Rui had to admit, nailing a difficult mission was one of the best feelings ever. An immense wave of satisfaction washed over him as he thought about the fact that not a single villager died. Although, one did come close.
Thankfully, there was only one hidden gang member inside the building. Rui had no idea what he was doing in there instead of joining his gang-mates, but thankfully there had only been one. If there were several and each had taken a hostage, then there would have been a bit of an issue.
For now, he was fine, but he really felt the need to improve his covert abilities. There were many missions just one where he felt his lacking stealth. Missions where, if he had been stealthier, he would have been able to complete them with much greater ease and simplicity.
This mission was an example. If he had a technique that at the very least allowed him to completely evade normal human senses, then life would have been far easier.
('I'll put it on the list for next time.') He mused. At the end of the day, missions were literally his livelihood. It made sense to purchase techniques that would make the completion of missions easier in that regard. Even if his missions weren't of the covert-class, that did not mean he did not require covert capabilities. Generally, it was best if one possessed some amount of capability in all general and common fields. There were just too many reasons to not invest further into his stealth
But he didn't intend to do that immediately. He had recently come out of a seven-month-long training stage, he had no intention of jumping back into training. He intended to go for various, different kinds of missions that would enrich his experience and expand his worldview. He had lived in this world for nearly sixteen years, yet he had experienced too little of everything it had to offer. He wanted more, he wanted to do more.
He even had ideas on what he wanted to do.
('The Beast Domain...') His eyes lit up with wonder.
The Panama Continent was absolutely gigantic and a majority of it was colonized by humans. However, a little over a third of the continent's land was uncolonized natural environments that were occupied by diverse fauna. A large proportion of this land was at the heart of the Continent.
The heartland of the continent was entirely uncolonized, it was an extremely perilous environment where Martial Apprentices like himself were only qualified to enter the outskirts of the outer-most layer, going any deeper would be absolutely suicide for him.
When Rui had learnt of that, it had made sense to him that the Beast Domain was uncolonized and left alone by the human nations. The difficulty of colonizing and conquering the Beast Domain was so extraordinarily high that the nations simply could not afford to undertake such a herculean task. Furthermore, it wasn't just a matter of difficulty, perhaps if humanity as a species came together as one, it could take over the Beast Domain in a conflict that could shake the very continent.
However, the fact of the matter was that humanity was so astronomically far away from any semblance of united that it was genuinely hilarious, yet also incredibly sad. Humans fought with each other to a degree beyond what imagination could beggar. Conflicts on all scales were nearly omnipresent, these prevented the humans from coming even close to uniting.
It would take an absolute miracle for them to join hands, short of a global extinction-level threat, there was probably nothing that could unite the species.
Regardless, the Beast Domain was not going anywhere. And while it was a source of danger, it was also a source of great opportunity. Untold esoteric resources lay within the fauna, flora and the land of the Beast Domain. Many of the missions of the hunting-class were related to resource extraction and procurement.
These high-grade esoteric resources could be used to accomplish wonders. This was why the human species held a great amount of interest in the Beast Domain.
Because of its perilous environment, Martial Artists were really the only ones capable of surviving in the Beast Domain. As wondrous as esoteric technology was, it was extremely difficult and untenable to use it to allow normal humans to survive in the environment. It was far easier to dispatch Hunter-class Martial Artists who would complete their missions remarkably well and efficiently.
Rui wanted to experience the Beast Domain with his own two eyes at some point. Perhaps his next mission ought to be a Beast Domain mission?
Rui shook his head. If the Beast Domain was as dangerous as advertised, then he was not quite as ready yet.
His very first hunting mission with the Earthen Basilisk had shown him how inadequate his Martial Art really was when it came to non-human entities. Many hunting-class missions after that had reflected that as well.
The predictive model system of the pattern recognition system was not particularly bothered by the differences between humans and non-humans. However, the adaptive evolution model was designed for humans.
Now that Rui had largely found the main solution for the viability problem of the VOID algorithm, he needed to find solutions for the incompatibility problems. This was something he intended to target in his next training stage,
It didn't matter that he was a grade-ten Martial Artist. That was very general grade given to him by the Martial Academy in evaluation of his combat prowess. What mattered was his compatibility. He was not compatible with them as much a he'd liked.
Rui shook his head, putting aside such nebulous thoughts.
The world wasn't going anywhere.
What kinds of Martial Art would he fight?
What kind of places would he see?
What kind of people would he meet?
A whole world of opportunity awaited him, and he had a lifetime to explore it.