Depthless Hunger

Chapter 46: One Final Variable

Somehow, one month of training became two. Kai struggled with the intense pace at times, especially days when he woke up exhausted, but he refused to let himself stop. If he wanted to keep up with people who had fully developed Class abilities, he needed to go far beyond what anyone expected.

In all that time, he only managed to increase another Physique Level, but it actually didn't bother him. It took many veteran hunters years to reach his current stage, and most plateaued for the rest of their lives. He could feel the mana soaking into his body as he worked. The fact that he could almost taste the progress kept him throwing himself into his training every day.

The incident with the Isulfr had forced a few changes to his schedule. It was no longer easy for him to leave the city to fight monsters, and Gunjin had implied that if he caused too much trouble for the clans, he wouldn't be protected from consequences. But since Kai had gotten his fill of fighting monsters for a while, he focused on his fellow hunters.

Specifically, he began to spend more time sparring with the veterans at the Guild. Given his current strength, he actually had a Power rating similar to many of them, and if they sparred with restrictions on Class, he could actually win much of the time.

That didn't make him proud, because he was beginning to realize that the veterans he'd looked up to for most of his life were far from the peak. He'd always known that the true elites went to the Frontier, of course. It still felt strange to look at older men and women with hardened bodies and years of experience and realize that they were nowhere near as strong as he had thought. In a sense, they were those who had failed to make the leap to greater challenges and so stayed back to raise the next generations.

While chatting with them, he discovered that it wasn't accidental that he hadn't seen any local hunters with a Power over 100. The veterans disagreed about the reasons, but it seemed to be known that there was some kind of barrier at 99, different from those in a specific part of the soul. He started to understand why they didn't discuss it more often when most of the information he received was contradictory.

Still, there seemed to be something to it. Kai decided that this would be his new target. If he could bring himself over 100 with nothing but Physique and Soul, that would prove to everyone that it was possible to take a different path. It might take him years of training, but he would spend the rest of his life working if it was possible.

Of course, finding a solution that let him use the rest of his soul would be the superior option. No miracles seemed likely, but one day at the end of their sparring, Inafay spoke up.

"Hey, Kai, I might have something for you." She pulled off her gauntlets and began rubbing her chafed knuckles, not looking at him for some reason. "It doesn't look like there will be any good expeditions, sorry. It seems like if the clans think that someone is making progress, they keep them focused on training until they reach a much higher stage. But there's going to be a trip to the Krysal City States."

"To Krysal? Why?" Kai was working on his own gauntlets, which didn't chafe but did leave his hands sweaty.

"I'm not completely sure. The rumors seem to imply that they're a bit worried about monsters too - there's this whole argument about incursions that I don't want to get into. Anyway, we've never exactly gotten along with Krysal. It's more of a non-aggression pact than a real alliance, you know?"

"But they're sending some people to talk to them, hoping something will work out?"

"Yeah, that's how it seems." Inafay hopped to her feet and grinned, but he thought she was still hiding something. "Anyway, I don't know if it will work, but I'd like to have you along. I think it will be happening within a month or two, so stay alert."

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"Sure, definitely." Kai saw that she had her own concerns, so he left her to head back to the lower city.

Though he no longer expected anything to provide him with an easy path to power, Krysal was still one of his best chances. It sounded like the entire trip might be motivated by the same concerns that Gunjin had mentioned earlier. If possible, he'd be interested to travel along with Inafay.

As he walked, Kai ran a hand along his belt and considered the other possibilities. He'd never heard of any potions that could actually provide a new source of power, but they were still worth exploring. Juray said that she was reaching the limits of her current enhancement experiments, though she kept using him as a test subject.

He was carrying a number of her Class-based potions at the moment. Just as they had predicted, the potions were primarily useful for helping hunters develop their own Classes, but they did temporarily grant new power. By drinking some before sparring, he was fairly certain that he'd briefly felt the difference. The problem was, a difference of one or two power in his spiritual sight was only noticeable in direct testing, not a way to manifest new abilities.

At the moment he had nothing but Class potions and the vials to collect more mana. As Kai headed further down the city's slope, he decided that he had enough time before his next training session to try to convince someone. He'd already convinced Inafay earlier, and the potions derived from her didn't let him produce wind, but they did produce a slight wind effect around him. Juray was hopeful that if he could find someone with a Class that produced a more subtle effect, it might work in a new person.

If he did find an appropriate one, that might be a valuable relationship, particularly if they were from the lower city. A lot of poor hunters were only just getting by, so the chance to earn some money just by doing mana exercises would be a valuable opportunity. The problem was that Juray didn't meet the right sort of people, and he was training too much to spend all day searching.

Once he got into the lower city, Kai had to push aside such thoughts so he'd be fully alert. Ever since the fight with the Isulfr, he'd started getting more attention. Instead of passing as just another unimportant hunter from the clans, people seemed to have heard of him. He had a bad feeling that the story had been distorted, because even the positive attention wasn't entirely comfortable.

No one bothered him that day when he found an appropriate bar for unaffiliated hunters and asked a few questions. He didn't waste that much time and actually got one bead of mana. But when he headed out to his next training session, he saw Fhazi Lantrian waiting in the doorway.

"Kai Granfian!" Fhazi yelled out over the bar before he could slip away. "You're always running around, getting in my way. This is the last time."

"I'm in your way?" Kai barely paid attention to him, just looked for other exits to avoid the hassle. "What did you need to do here?"

"That's not important! You're clogging up training grounds everywhere, and it needs to stop. So I propose a friendly sparring match! Let's see if all that Physique of yours can stand up to my Class. Or are you too much of a coward to spar with someone who could actually fight you?"

Was he really doing this? Kai didn't understand why Fhazi would want to make his challenge so public, since both of them should know how it would end. Even with all of his family's resources behind him, Fhazi hadn't grown much in the past two months. The way he was emphasizing sparring was odd as well... maybe he thought he could win if he stopped Kai from striking first.

"Don't ignore me! Are we sparring or not?"

"Alright, fine." Kai didn't like speaking for an audience, so he walked closer before too many people could stare. "Since you had the decency to come alone, we can spar."

"Finally! Everything is arranged, so let's do this." Fhazi turned away with an unbelievably smug expression that Kai didn't want to think about and led them out into the side alley.

Kai rolled his shoulders as they left the bar, wondering how difficult this could be. He was slightly sore from his training, but the mana-searching interlude had mostly restored him. Clearly Fhazi wasn't going to give up until he got some sense of revenge. Maybe it would be best to let him get in a good hit. Most likely the Grandfist Class would still injure him, which only meant that Kai would get in a little defensive training while Fhazi was satisfied...

As they turned out of the side alley, Kai realized that he'd completely misread the situation.

Instead of turning back onto the main street, Fhazi had led him deeper into the bramble of houses. Most sections of the lower city were a maze of little streets, so that was no surprise.

Except that Fhazi's entourage was stepping outside of nearby buildings, blocking them in. Several of his usual flunkies, a few hunters, and the Tonjin brothers looking guilty. They definitely weren't there to ensure that the sparring match was fair.

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