The Lonely Hunter

Chapter 6: Learning A Martial Art

After killing a few more monsters in his travel, Kal decided to return back to the shelter. When he left the sanctum, stares where immediately pinpointed at him. It wasn't that they were surprise that Kal had been alive, in fact they didn't even knew he was Kal. His physical changes turned him into a complete stranger so normally, no one knew who he was. They were just looking at him because they admired his stature and looks.

"Who is that guy? I've never seen him before." A hunter whispered to his friend.

"I don't know dude, but looking at that handsome face, he must be some sort of celebrity." His friend replied.

"Aside from his handsome face, his not even wearing protective equipment and his thin clothes showed off his great body, he must be very strong!" A hunter admired him.

"Kyaaah! He's so handsome! Girl, go ask for his HB account!" A female hunter said blushing her cheeks.

"No way! You go ask for it!" She replied with a shrieky voice. 

The hunters began gossiping to each other staring at Kal with great admiration but one the other hand, kal thought their gazes meant that they were suspicious of his identity so in immediate response, he walked away from their eyes and went to a nearby market to sell his gemstones. 

Rumors of a famous celebrity in the shelter immediately spread out like wildfire all talking about how good-looking he was and some rumored that aside from his looks, he was believed to be strong since they saw that he exited the sanctum without wearing protective equipment. This caused for the hunters to unravel the identity of the mysterious celebrity and to find out about his real powers which the majority would do out of curiosity but there were some would do it out of jealousy and try to fend him off due to his sudden popularity. 

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After an hour of walking while trying to hide from the gazes of the hunters, Kal arrived at a weaponry store. The store was a 5 storey building. It was made to imitate a spanish-style structure  while keeping it's modern look at bay. The shelter was the size of a town and so, many buildings occupy the space mostly for businesses. Since there were a lot of business rivalry among store owners, the store Kal chose was unfortunate to have been profiting badly. There were only a few dozens of hunters who come and go to the store in which majority of their purpose was to sell their gemstones, monster corpse  and other valuables they obtained.

Kal entered the store and immediately he was breathing the cold air from an AC. He didn't waste any time to relax and immediately went to the weapon booth to sell his gemstones. After arriving at the shop, the shopkeeper had a grim look on his face when it saw Kal.

'Sigh, another hunter selling his cheap stones, why can't anyone just buy an item or two?' The shopkeeper said to himself.

"I'd like to sell some mana stone." Kal said to the shopkeeper.

'As expected, goddammit! Buy some stuff before you leave at least!' He exclaimed to himself. But he didn't want to show his expression to the customer so forced a fake smile and responded in a bright tone.

"Sure young man! Can I see the stones?" He said eagerly. Although he was not expecting a lot from the man seeing that he was not even wearing battle gear or any expensive jewelry but he did have a good-looking face but to the many handsome and beautiful customer the shopkeeper had served, he knew how to judge someone if they had something worthy to show.

Kal placed his hand on his pocket as if to grab something from inside but he actually opened his inventory and retrieved the mana stones of the mama hawk and its two golden eggs. The man a stone of the mama hawk was the size of an apple while the two golden eggs was the size of a chicken's egg.

Their color was brown presenting that it was an E-rank mana stone. Mana stones were valued by their color and size; F-rank mana stone is colored Gray, E is colored Brown, D is colored yellow, C is colored Green, B is colored blue, A is colored red and S is colored gold. The bigger the mana stones size was, the purer the mana essence that was inside meaning its value could rise depending on it.

As soon as Kal brought and place the mana stones on the table, the dreadful eyes of the shopkeeper instantly widened. He had been in this shelter for a long time and he knew that the monsters inhabiting the sanctum were F and E rank. Usually, he'd be receiving F-rank mana stones which were the sizes of marbles and at best, pebbles but what this young man had brought out were three E-rank mana stones, two which were the size of an egg and the other one was as big as an apple. Even though they were only low-rank mana stones, for the people in this shelter, this were very valuable stones. 

"E-rank mana stones with high purity!? Young man, where and how did you obtain this!?" He shopkeeper said to Kal in a loud voice. Seeing the startled old man, Kal couldn't help but sigh, he expected that this would happen that's why he purposely chose to enter this run down building. If he had chosen populated shops, it could start a commotion and Kal would be in the center of the attention, this could cause a lot of problems and mainly people would be curious where a low-rank hunter found such valuable stones. Some might try to bootlick Kal or others could try and rob him so it was better to sell it to a shop with no people around,

"I obtained it from killing a Golden Beaked hawk who had laid two eggs, I spotted it's nest from an edge of a mountain but I'm sure there are no other hawks living there even if I tell the exact location." Kal said confidently. There was no use of hiding the truth since he was not fond of keeping secrets even if he didn't tell him, the shopkeeper would understand about it and this would also clear him of suspicion since he looked very SUS. 

