Chapter 23

They woke up late the next day when the sun was high in the sky. After a hefty breakfast the trio decided to head back to North Yorkshire straightaway. They arranged with the bartender, who it turned out was also the outpost commander, to have the Black Shuck transported in a van to York. The van would drive along behind them.

Just before they set off, they went to a nearby shop and sold the marsh light they’d obtained the previous night. It went for a decent sum of fifty pounds at a quarter of a kilogram. However Jack and Nate couldn’t help but share a childish snigger when the shop appraiser complimented the marsh light’s thick white colour and apparent freshness. Stacey rolled her eyes at them but still hid a smile.

Without any further ado, they loaded the beast up and began the drive back North. They drove along the raised highway above the marsh, the mist had risen and gently blew shallow ripples just over the road surface. Faint sources of light were visible within the mist.

Just after they exited the marsh and a ramp took them onto the motorway Jack asked Stacey a question he’d been meaning to ask Cheryl but hadn’t got around to it.

“Hey, so Stacey?”

“Hm?” She turned to look at him.

“You know the erm…….incident I was involved in, with Cliffords Hill dungeon?” he asked hesitantly.

“Oh ho yeah, I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn't know about that.” She smirked at him.

“Yeah well, right at the end, just before Cheryl showed up and saved me, erm…there was this B ranker on Barry’s team, you remember him?”

She thought for a moment. “Hmm, oh, I think I know who you mean. Yeah, creepy guy, tall and thin, don’t know his name though. Erm, yeah come to think of it, why was a B ranker hanging around with Barry and his crew? They were all D’s and E’s weren’t they?”

“I overheard him say that Barry’s dad had hired him to protect Barry,” Jack told her.

“Oh, that makes sense, though he didn’t do a very good job did he?” She shook her head.

“No, but that was why Barry’s goonsquad was chasing me through the dungeon, the B ranker convinced the others that Eric Flamewrought would kill them all if they didn’t hand me over to him.”

“Oh, I’m sorry Jack.”

“It’s fine, but there was something I wanted to ask you.”

“Ok, shoot.” She looked at him expectantly.

“Right, well like I said, right at the end it was just me and the B ranker left, but he had me and just before Cheryl showed up he used some sort of power and…..I think he was manipulating my blood with the water element. Is that…is that possible? Is that what he was doing?” he asked.

Stacey's face went cold and stoney. “He actually did that? That fucker!”

“So I’m right then? I’d never have thought of using the water element to control the water in somebody else’s body, that's really creepy.” Jack shivered.

“Yes, it's possible, but it's not especially useful in direct combat. You can only really use it on something or someone that's significantly magically weaker than yourself and only when you’re touching them,” Stacey said bitterly. “So if that's the case then you might as well fight with normal water techniques.”

“Really? It seemed pretty effective on me, it felt like my veins were on fire and freezing cold at the same time.” He winced at the memory.

“That's because that guy was a B ranker, he’d been fighting and cultivating a lot longer than you Jack. He would’ve been easily able to overpower you. Let me guess, he had his hand on you and the area he was touching hurt first before the pain spread outwards? It felt like your veins were about to burst and then everything went searing hot and freezing cold at the same time?” she asked.

“Oh yeah.” He nodded.

She shook her head with a sour look on her face. “God, what an evil arsehole. Blood manipulation is a relatively new discovery amongst water cultivators and it's kind of a taboo subject, actually it's a little like lightning cultivation from humans I suppose. We know it's possible but it shouldn’t really be done normally, ya know? Like I said, blood manipulation in combat isn’t really any good unless you’re significantly stronger than your opponent, in which case you might as well fight normally. It's only use on an enemy that I can see is….you know….for torture.”

Jack sat back and silently thought about that for a few seconds.

“Although,” Stacey continued. “I have heard about blood manipulation techniques being tested in medicine, for surgery and stuff.”

“Oh really?” He looked at her in interest.

“Yeah, just think about it, a surgeon that can stop his patient from bleeding to death. What if the guild had combat medics that could do something like that? Now that's a good use for blood manipulation.”

“That does sound pretty good actually, maybe you could look into something like that,” he suggested.

