The invisible sun inside the gate finally set, replaced by a dark, starless, and moonless sky.

Hide, Evelyn, and Elara had moved away from the frozen, shattered remains of the Brochio Fiend and set up a temporary camp inside the remains of a partially collapsed, moss-covered house nestled on the side of a jagged mountain.

A small campfire crackled in the center of the living room, illuminating the dusty walls.

"So," Elara began, leaning forward. She had taken off her ruined sweater and was now wearing a spare shirt Evelyn had given her. The healing potions had fixed her arm, and her boundless, childlike curiosity had fully returned. She stared at Hide with wide, sparkling eyes. "What exactly are you?"

Hide poked the campfire with a stick. "Huh? Pretty sure I looked like a human last time I saw a mirror."

"Don’t give me that!" Elara pouted, waving her hands enthusiastically. "I saw you! You turned into a scaly, armor-plated monster, and then you just... froze that giant dinosaur! My ice couldn’t even scratch it, but your ice completely shattered it!"

She stopped and thought about what she had said. "I... I mean if not for that fucking rock falling on my hand and those ten beasts attacking me at a time before, I would have killed that dinosaur." She looked at hide embarrassingly and tried to change the topic. "And your mana... why is it black?"

Evelyn, sitting across the fire with her knees pulled up to her chest, looked at Hide intently. Her eyes were sharp, calculating the sheer impossibility of what she had witnessed today.

She had her doubts that Hide was not normal, of course no normal F-Rank would be in a team of majors in first place. But then again, Hide did have a Unique class.

"Elara is right, Hide," Evelyn said, her voice steady but laced with genuine caution. "Black mana is universally associated with corruption or Calamity beasts. I have never read a single report of a human possessing black mana. It shouldn’t be biologically possible. Is it something related to your Unique class?"

Hide kept his face perfectly neutral, staring into the orange flames.

He had expected this conversation. He couldn’t exactly tell them his talent, or that he had a System that literally evolved his body.

"It’s just the nature of my mana," Hide said, delivering his half-truth with deadpan sincerity. " It’s naturally black. I don’t know why."

Though that was a lie, his body didn’t store mana like normal Exterminators. So his own mana didn’t even exist, he used the mana from environment every time to use his talent. And as for the skills, they didn’t even need mana to be used.

Elara tilted her head. "But what about the shadow monster? The big guy who picked me up like a potato sack?"

"That’s my talent," Hide lied smoothly. "I can solidify my mana to create constructs. And the armor is just another application of it. It’s a defensive spell."

"And the freezing?" Evelyn pressed, not entirely convinced.

"I just figured out how to drop the temperature of my mana," Hide shrugged, tossing the stick into the fire. "It’s not that deep."

Elara groaned, flopping dramatically onto her back. "You are so boring! You have this super cool, mysterious, intimidating villain aesthetic, but you talk like a tired accountant!"

Evelyn sighed, though a faint smile tugged at the corner of her lips. Despite the terrifying nature of his abilities, Hide himself was just... Hide. Well, they didn’t know much about him, but he was reliable.

Hide stood up, dusting off his pants.

"Where are you going?" Evelyn asked. "It’s dangerous to wander off right now. We don’t know what else crossed over when the gates collapsed."

"There is a beast roaming nearby," Hide said, stretching his shoulders. "I’m going to hunt it down for dinner. I’m starving."

Before Evelyn could object to his casual approach to hunting Calamity beasts for food, Hide slipped out the broken doorway and vanished into the dark, humid night.

He walked a good distance away from the ruined house, making sure the girls couldn’t see him. He found a massive, ancient tree growing sideways out of the rocky terrain and sat down beneath it.

The air was suffocatingly quiet.

Hide heaved a long, heavy sigh, letting the tension of the day finally bleed out of his shoulders.

He raised his right hand. A small, concentrated cluster of Abyssal Flame ignited over his palm, casting a flickering, orange glow over his face. He stared at it for a moment, then squeezed his fist shut, extinguishing the fire completely.

"Class State," Hide commanded in his mind.

A familiar blue holographic screen instantly materialized in the dark.

[Universal Adaptation System]

Host: Hide Volter

Age - 18

Level: 15

Exp: 1220 / 3300

Class: ∞

Class Rank: F

Evolve - Level 15/20

Physical Attributes 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Strength: 25

Agility: 27

Endurance: 20

Vitality: 15

Mental Attributes

Perception: 15

Willpower: 15

Non-Allocated Points: 5

Active Skills – Abyssal Scale Carapace (A), Abyssal Flame (B), Mana Blast (A), Abyssal Frost (B)

Passive Skills – Dermal Reinforcement (F), Predator’s Respite (B), Unshaken Will (B), Toxin Resistance (C), Virus Immunity (C), True Sight (C), Dark Abyssal Core (S), Mana Shroud (C)

[Inventory]

[Daily Quests]

[Store]

System Messages:

[0 Unread Notifications]

--

Hide read the whole thing with narrowed eyes.

’I have noticed that there is something about the skills that the system give me. Why the hell di most of them have abyssal in their names? What is that?’

After fidgeting the question in his mind for sometime he gave up on it for now, he could not find anything related to it. He sighed and opened the daily quests.

Today’s Quests

Push-ups × 0/100 – Reward: 100 ExpStraight Punches × 0/100 – Reward: 100 ExpKicks × 0/100 – Reward: 100 ExpStatic Lift – 0/100 kg total (any distribution) – Reward: 100 ExpRun – 0/10 km (cumulative) – Reward: 100 Exp

Completion Bonus (All 5):

– +1 Free Attribute Point

– 1 × Recovery potion

He was pretty sure that he had completed the quests for the last day... so that meant, the day had changed outside. Well, they entered the gate in evening and have spent almost 5 or 6 hours here.

He sighed and dismissed the system, then he stood up and activated his dark liege talent. He was going to use the D-Rank beast core he had to create another phantom troupe.

But to his surprise, instead of the surrounding black mana coming in his body, a system window appeared in front of him.