"O-okay, but I can only pay you partially and you'd have to get the full payment for a few days because our business is not doing well." The shopkeeper said in sincerity.

"It's okay, I'll accept partial payment, oh and can you just use the remaining payment as my full access to your library, I just want to check out some martial arts tutorial." Kal said to shopkeeper. Immediately, the shopkeepers dull face lightened after hearing what Kal said,

"Of course! We'll give you an exclusive 1 month VIP membership! The benefits of the memberships are a 40% discount to all items you want to buy, free access to the library 24/7, an exclusive training room just for you and all food and beverages will be served for free!" The shopkeeper said in delight.

"Nice, I'll accept." Seeing the exclusive privileges that Kal would receive, he didn't hesitate and signed a deal. As soon as he finished signing a contract, he was then given a VIP card that would give him the rights to use all the benefits of the membership.

"You are now our most valuable customer, well be taking care of your shopping from now on so please be at ease." 

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With the guide of one of the staffs, Kal entered the library in which as he expected, he was the only person inside. The library was not your usual library, the size of the library was only as big as a workshop and there were only a few books in the shelves and majority of what was store inside the shelves elves were thin glass with a metal plating on one side. 

This glasses are contain a video specifying the type of martial arts you would want to learn. You'd be able to learn how to do the martial arts but it would normally take you years to learn it successfully that's why every martial art panel gave you a specific martial fluid to drink which would then greatly enhance your learning of the said martial art. With the msrtial fluid, you'd be able to learn the martial art in a few days but this doesn't mean you'd be a master of the said art, so that's why you'd have to train and polish your martial art so you could successfully master it because the purpose of the martial fluid is to enhance your brain and body to the rate were you can learn and perform the martial art at its very best. Also, you'd have to buy the martial fluid and the caution of drinking a martial fluid without its specific martial art would put a strain in your body that may result to a permanent damage physically and mentally, it also not advised to drink two or more martial fluids at once and you'd have to wait for a week until all the martial fluid is digested in your body, that time, you'll be safe to drink another martial fluid.

"I'm currently short in money and I don't think I can buy a martial fluid but since the video is free to watch, if my theory is correct, my innate talent, [Analysis] could be a substitute for this since it did say that my observation and thinking is greatly enhanced. If my theory is wrong, then I'll just have to buy the martial fluid." Kal said. He then started watching the martial art tutorial. The martial art was titled "Way of the marksman". This was one of the most cheapest martial art that could be bought, not because the martial art was easy learn, but due to its very complex tutorial, hunters saw it as almost deemed impossible to learn because even with the martial fluid, you could only learn a fraction of it and you'd have to waste more martial fluid just to learn it bit by bit. Even though the martial art showed great results that could be compared to learning an A-rated martial art, due to its high difficulty, it's rating was dropped to E. There were only a few hunters that had fully master it and they had said to themselves that they wasted few years  just to learn a meagerly decent martial art which they had felt in the end to be very unsatisfactory.

"So i was correct!" Kal exclaimed in joy. After watching the footage, Kal knew that there was some in quite different that was happening both in his mind and body. When he tried to recall what the man was doing in the footage, he could observe every movement of the man, he also deeply understood every word he spoke. He was like a sponge, absorbing everything he learned from the video.

"I want to hold a bow right this instant!" His body couldn't stop shaking in ecstasy. He immediately stood up from his seat and went straight to his training room. The training room was a huge hall and there were variety of weapons arranged in a shelf. There was a variant of bows placed in another shelf each having different shapes and sizes, thee wooden bows, iron bows and composite bows.

Kal decided to use an iron bow for its sturdy structure because he was afraid he might break a wooden bow and this was also what the type of bow the man in the footage use. As soon as he grabbed the bow with his hand,  he felt a sense of longing and comfort as if he had been weilding this bow all his life. A window panel suddenly appeared in is view.

Ting-

HEAVY PRACTICE BOW

Rank: E

Range: 0-1000 meters

Durability: 150/150

Passive-Long Shot: Due to its sturdy composition and elastic string, it can fire arrows at long range while maintaining the standard damage output.

Practice Weapon: It's a weapon purposely for training, it cannot deal any significant damage to an opponent but can be very useful for practice. Prolonged use of this weapon grants you 1 status point capped at 20 points (0/20)

 "A weapon that can give me status points! That's crazy!" Kal exclaimed. His sole purpose here was to learn some bow techniques and get on with it, he didn't realize that just by practicing he could garner some points which was equivalent of acquiring 2 levels. 

"It seems like I'll be here for a while." He said chuckling in joy.