“Hmm, maybe I will.” Stacey looked contemplative.

They made it back to York after a couple of hours without incident.

They’d been contacted by HQ and told to drive around the back to the warehouse section along with the van following them. They parked in the parking area and walked into the warehouse as the van backed up to one of the loading bays.

As they entered they were greeted by a modest crowd of hunters and guild personnel, amongst them was Cheryl, director Welts and Dr Joolton of all people.

“Ah ha! There they are, my three triumphant hunters back from their adventures I see!” Welts jokingly declared, Jack and co greeted him politely. “I was just chatting with Dr Joolton here, he was very pleased with the work you did for him with the Red Caps Jack, and now we understand you have something special for us.” He smiled before everyone turned to the rear doors of the van as they opened.

Several hunters stepped forward and dragged out the carcass of the Black Shuck. As it emerged, impressed muttering spread throughout the crowd and several low whistles in appreciation sounded. Dr Joolton looked beside himself with happiness.

“My word! This is simply marvellous! Isn’t it magnificent?” He stepped over to it and proceeded to examine the beast up close, Stacey then approached him and handed him the file about the Black Shuck they were given in Ely. Whilst he enthusiastically engaged Stacey in conversation, Welts turned to Jack.

“Nice work Jack, as always. Now that you’ve proven you can deliver, I hope I can count on your help with similar cases.”

“Sure.” Jack shrugged. “Just say when and where, as long as I’m given time for my own hunts.”

“Of course of course, so tell me, how was Cambridge? I’ve found that different branches often have a different culture and environment.”

Before Jack could answer Nate butted in. “Oh my god it was amazing! Their guild HQ is soooo much better than ours!” Nate exclaimed, gaining some attention from nearby hunters.

“Oh come now Nathaniel, I’m sure every branch HQ is just as good, I mean, look at how modern and convenient ours is. The underground training facilities are state of the art, you know!” Welts cheerfully told him.

In response Nate got out his pager and showed Welts various pictures he’d taken. “Oh yeah? Well take a look at these!”

Welts leaned down and looked through Nate’s pager as he swiped through.

“Oh? Oh my. Oh now that is stunning! Oh those balustrades do look rather elegant don’t they? Oh and they have statues too! How realistic! They’ve gone with a neo-gothic theme I see! Ah yes, I see your point.” Welts straightened up and looked thoughtful. “Now I understand why Erica is always offering to host the bi-annual directors conference, that place looks simply gorgeous doesn’t it? Very grand.” He grinned at everyone.

Meanwhile Nate was showing other hunters the pictures on his pager and now murmurings of discontent and outrage were spreading through the small crowd. Soon the director was swarmed by hunters and admin, all clamouring for change and making suggestions, demanding statues and more marble.

“Now now! Calm down everyone! I’m sure there's a little bit of money left over in the annual budget we can put towards interior decoration.” Welts put up his hands in placation.

“Decoration? How about redesign!” someone called out from the rear of the crowd.

“Ah ha yes, quite.” Welts began nervously backing off out of the warehouse, followed by a crowd of hunters and guild personnel all shouting out interior decoration advice.

Jack watched all this in bemusement, he began making for the exit to go home and rest before he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and saw Cheryl.

“Uh hey Cheryl,” he greeted her, not liking the smirk on her face.

“It's PR time Jack.” She continued smirking.

“What? Nooooo! Not again!” He tried to turn around and flee but Cheryl grabbed the back of his flak jacket and held on as she escorted him through the warehouse, all the way up to the PR department.

It was exactly as bad as he was expecting, the PR team gave him a long list of do’s and don’ts as well as giving him a list of questions and answers to memorise in preparation for the press release later that afternoon. He forgot most of it as soon as he was told.

The PR team relentlessly grilled and prepared him until the very last minute. When it was finally time he was taken to a large room on the ground floor where he sat next to director Welts, Cheryl and several other high ranking guild members including Russel. They sat along a back wall on a slightly raised stage facing a group of twenty or so chairs arranged in a block.

