Kaden continued fighting in the arena at evenings. Then afterwards during nights he would go out and beat up criminals where he found them. This became a routine that had already continued for months.

The information he got on his first hunt had led him to a drop off point in the second layer. Only weaklings worked there and he lost the track to anywhere further since most things were moved to different places by different people and did not seem to continue elsewhere. Hence, Kaden had to keep beating more and more people.

At first it was extremely easy. The Blood Hand gansters seemed to have had free reign for some reason. Kaden assumed some officials were probably bribed and due to this authorities had difficulties dealing with them. Now with Kaden and his sudden hunts, they began to notice it and prepare. He started seeing more thugs that were at Channel Opening. Not that it changed matters much.

Criminals at these levels worked to extort, steal, kidnap and other illegal activities. The low tier members were easily found on the streets and shady corner bar’s and the higher were protecting important places. Kaden managed to gather general idea, but not the important parts that seemed to lead much higher. He was interested in the bounties, not beating up some random gansters. He wanted to find people he could kill!

So most of his hunts dealt with common members that didn’t know much. It wasn’t entirely pointless effort, though. While most of his targets were weaklings, some of the higher grade targets did have some money.

This money Kaden used during day to buy things he felt he needed. As much as he disliked it, Stefinos’s temple was irreplaceable to him. He did have to use quite a bit of his money, but everything he bought, he felt like it was well worth it. Still, he could see his money run out slowly, what he got from the gangsters he beat only padded his expenses slightly.

He had bought lots of things. In the temple they really did trade everything, even information. He was now well aware of status of war between Saint Empire and Sacronan. It was still going and was in stalemate as usual. Even the sacrifice of Sacronan had gained pretty much nothing for them! Kaden cursed Sacronan to death.

The information about his targets like the True Magi and things related to Anuu far was too high level and he could not buy that or even really find. When he tried looking, he was prompted to buy higher vip status.

He let that be and concentrated elsewhere like his studies. Basic study material was still quite accessible for Kaden so he carefully selected some more useful ones, but decided it had to do.

Kaden even planned on buying some cores to eat, but their price was relatively high. Still, he bought one advanced dire beast core. He intended to consume it later that day.

After that he decided he would have to gather more funds until buying more. He was running out, specailly after that core!

With what he had, he hoped to increase his strength a bit. He wasn’t still done with the formations on his gauntlets either. Luckily it was possible to “reforge” many formations. Mistakes could be mended, but it took effort and doing it too much was costly as it required some materials every time of the type the formation was on. At least as long as your formation didn’t explode entirely that is. With the books he had, he hoped to solve problems he had ran into.

As for things that were not actual problems, but did signify that Kaden had managed to attract attention. He started getting odd opponents in the arena. They didn’t look the usual type that came there for excitement or for bets. They were rather shifty looking and seemed to target him specifically. They were there always and attempted to directly kill him.

Not that Kaden cared. Even the fights on the arena were something he always took seriously so an arena match turning into a real fight was nothing new to him. He figured someone had eventually decided he should die. He beat up quite a few of these people after the arena match when they tried to escape. He found they had been paid to kill him, but didn’t know anything more. Minor amount of torture didn’t reveal anything extra.

Kaden shrugged and thought they could keep coming, if they wanted to. He still got his cut from the arena bets and those sudden death matches did gather lot of money. Coins and crystals had become very important to him and any source was welcomed.

Sidon was frowning at these opponents, but did nothing since Kaden seemed happy to fight them. He wasn’t entirely aware what Kaden was doing on his own, but since no guards had come to arrest him, Sidon figured it was still fine.

Yet, there were some things Kaden did think of being true big problems!

One night Kaden was at second layer looking for higher ranked gangsters to pick out. They had been hiding recently and only common weaklings were found and ones that were not involved with the gangsters.

Guards seemed to care only about obvious targets so someone like Kaden had to deal with the nonobvious ones. He had already found out security was higher grade in the inner layers and the common layers only had some. There apparently were quite a few vigilantes once people started to take protection in their own hands. Kaden had not expected to be counted among these so called vigilantes.

“Oh my god!” Said this man that Kaden had inadvertently saved from a thug, which he was about to beat up.

Kaden turned to look at the excited man.

“I’m big fan of yours Shadow Wing!” The man continued happily. “To think I’d be saved by a true hero like you! Oh my god! Can I get a autograph?!”

Kaden was flabbergasted. “What the…? What are you going on about? Shadow Wing?”

