Zelphar poured some tokens from his right hand into Athtar's palm. Khourhatin stared at his hands to see how much he got, but Athtar clenched his hand into a fist and shoved his tokens into his pocket immediately. He couldn't count how many. Did he get a small proportion?

  But Athtar's smile didn't falter. Khourhatin gulped whilst Zelphar approached Sorisana.

  He sighed. "Well, I guess I'll give you some," he muttered as he dropped a single hunting token into her waiting palm.

  Sorisana's smile vanished as if it never existed.

  She got one token. That was probably just because of how skittish she was when fighting the wolves. She didn't kill a single one. Khourhatin killed three. He saved Aubron's life. He could get plenty. But he was still unsatisfied.

  Getting lots of hunting tokens wasn't enough. She was his friend. She helped Aubron with his injuries. She carried his crate for him. She was a good person. She deserved more.

  Her face hardened at the sight of her hunting tokens. She glared up at Zelphar and opened her mouth in fury. But she hesitated. She closed it. She winced. Her face softened. She frowned back down at her tokens and shoved them into her pocket. If she wasn't gonna stand up for herself, then who would?

  "You're making a mistake," Khourhatin said to Zelphar.

  "I'm making a mistake by paying you?" He asked with a snort.

  "She deserves more than that." He pointed at Athtar. "Your son would be dead right now if there were three of him here."

  "Father, I think you should reconsider," Aubron said. "Athtar was strong, but I'd rather not have him escort us anywhere in the future."

  "Are you sure?" Zelphar asked.

  "Yes. He doesn't take these missions or his clients seriously."

  "If I wasn't here, then all of you would be dead," Athtar said. He glared at Khourhatin and Sorisana. "That goes for you as well."

  Khourhatin clicked his tongue. Sorisana's frown deepened. He wasn't wrong. Khourhatin struggled with one kallminol wolf. The other two he killed by stabbing in the back. Sorisana couldn't even kill one. Whereas, Athtar killed five. He didn't sneak up on them. They circled around him. He fought them fair and square. And he did it with ease. He was an E-rank hunter. He had yellow mana. It was only natural.

  "Exactly," Zelphar said as he placed two hunting tokens in Khourhatin's palm. "You're lucky I'm giving either of you anything at all."

  Khourhatin chuckled. He didn't even get many hunting tokens at the end of the day. Killing those three didn't count in their eyes.

  Both Zelphar and Athtar were correct. Strength was all that mattered. Why did he trick himself into thinking otherwise? Wishful thinking. He needed to learn to focus on reality. He needed to put more effort into getting stronger. No amount of kindness would get him there alone.

  A month later, Khourhatin, Sorisana, and Athtar walked into the Monster Hunter Sect's Citadel Lobby. Glimmering chandeliers hung from a vaulted ceiling. Stained glass windows pooled red, blue, and purple light onto the white and black marble floor. Men and women holding all sorts of weapons and armour marched through the circular hall.

  The three of them walked towards the reception desk. Athtar handed in twenty hunting tokens to the receptionists, as was necessary every month for an E-ranked Hunter. If he couldn't produce twenty, then he'd be demoted to F-rank. He'd lose access to various privileges, lose his accomodation in the sect's E-rank residential area, and most importantly receive less monthly pay.

  Whilst he only got twelve hunting tokens from the recent mission, that mission only took them two weeks to complete. For the prior two weeks, he sneaked onto a different F-rank mission and snatched away a disproportionate amount of hunting tokens from a few other unfortunate F-ranked hunters. As a result, it wasn't hard at all for him to cough up twenty hunting tokens. He probably had plenty to spare after that.

  Whereas, Khourhatin was only able to acquire fifteen hunting tokens over the course of the past month. He would get more if he didn't keep getting paired up with E-ranked hunters, or sometimes even above, but these idiots would scout out the Mission Hall, and wait for F-ranked Hunters like him to sign up for jobs.

  It was even worse for Sorisana who only managed to scrape by with ten tokens. If she even just got one less token then she would've been kicked out of the Sect. There wasn't a rank lower than F.

  It was an awful system. Citizens from the various nations that sponsored the Monster Hunter Sect would use qethainth crows to post jobs to the Monster Hunter Sect. The Sect's administrators would subjectively deduce the difficulty of the job, assign it to what they thought would be an appropriate rank, and then advertise it in the citadel's Mission Hall.