After a little while of waiting a group of men and women carrying microphones began filing in and sitting in the chairs, the reporters. Various other men and women carrying cameras and sound equipment set up behind the block of chairs.

After it looked like most of the seats were filled, Welts got up to the podium and addressed the room.

“Welcome everyone,” he said with a friendly smile. “Thank you all for coming, I hope you’re all enjoying the holidays so far.” He beamed at the room, everyone simply stared at him, someone coughed at the back.

“Now then! As you all know, recently we all learned that what we all thought was impossible, is now possible. A method for lightning cultivation has finally been discovered and the discoverer is none other than our very own Jack Errant, a hunter here in North Yorkshire. Now this is only a brief press you’ll understand in order to answer a few questions the public has regarding our young friend here. So without any further ado, I give you Jack Errant.” Welts turned to look back at Jack who was still seated, he beckoned Jack to join him at the podium with a smile.

Jack sighed internally, wanting to be anywhere but here, he got up and stiffly made his way over. He looked out over the small sea of faces watching him and gripped the edges of the podium, his stomach was doing backflips. Why was it that he felt more nervous doing this than trekking into a monster infested marsh at night, or walking into a pitch black haunted forest.

“Now then, does anyone have any questions for young Jack here?” Welts smiled out at the crowd.

The room instantly became alive as everyone competed to get noticed, clamouring and firing off different questions.

Jack sighed inwardly again before pointing out a woman near the front, Welts saw him point.

“Ah yes, Margaret. What was your question?” Welts said.

The reporter whom Jack had pointed out, stood up. “How did you first discover lightning cultivation?” she asked, this was one of the scripted questions he’d been promised.

“Erm…I’d er…made up my mind to join the guild before I discovered how to cultivate, but um….I wanted to get my feet wet and try to fight a monster. So I went to the city centre park and found the erm…did they call it a Jaw Gnasher? Anyway I killed that and tried to attune it….just to see if I would be able to harvest things from any monsters I slew. Then it turned out I could absorb lightning essence from it. And that was that really.” He looked out at the reporters and shrugged.

“So the slaying of the Jaw Gnasher was actually you then?” Margaret asked, to which Jack nodded. “Then why didn’t you or the guild announce it at the time?”

Before Jack could answer, Welts stepped in.

“Er yes, the Jaw Gnasher business was a part of what we wanted to keep wrapped up until we’d run some tests on the monster,” Welts hurriedly put in, he gave the Margaret a subtle but firm look, clearly she’d slipped in a cheeky unscripted question just then.

“So why exactly did you keep all this a secret until now?” another reporter spoke up.

“Well, we wanted to give young Jack here some time to get used to being a hunter before he was outed to the rest of the world. Being a monster hunter can be a rather stressful life can’t it eh Jack?” Welts grinned at Jack, who awkwardly smiled back and nodded.

“What do you think of the moniker, ‘Hungry Jack’?” another reporter piped up.

“Don’t like it, next question please.”

And from there it went, they asked him various scripted questions about his life as a hunter so far, how he was finding it, a little bit about what he’d discovered about the lightning element and its cultivation and about Gary the smith as his weapons and armour provider. He answered it all without too much trouble, glad no one was asking anything too difficult. That was until someone decided to ask something he was pretty sure was an unscripted question.

“Did you kill Barry Arneson and his team in Clifford’s Hill dungeon Jack?” The room went silent, waiting with bated breath for his answer. He sort of knew someone was going to ask him that and he’d been mentally preparing himself for it.

Before Welts could answer for him, Jack spoke up. “What happened down in that dungeon was regrettable, but I didn’t do anything wrong, I simply survived. Everyone is free to speculate as much as they’d like on the subject and I’m sure they will. If anyone wants to judge me for what they think did or didn’t happen then I cordially invite them all to go fu - gah?!” he was interrupted by Welts patting his back rather hard in what Welts probably meant to seem like a friendly gesture.

“Yes! What happened to Barry and his team was regrettable, but the life of a hunter is a dangerous one. I hope you will all keep Barry Arneson and his teammates in your thoughts and prayers. Now! Let's have the next question shall we?” Welts looked at the crowd of journalists with a strained smile.

