Aria felt a chill crawl down her back. She looked at Jared—and when she saw those eyes, then looked at her own body, she understood. Something bad was going to happen to her.
She instinctively started running.
Jared smiled. It was the smile of a predator.
And in a single jump, he caught her. He immobilized her before she could even reach for the emergency button.
Aria hadn’t used it immediately. She still wanted to enroll in the Hunter Academy. She didn’t want to quit like this. She thought that if she could somehow escape from him, she might still have a chance.
But she was wrong.
Jared was already Level 1. That meant he was a full-fledged Hunter. And that slow calculation ended up being Aria’s biggest mistake.
Jared had a predatory look in his eyes. Aria shouted with all her strength, but Jared slapped her so hard that she went unconscious. He was just about to tear down her clothes when he heard a sigh behind him.
A chill ran down his spine.
Who was behind him?
He turned to look—but before he could even see, a chop landed on his neck, and he blacked out.
Ethan didn’t kill him. Killing was forbidden. There might be measures in place to detect the killer. Besides, Jared’s teleportation mechanism would activate as soon as someone tried to kill him. Sure, Ethan could kill Jared before the activation completed, but it was too much hassle.
Instead, he activated his Extraction talent.
[Ding! Summoning talent is merging with you]
That was the notification from his own system—not Aetherion. The Aetherion system didn’t work on him.
Ethan then picked up Aria and vanished.
He reappeared near a safe area, healed her, placed her under a tree and left.
He still needed to hunt four more.
He thought about summoning a beast but the problem was, he wasn’t connected to Aetherion. So where would the beast come from? He was too strong now. Even if the summoning talent responded, an SSS-rank beast might appear and that would definitely alert all the teachers and guards.
He would try it later.
Next, Ethan hunted two boys and one girl.
The Shadow Control talent was part of the darkness element, but its application was unique. With it, he could control shadows. It had a lot of uses.
The girl wasn’t a good person either. She tried to seduce him the moment she saw him. Ethan didn’t like succubus-types. So, he took her talent without a shred of regret.
But the boy with the Soul Sword was a real softie. Ethan couldn’t bring himself to rob his talent. Instead, he gave him a core, passed on a breathing technique, and altered his memory. Now, the boy believed he was a transmigrator with a special talent, destined to rule this damn world.
The boy with the Appraisal talent wasn’t good either. A pervert. So he got nothing.
And now came the final one. The boy with the Necromancer talent.
Ethan followed this guy for quite some time. He couldn’t tell what kind of person he was. But eventually, the boy stopped and looked behind him.
"Isn’t it time you come out, bro? How long are you gonna follow me?"
Ethan didn’t react.
Because someone else was also following the boy. There was no way some random punk could detect him.
It was a bald guy.
"Stephen, you bastard! You stole my girlfriend! I’ll kill you!" the baldy shouted.
Stephen looked at him with disdain. "It was your girl who spread her legs for me. I didn’t do shit. And a loser like you—what can you even do to me? Body strengthening talent? Sounds impressive. But how many of my skeletons can you kill? Huh?"
The bald guy charged at him, but Stephen instantly summoned ten skeletons with swords. He also drew his own blade.
Even though the baldy was strong, he couldn’t fight eleven at once. These skeletons weren’t fragile toothpicks like in anime. They were sturdy and deadly.
Stephen pummeled him so hard the guy had to use his emergency button.
Ethan had already judged this man.
If someone’s girlfriend willingly spread her legs for you and you took the opportunity, would you be a good guy or a bad guy?
Of course, a bad guy.
How dare he seduce the baldy’s girlfriend?
Ethan would take revenge.
Even Ethan didn’t realize he had become this level of hypocrite.
But hypocrites are the happiest people alive.
He teleported in front of the boy, snapped his fingers.
The boy fell unconscious instantly.
Ethan extracted the Necromancer talent and left. The boy didn’t even get a chance to see who hit him.
Then, Ethan casually hunted a few monsters for points and vanished from the area.
That’s when a system notification came to him.
[Ding! Three complementary talents are detected. Merge them?]
Damn. Talents could be merged? That was cool.
But Ethan wanted to try the Summoning talent before the merge. He wanted to see what kind of beast he could summon.
He teleported back to the place where he first arrived,deep in the Forest of Jurra.
Then he used Summoning.
A portal opened behind him.
And a majestic dragon stepped out.
Even though Ethan wasn’t connected to the Aetherion system, the talent was still generated by her. So Ethan could access the archive.
It was a red dragon. A massive, towering beast.
Its fiery wings spanned over 100 meters. A huge tail covered in spikes. Four legs ending in thick, sharp claws. The body was marked with glowing patterns. It looked absolutely majestic.
An SSS-rank beast, huh?
Its strength was around 350 sun,almost equal to Ethan’s main body.
He nodded in satisfaction.
Then he gave the command to the system to merge the three talents.
[Ding! Summoning, Necromancer, and Shadow Control are merged into "Shadow Monarch"]
Damn! Is it what I think it is? Shadow Monarch?
Sung Jin-Woo?
Where’s Beru? Igris?
Hahahahaha!
He started laughing.
Now, he could build an army of shadows—composed of the strongest races in existence. He didn’t have a mana limit like Sung Jin-Woo.
He would literally dominate everything.