  Monster Hunters couldn't sign up for jobs for ranks above them. But they could sign up for jobs for ranks below them. This was a catch in the system that people like Athtar loved to abuse. It made life incredibly easy for higher ranked monster hunters. They could just wait for F-ranked hunters to sign up for F-ranked jobs, take the last spot, impress their employers more than the F-ranked hunters were capable, and take more hunting tokens than they would from an E-ranked job where the hunting tokens would either be evenly distributed across a squadron of E-ranked hunters, or unevenly distributed due to the presence of a D-ranked or higher hunter.

  In a way, he couldn't blame Athtar for doing this. Since if he tried to sign up for an E-ranked job, some D-ranked or higher hunter would do the same for him. It was an awful system kept in place by awful S-rankers who would never have to face the consequences of it due to no one being stronger than them.

  Athtar smiled as he took his monthly E-ranked payment of one thousand cenny. Khourhatin and Sorisana frowned as they took their monthly F-ranked payment of five hundred cenny.

  "Oh well," Sorisana said with a sigh. "Atleast we made enough to stay in the sect."

  Khourhatin nodded. "That's what it's been like for a year now. Just making enough to scrape by."

  Sorisana shrugged. "Better than nothing," she said. "I think we did well."

  "We did very well." He frowned. He didn't agree. She was obviously free to do what she wanted. Her ideals were much more realistic. She just wanted to make a living. She was doing great.

  But his ideals were loftier. A bit dumber. And in comparison to those goals, he was doing terribly. Becoming as strong as the S-ranked monster hunter who saved his life and slayed the dragon that killed his family felt like an impossible dream in the face of his stagnancy.

  "Cheer up," she said with a smile. "At least take a bit of pride in doing better than me."

  "You didn't deserve to get such a small amount of hunting tokens there."

  "I forgot to say, thanks for sticking up for me back there." She grinned and squeezed his arm a bit. "But you're wrong. I deserved much less. You saved my life. You did really well."

  "Worse than Athtar," he muttered.

  "A lot of people are. Don't beat yourself up so much. How about we head down to Yeul's? Splurge on some of that F-ranked money with some ale? My friends from outside the sect planned to meet up there at the end of the month."

  Khourhatin's body felt heavier than ever. Getting drunk would lift his spirits. He smiled at the thought of drinking with her and her friends. It'd be nice to spend some time with people from outside the sect who'd surely be less cutthroat.

  But it wouldn't make him stronger.

  "Sorry," Khourhatin said. He turned away from her and faced the Mission Hall doors. "I'm gonna look for another mission."

  "Really?" She sighed. "We just got back."

  "Don't worry." He walked towards the Mission Hall doors. "We don't need to sign up for the same one. You can head down to the Inn"

  "I'd feel better if we did the same one though" She followed him.

  "Why?" He stepped under the Mission Hall archway."No offence, but shouldn't you focus on signing up for missions with people weaker than you?"

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  "Well, that's the issue," she said with a sigh. "There aren't many of them out there."

  "We both have white mana." He pushed open the Mission Hall doors.

  "Yes, but you don't squeal like a toddler at the sight of a monster," she said as they walked into the mission hall.

  "You're much better than you were at the entrance trials," he said with a shrug, walking through the Mission Hall and towards the job board. "You're certainly getting better. That won't be much of an issue soon, I'm sure."

  "And that's the real reason why I want to go on the same missions as you."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You don't judge me," she said as they stood in front of the job board.

  Understandable. Whilst her extreme caution sometimes frustrated him, he never truly judged her. He could tell she was improving the more missions she went on. But evidently not everyone saw it in the same way. Probably because they didn't know her as much as he did.

  She was also nice to have around. It was comforting to work with another monster hunter who wasn't ruthlessly competitive. Going on missions without her felt like he was in greater conflict with the other monster hunters than he was with the monsters themselves. Hunting with her made things feel a bit more straightforward.

  They scanned the job board, a gigantic wooden plank that towered over them enough to reach the top of the hall. Hundreds of posters flapped against the wood, attached to it by hundreds of nails. The posters near the top advertised jobs for higher-ranked hunters. Which was one convenient thing about being an F-ranked hunter. Because the adverts for those jobs were nailed to the bottom of the board and were therefore presented right in front of him.

