My eyes kept wandering on the Tracing details of my new bow.

Composite ShortBow of the Hunter

Durability: 100%

Bonus: Strength + 65, Perception + 25, Focus + 25

Flow Capacity: 100%

Shade Capacity: 100%

Strengths: Maximum Strength for the alloy

Weaknesses: None

This Composite ShortBow has been produced by an Ultimate Class Tinker. It offers the maximum possible offensive power for a bow made from LunarTungsten and SunBronze alloys. It can store both Flow and Shade and has a total of eight sockets for Crystals and Stones.

Monstrous… Logan must have outdone himself making this bow. It was incredible. I had really never seen anything of the like.

It looked solid, quick, and powerful. It offered a fantastic boost in Perception as well as in Focus.

I wondered how it would have been if it was made both in LunarTungsten and SolarTitanium.

Yet, that was not all I had been given.

The next piece of equipment was… very well worked.

It was a piece of padded coat woven inside of a hood.

Practical, light, and good-looking.

Hidden Mail of the TechnoHunter

Durability: 100%

Bonus: Agility + 15, Constitution + 65

Shade Capacity: 100%

Strengths: Light, yet very resistant, may be invisible to Tracing

Weaknesses: None

This Mail has been produced by an Ultimate Class Tinker. It was made in LunarTungsten and offers the best possible defense for such a light piece of armor.

The hood can be interchanged, and it perfectly hides the armor. As long as the armor inside is not exposed, any Tracing will result in a Hood piece of clothing.

The insides of the Mail can be removed and rearranged for possible docking with further pieces of armor.

I could not say if he had built this armor for a chance that I would develop the Skill he was looking for, but it was possible. He had been looking for that Skill his whole life, after all.

There was nothing else for me, not even a clock-arm, but after all, I had to use leather armor at best, so I didn't even get some boots. It was natural; I had to be light.

However, I had my own; they would suffice.

But I had received what I really cared about, an amazing bow.

Although the Dungeon-borne bow I had, gave me an Agility boost. Having a composite bow with a Strength Bonus of 65 was out of this world. It was even too much for me.

In fact, I doubted I could ever use it to its utmost efficiency, at least until I reached that tantalizing basic Strength factor that would allow me to throw arrows that broke the sound barrier.

Yeah, sure.

I was missing just around forty-five points of Strength for that and for using that bow to its full power.

Loke Nightfold, TechnoHunter Level 36 (279.321/360.000), Red Tamer Level 33 (145.062/330.000)

Health: 100%

Stamina: 95%

Agility: 15

Constitution: 13

Strength: 15

Focus: 18

Perception: 22

Willpower: 34

Strengths: Mind, Aim, Willpower

Weaknesses: Clock-arm

Class Skills: Trick Shot II (Agility), Technomantic Body (Constitution), Hunting Tactics (Focus), Trace III (Perception)

Sub-Class Skills: Frenzy (Strength), Return to Nature (Focus), Animal Instincts II (Perception), Together we are One (Willpower)

Race: Human

Sex: Male

Height: 176 cm

Weight: 68 kg

Age: 17

Origins: Unknown, Murkstall

Family: Eleanor Nightfold, Faris Nightfold, Nova Nightfold

Loke Nightfold

Advanced Class

TechnoHunter Lv. 36

Agi + 1, Con + 3, Str + 3, Foc + 1, Per + 1

Advanced Sub-Class

Red Tamer Lv. 33

Sub-Class Perk: 1

Str + 3, Foc + 3, Will + 3, For + ☆

Attribute Borrowing

Attributes

Stats

Natural

Augments

Agility

15 + 7

Armor (+15), Boots (+3), Dagger (+25)

Constitution

13 + 10

Armor (+65), Clockarm (+10), Dagger (+35)

Strength

15 + 6

Clockarm (+10), Dagger (+65), Short Bow (+65)

Focus

18 + 4

Dagger (+25), Short Bow (+25)

Perception

22 + 16 + 24 (Borrowed)

Willpower

34 + 3

Dagger (+25)

Fortune

★ ★ ★ ☆ + ☆

Hunting Skills

Name

Major

Minor

Passive

★★ Trick Shot II - Agility

(Eligible for Promotion)

★ A Shade projectile follows your shot with a boom

★ Transfer to your Trick Shot’s location and double the following attack’s Strength

Agility + 6;

★ Shadow Vigour

Technomantic Body - Constitution

★ Consume tech-parts to heal curable wounds

Constitution is boosted by your tech-parts: (+7)

