Ed woke up early the next day. After some stretches and a light breakfast with his sister. He saw her sister off and then to a bath changing into some comfortable clothes.

Sitting on the couch Ed looked at the time on his phone

'30 minutes left huh'

While waiting for Jong's arrival, Ed opened the hunter's app hoping to get some useful information for a rookie like him. In the forum, he saw a thread titled

'Basic rules of a group hunt'

Interested Ed opens it up. In the post was listed some basic rules regarding how to hunt and distribute loot when in a group.

' If in a group fight the drops are distributed evenly among the group or how it has been decided before entering the gate. In case of special drops, the one with the most contribution gets the first pick.'

'In case of solo battle, the drops from the prey belong solely to the one who hunts the monsters.'

'this is the general rule that is followed by hunters if no rules or contracts are set up before entering the gate'

While surfing through the forum time passed and soon he got the call from Jong. Together they set off to the meeting point via a train.

An hour away from where Ed lived a gate had opened up which the guild 'Roaring Immortals' had bought. Like all things supernatural related the gates were also expensive and were usually distributed via a bidding system.

The bidding goes on for a day maximum or in the case of lower grade gate, it is up for two to six hours at most. This is done to stop the guilds from tackling gates that they cannot handle. The short period makes it so that the local guilds get a better chance at winning the gate as well as to close the gate as soon as possible.

The guild that finds the gate first gets a cut from the winning bid if they sell the gate to others. While a percentage of it goes to the Association for the grading of the gate, holding the auction, sending a raid team in case the guild attacking fails, and lastly for making sure no other guild enters the gate except the ones who own it.

As for the last portion except for a small tax paid to the government the rest goes to hunter's insurance funds and the gate damage repair fund. In quite many cases the gates explode or open up causing monster waves dealing widespread damage if the gates are not closed in time.

All in all, nothing gets wasted and hence it is illegal to enter the gate without proper authorization.

Ed and Jong arrived at the gate zone and took a moment to observe it. The area around the gate was blocked and tapped as if a murder scene had happened there. Back when Ed awakened nothing like this happened because of the matter of him trespassing into a gate.

To stop the gate from going haywire the guild that brought Ed out had judged that they need to close the gate before settling accounts. The rest of the guilds did not make much fuss about it because it was just a grade D gate with had no crystal ore or special monsters.

However, this was a proper Cranked gate which in a few cases can have special monsters with high monetary value and if you are lucky enough ore or crystal mine.

Ed and Jong soon met the guild members as well, the first to approach them were their two classmates who had joined this guild and helped them get a spot in the raid.

Dae In Ho and Ju In-Su were unlike what Ed remembered from two years ago. Back then both of them were lean guys however now they had well-built bodies. Wearing a sturdy breastplate, a pair of gauntlets, and greaves along with a vambrace on one arm Ju In-Su carried a large broad sword which was a bit chipped from use, yet looked chilling.

On the had Dae In Ho wore leather armor all over and carried a bow and a quiver loaded with arrows on his back.

"I see the rookies have arrived, after taking their sweet time."

With a despising look on his face, Dae In Ho taunted Ed and Jong.

" Oh I thought you said we will enter the gate at 12 "

Jong tried to explain however Dae In Ho interrupted him.

" I don't need your excuses, we gave you this chance so you should have arrived before us, well whatever at least don't drag us down and maybe we will let you both join our guild"

Ju In-Su didn't even look at Ed and Jong during the whole interaction. He merely gave them a poor quality battle-ax and a sword, leaving behind the few cold words

"our guild will lend this it to you for today in exchange for one red crystal, since it is your first time we will protect you in and return you will only get half the loot as everyone else. If you are capable enough to hunt something yourself you can keep it"

saying so they turned around and led Ed and Jong to the rest.

Ed and Jong both felt uncomfortable. They both deep down felt it, looks and physique was not the only thing that had changed about their once classmates.

The members of the raid were all from the Roaring immortal guild except the two. The word guild here was very loosely used as most of the strongest figures of the small guild were lost in the gate raid. Now only 15 remained of the original 27, no longer qualifying them as a guild but only as a group as most.

Of the 15 three were B ranked while 5 were Cranked the rest were of Drank. Dae In ho and Ju were two of the C rank memebers. The leader of the group Cho Hye ordered the rest to gear up and turned towards Ed and Jong.

"What are your ranks and class"

" Barbarian C rank and he is ..."

However, before Jong could say his rank and class Ed intruded

"Warrior E rank"

Jong looked at Ed with a questioning gaze which Ed ignored completely. As to why he lied it was because after Jong told him about how him getting an F-rank had become a meme. He thought it was better to not disclose it to avoid the unneeded attention.

As for him being a thief well...

'It is too embarrassing to say I'm a thief ...'

Ed honestly thought with a straight face. Jong soon retracted his questioning gaze as he knew Ed must have his reason for it, besides it's not that important to the current situation anyways.

Cho Hye suppressed his disgust for Ed's weakness and told them of their task in a commanding tone.

"well the barbarian can join the D rankers as for the warrior... you just handly the mining equipment and do not drag us down"

The rest of the members of the group completely disregarded Ed's existence and only introduced themselves to Jong.

"Alright gather up we will enter the gate now. It's a C rank gate, the D rankers take the rear wings, C rankers to the front that's all"

Cho Hye barked his orders and strode towards the gate. The rest of the group entered after the leader was unorganized, followed by an awkward Jong who kept looking back at Ed. As for Ed's classmates well they completely ignored Ed as well.

'... that's it ...? Is this really how hunters hunt ?'

While Ed started questioning the professionalism of this group, He picked up the mining gear packed in a bag along with his rusty sword and traced behind the group jumping into the dense verticle pool of skin prickling mana.

'I have a bad feeling about this...'