  He looked across the variety of jobs, looking for ones that looked like they'd take two weeks or less to complete. But there were none. All of them required you to travel so far away that they'd all take a month or more. Even with a horse, which he tried to avoid buying. They'd always get killed by monsters on missions and they were expensive. And it's not as if he had the money to get an qildor horse which was strong enough to aid in combat against most monsters if you trained them enough. Khourhatin and Sorisana only rode horses through areas that were mostly monster-free. They didn't let horses anywhere near monster-infested forests, swamps, jungles, or mountains.

  "Any of these seem like they'd be quick to complete?" Sorisana asked.

  He shook his head. "The minimum seems to be a month," he said.

  She sighed. "It was like that this month as well. There were barely any that took less than a month. Why?"

  "There's a festival in Bibella City. So there's lots of people who want low-ranked monster hunters to escort them there. And the Lords of Bibella City want monster hunters to clear out monster dens in that area to make travel easier."

  "Well, today is collection day. If we sign up for one of them then we'll be back on time."

  "We'll be back on time to get kicked out of the sect."

  "Because of how far away these are, they're all offering twenty hunting tokens. If we both get ten, then it'd be fine."

  "But none of these jobs have two slots. All of them are three to five."

  "We'll just have to dominate the third member."

  Khourhatin glanced around the hall. There were a lot of people just lounging around, trying to look inconspicuous. Occasionally he and they would have brief eye contact, but they'd look away straight after. No doubt they were waiting for F-rankers like him and Sorisana to sign up for a job so they could sneak onto it.

  He wished he could hope for dominating the third member, getting tons of hunting tokens, and ranking up, but the best he could hope for was survival.

  He tried scanning the jobs that other F-rankers signed up for, but there were none. F-rankers were hesitant to sign up for jobs. He could try to befriend some other F-rankers, but Sorisana was the only friendly monster hunter he could find. F-rankers were hesitant to trust people.

  How would they know if Khourhatin and Sorisana weren't paid by an E-ranker to sign up for a job with them, and then just switch their names with the E-ranker before the job started. And there was no way of knowing if the F-ranker he or Sorisana befriended would betray them in the same way.

  "It'd be best to wait," he said. He turned away from the job board. "We can take on a month-long job in two weeks." That would mean that they would be on a job during collection day, but that would be fine. The Sect was fine with hunters handing in their monthly tokens after they got back. He walked through the Mission Hall.

  "Why not just sign up for a job now?" She followed him.

  "In these next two weeks we can focus on training and hopefully get strong enough to not get utterly dominated by an E-ranker." Usually, two weeks of training wouldn't amount to much. But he had enough of stagnation. He vowed to take his training to the next level. He walked towards the Mission Hall doors.

  "You really think we can get that strong in two weeks?"

  "Maybe, maybe not. But even if we don't, the most important thing we should be doing in those two weeks is trying to befriend other F-rankers. The second most important thing would be scouting out this job board." He pushed open the Mission Hall doors. "Wait for one F-ranker to sign up for a three person mission, or for two F-rankers to sign up for a four person mission, or for three to sign up for a five, and then we immediately sign up. Ideally, we'd befriend an F-ranker, but that's the ideal scenario. It's not likely to happen. Jumping onto a job with an F-ranker we don't know is even less likely. "

  "But then we'd only have two weeks for the next collection day."

  "That'd be fine." He walked through the Mission Hall doorway and entered the lobby. "Two weeks into the next month, the Bibella City festival will be over. Jobs in our area would re-open. We could take on a two-week long job and just hope for the best. We could even scout the job board for those two weeks and then sign up for a two week long job on the day before collection day."

  Sorisana shrugged. "Sounds like an awful plan," she said, following Khourhatin into the lobby. "But it doesn't make a difference. Either way, an E-ranker will sneak onto our job and take our tokens."

  "Not if we get strong enough to outshine the E-ranker."

  "That's not gonna happen."

  "We'll see."

  "Since we're not signing up for a job now, how about we spend the rest of the day at Yeul's?" She pointed at the Citadel's front door.

  Khourhatin shook his head. He turned towards doors on the left side of the hall. They led to the Meditation Room. "I'm gonna train."

  Khourhatin entered the White Meditation Hall at the same time as six other people.

