Chapter 5

Half an hour later Jack was back in his small flat still in a state of wonderment, he’d actually done it! Not only did he kill that monster just as he’d set out to but even came up with a method of lightning cultivation. He wasn’t quite certain how though, it was strange that the other four elements could successfully harness energy directly from things like fire pits, running water and flowing air but lightning elements couldn’t do anything of the sort. From the few records available online Jack knew about a lot of failures in lightning cultivation, people had tried various methods including sticking wet hands over plug sockets, attempting to draw energy from small charged devices like Jack did or generating static electricity and then drawing it in. There was even a video of one lunatic going outside during a thunderstorm, it ended with him getting disintegrated, the video immediately went viral.

Now though, Jack seemed to be on to something, he considered logging into a chat and sharing what he learned but he was hesitant. This wasn’t the same as telling someone the best way for a water cultivator to start learning was to sit next to a babbling brook and find inner peace, instead this was telling someone to go out there and murder something and then feel up its corpse. No, he decided it was best to keep this to himself for now, at least until he knew more. He did a little research and found the best explanation so far might have something to do with the fact that living creatures, humans, animals and monsters it seemed, all contained electrical currents in the form of charged ions like sodium and potassium and that living cells could conduct that electrical energy.

If this was true then it wasn’t just the monsters he hunted down that he could cultivate from but maybe even other humans or animals. Although he didn’t know the effects of what would happen to any living being he cultivated from. It seemed further experimentation was in order. But now though, he was feeling somewhat drained once the adrenaline had worn off, it was still relatively early and a friday but he just wanted to go to bed.

A good solid ten hours later Jack woke up, the first thoughts running through his head were of last night's events, he grinned to himself and a bubbling of excitement rose through him as he thought about the future. There was nothing stopping him from becoming a hunter now! He got up and dressed quickly, as he did so he noticed a strange detail, or a lack of detail. In fact, the splashes of blood from the monster that had got on his clothes last night had somehow faded away. Odd he thought, he picked up his machete when he remembered he hadn’t cleaned the blade, he drew it from its sheath and instead of sticking it came out easily and the blade itself looked perfectly clean. Really odd he thought, but then he remembered that monster corpses faded away after death, that probably went for the blood too, how convenient, cleaning blood or other miscellaneous liquid soaked clothes and armour after every hunt would have been a chore.

He switched on the television and opened the fridge to scrounge some food for breakfast, the tv came on just as the news started. The current story was in fact centred around York and a certain park. It showed a female reporter with a microphone standing in front of the copse of trees that Jack had done battle in the previous night along with police attempting to keep back a crowd of curious onlookers. Also, behind the police cordon were several non-uniformed but well armoured individuals gathered around something.

“I’m standing here this morning in a park in the city of York to report a most curious and disturbing phenomenon, a previously unknown species of monster has been discovered right here behind me”. The group of armoured individuals parted and the camera shifted to focus on the corpse of the lizard like monster Jack had slain last night, it was still intact apart from a few wounds and definitely still unfaded.

“The creature was discovered dead early this morning by a jogger who then reported it to the police, that was three hours ago. By now we all know that monsters and monster attacks are fast becoming a reality in this day and age but what has not been seen before is a fully intact monster corpse hours after it has been slain. It’s been estimated that the time of death for this creature is between eight to ten hours ago”. The camera shifted again to the armoured group as they laid a sheet over the monster covering it before lifting and putting it in the back of a white van which drove off.

The reporter began speaking again. “The most curious thing about this story however is the fact that the monster hasn’t faded yet, normally it takes up to two hours before a slain monster has fully decomposed and faded away but this creature appears to remain. Authorities appear baffled as to the reason and have so far declined to comment”. The shot shifted once more to the group of armoured individuals who had huddled together again and appeared to be conversing seriously, there were a lot of crossed arms, furrowed brows, shaking of heads and shrugging shoulders, one man was gesticulating wildly and then poked another man in the chest, that man swatted the finger away and tried to shove the other man away. He dodged back laughing but stumbled into a woman next to him who then violently shoved him into the man whom he’d poked, the two went down flailing at each other before the fight was broken up and they were dragged apart. Another one of the armoured men noticed they were being filmed and ushered his group away from the scene.

The camera panned back to the reporter who looked rather bemused at the scene. “Uh right, well this is the city of York, city centre park reporting for the Saturday morning news channel six.”

The news then showed more detailed background information on why monsters had always decomposed rapidly and faded away before, they brought on various ‘experts’ through video calls who gave their 2 cents on why this was such a strange phenomenon and how hunters and other groups have been trying to attain full monster corpses for months without success. The anchor then showed various interviews with emotional onlookers, it was at this point that Jack changed the channel to some random cartoon. He turned to the side frowning and scratched a bit of stubble that was just starting to grow on the side of his face.

“Oops, what did I do?”

