoping that Niklas wasn't doing anything to hurt him. Suddenly, his phone buzzed and produced an incoming notification sound.
'You have been credited with 70,000 Eks by Hunter Niklas?' Gabriel read the notification that appeared on his screen. His thoughts went aloof before resurfacing to understand reality. He stopped the music from playing.
"You sent me seventy thousand Earth Kredits?" Gabriel calmly said.
"Yes, I did," Niklas said.
"Thank you, bro. You don't know the magnitude of what you just did for me," Gabriel said and paused. "Do you need my help for anything?"
Niklas was going to let Gabriel's mind calm down before he asked him a favour.
"I need the services of a top-notch medical team. They must not be in this minicity. This place isn't safe.
"I want to help a bedridden woman and her son who is also in the same condition. They don't know what their sickness is, all they know is that they are paralysed and can't even hold their pee or their poop. So, you see, that is why I seek high quality medical service."
Gabriel listened to Niklas. He had an idea of how to help.
"Where do we meet? I'm free at the moment; can we meet soon?"
It surprised Niklas that Gabriel wanted them to meet so soon, but he was delighted because he wanted every action executed to be swift so that his mother and brother could get well very soon.