It Begins Now!

"SURPRISE!!"

Shocked as confetti rained on his head, Ikari stood in the doorway with his mouth agape. His parents stood in front of him with bright smiles as they congratulated him. On the kitchen table, all of his favorite foods were steaming with a strawberry cake on the counter.

"You guys didn't have to do all this." Ikari said as he came close and lightly hugged them.

"Oh please, you're the first hunter in both of our families! This is a big moment!" His mother argued.

"She's right, this is a big moment. You should celebrate!" Throwing an arm around his shoulders, his father dragged him to the table.

Letting himself be pulled along, the family happily reminisced about old times and Ikari's childhood when he'd run around in a cape, pretending to be a hero of the dungeon.

Stuffing thier faces and enjoying the time together, they didn't even realize the sun was getting low and his mother got impatient.

"Show us the scores already! I've been patiently waiting, but even I'm curious now!" She chimed with beaming eyes.

"Right, but it's nothing crazy so don't be too hyped." Ikari said as he took out the folded paper and his hunter's license from his wallet.

"Well it's better than what you expected, so I'm happy for you." His mother said, seeing how he wasn't as happy about it as she and her husband were.

"Now all you can do is aim to be the best D rank this nation ever had!" His father added.

"Heh, that'll be too easy!" Ikari gloated, taking a huge bite of the cake on his plate.

"You're our son after all!"

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"It's hard, but I'm starting to understand how to draw out my mana." I had been sitting here constantly going over what the practitioner told me.

He said I just needed to focus on my will and not force it, but the power itself felt like an explosion happening in my body.

It wasn't painful, but the jolt of energy broke my concentration a lot during this process. Not only that, I had to stay focused to exude this power, so I couldn't really move around much during the process.

I did notice a few things though. Whenever I was able to draw out this energy, it felt like all of my physical capabilities doubled!

This new feeling made me want to just run head first into a dungeon, but I knew how stupid that was.I wanted to test myself and see just how much I could handle and what I could do!

"Haaaa, wasn't I supposed to have some special skill or something I could do once I awakened? Why's my awakening so lame and why the fuck do I have this tail?!"

Honestly, what the hell was it's use? I could clearly feel every motion it made and just the feeling of having a tail felt weird. I couldn't explain it even if I tried, but every time I grabbed it, my body would go all stiff and get real tingly.

I decided to leave it alone, but I'll have to do something about it one day.

*bzzzz* *bzzzz*

Grabbing my phone, I answered the call.

"Yo, wassup?"

"Not much, but I was thinking we should binge the last of that one anime season since you were all recovered and such."

"Dude, it's an hour till midnight."

"I know, but I wanted you to spend some time with your family before I asked you about it! This whole time I haven't touched the last season and it's literally killing me!"

"Fine, it's been a minute since I spent the night there anyway. I'm gonna tell my parents, I'll be there in a bit."

"Awesome, I'll get some snacks and stuff prepared!"

Hanging up the phone, Ikari got up from bed and packed his school clothes and some casual clothes. He was most likely just going to be there for 3 days, so he packed light.

Peeking his head from his door, be looked into the livingroom and called out to his parents, letting them know Tatsuda wanted to hang out for a few days.

"Alright, tell his mother I said hey!"

"Alright, I'll see you guys later!" Leaving the house, I clenched my bag as I grinned.

'Let's see how fast I can get there!' Then I dashed down the street, making it to his house in 3 minutes flat.

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"Then I woke up in the hospital with a tail just randomly attached to me."

"So like, no homo, but is it like-"

"No, it's nothing like that weird butt plug shit."

"Right, of course!"

Shaking my head, I flinged a grape into the air and caught it in my mouth.

"When are you gonna start entering dungeons then? You can do part time since you're in your last year of school."

"Yeah, but I'd rather not have all that on my playe right now. Not to me mention my powers are a little weak. At full power, I'm probably low C rank."

"Now that I think about it, you never told me what your skill was. You're a fighter class, so it's probably an enhancement type."

Grining, Ikari stood up and took a deep breath. His eyes sharpened as he felt a force bulding up within him!

"HA!" A transparent aura burst from his body, knocking some things around in the process. Marveling at Ikari's appearance, Tatsuda started mumbing about wuxai novels and how he was the next Zhou Fang.

Sharply exhaling, Ikari's aura dispersed and he felt a bit embarrassed, seeing how Tatsuda was looking at him.

"So what's it like? The feeling, the rush! What else can you do?!" Tatsuda swarmed with excitement.

"Calm down. This is it and I can't even move while doing it. Well not yet at least. Like I said, it just feels like my power get doubled and I couldn't use it while being registered, so I'm probably a low C rank rather than a D rank."

"I see, but something's not right here." Tatsuda said.

"What do you mean?"

"A hunter's skill is either a passive skill or an active skill. It's not something they necessarily have to focus on to keep active or perform. If you take that into account your skill is a bit weird since you have to concentrate so deeply just to bring out the power. Not only that, what about it's effects? Enhancing your physical abilities, but you can't even move? That's suspicious. Even further-"

"Dude, I appreciate the deep thought, but stop yapping and get to the point. What's your thoughts about this situation?" Ikari asked. Behind his calm demeanor, he was hoping for some ray of light to shine down upon him and tell him that there was more to his power and awakening!

"Well, instead of an enhancement skill, I think it's an energy manipulation skill. Think of it like this, you can't generally and freely use the enhanced power because you aren't use to the energy in your body. It's just like the isekai manga, once you can manipulate your mana like the back of your hand, it should be freely useable."

Ikari's eyes beamed as he thought about the possibilities! The things he could do with an energy manipulation skill would be endless!

Could he call on the four elements to do magic spells? Could he fly with the wind and cause thunderstorms? Who knows, but now the possibilities seemed enless!

"Oh right, Ikari."

"Yeah!"

"Control your tail…it's messing up my figure collection."

"Oh…sorry." Scratching his neck, he picked up the action figures with his head somewhere else.

"Also, this tail. There has to be some meaning behind you having this tail. It's related to your skill in someway." Tatsuda claimed.

"Guess I'll have to experiment with it later on."

"You know, in manga there'd usually be a 6 month montage. Say cheese!!" Tatsuda said, snapping a picture with his phone.

With that, the night ended. In the coming months leading up to their graduation, Ikari and Tatsuda would find themselves following an intense training regiment with a strict schedule they followed to the T and they captured their progress with photos and a journal.

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Short Chapter, but I'll see you in the next one!