For some reason that monster Jack had killed last night hadn’t faded, it must’ve had something to do with Jack having used it as cultivation material. That could be an issue he considered, he didn’t really want to be leaving a trail of monster corpses behind him. His general aim in becoming a hunter at the start was to be discrete, he didn’t really desire any attention for a variety of reasons, just a few low level hunts to get started, earn some money, get some experience and get stronger with each monster kill. Although he did think it strange that no one including the hunters had ever managed to get ahold of a full monster corpse before, surely it was just a matter channelling your elemental essence into the whole of the monster like Jack had done?

Well, nevermind, he’d address that issue when he came to it again, for now though it was saturday and he didn’t have work. Today he could finally apply to join the local hunter’s guild, he finished his breakfast and put on his shoes, he grabbed his machete and left his apartment. Jack lived in an old large house converted into small flats towards the edge of the city of York where there were plenty of residential areas, smaller shops and parks, he didn’t have a car and simply walked everywhere or relied on the bus or taxis to get where he needed to go, York wasn’t a massive city like London or Manchester. It was a relatively pleasant day today, it was bright outside, not too cold and dry so he decided to walk into town.

About half an hour later he arrived at his destination, the Hunter’s guild headquarters for the city of York, it also served as headquarters for the entirety of North Yorkshire. It was a large building ten stories high that was assigned to the fledgling civilian organisation four months ago as a part of one of the UK government’s initiatives for public safety. Why pay for an increased armed forces service when you can just give some old disused buildings to local militias and let them deal with local problems. No one however anticipated the successes the UK hunters would rack up, they took on lots of jobs including routine pest control, hunting down genuine threats, providing many types of materials to different industries and research into the variety of magical phenomena that had cropped up, it was even rumoured the military were considering hiring hunters to serve as auxiliary troops and instructors. The hunters were a definite success both in performing their assigned role and financially.

Jack had never seen the headquarters before, the front of the building on the ground floor seemed entirely glass which was preceded by a small courtyard with a fountain surrounded by stone benches. It was surrounded by a brick wall that cut it off from the outside world with the only opening being a large iron gate. He walked through the courtyard up to the main entrance and through a revolving door, when he got inside he looked around, it appeared to be a fairly modern looking interior with a large atrium with several people walking through it or up some staircases to higher floors, there were benches arranged along the walls and a large front desk with two women sitting at it. Up on the far wall a large screen was hanging displaying what looked to be a list of names. Jack turned to the front desk and walked up to it.

“Hi, I'm here to apply to be a hunter,” Jack said smiling at one of the women.

“Please take this form, fill it out then hand it back when you're done.” One of them said as she handed Jack a form.

“Ah right, ok then, back in a bit”, he took the form and went over to one of the benches, he sat down next to one of the side tables which had collections of pens and looked at the form. It looked to be a standard questionnaire, it asked after personal details such as name, date of birth and current address but also other questions such as elemental affinity, previous combat experience, criminal history, medical disabilities, motivations for becoming a hunter. Hmm, this was getting more complicated than he thought, motivations for becoming a hunter? What to say, if he put something like he just wanted to protect people it’d sound corny, if he put that he wanted to kill things he’d sound like a maniac. He didn’t really know what to say, in truth when he thought about it, it was probably a mixture of reasons but without any sole overriding motivation. The space for an answer was rather small so he just wrote “Don’t know yet” and signed his name at the bottom of the sheet. He got up and handed the form back to the receptionist.

“Thank you, please take a seat in the waiting area and when we’re ready someone will come get you.” She took the form and placed it on what looked to be a photocopier machine. Jack turned around and sat back down in his seat from earlier. After five or so minutes someone opened a door next to the front desk and called out.

“Jack! Jack? Can you follow me please?” A man called out and waited for Jack to get to his feet and follow him, he seemed to be dressed rather casually in jeans, trainers and a blue shirt. Jack followed him through the door along a plain corridor to what looked like a doctor’s waiting area with magazines on low tables and comfortable padded chairs. They entered an office with large glass windows and sat down at what was apparently the man's desk.

“So Jack, can I call you Jack? I’m Charlie and I’m responsible for all new applications, although it's not really an application at this point.” He said with a smile.

“Huh? What do you mean? Did I fail?” Jack asked, his stomach dropping.

“Ah no no no, I mean we pretty much let anybody and everybody through the door, trust me we are not very picky at all, we need all the warm bodies we can get!” Charlie said with a laugh as he leaned back in his chair. “Although we do try not to hand out licences to members of known criminal organisations, yeah we learned not to do that the hard way!”

“Ah! ha ha good, that's good, for a second there I thought er ha ha ....”