As if the floodgates on unscripted controversial questions had been opened, somebody else asked, “If you can cultivate from living matter, is it then true you could cultivate using live humans as an elemental source of essence? And do you?” Welts looked poised to step in again but Jack answered anyway.

“I presume it's true I could cultivate from live humans, could being the operative word here. But I don’t, I cultivate using my kills from monsters and mutated animal hunts, and that's all. You’ll just have to trust me on that.” He tried to give everyone the most reassuring smile he possibly could, but judging from the way Welts winced and the way the room lit up with dozens of camera flashes, he probably hadn’t managed to pull it off.

“Right! Well that's all the time we have for now. Thank you all for coming and I hope you all have a merry Christmas. Bye for now.” Welts smiled and waved as he put a hand on Jack's shoulder and guided him out of the conference room at the back.

When they were out he faced Welts and Cheryl.

“Well Jack, as far as introductions and press releases go, that wasn’t a bad effort. I’m not too certain about those last two questions but I’m sure the PR team will fill me in on how they think that went,” Welts smiled and told him as he patted him on the shoulder, not too hard this time.

“Uh huh, I won’t have to do anything like that again will I?” Jack asked in concern, he’d noticed that as Welts had been pulling him away, when he’d removed his hands from the podium, the wood on the podium was cracked and splintered, he’d found the entire ordeal that nerve wracking. Give him a bloodthirsty monster to hunt any day.

“Ah, not unless you were to do something of particular note, like say….slaying a titan or saving a city from complete destruction, that sort of thing. You know Jack, when I was made aware of your capabilities I immediately consulted the PR team on how to best manage your and by extension the guild’s image with relation to the public. They told me a short but sweet press release to introduce you to the world in a controlled setting would be best. You have to understand Jack…..the guild will almost always be at the centre of some sort of controversy, the nature of the work we do affects people's lives, we deal in life and death, quite literally. And so we quite often have people calling for sanctions on us or a curtailing of our powers and authority, so you have to understand that managing our image in the public eye is a necessary evil. We have to do our utmost in order to make sure you and the rest of the hunters of the guild don’t become vilified as homicidal psychopaths looking for excitement, but instead are celebrated as heroes of a higher calling, seeking to protect people from harm.” Jack listened attentively, it made sense he supposed and then felt marginally guilty for every uncharitable thought he’d ever had about the PR department. Almost every thought anyway.

A few days of rest later found Jack looking at his pager, swiping through it, wondering when he was going to find the end of the ‘to do list’ he’d been given. He’d been given a long series of hunts and harvest jobs by Gary the smith, Steven the taxidermist and director Welts. This was gonna take him a while.

And so over the course of three months Jack found himself travelling all over York and North Yorkshire in order to kill and or gather what he’d been asked. Throughout it all he was doggedly followed by random journalists and paparazzi. He did his best to try and ignore them most of the time, though there was the odd occasion where he lost his temper and told his unwanted tagalongs to ‘f*ck off please’ whenever they got in the way.

In any case, he had his work cut out for him, he decided to take a crack at some of Gary’s jobs first.

Gary seemed to be most interested in the different metals and minerals that had appeared in the last two years. Many of the metals and minerals weren't found in the ground however, instead they seemed to be in all manner of strange places.

For a metal known as Onyx Bark, he had to climb up a tree and chisel growths of the stuff from between the uppermost branches. Gary paid him by the kilogram. Another metal was known as Steel Coral, it unfortunately grew underwater, and underwater in Britain in the middle of winter was not where you wanted to be.

It did however galvanise Jack into buying a combat wetsuit, similar to what he’d seen Nate wearing. It wouldn’t just keep him dry and warm, but it was also made of a tough material that made it decently resistant to damage and it would even soak up sweat in a way that made sure his scent wouldn’t carry and be smelled by monsters with sensitive senses of smell.

The metal itself was growing in the river Ouse, just underneath one of the main bridges in the middle of York. A fair gathering of people paused out of mild interest to watch him slip into the frigid water, though by now normal people had grown used to sights like these, just hunters going about their business.

