Chapter 12

The next day Jack woke up late in bed, he got out slowly and set about his morning routine. Turning on the television he switched channels to the news before making himself some breakfast. Predictably the news was covering the killer moose attack in York city yesterday. It showed various scenes of devastation and wreckage but no bodies or pieces of bodies, there were several images of the Kladican standing around or walking down the street and a deluge of emotional statements given by various witnesses.

This attack appeared to have sparked a fierce debate among politicians and other groups. Some were angry that because York was a city it had entire teams of high ranking powerful hunters ready to intervene in case something goes really wrong such as what happened yesterday, others stated the more highly populated areas needed more protection than sparsely populated rural areas. Those comments provoked angry recriminations from several people who described the losses in the countryside and Jack was surprised, he hadn’t normally paid a great deal of attention to the news except recently.

The news channel showed a map of the UK with a variety of coloured spots scattered all over, red and black spots seemed to be predominant. The red described rural villages that had suffered monster attacks and deaths but had no regular hunter presence. The black reported villages that had either been abandoned or completely destroyed. Various other coloured spots represented known dungeons, monster nests that couldn’t be wiped out, magical anomalies such as the Dire Woods and other things.

All the debate led back to a months old issue about why the military wasn’t being more of a presence. Jack knew they weren’t going to get anywhere with this. When monsters and mutated animals had first started appearing in the UK and abroad the army was the first thing to mobilise. Entire platoons of soldiers were sent into the streets, bases were set up around the countryside and recruitment skyrocketed. But then things started going wrong quickly, the soldiers discovered to their peril that most monsters can take several bullets without stopping and like to close the distance in a fight quickly and that a rifle isn’t exactly useful in that situation. The military tried to bridge the gap in power and save lives by introducing cultivation as part of the standard training regimen, but this was before much was known about the practice and eventually led to even more deaths amongst the troops.

The last straw however came about a year and a half ago when a colossal beast emerged just north of Oxford, it was shaped like a centaur with a monstrous looking humanoid torso and a quadrupedal lower body and dubbed imaginatively the Oxford Titan Centaur. The thing had been massive standing over five hundred metres tall, before anyone even realised it the thing had rampaged through and trampled several villages and was heading for Oxford. Predictably the military marshalled everything it had and sent in entire brigades of tanks, jet fighters, infantry battalions and even had artillery set up. It was pure chaos and carnage, the beast just shrugged off most of what was thrown at it and what did hurt it just made it angrier, most of the ground forces were eliminated and during the battle Oxford was destroyed with the army having done a fair amount of the damage itself.

In the end it was a small group of powerful hunters that got in close with the beast that took it down. They did it quickly and efficiently with little collateral damage, some argued that the military softened it up but most knew that was utter bullshit. That battle and previous losses left the army devastated, forcing it to scale back its operations in order to re-evaluate its strategies, tactics and weapons. The government then started investing even more money and resources into the then fledgling hunter programme and hunters began to take the brunt of hunting monsters, leading expeditions into magical anomalies and dungeons and obtaining valuable materials for industry and research. The army was still a presence but was apparently only to be mobilised for something like a national emergency.

Jack watched the back and forth between the reporters and various guest speakers whilst munching on his cereal. His mind wandered back to his encounter with the Kladican, he’d clearly used another ability when time had seemed to slow down or more accurately his perception had sped up. He idly tried to recreate the ability while he ate but nothing happened except getting a slight headache and going crosseyed. He tried with a little more force drawing more on his core but a strong surge of electricity travelled down his arm, into his spoon and discharged into his bowl spraying milk and cereal everywhere. Jack sat still in disbelief and shock, not moving for for several seconds, covered in milk and cereal, before the bowl fell apart in his hands and crumbled to the floor in pieces.

“Fuck.” Jack quietly swore to himself and sighed before getting up, after heading to the sink trying not to drip everywhere he started to clean up. Once everything was clean again he decided that since he had the week off he would do some more hunting and try again to get some better equipment. That was a head scratcher, since none of the main suppliers of hunter’s gear in the plaza were willing to supply him with weapons and armour he would have to look further afield. It was when he idly picked up his machete and twirled it around whilst thinking he realised that the answer was already in his hands.

The older guy who ran the small weapons shop he got the machete in. He may not have thought much of Jack’s chances in becoming a hunter, and probably believed Jack was going to die a horrible death but he at least sold Jack a solid weapon rather than trying offload some bargain bin crap on Jack. With his mind made up he got dressed and headed out into town to pay a certain grouchy weapons smith a visit.

Around an hour later Jack was in front of the store looking in. He opened the door and stepped in, instead of going straight to the counter he decided to look around first. He’d been giving thought to what he needed to buy, in the end he decided a large sword like a claymore or longsword was probably not the best option for monster hunting, especially in unskilled hands like his. He needed something relatively simple to use, something that had both reach and bite whilst keeping his machete as a backup.