  He sat with his legs crossed in the Monster Hunter Sect's White Meditation Hall. Aumanas flowers burned in a bowl by his side, which was the case for all of the monster hunters around him. Sweet smelling fumes swirled up from the burning flowers. With each deep breath, he inhaled the fumes and felt it tug at his soul and shock his mana into growing.

  As he focused all of his mind into meditation, he could see his white mana glowing around his body. He stared at it and awaited the moment that it would turn yellow.

  After four hours of meditation, it didn't. He frowned. When would it?

  The six people that entered the hall at the same time as Khourhatin got up and left, finishing their meditation for the day. Four hours was usually the limit. Meditating after that would continue developing your mana, but it wasn't advised. Only a small few had the will to do that. Especially when you could get plenty of mana by just ingesting tons of aumanas seeds. But they were expensive so it wasn't like you could eat an unlimited amount all the time.

  Khourhatin already ate his daily amount of aumanas seeds. So he'd usually follow the other six people out of the White Meditation Hall and continue meditating the next day. He felt a strong urge to un-cross his legs and stand up.

  But he also felt the sting of the injuries he suffered earlier on in the day. He remembered Athtar and his smirking face. He remembered his family.

  He pressed his palms together.. He had to keep going. He had to take his meditation to the next level.

  He had enough of mediocrity.

  Flipping a four-hour sand timer, he began meditating again.

  He was in Hell. The sensation that one tended to experience when meditating for more than four hours in a day was worse than anything he ever felt.

  The skin scraping sensation of searing flames blazed all over his body. It only took what felt like thirty seconds for sweat to stampede across his body, drenching his rags.

  After what felt akin to a minute, he looked like he took a shower in the devil's bathroom. He thought the pain would get better. But it only got worse as time went on.

  Khourhatin felt the unconquerable urge to scream but he kept his mouth clenched shut. The other monster hunters there would kick him out if he squealed the entire time. He needed to learn to face this pain whilst keeping it quiet. And there was no need to shout. He wasn't in danger. Nothing was actually burning him. It was just a feeling.

  But he certainly felt like it. When he'd close his eyes the pain only pummelled him more. The burning sensation only seemed more real. He could see the flames licking at his body, ripping skin, and blackening flesh when he'd have his eyes closed.

  So he spread them wide and open, having them stare down at his hands, arms, and legs, reminding himself that the feeling was just a feeling. In reality, flames weren't ravaging his body. He repeated it to himself over and over again.

  It continued to hurt, but after what felt like four hours, he started to embrace the pain and get used to it. It certainly didn't hurt any less, but he wriggled less. The initial shock of the pain faded away. Now it was only a matter of waiting for the sand timer to finish. Which it should've by now considering how long he felt like he was meditating, but feelings and instinct aren't the most accurate of measures so he really shouldn't have been surprised to be wrong. He just wished his feelings were right for once. He needed this to be over immediately.

  His face ached from how long he grimaced. Stinging pain surged through his mouth from how much he ground them together. His heart rattled his sternum, worried about the prospect of having to repeat this for another hour if he pulled his hands apart, but also excited by the prospect of his having this done.

  What felt like four hours later, his fingers squirmed, begging him to pull his hands apart and un-cross his legs. How could there still be so much sand left to fall in the timer? Could he really do this every day?

  Couldn't he just take a break?

  No.

  Khourhatin bit down harder and tightened his grimace. He wasn't gonna give up. There was no other way of getting stronger. Whilst this was painful, he had a major opportunity here. If he could suck up the pain he could become stronger than all of them. Only a small few were willing to meditate for eight hours in a day. There were no valid excuses to allow him to give up.

  So he kept going.

  His eyes stung. His eyelids fluttered. It was so painful. Whilst the pain didn't shock him anymore, that didn't matter. It felt like he was getting tortured to death.

  But he wasn't dying. His body wasn't getting damaged. It was just a feeling. If he couldn't conquer this then there was no hope of him becoming a powerful monster hunter.

  He didn't give up.

  And then finally…

  …the sand timer finished. Usually, he'd barely feel a difference in his mana. Especially not after a single day of meditation. But this time his mana felt different. The white glow around his body looked brighter. Starker. Stronger.

  He felt a lot of pain. But it was worth it.

  If he kept doing this every single day, then he'd surely surpass everyone.