He found the stuff easily enough once he dipped his head underwater, it looked like long stalks of coral, except they were more metallic grey, looking like a bizarre combination of artificial and organic. He pried out a few long stalks of the stuff but had to fend off several fish like monsters he’d angered in the process. Fortunately he’d found more and more that attacking a lightning cultivator whilst in water was a bad idea.

Eventually he emerged from the water with several pieces of Steel Coral that were about half as tall as he was, he’d also pulled out the fish monsters that had attacked him. After a quick consultation with his pager’s bestiary section he found they were known as Panda Piranhas, known for their black and white colouring, though there was nothing remotely cute and cuddly about them. They were actually valued for their scales so Jack thought he’d bring them to Gary as well.

After a long list of requests, his final hunt for Gary was to hunt a Glimmer Spider southeast of the city in an abandoned farm. Glimmer Spiders were a D rank monster, quite strong, extremely fast and about the size of a horse, they were known for spinning incredibly strong webbing that glittered in any light source. The glimmer or glitter effect was known to entrance prey, including humans, into walking directly into the webbing.

Jack had been tasked with hunting the beast down as well as harvesting as much of the webbing as possible, if he could also bring back the monster's abdomen and any other valuable components then that would be a bonus.

The spider had taken up residence in a dilapidated barn, the whole interior was strewn with glimmering webbing and Jack had to physically turn away to avoid looking at the stuff. He didn’t know why, but he found the stuff so entrancing, he just wanted to lay down in a big pile of the stuff, like it was a pile of cotton balls. How the hell was he supposed to take this stuff back to Gary?

He attempted to make the monster come out to him, he tried various ways including throwing junk into the barn and insulting its mother but nothing seemed to work. It was then that he tried running some lightning along one of the web strands, he heard a furious shriek from within the barn and the entire network of spider webs began to shake. He stepped well back and after a few moments a massive spider emerged from the barn, it was snowy white with jagged black lines covering its chitin carapace, its eight red eyes stared at him furiously.

Never one to waste time in a stare off with a monster, Jack immediately began pelting it with one quick bolt after another. The spider reeled and Jack dashed in, he thrust his spear directly into its face as he pressed the extension button. The spear sunk into its head but it didn’t die right away, it struggled and thrashed back and forth as it shrieked in pain. He held on and forced more and more lightning into the monster, eventually its struggles ended and it collapsed.

The actual hunt, it turned out, was the easy part. Jack spent the next several hours gathering as much webbing from the barn as possible. Strangely enough, now that the monster was dead, the strange enrapturing effect of the glittering webs was gone. In the end he managed to fill up the entire back seat of his car and the boot before taking it to Gary's workshop, he then went back and forth for several more loads.

By the time he was done, Gary’s workshop was nearly filled up completely by spider webbing. Gary seemed happy nonetheless.

Jack was also kept very busy by a seemingly never ending list of hunts provided to him by Welts and by extension, the guild. They started him off with relatively easy Es and Fs, hunting and recovering goblin corpses mainly, for which Jack was glad of, the bloody things were a menace. He definitely understood and shared other hunter’s hatred for them.

It got progressively harder from there, for the D ranking hunts he accompanied teams in taking down a grocery list of monsters from a nearby former nature reserve called Askham Bog, right at the very edge of the city. He and another team of hunters spent a miserable couple of weeks trudging through the mud where previously there had been well maintained walkways and pleasant pathways through the woodland. Instead it was now thoroughly overgrown with thick shrubbery and trees, covered in knee deep mud and not a dry path in sight. From there they obtained a variety of monsters that preferred the mud and water, as well as something that looked like a stick insect, except it was much much larger. It had first been discovered in North Yorkshire and Charlie, the quirky guy that had inducted Jack into the guild, had imaginatively dubbed it the Branch insect.

The C rank hunts were fewer and far between, he was given over to a team of D and C ranking hunters led by a dour C ranker called Arthur for them. For one particularly difficult hunt he and the team had to kill a swarm of fairies. Actual fairies, or at least what had been called a fairy. That request came from both the guild and Dr Joolton, who was now enjoying some notoriety and better funding for his work.

