Dungeon Raider System

Lamar's lecture may as well been in another language, but if that was the case Uriel would have been able to at least understand the words and maybe translate them. The concepts were too difficult and he lacked the base to even begin to comprehend the subject.

However, Uriel's reason for attending the lecture was to stay after class and ask Professor Lamar about traits and he endured it without falling asleep.

"Ah, Hunter Sage, did you bring me some samples like your friend?"

"Actually, no, she was the one in charge for collecting samples and I took care of the cultural side of things."

"I remember now you're pursuing a degree on social sciences. What brought you to my class then?"

"I wanted to attend the physical training class but the instructor..."

"Say no more, you're still an ascended but you can't participate on his class anymore because it could be dangerous to your classmates and you want to know whether you should join the heavenly rank physical training or wait on your trait to settle. Is that correct?"

"Pretty much. All I want is to be able to work out with the rest of the students because going back home everyday just to workout would be too much consuming." Uriel couldn't believe he was saying he wanted to workout, but it was the truth even if it was only for monetary gain.

"I'll commend your discipline, most people who are academically inclined tend to overlook the importance of being fit and just focus on their studies. Nevertheless, I don't have enough time to perform the necessary tests on you, all I can do is explain how do traits work and you'll have to figure the rest on your own,

The first thing you need to know is that traits are the result of a rapid evolution taking place in every cell of our bodies. It seems whenever cryptids die they let out something that triggers it, but it's yet to be observed which is why it's unconfirmed but just because we don't understand what causes said evolution doesn't mean we can't study its effects.

When someone acquires a trait their bodies undergo an evolution process we call 'promotion' or 'ranking up' and the ranks go from evolved to holy as far as I know, though it's been theorized there might be some ranks above."

"Above holy?" Uriel gasped at the revelation. He'd seen how powerful Jon was and the thought of someone being even stronger than him gave him the chills. Although Jon usually moved at a normal speed, he was capable of matching Uriel's speed with Dash activated without even batting an eye.

"Yes, the reason why we believe that is because it's been observed that some holy rank hunters' traits are yet to settle. Like I said before, the evolution that takes place is incredibly fast, but it doesn't stop for a few days, weeks, even years. During that period, a person can go from evolved to heavenly rank.

That is the first stage of settling and most body modifications occur during that period, the second stage of a trait settling is when it reaches the top of its evolution path and can't grow anymore."

"How can a person rank up?"

"Exposing yourself to vanishing cryptids usually helps, it's been observed that activating a trait often can help too but all that is merely empiric evidence which means we don't know for sure."

"Is there a way to know if my trait is settled?"

"There's a couple ways, but the easiest is to measure your energy signature, destroy flux orbs and then tested again. When flux orbs are crushed the effect is similar to when a cryptid is defeated, which means that if your energy signature grows, your trait isn't settled yet and if it doesn't it means it is settled and you won't ever rank up."

Uriel knew that already from the first time his system app notified him that he had to crush ten orbs, that was how he was promoted from evolved to ascended. Now it was the same, with the sole difference that his counter only advanced whenever he killed an entity level cryptid.

Killing entities was extremely difficult, even knowing their weakness. The only reason why they were able to kill so many during their exploration was because they were in a large group and they had Jon's help, but there were two problems.

The first one was that some entity level cryptids were too difficult to deal with even for the holy rank hunter and the second one was that even if Uriel was near them when they were defeated his orb counter didn't go up.

It only counted the entity level cryptids he defeated himself, which meant that in order to rank up he would have to hunt entity level cryptids by himself.

Lamar's explanation served to confirm most of what he already suspected, but there was still one question he had to ask.

"So, if my trait isn't yet settled, does that mean I can join the heavenly rank physical training?" Read new chapters at My Virtual Library Empire

"I would advice against it. The machines they use to train their bodies would feel like torture for an ascended, it's difficult even for the heavenly rank hunters because if it wasn't it would have no effect.

A regular human may benefit greatly from an occasional jog in the park, but an evolved needs something more intense, ascended usually carry weights on them and the heavenly rank hunters, well, they often face each other in combat. It's primitive, I know, some people even die during training."

"Some students die and the college isn't stopping it!?" Uriel was flabbergasted, especially considering how violence was strictly forbidden in campus.

"As a medic, I made an oath to preserve life and would usually be against it, but I have to admit there's no other way. Heavenly rank hunters usually draw a lot of cryptid attention, if they can't endure the training they'd most likely cause the death of everyone around them by either luring cryptids or by their incompetence."