“Oh don’t worry about it, relax, the form you filled out is just to let us know what details to put in our system and on your licence, you're in if you want it. Although I did notice you put down lightning at your element, I wasn’t expecting that, we haven’t had one of those in a while and it’s only been two of you so far so far, well three now. Can I ask, are you absolutely certain about this? I mean, it’s an extremely dangerous job, some of the stories I’ve heard, gruesome, terrifying!” He said with a grin.

“Er yeah I’m sure, can I ask though, why aren’t you more, well, discerning with applicants? Not that I’m complaining, but if it’s such a dangerous job then why don’t you only take like, the best of the best?” Jack asked, now feeling a little conflicted.

“Ha! Great! Like I said before, we need all the warm bodies we can get and apart from the surge of new recruits when we were first open for business over a year ago there's only been a small trickle of people coming in.” He shrugged with a smile. “The number of active hunters is difficult to maintain, people get injured or dead, or they just leave because they found the work not to their liking, something to do with the mental trauma of being in so many fights for their lives.” He seemed sort of cheerfully indifferent to it. “But despite the work being voluntary for the most part, we do still have quotas to fill if our arrangement with the government and various organisations is to continue hence we take whoever we can get! And hopefully they survive and get better at hunting, we also offer plenty of training if you want it and lots of other amenities, now smile!” He held up a camera he got out of a drawer and gave it a click before Jack was prepared. He smiled at Jack and fed what looked like Jack's form into a fax machine, he typed away for a few seconds on his computer and another machine whirred away for a few seconds before a small plastic card was ejected. Charlie picked up the card and examined it for a few seconds, he nodded and handed it to Jack.

“Here you are, this is your hunter’s licence, it's a valid form of identification everywhere in the UK and will get you past police cordons, it can be used to get discounts on all sorts of things including weapons, armour and medical supplies and as a free pass on all public transport in the UK.” He handed the card to Jack who took it and looked at it. It showed a photo of his face that seemed to be halfway to a smile, more of a grimace really with his eyes half closed. “So, you got any questions before we continue?”

“Uh yeah, do we get access to firearms like the military and police? Just wondering, I never really see hunters with anything but swords or axes or other things.”

“Ah, yeah they do but most don’t really bother, or if they do it's usually just a pistol as a backup, it’s due to a bunch of reasons really but primarily most monsters and mutated animals are fast and like to get in your face straight away so in a situation like that you’d probably rather have a sword than a pistol. Also in places like America where they really love their guns the price for ammunition has skyrocketed so a lot of hunters just find the expense not worth it. Plus some monsters can’t even be affected physically, you need elemental powers to sort them out and most handheld guns just don’t compare to a big old fireball in the face ya know?”

“Huh, well ok, that makes sense, though I might get something as backup.”

“Good choice, although I do hear the odd rumour that guns, or at least projectile weapons may be making a comeback somehow. Dunno how though, when the army was first deployed their standard issue rifles were useless for everything but the smaller monsters, towards the end their rifle platoons just started throwing grenades and using .50 cal machine guns for everything bigger than a Dire wolf. Well, anyway, is there anything else?” Charlie asked.

Jack shook his head. Charlie continued.

“Well then, we’ve just got a few forms for you to sign. The standard stuff you know, none disclosures, agreements to payments and painwaivers, standard stuff.” He said with a grin while sliding a small stack of documents forward.

Jack took the documents and sifted through them, was he supposed to read these thoroughly or just sign them Jack wondered. He glanced at a relaxed looking Charlie who leaned back in his seat. Jack sighed quietly before skimming the documents and making certain he wasn’t signing up to be experimented on or giving away his human rights or something. Once he was relatively sure there was nothing nefarious in the contracts he was signing he put his name to paper. If there was something he missed in the fine print and these guys decided to come after him for some reason in the future, well, Jack would burn that bridge when he came to it.

Once he’d signed everything he slid the documents back to Charlie who took them back and leafed through them.

“Ok, your all set, you can see on the card there that your rank is G, that's the lowest rank and it’s where all newbies start at, once you’ve performed a minimum number of hunts or jobs of a certain rank you can apply for a promotion where a more experienced hunter will accompany you on a job and will assess you. I am required to inform you that you do still need to perform a certain number of hunts or jobs depending on your rank per month or you’ll get demoted a rank, if you’re at rank G though you’ve got 2 months to get into the swing of things before you're expected to perform. The only ones exempt from this are hunters on medical leave.”

“Ok, what happens if I don’t perform?”

“We take your licence and you're not allowed to re-apply, we got lots of people trying to free load in the past when this all first started, having that licence gives people a lot of privileges.” He said grimly. “Anyway! If you’ll follow me I'll take you to the jobs room where you’ll be given a bit of an orientation on how this all works! I think it's Cheryl on today. I like Cheryl, she's nice!” Charlie got up and held the office door open for Jack, they walked out of the office together and Jack followed Charlie back down the corridor into the atrium. They turned left and walked across the atrium towards a double set of doors labelled Jobs and Hunt requests.