He searched around until he came to the section displaying spears, most seemed a little too long at two and a half metres or more, if a monster came in close past his guard he’d be fucked. A closer look brought his attention to a spear that was slightly shorter than him at around a metre and three quarters, it had a one foot long leaf bladed tip with a small round metal weight at the other end. The description stated the shaft was made of a composite of wood and graphite which he knew was a good conductor of electricity. He took it off the rack along with a harness and shoulder strap for it.

He looked at the counter and saw there was still no one there, he wasn’t in a hurry to confront the old guy again so continued looking around. He decided to see what was upstairs. On the next floor up there looked to be an array of display cases in the centre with various mannequins wearing armour lining the walls, a quick search revealed these pieces to be well out of his price range. A shame too, despite the price they weren’t ridiculous or ostentatious looking like in the various stores he found in hunter’s plaza.

He went back down the stairs and continued to search around, he eventually found something else he’d been searching for. A single headed two handed battle axe, it wasn’t too big for him but when he picked it up he noticed it had some heft to it, he’d probably need to get used to it. He grabbed it plus the harness for it, this was when the weapons smith decided to make an appearance at the counter.

“You again! You're still alive?” He asked with some incredulity.

“You're not the first person to ask me that, or the second actually.” Jack replied with a smirk.

“Uh huh, so what is it, you hear to return the blade I sold ya.” His eyes wandered to the weapons in Jack’s arms. “Oooor not, thought we already had this conversation, you-”

Jack cut him off. “Yeah yeah I know, you think i’m gonna die and make you look bad, but you don’t need to worry about that, i’m a hunter now, got my licence and everything, er you do credit right?”

The smith scowled and folded his arms. “Yeah I do credit, but only for hunters I think won’t die too soon or too easily, have you even done any hunts yet?”

Jack scowled back and thought of telling him before the idea occurred to him that he could show the guy. So he took out his pager and looked up his previous jobs log, he selected the rat extermination job which had been amended to twenty four rats for a reward of seven hundred pounds (thankyou Cheryl). He showed the pager to the smith and he took it. After a couple of seconds the smith let out a low whistle.

“Okay kid, I’ll admit twenty four giant rats by yourself ain’t bad at all, especially for your first hunt, but the fact still remains you're a lighting cultivator. You’ve sort of reached your peak already, I think this job is about as good as it gets for you and even then you might have gotten lucky.” He looked a little impressed with Jack at first then regretful.

Jack sighed, he wasn’t really getting anywhere here, his status as a lightning cultivator was holding him back. He looked around the quiet store and noted that there was no one else present, he hadn’t really wanted to do this yet, he wanted to keep as low a profile as possible, but needs must and all that. Jack placed all the gear on the floor and reached into his backpack for his machete.

“Whoa whoa whoa what the fuck! Are you actually going to try and rob me!?” The smith had a look of disbelief on his face and raised his hands in a warding gesture.

Jack just rolled his eyes and focussed a small amount of energy into the blade. He then held out the machete with one hand on the blade and one on the hilt as if to hand it over to the smith.

“What, you're giving it back? Is something wrong with it?” The smith asked in confusion.

“Go ahead, just touch the blade, there's something I want to show you”. Jack nodded to him and encouraged him to touch the blade.

The smith looked at him suspiciously for a few seconds then reached out and grasped the blade. ZZZAP.

“AH FUCK!! WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT WAS THAT?!” He immediately let go and stumbled back shaking his arm and hand which were spasming.

“Ouch, that both looked and sounded painful. Are you ok?” Jack asked with concern, he’d been trying to hold back but maybe he’d put too much juice in anyway.

“NO! Do I look ok to you?” He glared at Jack.

“Well, you do look a little out of sorts, I’ll admit”. Jack leaned casually against the counter.

“What did you do? How did you do that?” He asked, now slightly recovered he was bending and straightening his arm.

“Hmmm, you remember when people said it’s impossible to cultivate lighting or use it?” Jack asked and the smith nodded suspiciously. “Well not anymore, I found a way.” Jack said simply and smiled.

“You - wha - How?” The smith stumbled over his words.

“I can’t really say for now, it’s kinda dangerous” Jack grimaced, he really hoped the smith wouldn’t push it.

“Dangerous? Even so you could make millions! Loads of companies and labs and governments have been trying to find a way for months and you say you’ve got one, is it really that dangerous? C’mon what is it?” He pressed eagerly.

“Haaa, seriously I can’t say, it's a little unconventional and if other people found out it could get…..errrr……hmmmm, what's the right word? Messy? Weird? Creepy?” Jack started thinking and the smith started to look at him funny.

“What the fuck are you into kid?”

“Nothing weird! It’s just that this method of cultivation could potentially be dangerous to other people as well as the cultivator.” Jack tried to assure him. “Besides I'll tell people eventually, or people will find out by themselves like I did, but I just think it might be best if this kind of erm…secret could be let out in a more er controlled fashion.”