Normally when one thinks of Fairies, they think of miniature benevolent people with wings, flitting around, maybe being a little cheeky at times. The creatures that had been given the label of Fairy were most decidedly not benevolent. Their smiles could perhaps be considered cheeky, but it was hard to tell if they were actually smiling or if their mouths were just like that because of all the razor sharp teeth.

The creatures were about six inches tall, with greyish pink skin and humanoid in only the vaguest sense. They had a set of six small leathery wings on their backs which fluttered rapidly, letting them achieve flight. They had comparatively large blood red pupiless eyes, but taking up the majority of their faces were large lipless mouths, always showing off an impressive full set of needle like teeth.

One Fairy by itself is relatively weak and not very durable, so a single Fairy could be considered F rank at best. However, they’re never alone.

The swarm of fairies had been spotted in a nearby abandoned village, no other monster or creature was in the village because the fairies had killed and eaten everything. Apparently the surveyor corps of the guild had also been pushing for the hunt, they were afraid that now the creatures had exhausted their current area of food, they’d move on to find a new hunting ground. And the village was very near the city of York. No one wanted a repeat of what happened on the Austrian Hungarian border where nearly an entire town in Austria was devoured by a massive swarm. The Austrians accused the Hungarians of not dealing with the swarm and letting it get too large before it swept over the border into their country.

To call the hunt a complete disaster might be considered unfair, they completed every objective and no one was killed or permanently injured. The team leader Arthur and another hunter of the team pulled off a very impressive flame and wind combination attack to incinerate much of the swarm and another hunter proved to be very accurate and deadly with a submachine gun. They also got several intact fairy corpses to go home with.

However, to go along with their monstrous teeth, fairy bites have a rather vicious venom that causes a horrifying form of paralysis. When bitten, the muscles of the victim contract and tighten so hard that they dislocate and break bones and snap tendons before the muscles then tear themselves apart. This renders the prey helpless but alive, just the way a fairy swarm likes it.

Once he’d been briefed on their capabilities and he first saw the fairy swarm gleefully zipping towards him, Jack immediately ran the strongest current of electricity he could through his body, and thoroughly abused his time dilation ability. He was able to swat the fairies from the sky with his gauntleted hands, he didn’t get bitten but the headache he suffered put him out of commission for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, half the members of the team Jack was accompanying were bitten, they were alive when they went to the hospital, but it would be some time before they were back on their feet.

As for the B ranks, it seemed the guild was only willing to risk sending Jack out on a single B rank hunt, and he could see why. He definitely wasn’t ready to take one himself, which only made his professional jealousy of Meredith Shriverston all the worse.

The thing that distinguishes B and A ranked hunts from lower ranked hunts, apart from their extreme danger and difficulty, is that they are relatively rare. High powered monsters of the uppermost ranks are not as common as the weaker monsters that regularly stalk the wilderness and abandoned places of the world, if they were then things would be far more dire.

As more and more monsters are being discovered, more and more is being learnt about them. Currently, countless people around the world in different organisations are studying what information monster hunters and surveyors obtain. They collate the data and churn out works in progress like the UK hunters guild bestiary or the published partial anatomies of common monsters, or the best selling book ‘Helpful when Harvesting’.

The beast that Jack and a team of several B ranked hunters led by Russel, newly promoted to A rank, were to hunt was known simply as a golem. The funny thing about golems, is that they don’t start as B or A ranked threats, they actually start out much lower. But as they age, they grow.

Golems have been tentatively placed in the ‘elemental monsters’ category by these same researchers. The element golems belong to is the earth element. No one knows how or where they first form but they typically start out as a man sized, randomly shaped formation of animated soil and stone. As they age they get bigger and more dangerous, more importantly however, their composition changes. Depending on their location, they can develop valuable magical metals and minerals, the older they get, the bigger they get, the more goodies one might find inside. Similar to a Wire beast.

It was a little known fact that the guild usually left golems alone and let them grow, the surveyor corps would keep tabs on them and make sure they stayed in the wilderness or at least away from people. Once the golem had gotten to around B rank, a team of hunters would be dispatched to hunt and harvest them. That practice seemed to Jack like it was skirting the line between mercenary work and outright profiteering, but what did he know?

