The day ended in a flash and exam day arrived. Vale woke up and the sun hadn't stepped out of the horizon yet, so he decided to rest a little longer.
He then remembered the system stats that he hadn't checked the day prior and opened it up to get a better look.
At least now, with nothing bothering him, he could fully understand his powers.
____
Name: Vale Vance.
Title: Glory Thief
Tier: Base Level
Abilities: {Blood Kin}, {Primal State}, {The Thrill}
Images: —
Requirements for evolution: 100 demon points.
Common Demon Points:5
Epic Demon Points:7
True Demon Points:0
Sacred Demon points:0
Fear counter: 6/100.
Class: {The Primal Hunter}
Description:
Before Hunters, there was a Primal Hunter who lived not on meat, but on the fear of his victims
____
The title and tier weren't confusing. He knew how he got the glory thief title, and Base Level was just the basic starting point for anyone.
It was the abilities he really cared about. He stared at them intensely and as expected, extra information about them came up. His eyes widened as he stared at the absurd skill.
{Blood Kin}[passive] (lvl 1)
This ability lets you drink the blood of your enemies to recover vitality. It also grants preliminary blood manipulation. Skill can be levelled up with further comprehension of blood arts or spontaneous enlightenment.
{Primal State} [active] (lvl 1)
With crimson eyes, you stare at your prey. When activated, this skill increases your base stats, proportional to the amount of fear an opponent feels towards you. Activation is involuntary. This skill will be upgraded as you unlock more parts of your soul.
{The Thrill} [Innate]
You grow more powerful depending on how many FP (Fear Points) you have.
The first ability was a familiar one and Vale could remember how he had gotten it. But the other two, he wasn't so familiar with.
The second ability {Primal State} wasn't too foreign to him, though. He could still remember that euphoria that had come upon him when he was about to hunt that blood wolf. It had made him stronger, so much so that he was able to keep up with the monster's speed. Although it was injured.
It had felt like he wasn't himself back then, but now he could pinpoint the reason. Still, the skill was a good one; the only flaw might be the involuntary activation.
That might change when he upgrades the ability.
The last ability was {The Thrill} and Vale had expected that such an ability existed before unlocking the system.
Vale wasn't sure, but he had a guess on what FPs were. The Primal Hunter class seemed to be focused on building a hunter that grew more powerful the more prey feared him.
FPs were probably points gained from the amount of fear a prey had for him before they died.
That was why, when he had killed the blood wolf, he had felt a slight increase in his strength. But when he killed the Pack Leader he hadn't felt anything.
The blood wolf was afraid when it died while the pack leader was just reluctant.
But those weren't all there was to the interface.
The Images counter was empty as expected. Vale still felt a bit sad that he hadn't gained an image from the pack leader, but that was being too greedy.
Images were items like weapons, armour, beast souls, and even consumables that one could acquire by killing demons. They varied in quality depending on the strength and rarity of the demon.
In Vale's past life, he had a lot of Images, but those were in the past.
A person could also gain DP (Demon points) from killing demons. Depending on the demon's rank, it could either be common, epic, true, or sacred.
Vale had a few, but the next evolution was still far.
The fear counter was the most confusing feature on the interface. He had not come in contact with something like that in his previous life.
He stared at it for a while and luckily, more information popped up.
Fear counter: 6/100
You horde the fear of your victims: it makes you feel…complete.
Get enough FPs to unlock more parts of your soul.
That didn't alleviate his confusion, as Vale was still trying to figure out what it was about.
It was then that he remembered that he could enter his soul realm now that he had a class. It hadn't occurred to him before, but now he was curious to see what he might find there
To enter your soul space, one needs to recite a mantra. Several mantras could achieve this and Vale had learnt quite a few of them.
He closed his eyes and his mouth started moving, whispering unknown words.
But nothing happened. Even after trying out numerous mantras, nothing happened. He sat on his bed for a minute thinking of what could be the problem.
The only plausible explanation was that his current soul wasn't suited to the mantras of his previous world.
Coming to this conclusion, he could only sigh as that would mean he needed to get a mantra from this world. That wasn't hard as they weren't too expensive. For now, though, his soul space was out of reach.
He took one last look at the interface before closing– Vale paused, noticing something.
He had looked at his class before, but didn't notice it until now.
His class wasn't 'Primal Hunter'; it was 'The Primal Hunter.' Meaning it had three words, which was something he had only heard of a few times in his previous life.
Or maybe he was taking it too seriously and the 'The' didn't actually mean anything.
Shaking his head, Vale decided to put everything at the back of his mind and get ready for the exam that would be happening in a few hours.
The sun was already peeking at him, shining its dull glow through the window.
Vale got up and got ready to head down when a knock came at his door. All this while his mind was thinking of a way to explain to Iris that he had lost the clothes she had gotten him.
He opened the door to see a familiar waiter. "Miss Iris is waiting for you in the dining area."
Vale raised a brow, surprised that she was ready so early.
Does she even sleep, he wondered.
"Okay, I'll be there in a second," he replied.
When Vale got to the dining area and sat beside Iris, he was surprised that she hadn't noticed the clothes he was wearing.
Her eyes were glued to a newspaper titled Weekly Druti. Her brows furrowed and a frown stuck to her face.
"Hey Vale," she said, but her eyes never left the papers.
"Something's the matter?" Vale asked, noticing her strange behaviour.
"It seems Druti isn't as safe as I thought," she muttered.
Letting out a sigh, the newspaper was handed to Vale.
The headline read, Coachman and Passenger Murdered in Broad Daylight.
The image was blurred, but Vale could still make out the gory scene that was displayed. What he was looking at, however, wasn't the blood. It was the clothes of one of the victims.
Those were his clothes.
[Author's note: Ten power stones and I'll post an extra chapter today.]