“Riiiight, so you can cultivate then?” He asked and Jack nodded. “And you’ve started to develop your abilities.” Jack nodded again. “What can you do so far?” He asked.

“Er well that thing with the blade and erm….” Jack trailed off awkwardly.

“Is that it?” He asked, scepticism appearing once more on his face.

“Hey it’s still early days yet!” Jack objected.

“Hmmm, I suppose we can work something out.” The smith rubbed his chin.

Jack took another look around the store and noticed there were still no other customers, unlike the other weapons stores along and around the highstreet which had both normal people and hunters going in and out, this place was quiet. He also noticed that the majority if not all the weapons and armour were exclusively metal or synthetic material, no harvested monster parts at all. He turned back to the smith.

“Do you get any other hunters here? Or any customers at all actually.” Jack asked, now a little suspicious himself.

The smith looked defensive and defiant for a second but then sagged in defeat. He sighed. “Haaaa, not as much as I would like, the market is a little saturated at the moment and my small shop doesn’t exactly stand out amongst all these corporate owned places. I can’t even afford to get monster materials and right now that's all anyone wants! No one wants a high quality reinforced nigh unbreakable carbon steel tungsten alloy battle axe, noooo, they all want some ridiculous abomination made out of a wyverns thigh bone!” He looked a little red faced at the end of his rant and was starting to breath heavily.

“Okaaaay, well, what's say I help you with that?” Jack asked, backing away slightly with hands held up in a conciliatory gesture.

“Help how?” The smith replied sceptically.

“I provide materials of your choice, in return I get these weapons, some armour and any upgrades in the future as well as free maintenance, repairs and custom jobs, how's that?” He leaned against the counter and watched the smith mull it over.

“Hmmm, not a bad deal, but it seems like you’d be getting the short end of the stick if you're supplying me with thousands of pounds worth of monster loot and all you get are some repairs and the odd weapon.”

Jack was a little surprised, he didn’t expect the smith to haggle himself down. “Well, if you want, you can go through the monster hunters guild, put in a job request and set the reward down low to what the materials are worth without profit and request I be the one to do it. That should be useful actually because you can use their database to look up what you want and track their whereabouts.” Jack suggested.

The smith crossed his arms and looked to be mulling it over some more. He turned to Jack. “Deal!” He held out his hand. Jack took it and they shook hands. As they shook Jack looked down to the smiths forearm and noticed the streaks of rough grey skin poking out from the bandages wrapped around his arms. The smith noticed him looking and smirked.

“Ah, can you guess what my element is?” He sniggered.

“Oh er sorry, didn’t mean to stare.” Jack averted his eyes in embarrassment.

“Ha! Don’t worry about it, I know quite a few serious earth cultivators, in fact some of us get together frequently to share ideas, everyone of us have markings of some sort. Separates the real cultivators from the amateurs if you ask me.” He grinned, unwrapping some of the bandages revealing more of his arms.

“Huh, earth, that must come in handy if you work with metal.” Jack remarked.

“Ha! You’re damn right! I used to be a metallurgist ya know, for this big company based in Alaska before everything went down, back before Alaska became a no go zone. Becoming an earth cultivator is like a dream come true, I’ve been able to come up with all sorts of different alloys for weapons and armour and other stuff.” He grinned.

“Hmmm, so it sounds like if I want a custom job, you’d be the one to come to then?”

“Heh heh, could be, could be.” He gave Jack a sly grin. “Do you have anything in mind?” He asked.

“Not yet, still getting a feel for things, but I know I want something extremely electrically conductive, like crazy conductive, like I’d be afraid to touch it normally cause I’d probably electrocute something nearby. Something like that.” Jack vaguely informed the smith.

“Hmmm, ok kid, you’ve set me a challenge, I like that. Something crazy conductive, ok, and I assume also extremely durable. Right! Leave it with me! It might take a while but I’ll come up with something, in the meantime I’ll contact you later this week with a job request”. He grinned. “But for now, I’ve got something for you since we’ll be working together.” He turned away and disappeared through the door behind the counter, he came back out with a black padded flak jacket. “Here ya go, wear this.” He undid the front velcro and zipper and held it out to Jack.

Jack took it hesitantly and slipped it on. It covered his entire torso while leaving his arms bare and had a collar that rose up slightly protecting his neck. It was light and fairly flexible, he could feel several smaller hard plates overlapping within the jacket material all over. He turned and twisted around, getting a feel for the movement, it felt good. The smith nodded.

“That's a kevlar flak Jacket, it has overlapping plates of a strong but flexible aluminium based alloy slipped inside for added protection, it’ll stand up to bullets and beasts. Should help you survive more than a few hunts. How does it feel?” He asked.

“It feels great! The names Jack by the way.” Jack smiled.

“Gary, I look forward to a profitable arrangement” He smiled and nodded.