Alex continue to walk along the edge of the ravine. Along the way he saw many weird plants ,there were some plants that would give off light in the dark, he also recognized some of the plants that he studied about in his school. Some of which were poisonous while some of them where useful to him to survive in the forest.
He found some plants that provided him with strings which he used to reinforce the attachment of the Ribs of the Undead bear to his hands and his Armor. You also awesome skeletons and other Undead animal Monsters along the way. He Spared none of them as he would carefully hide and activate his incineration skill to burn them all to ashes. Although along the edges of the ravine there was little space to hide, the dense vegetation made sure that there was always a place available to attack the monsters while staying well hidden.
By the time Alex reached the edge of the ravine his experience was almost half full. He could hear a low sound of strange roars and powerful Cries of strong monsters in the ravine. By the sound of things, he decided that it was best to stay away from the ravine for the time being.
As he entered the next sector after the ravine, he saw a strange scene in front of him. the next Area on the map indicated that he was inside Sector 8. this was marked as yellow sector in the map, the next that sector directly after Sector 8 was Sector 18 which he was supposed to clear of the Monsters.
In front of Alex, the ground going into Sector 8 started becoming more and more wet. the trees became even more black and some of them almost looked like dead trees in horror movies. It was Alex's first time going into this kind of environment.
He decided to stop by one of the Sturdy trees and scout the area ahead before entering the dark forest. Although he couldn't see too far into the forest because of the trees he noticed that the Undead animals were almost always hiding. If he didn't meticulously pick them out one by one he would be ambushed by the hidden monsters.
To flush out the hidden undead animals and other monsters, he decided to try something unusual. Maybe it was in his nature to be an unorthodox person from the start. he decided to use his immolate skill on one of the trees far into the distance. Alex concentrated his sight on that tree as he locked down and used his skill. the outline of the tree begin to shine in his view while he could feel his mana being drained as Soon the tree was enveloped in orange flames.
The light from the flames shone bright in the dark Forrest as the sun had already set in the sky.. Alex could see some curious skeletons and undead animals gathering near the tree. he saw none of the strong monsters like the undead bear near the burning tree. this was typically the case for most of the monsters as only weak monsters would roam in small groups. the strong monsters were more independent and preferred to hunt alone.
Alex had already prepared well for this moment by being well hidden as he used his skill on all the undead one by one. he found out that five second of time was enough for a decent sized monster to fully catch on fire. the monsters that were gathered suddenly panicked as one by one all of the monsters were on fire. Alex continued to pour more and more mana into his skill as he target those monsters that were mostly bones.
the undead animals and zombies would continue to burn after five seconds of immolate skill, their rotten flesh acted as fuel and kept the flames going even after Alex stopped using the skill on them. The skeletons on the other hand had little to no fuel on their bodies to burn off for the flames so Alex had to slowly kill the skeleton with his full skill use before moving to other undead.
After repeating this successfully for three times, he was already near his destination. as he started using his skill on remaining few skeletons, he suddenly felt strange pulse of energy rising up in his body, he could feel every fiber of his being becoming stronger. Alex had read about this in the books but experiencing the level up himself was an entirely different experience.
There was strange sense of satisfaction in growing stronger as he looked at his status.
Name - Alex Heracles
Race - Demihuman
Level - 1
Class - None
Skill - (D) Immolate
The status panel was simple but now he was level 1 hunter. it has been only a day and he was already level 1 but this time required experience points to level up would rise exponentially. it took most new hunters four to five months to upgrade from level 0 to level 10 and the huge contributing factor in this was the fact that once you were stronger than your prey, the experience points awarded would significantly decrease. in case of high level hunters, they will get a miniscule amount of experience points even if they farmed lower rank monsters all day.
Alex looked at his next biggest hurdle in his path to reach sector 18. The ghost mane mountain range was the dividing line that separated the Forrest of Nightmares from the Garden of Ghoul root. Sector 18 was next to the Ghost Mane mountain range and Alex would have to climb a small flat peak to reach the sector 18. The peak was part of the multiple mountains in Ghost mane mountain range.
Alex decided to ditch the sleep as sleeping in a forest infested with the undead was the most foolish thing a hunter can do. the undead type monsters were the most active at night and any real rest would have to wait for the next day when the undead would be somewhat settled down on whichever grave that they popped out from. Alex continued to walk as he took a detour around the recent place of his hunt where he burned down quite a few undead creatures.
He wondered what else his skill can achieve as it was already the most overpowered skill he had seen. the rating of D felt like it did not do justice to the skill as most of the skill the majority of hunters unlocked would be at rank A to rank F, Rank F being the weakest. there was no real dividing line between the ranks of the skill but there was a general saying that anything below rank D was trash, Rank B to rank D was considered mainstream as most hunter's skills would be between these ranks. Those above rank A were called Kings and at the top were emperor level hunters.
it wasn't as simple as just having an A rank skill would qualify you to be considered as king level hunter but the high rank of skill simply showed the potential of the hunter to reach the peak. among the emperor level hunters in the past, there were many who started out with low rank skill but just from sheer determination and a whole lot of luck, they became so strong that they were called emperors. Gregory Machina was one such example who alone handled the frontlines on the east. Alex admired him for his strength and courage but most of all he admired how Gregory, with his B rank skill "Machine Overlord" could create miracles of machines that would lay waste to the battlefields. His Gargantuan Armor was so famous that even the titan class monsters would think twice before coming to the front lines when The Machine Emperor was in his Gargantuan Armor.