Even though Jack’s ability to attune entire monster corpses and keep them from disintegrating was thought to be only useful on flesh and blood creatures, the guild still wanted him to try it out on this monster made of rock. They wanted to be able to study an elemental creature and figure out just how and why it moved or even existed at all.

Ironically, the B ranked hunt against the almost unstoppable five tonne juggernaut made of concrete and asphalt went much better than the C ranked hunt against a bunch of fairies. Once again Russel proved his mettle and let everyone know just why he was an elite hunter.

Jack was told to stay well back as Russel and his team proceeded to take the beast apart, quite literally. As evidenced by all the wreckage resulting from the monster's attacks, it was strong, but it was also slow. The high ranked hunters were able to run rings around it and gradually wear it down before Russel struck the final blow by throwing a basketball sized, sharpened piece of jagged steel at the golem. The piece of metal flew so fast they never saw where it landed but it took half the beast's head with it.

After it had been confirmed dead, Jack managed to successfully attune it, much to his surprise. The golem was humanoid-ish in shape and several metres tall. After all the damage done to it during the fight, much of its dark rocky exterior was damaged, but shining through all the rents and cracks was some sort of luminous green crystalline growth. No one knew what it was.

When the beast was finally brought back to the guild, director Welts and several guild researchers were beside themselves with happiness.

Jack also had another list of hunts to complete, given to him by Steven the taxidermist. In fact Jack’s capabilities in attuning and recovering entire monster corpses had become well known far and wide, as a result Steven became inundated with requests for all manner of products.

He discussed it with Jack and abashedly showed him the massive list of requests of which Jack outright rejected ninety nine percent. They wanted him to hunt all sorts of creatures, go to all sorts of unpleasant places and Jack was beginning to wonder about the nature of some of Steven’s clients, judging by certain pieces of anatomy they wanted him to collect.

In the end Jack agreed to three D ranked hunts to start off with, he first hunted a Harpy Mantis in a forest bordering a farm west of the city. A Harpy Mantis is a large two metre tall insectoid type monster with razor sharp scythes attached to its arms similar to a Praying Mantis, but it's chitinous exoskeleton looks like a thick covering of feathers or chitin scales.

Jack was able to take it down without issue, it was incredibly fast but more and more he found that he could simply block a monster's attacks while running lightning through his body and weapons. That alone seemed to damage most assailants and cause them to slowly lose control of their bodies, his opponent would get slower and less coordinated and he could strike them down at his leisure.

He was also tasked with taking down a Quiet Shrike, this is a large bird monster that specialises in ambushes. Similar to an owl, it is able to fly completely soundlessly. He had more trouble with this hunt as the creature was able to successfully ambush him multiple times. One moment Jack was walking across a deserted moorland at dusk, the next he felt a strong impact on his helmet wrenching his head to the side causing him to stagger to his knees. He looked around and couldn’t see anything. This happened several times but each time his armour proved its worth, though the bird's talons did give him a couple of nasty gashes on his upper arms.

After the third successful ambush and still not being able to catch sight of his prey/hunter, Jack gave up and simply channelled as much lighting through his body as possible and just held it there. He had to wait for several minutes and just as the strain of channelling so much electricity was getting too much he felt something smash into his back before hearing a high pitched squealing squark.

Jack pitched forward, tumbling upside down, but when he staggered upright and turned around he saw a giant bird flailing about on the ground, squawking and screeching in pain, spasming with faint trails of blue electricity running over its body. It was flailing around with its long talons and randomly flapping its giant wings too much for Jack to want to get close. Before it recovered he sent in quick bolt after quick bolt, spamming the ability, gradually wearing it down, turning its struggles into weak twitches. After the seventh bolt the giant bird eventually died.

His third hunt was one of the ones he was less sure of, he didn’t know who wanted a stuffed Crimson Ghast or why, but they were willing to pay a large sum for it, so why not? Still, the thing was hideous.

He found it in an alleyway near the city centre, there had been reports of something lurking nearby and the surveyor corp had narrowed down the location with their use of a new city wide network of surveillance cameras.