Hunting Tactics - Focus

★, ☆ Your target’s weak points are partially exposed

★★★ Trace III - Perception

(Max)

★, ☆ Trace much more of the whispers of the Soul

★, ☆ Track your target and see his next move; your target doesn’t notice when they are being Tracked

Perception + 12;

Sixth Sense;

★, ☆ Synesthesia

Tamer Skills

Name

Major

Minor

Passive

Frenzy -

Strength

When your pet’s Health is lower than 30%, their Strength is doubled but their Willpower is halved

Return to nature - Focus

Your pet partially heals eating your prey

★, ☆ Gain minor knowledge about your prey

Animal Instincts II - Perception

(Max)

When your family and pets are in danger your Agility, Strength, and Willpower double for a short amount of time

★, ☆ Coherently feel your pet’s emotions;

See from your pet’s eyes

Perception + 6;

★ Night Sight

Together we are one - Willpower

☆ You can tame weak Flow creatures

Your creatures can understand you

Was I ready? Damn, if I was.

And Loki?

Loki (Adult Golden Netherlion), (Titan), Level 26 (75326/260.000)

Health: 100%

Stamina: 85%

Strength: Fading Dash, Phantasmic State, Senses

Weaknesses: None

Abilities: Fading Dash, Ghastly Senses, Phase

Agility: 32

Constitution: 32

Strength: 32

Focus: 26

Perception: 30

Willpower: 26

Yeah, we were ready.

We profusely thanked Logan; he waved us away as if he had done nothing.

After that, we waited another hour for Aisha's messenger, but it never arrived.

Sick of waiting, we departed at tenth bell. It would be our first Dungeon Delving. So, it was with trembling knees and wide-eyed excitement that we set out for our first Dungeon adventure.

The trip on the Flow-cart was much more silent than we expected.

We were all tense. Even Harlow, with her massive armor, was as tense as a bowstring.

The Fallen Kingdom loomed ever closer, its mountainous castles and towers casting enormous shadows over the fields. The light drizzle that had started descending was barely an echo of what the massive cumulonimbus above could deliver.

The Shade Season had come, and it had refilled the massive circular lake at which from the center the Dungeon soared.

The mechanical birds silently flew in a perpetual circling motion around above the tower's two peaks. As if flying around those towers were the only things they were supposed to do.

For what I could know, given the mystery that surrounded the Dungeon, it might have been its only life’s purpose.

The aquatic yet clock-tech creatures that appeared with the Shade Season were just as dangerous. Some of them could be as big a building, and they hid in the waters, emitting no sound whatsoever.

The constant calm, typical of clock-tech creatures, reigned supreme, but the looming threat was constantly keeping us on edge.

If we were to hear any sound, it would be the sound of the battle of nearby parties of delvers, and for the moment, there were none.

The Shade Season worsened the already dangerous outskirts of Dungeon. However, Logan had taught which of the many paths was the safest route to follow.

In the middle of this unnatural silent calm, Roana was the one who finally broke the stillness.

"How far did you go while looking for pieces for the Flow-cart?" She asked Harlow.

"Just near the start of dad's safe trail. I did not dare leave enough space for them to attack me from the back," she answered.

"Well, now we've got your back covered," said Faruq.

Harlow smiled. However, I could see how worried she was. Her foldable helmet was showing just about her face; everything else was sealed behind it.

We stopped the Flow-cart in the middle of an empty clearing.

"This is as far as the Flow-cart goes, or the creatures will most likely tear it apart," Harlow said.

In front of us stood a wild tangle of metal roads, wet ground, and water pools.

The lake was not too vast, but there were still metal routes that connected the Freeplains to the Fallen Kingdom's Dungeon like the web of a spider.

As we slowly descended the Flow-cart, my eyes picked up a couple of parties in the distance.

It was likely that they came from the nearby regions too.

The Fallen Kingdom was, in fact, the Centerpoint where four different regions connected.

It had the Wastelands on its east side, the jungle region on the north side, which touched the Wide Peaks. I had no idea who dwelled in the southwestern region, but Kobolds' parties were more likely to appear from the south than others.

Right now, I could only see humans or what looked like humans from here. Even my sight wasn't infallible.

"I'm getting excited!" said Alistar waving his glaive in the air.

Faruq did the same. He started a Form of the Spiral warm-up. Nova soon joined in with him.

Roana, Harlow, and I got ourselves ready differently.

We checked our equipment.