“Its you right! The hero that has single handedly pushed all those damn criminals into hiding? No one knew what to call you so people started to call you Shadow Wing! You work in the night! Leaping from rooftop to rooftop as if you were flying in the darkness in search of wrongdoers and dispensing judgement upon them! Shadow Wing!”

There was nothing Kaden could say. He was shocked of the ridiculousness of the situation. What a cringey name. Worse than what Sidon gave him for the arena. What is with him and names? Should he annouce his name every time before he beats up someone so they don’t have to give him ridiculous names?? Nope! It would likely be even more ridiculous.

“Fuck off”, Kaden calmly said. “I don’t have time for you.”

The man protested slightly, but left by the time Kaden ignored him entirely and started to question the thug...brutally.

Kaden had not expected to find anything important, but this time he found out that there was now fortified place that the gansters had set up. It seemed they had had enough. He felt it was somewhat surprising that he had managed to cause such change all by himself. Then again, he had regularly beaten up and tortured whatever criminals he had found in these less secure areas. By this point, lot of their usual workforce was incapacitated or in jail. Ganster’s profits must have taken a noticeable hit.

If there had not been some profit for Kaden along the way, he might have changed his method for finding his bounties. It had taken far too long to find the actual targets and he had not got to kill anyone. He did get to devour some parts from the Channel Opening gangsters as he tortured them, but he did leave them alive. It wasn’t as fulfilling. The original idea had been to mix work and pleasure, but only thing he was getting done was work, as in get money.

Things were technically working out, but not the way Kaden wanted. Where was the killing? People were starting to think he was some kind of hero!

Still, rules were rules. He would get into trouble for breaking them. Perhaps he should look for a place where he could kill easily. The sewer was one, but he would have to drag people there unnoticed. He decided to put the matter aside.

“I may have to change how I do all this”, Kaden muttered as he left the twitching, bleeding thug in a nearby alley. Kaden wondered how many of these thugs he had killed by leaving them somewhere unseen with their wounds. It wasn’t as fulfilling as doing the deed himself.

Kaden decided he would keep doing as he was for the time being. He had managed to cause change! It might just be what he had been originally looking for and that was to attract right kind of attention. He would change his ways, if need be, but that was in the future.

The fortified Blood Hand hideout was a something that would require more thought. This was what Kaden noticed as he checked the place. He decided to return there later. There were still the materials he had acquired and he felt he would at least use them before returning stronger.

Once he was back at the arena in his little corner, he ate the advanced dire beast core he had bought. He had devoured quite a bit of mana over time and he had already been at mid stage dire beast when he had still lived in the forest. Kaden hoped this advanced core would cause his to progress. He knew it would take some time to see the results, though.

His human side had not progressed as much. Sure he had cultivated it along the way too, but it was far more inefficient. He had looked for better mana system at Stefinos’s temple, but he had found that they were expensive. Very expensive.

He assumed the mana system given to soldiers at Sacronan was still basic and one that was widely spread. Once he compared that to the ones being sold, the price started to quickly shoot up. If he wanted to buy anything that could be considered efficient, he would have to get relatively high grade one and those were expensive.

Kaden had investigated further and found that many higher grade mana systems were held by various organizations. Then again some mana systems could not even be sold. They would be modified and crafted for your personal use. These were the highest grade ones.

This was also one of the reasons why Kaden bought books about formations. He knew he would have to eventually craft his own mana system. He could not have anyone make him one. That would reveal his secrets.

Over the next few days Kaden managed to progress the formations on his gauntles to their completion. Kaden rejoiced! This was the first time he created an actually usable and complete formation on something. Its purpose was very simple! As he used the gauntlets, they absorbed some mana from his claws and stored it. Once he struck something, that stored mana would be released along with the strike increasing power. Kaden was extremely happy that his hard work and studies had finally paid off.

Another thing Kaden rejoiced about was that his core did indeed progress. An advanced dire beast core! That spark inside of his core had grown quite a bit and was like small ball instead of a spark and the core itself had grown in size. He felt it was at some kind of limit. The glowing ball of mana inside could not grow anymore and neither could the core. He assumed once that limit was broken, the core would likely evolve into a high beast core! Kaden was curious of the entire process.

He could not see much more than that, but it was enough. Kaden cursed again and remembered he would have to get inspection method too. While he could barely see with his own, it already lacked details and had been that way for quite a while.

Kaden cursed even harder once Sidon appeared.

“Hey, kid, do you know why so many people have started to appear and ask to to fight ‘Shadow Wing’? It took me a while to figure thats you. What the hell is Shadow Wing? No one even remembers the name I gave, Kaden the Beast. Everyone wants to fight Shadow Wing.”

Kaden felt the need to find out who came up with that name and strangle him!