Monster Paradise

There was a tall man in black armor, standing in the doorway. He looked like he was about two meters tall. He was also bald like the owner of the hotel. His face was littered with stubble, and there was a long scar that stretched from the left side of his forehead all the way across the middle of his left eye to his chin. There was no white in his left eye too. It was a scar from a cut and his left eye was blinded. The scar and eye added ferocity to his face.

With his height and his face, he gave the people around him a chill down their spines.

When the tall man entered the restaurant, he stared at everyone. The people put their heads down immediately to avoid his gaze. Even Lin Huang avoided making eye contact with him. Lin Huang then patted Lin Xin’s back to get her to finish her food a little faster.

Surprisingly, after getting himself a meal from the buffet, the man walked towards Lin Huang and Lin Xin. He then sat down alone at the table behind them. The seat that he sat on was directly across from Lin Huang.

Lin Huang looked up and they accidentally locked eyes. But, neither of them looked away. Instead, they were checking each other out.

Lin Huang then thought the man was very strange to have chosen him. Among the 10 people in the restaurant, Lin Xin excluded, he was sure that he was the weakest and the poorest one. There was no reason for the man to even notice him.

"Perhaps I’m the new face here that he has never seen before," Lin Huang concluded.

Just when they both stood up after they finished their dinner, the man behind Lin Xin put down his cutlery and walked towards them.

Lin Huang pretended he did not see him and pulled Lin Xin along while they quickly walked out of the restaurant.

When they arrived on the third floor, the man was there too. When they turned right, the man followed.

"Why are you following us?" Lin Huang frowned and turned around to question the man while Lin Xin was at his back.

"It’s the way to my room," the man said and glared at Lin Huang. He then walked passed them and continued on to the end of the corridor. He then stopped in front of Room 301 and went in.

Lin Huang was embarrassed. He went back to their room together with Lin Xin.

"Brother, that uncle looked so scary," Lin Xin said after the door was closed.

"When I saw him running towards us just now, I thought he was a bad guy."

"Don’t worry. In broad daylight, even if he was a bad guy, we don’t have to be scared. Besides, there are so many hunters in this hotel, what is there to be afraid of?" he said, hoping to calm her down. Lin Huang recalled the owner had told him that the guest in Room 301 was a strange man who did sword training in the garden in the middle of the night.

"He’s really strange!" Lin Huang thought to himself.

After dinner, Lin Huang stayed up watching old clips of the previous Reserve Hunter assessments. The Hunter Association would never release any complete assessment videos, only some outstanding takes. It was meant to be an advertisement to attract more people to apply for the assessment.

Of course, Lin Huang was not there to look at the action. All he wanted was the related content linked to the assessment or the head examiner’s way of thinking which might be helpful for the assessment.

He watched more than 20 videos and read some documents. Soon, it was midnight.

Lin Xin went to bed after brushing her teeth. Lin Huang stood up and stretched his body, shut down the Heart Network and went to shower before bed.

Minutes after he went to bed, Lin Huang heard someone closing a door in the corridor.

He looked at the clock projected from his ring. It was 12 a.m.

Lin Huang hesitated. He then sat up and pushed open the door to the balcony. He went to the balcony with his pajamas and looked to the garden beneath him.

There were two lamps near the entrance of the garden which lit up the entire garden.

Noises of bugs chirping came out of the bushes all around.

Soon, the scar-faced man walked out of the hotel door.

He walked to the grassy area on the left side of the garden with a black sword in his hand.

Lin Huang had no idea of the price range of a sword like that. Oddly enough, his concern was for the grass that the man stepped on.

"Does the fella destroy the grass every day, leaving the owner to fix it?"

The man closed his eyes and stood where he was. Suddenly, he raised the sword in his

right hand and swung it in a slanted way.

Lin Huang was stunned. What he lacked right now was a powerful attack skill. He then kept his eyes locked on every move the man made.

There were 18 styles to his technique. From what he performed, the technique seemed incredibly vicious. He did not notice that Lin Huang was watching in secret. He practiced three sets of the same technique, sheathed his sword, and then returned to the hotel.

After memorizing the technique, Lin Huang practiced it with his bare hand. It was very unsatisfying. He then brought up his sword from the storage space and practiced for real.

He had a really good memory and managed to repeat the 18 styles that were practiced by the man earlier perfectly.

As he focused all his attention on practicing, he did not notice that the grass the man stepped on did not leave any trails at all.

When Lin Huang was on the fifth set of training, he heard a notification jingle and a semitransparent box appeared in front of him.

"Congratulations, you have gained a Skill Card ‘The Great Sword Scripture’ piece x1"

Lin Huang was excited when he saw the notification. It motivated him to practice even more.

"I’m not sure how many pieces I have to collect to combine them into a Skill Card. But, I don’t care, I will practice a few hundred times tonight. I’m sure by then I will have a complete Skill Card!"

However, nothing was rewarded after he practiced three more times.

"Maybe I’ll be rewarded once every five practice sets?"

He then practiced another two times, but still, there was nothing.

"What’s happening?" Lin Huang thought it was strange. "Could this have nothing to do with the amount of practice? Then what could it be?" he wondered.

With the doubt in mind, Lin Huang proceeded to practice until it was his eighth time. Suddenly, the notification box popped up again.

"Congratulations, you have gained a Skill Card ‘The Great Sword Scripture’ pieces x1"

"I got another one. Could this be random?" Lin Huang could not help but ask Xiao Hei, "Xiao Hei, do the skill pieces come randomly?"

"No, only when the effect of the skill exceeds 80% of the skill itself, that would be considered an effective practice set. For effective practice sets, you would be awarded skill pieces each time. Repetition would not get you more skill pieces unless the effect is 100%. Then you would get the skill pieces with proper repetition.

The reply given by Xiao Hei was a great help to Lin Huang.

"That’s it! That means the times when I did not get the skill pieces were due to my performance being less than the basic standard of 80% and I achieved the standard on the fifth practice. However, I did not get anything later on as I repeated the same standard for the next five times," he concluded.

Now that he understood, Lin Huang became serious about his practices. He practiced all he could while recalling what he saw the man do in the garden. He wanted to get as many skill pieces as he could until he achieved the 100% skill effectiveness.

He practiced over and over again.

When dawn broke the next morning, Lin Huang had practiced for more than 100 times.

He then went back to his room, exhausted.

However, his chances of achieving the pieces were only at 20% and he only managed to get 21 pieces by the end of the day.