Popping up his hoodie to cover his face, Rave moved toward the taxi zone near his apartment.
Approaching a taxi driver, Rave directly said, "I'll transfer you 350 credits directly to your account if you take me to the Abyss, but put the address in the system 100 kilometres east of the Abyss, in a Tier-B city."
The driver was an old man in his sixties with a few white hairs on his head.
"Why do you want to do such a thing, kid?"
Rave couldn't just tell him that he wanted to keep his tracks covered starting today so that he could kill one bastard and stream secretly.
"Are you going to do it or not?" Rave flatly asked instead of answering the driver.
"Heh, get on. You're giving 50 credits extra, so I have no reason to reject you."
…
Rave made his way toward the dome of darkness with a steady walking pace as soon as he exited the taxi.
"All the best, kid," the taxi driver called out with a smile.
Soon, Rave entered the Abyss and arrived at one of the thousand spawning zones.
Appearing in an identical hall, but with different scenery outside, Rave made his way out to look at the barren ground, an ancient battlefield with ruins of various structures and a low amount of greenery all around.
Rave pulled out the general information available for this floor on the internet.
'Windfury Tiger is C-rank, so I should be able to handle up to C-rank monsters. Let's map a route.'
After finding where he was, he looked for zones up to C-rank and made his route.
Once he was done, Rave used his blessing and transformed.
Roar!
'The fuck, why did I roar?'
[Windfury Tiger]
Strength: C+
Agility: B+
Stamina: B-
Arcane: C+
—> Raging Hunter.
—> Windbound Stride.
—> Roaring Wind Blast.
As a Windfury Tiger, he was freaking two meters tall and five meters long!
Rave felt abundant power in his whole body.
He jumped and flew up over twenty meters with ease.
'This skill…'
Windbound Stride!
Wind whirled around his paws, and suddenly, he could step on the air.
'Alright, this makes things easy.' Rave's eyes glinted with rage and resolve. 'Enjoy the little life you have left, Aldin Rockford.'
Without further ado, he strode in the sky at the speed of 150 kilometres per hour, and that wasn't even half of his full speed.
'B+ Agility… I suppose this tiger is very fast, at least as fast as B-rank monsters.'
Soon, he landed in a D-rank zone called Wailing Woods of Pale Sun.
In this zone, the sky had a pale yellow sun and black trees. The monsters consisted of several varieties.
[Wailing Woods of Pale Sun, D-rank Zone]
There weren't many people here, as the monsters here were a bit troublesome.
D-rank monsters called Wailing Trees were especially annoying, and they were the largest in number.
These Wailing Trees mixed in with other trees, and there was no visual difference between them.
But when you passed by them, those Wailing Trees would suddenly wail loudly, stunning people and making their consciousness wobbly, and their roots would also bind you.
C-rank monsters here were Rotten Gas Snakes, highly poisonous and hidden beneath the ground.
The combo of these two monsters made this zone deadly.
This week, over ten people have died in this zone, so there wasn't much traffic.
The people present here were prepared, as Rave didn't see anyone without armor.
'Now then…' Rave looked at the trees as he stayed in position.
The magnificent tiger with white fur and emerald stripes sat on its hind legs, its eyes glowing crimson.
Rave activated a skill.
[Raging Hunter]
—> Detect all hostile intentions within a 100-meter radius. If discovered, your movement speed toward the target is increased by 100%, and your next physical attack deals 200% extra damage.
Rave felt his senses flooding as waves of strange aid pulsed out of him.
He was detecting everything not through his eyes, but through the wind. It was as if he had eyes and ears in the wind pulse that had just been released, which directly fed information to his brain.
He discovered a total of six D-rank Wailing Trees within a 100-meter radius.
Swoooosh! SMACK!
Rave jumped toward the nearest target like a spring unleashed. He went with his full force, and that too with a 100% boost in movement speed.
This resulted in him smacking into a D-rank Wailing Tree monster accidentally.
'Uh, too fast.'
But the force that came with this impact alone shattered the tree and killed the monster.
[You have hunted a D-rank Wailing Tree. +10 Archive Points.]
'10 points for D-rank. Awesome.'
Rave turned to another Wailing Tree and opened his terrifying mouth with white fangs.
Cerulean and cyan aura quickly spiralled into an orb that shot at the tree.
BOOM!
The orb twisted and shredded the Wailing Tree in a second.
[+10 Archive Points.]
'Alright, now I can start streaming and start showing off the tiger to get some viewers.'
Rave opened the Streaming Screen.
[Streamer Name: Heavenly Tiger]
[Viewers: 0]
[Chat]
After activating it, Rave started hunting the monsters.
'This stamina of the Windfury Tiger would last for a few hours easily if I don't exert myself too much and take recovery breaks.' Rave's eyes glinted. 'At seven in the morning, the Abyss will refresh.'
Then he would find treasure chests and other exotic stuff.
[Corruption Meter: 2%]
Rave noted the corruption. 'I have to make sure I don't get injured.'
Injuries would hasten the corruption meter.
'It shouldn't be a problem in this zone. This tiger can't be injured here.'
It was time to gather Archive Points so that he could start fusing Blessings and Runes to create something powerful.
…
A luxurious mansion in a hill station area was situated in an A-rank city called Stargaze City.
This mansion belonged to a streamer who currently held the rank of 42nd on the top 1000 leaderboard.
A Tier-5 streamer with six Blessing slots, two of which held SS-rank Blessings.
Barikan Viremont.
His title: Thunder Bolt Fencer.
Every night, he would specifically filter out 0-viewer streamers and check them out.
Finishing dinner, he took to his comfy couch and started looking through the streamers active right now.
As he flipped streamer windows rapidly, he suddenly paused on one.
'Transformation-type, and that too a tiger?!' Barikan's eyes shone.
[Chat]
#Barikan: Hey, buddy. Want to do a trade?
#Heavenly Tiger: Thunder Bolt Fencer?…what trade do you want to have with me?
#Barikan: That blessing you got. I want it. But in exchange, I'll give you a Blessing one rank higher than whatever rank that tiger transformation is. You'll have options to choose from, depending on the rank of your blessing.
#Heavenly Tiger: Can I ask why?
#Barikan: Well, I have an item called Beast Lord Altar that I got from the fifth floor. If I want to activate this item, I need to feed it three Beast Transformation-type blessings. I already fed it two, and I've been searching for the last one.
#Heavenly Tiger: I see...
#Barikan: I know a place on the 2nd floor where we can extract our blessings. We don't have much time, so I'll be there in fifteen minutes if you agree. You will benefit in three ways. One, access to the second floor and runes. Two, I'll give you a blessing one rank higher than your blessing. Three, I'll also let you choose one rune from my inventory of runes.