Logan had replenished my arrows; I had twenty-four of each: Piercing arrows, Shatter arrows, Saw arrows, and regular arrows, then there were twenty-four total Blow arrows, half Crystals, half Stones.

I tried my bow a bunch. It was perfect. Pulling the string was still a bit too hard for my likings, but it would have to do. I could increase my Strength with the next levels I gained if I needed to.

Contrarily from the creatures inside of the Dungeon, the creatures on the outskirts did indeed give Soul fractions, and quite a good number of them, the only problem with the creatures were their levels.

I squinted my eyes to target one of the huge birds flying on top of the tower. I knew I would not receive much information about them, they were too far, yet I wanted to see what I would be dealing with.

Giant Flying Metal Bird, Level ???

Durability: ?

Agility: ?

Constitution: ?

Strength: ?

Focus: ?

Perception: ?

Willpower: ?

Strength: Complete metal body

Weaknesses: None

That was it. Nothing else, but it was already much more than I knew.

First, the creatures had a level in the three digits; second and maybe even more importantly, they had no Health. Of course, they wouldn't have any; they were made of metal.

However, they did not even have an energy capacitance. No Stamina, no Shade or Flow capacity.

"Tracing the birds?" Harlow asked.

"Yeah, they've got no Health, only Durability. No energy either."

"They have infinite Flow during the day, and the same can be said about Shade during the night," she answered.

"Infinite Flow?" Nova screamed, breaking out of her warm-up stance.

"They don't suffer from Flow overuse, nor do they need a capacity. They absorb it directly from the atmosphere, like us," Harlow explained.

"Do they regenerate with it?"

Harlow chuckled as she answered my question, "For Sun's sake, no. Who would ever dare facing something of the likes?"

"I already like it here," Alistar added. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

Our formation was as follows: Alistar in front, followed by Faruq and Nova standing respectively at three and ten o'clock; Roana and I stood at the center, while Harlow, that could cover us from attacks even better than Alistar, protected our back.

As we got closer to the metal pathway, I started feeling a low buzzing sound.

"Ro, can you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"The buzzing, don't you hear it?"

"I can't hear any buzzing…"

"Are you sure? It's getting quite intense." How could she not hear it? She had a higher Perception than me.

"The buzzing is not in the air," Harlow said. "You can feel it because of the clock-tech in you."

"What?" My clock-tech parts?

"Yes. I can feel it too, but it's tough for me to discern it. It scales with Perception. And remember what we talked about. Abilities like Sixth Sense, Foretell, Future Sight, don't work with clock-tech creatures."

We had talked at length about it. It was a shitty thing, but clock-tech creatures could not be interpreted in the same way in which flesh and blood creatures or, as the Church of the Sun said, soul-bearing creatures could. Only Skills that were explicitly meant to interpret clock-tech devices worked with these types of creatures.

"No need to remind me how useless I'll be," said Ro.

"With those massive throwing knives of yours, you are likely going to be doing more damage than me," Alistar said.

They kept talking, but I kept feeling the buzzing. It grew increasingly intense until I could actually pinpoint from which direction it was coming.

We had the first metal road and were yet to cross it when the buzzing shifted all the way to my left side, at roughly ten o'clock.

"Guys, I have no idea how I know, but something is coming from our left. It's going to be really damn big."

At that moment of realization, the conjoined effort of the buzzing sound with Synesthesia showed me something.

In a flash of knowledge, I could see the massive body of a clock-tech alligator swimming under the waters. It was coming toward us.

Just as I had imagined it, the image disappeared, but at the same time, the huge alligator burst out from the partly frozen waters exploding foam everywhere and sprinkling droplets as high as my eyes could see.

It slammed his massive forefeet on the metal trail, creating vibrations I could feel directly in my knees, then just as it had appeared, it locked its eyes on us and started coming toward us.

I could hear Harlow's face mask locking.

"Damn…" she said.

"What in the Abyss is that!? It's way too damn big!" Nova exclaimed.

Technogator of the Fallen Lake, Level 85 (7.465.998/8.500.000)

Durability: 100%

Agility: 25

Constitution: 255

Strength: 163

Focus: 157

Perception: 115

Willpower: 0

Strength: Aquatic, Massive metal body, weight

Weakness: Very slow

Abilities: Death Roll, Locking Target

The Technogator of the Fallen Lake appears only during the Shade Season. It is unknown why the Fallen Kingdom Dungeon doesn't spawn them during the warm season, given their ability to function both inside and outside the waters. Don't let them get too close; their Death Roll is enough to shred anything apart, living or not.