A Crimson Ghast by itself is an E rank threat, but sometimes they come in groups, at which point the rank goes up depending on the number. They were named Ghast on account of the fact that they looked like monstrous, mutated, reanimated corpses, humanoid in shape but with long razor claws, noseless faces and short sharp fangs. Their skin was a deep red in colour and they had a nasty habit of spraying a scalding hot red vapour directly into their prey’s faces which had a painful caustic effect. Depending on their prey and whether they were in a group, sometimes they actively hunted, sometimes they ambushed and other times they scavenged.

When Jack got to the right alley, he checked his pager. For this particular hunt he’d been linked into the city wide surveillance camera network. His pager showed an image of a dank, dirty, rubbish strewn alleyway, a set of large bins were set against a brick wall with a pile of refuse next to them. Crouching down amongst the refuse, was a slim, red figure, it looked like this one was an ambusher.

Jack contemplated what to do, Crimson Ghasts were relatively strong and fast, or at least more so than the average human, so he couldn’t just tap it a few times with a bit of lightning and watch it collapse. But he also couldn’t just go to town on it with his axe, he needed it intact for Steven’s creepy client.

The decision of what to do became moot when a couple of young women turned into the alley and began wandering down it from the other end.

“Oh shit!” Jack cried as he began sprinting down the alley.

“Oh shit!” cried one of the women as the two metre tall Crimson monster jumped out at her and her friend, its claws extended.

Jack reached them just in time, he hadn’t had time to draw his weapons before he started running so he elected to give the monster the flat of his boot while he was still running at full speed.

The monster squawked in surprise and pain as it tumbled several metres down the alley, Jack turned to the two women, gaping at him.

“You should probably run now,” he told them. They didn’t need telling twice as they both scrambled to rush away, one of them was screaming.

He turned to the Ghast and didn’t allow it to recover, as it scrambled to get up he sent a lightning charged fist straight into its chest. It coughed, wheezed and spasmed on the ground, since this wasn’t a turn based battle he hit it again and again until it lay still on the floor. He stabbed it between the ribs and sent a pulse of electricity in, just to be safe.

And that was that. He looked down at the slain Crimson Ghast in satisfaction at a job well done and then towards the other end of the alley where the two young women had fled. It was a shame, they’d been kinda good looking, damsels in distress for certain, weren’t damsels in distress supposed to be grateful and thank the hero for saving them? That was probably just in films and old books.

Well whatever, he’d just saved a couple of people, he turned to the nearby surveillance camera a few metres up on the wall.

“Hey! I just saved my first damsels in distress!” He waved cheerfully.

Then the camera turned to focus on him and then went up and down a couple of times, as if nodding. His pager buzzed briefly and he saw someone had sent him a thumbs up emoji.

Throughout every single hunt he completed, Jack made sure to cultivate from every single monster and mutated animal he slew. He found himself getting stronger and stronger, his skills with his axe, spear and unarmed fighting were becoming formidable.

Also throughout every single hunt he completed he was dogged by reporters and cameras, though for the most part he avoided speaking to them too much.

In his mind's eye, his core had grown from a small blue white marble to something more the size of a tennis ball, arcs of electricity periodically rippled off it. His control over his element was increasing in leaps and bounds, he could churn out his ranged attacks with greater frequency without feeling any ill effects.

His time dilation ability had also gotten easier to use and the resulting headaches had lessened too. He’d once gone to the guild’s clinic to consult the doctor there about his headaches, after a scan he’d been told that there was no damage present, but that the blood vessels and nerves in his brain simply showed signs of previous stress from the headaches. Although he did say that the neurons and glial cells in his brain and other parts of his central nervous system showed unusually high levels of thickness and elasticity, apparently that was a good thing. With Jack’s consent the physician sent the results over to the researchers in the laboratory section of the HQ.

He then spent the next several days dodging researchers in white lab coats, all wanting further tests and samples from uncomfortable places. He didn’t fancy providing anyone with brain tissue, no matter how many promises they made about probable survival and eventual recovery. He also made sure to hide whenever the guy who kept suggesting exploratory surgery was around.