Watch out, for his speed doubles in the water.

That thing had likely no damn weak point, and although I had no idea what the Death Roll was, I was already about to start panicking.

I could already imagine Nova, Ro, and Loki torn to pieces by that massive creature. They were nowhere as resilient as Alistar or Harlow, while at the same time not as agile as Faruq and me.

Then something at the back of my head told me to use my weak points gauging ability, it could ease my worries, yet the Technogator did not have even a single yellow spot. I was about to turn the ability off when the creature opened its mouth wide. Then I saw it; the inside of his throat was entirely orange. It wasn't even red, yet its natural weak point was getting internal damage.

That meant that I would be the only one that could damage this thing from the inside.

"Nova, be ready to cast your shield, although I doubt it would be of much use against this monster. Faruq, I need you to distract him. Alistar, don't think you can withstand that creature's attacks; its basic Strength is likely higher than your Duress can withstand. Harlow, Ro, I need you to get him angry; he needs to open his mouth," I ordered, nocking a Crystal Blow arrow.

Damn, we hadn't even started our journey, and I was already about to use my first Blow arrow. By the time the day was over, I would have likely used them all.

That was how our mortal dance with the Technogator commenced.

I sprinted to the right, even before the other acquiesced to my dispositions.

"Hey, beast, look over here!"

Yet Harlow warned me, "Don't shout, Loke! Or you'll attract more!"

More of these things? That was very bad. Yet the creature had turned toward me already.

Meanwhile, Faruq took that chance to Dash toward it and delivered a slash on its muzzle.

It didn't even put a scratch on its metal scales. So he Dashed away in search of safety.

I could start seeing Roana's blade missiles hiss through the air. They had become even more powerful.

Blade after blade, they bumped against the monster's metal skin, nicking it but falling down as they failed to pierce it. The same could be said about Nova's throws. They were just as ineffective.

However, the creature was getting mad; it was growing closer. And I had a foreboding that it was something I shouldn’t allow.

It was at that moment that Harlow jumped up in the sky.

The sole of her feet produced a burst of Flow; it was glorious.

She soared up, landing on the creature's head, then started pounding it with powerful hammer punches.

They were having a partial effect; however, if they were damaging the creature, it meant that her armor was suffering damage as well. She could not keep doing it for long.

Not that the creatures would allow it.

Metal fins rose on the whole surface of the creature's body.

I did not like that. It was likely that the monster was about to perform its Death Roll.

"Everybody back away!" I shouted.

Harlow had barely the time to jump away when the creature started rotating on itself.

A grinding sound of metal against metal exploded everywhere, it was deafening.

Ice and mud were flung right and left, the frozen portion of the lake on which the creature rested its tail shattered, and the friction against the metal road sent powerful sparks that threatened to ignite the metal on fire.

Faruq had already escaped, and I had wished for Loki to stay as far away as he possibly could, yet Nova and Roana were in range.

Luckily, Alistar was there.

He got ahold of both of them, put them on his shoulders, and ran away from the incredible vortex of power that was displaying a few meters in front of them.

It was absurd.

When, a few seconds later, the Technogator stopped its Death Roll, the metal road was white-hot, and the creature, likely taking pride in its display of power, opened his mouth to taunt us.

Although I was still gawking at its display of power, I did not let that chance slide.

I aimed and shot.

The creature snapped his mouth back but not fast enough.

My projectile was already inside of its mouth.

It exploded the next moment, shaking the monster's body as a whole.

I could see smoke coming out from its metallic skin.

The double explosion had likely been devastating.

And yet, the creature was still alive and kicking.

I retraced it to gauge the state of things.

Technogator of the Fallen Lake, Level 85 (7.465.998/8.500.000)

Durability: 57%

It had not been enough.

I was surprised by the amount of damage my shot dealt it. But it was not even remotely enough. It had likely just made it angrier.

And not only was it by far the most powerful shot I had. It had most probably been the deadliest I had ever shot.

With the increased Focus given by my new bow, not only were my Trick Shots stronger, but they even consumed less Shade given the LunarTungsten alloy's ability to absorb the Shade that got lost in the air during Skills' usage.

And yet, the blow that would have undoubtedly killed every creature I had ever faced in one shot, removing a few obvious exceptions, was not even enough to get this monster under fifty percent of its health.

The creature shifted its gaze on me then, staring only at me. Its eyes seemingly squinting in my directions.

Then it turned tail and dove back into the water.

The calm reigned supreme once again.

"What the..."