After their meeting with the Head, Roman and Rena had headed straight to the valley right after having dinner. The hunt went as usual, and this time they had stayed up till the next morning before returning to the outpost.

It was a very productive hunting night, as Rena happened to use more of her Assassin Skills, and they both took down a total of four monster territories.

Roman let Rena take the whole drops the Territory Boss delivered, but Rena still insisted that they shared them. Roman already had some items which he had gotten from the day hunt, but since he didn’t want to let her know about it and prolong the conversation, he just accepted to take it.

[Drop: Ironhide Tusk.]

[Drop: Red Venom Sac.]

One was gotten from a Cragfang Boar Boss, and the other was gotten from a Red Serpent.

All these where monsters they had fourth at the eastern side of the valley, but Roman had made sure to keep her away from the Ravine of Bones territory. Not that it was certainly important to do that, but that he just didn’t want her to get a sight of it.

Maybe preventing a trace of what he had done.

When they returned, they went separate ways again, and Roman went ahead to the BSP like he would always do before resting.

[Best Performing Newbies ranking.]

[1# — Max Crownson, 2# — Borden Pendragon, 3# — Khan Mourne... #103 —Roman Rings... #225 — Rena Ironcrown...]

Roman noticed that he had been making more progress, and Rena herself wasn’t backing down, which was a good thing. But what had amazed him was the fact that he knew one of the guys in the Top Three.

"Hmm... Khan is thriving. As expected."

The best student in Starfall Academy, was making his mark, and for him to be at Top Three, it must mean that he definitely one of the famous newbies in the entire Reach!

It would take the Top 20 rank to even make one very famous in the Reach, and Khan was already at Top 3. That was clear.

He clicked on his name and a few information about Khan displayed itself on the BSP screen.

When one gets the BSP and it successfully binds with them, a few information about them are added and a profile is being created. That was what Roman was interested to check.

The community... The Profession.

[Name: Khan Mourne. Profession: Beast Tamer. Rank: F rank Level 16. Resides in Premium City.]

As far as he could realise, this was some info that should be considered... Luxurious.

Khan was already at Level 16 despite just being in the Badlands for less than a week, and he is even a Beast Tamer. One of the strongest Professions in the Badlands!

And to sum it all up, he is in Premium City, the strongest city amongst cities and one of the strongest communities in the Reach.

When it comes to talking about powerhouses as cities, Premium City is never left out, and they are even on the verge of being considered a nation on it own.

Premium City is known to have produced a lot of powerful and famous Beast Tamers, and Roman was sure that that’s why they had taken Khan with them.

The famous Klein Beastfang is the ruler of Premium City, and is ranked Top Three in the Strongest Entrants rankings. This alone showed their standard, and anyone there had nothing less than a First Class Academic Standard in their various academies.

After spending a little more while on the ranking boards, he left and visited the group chat, where there was already a lot of messages, but most significantly, there was a captivating event going on.

[Melissa: How on fuck’s sake did you all forget our birthday?! Gosh, I’m going to bash your skulls.] 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

[Melisandra: So terrible. Now they gonna say they’ve been "really" busy. Duhhhhhh.]

Roman already got to meet these two a couple days ago. Melissa and Melisandra are very identical twins, and lived in the same community as well. Their uncle’s community precisely, another powerful city in the Center region of the Reach.

They are expectedly S rankers as well, but the main thing they were known for was the fact that they were dating the same guy.

Roman just saw that as another big topic to always talk about in the group chat, and he would really say that he wasn’t interested in any of the dramas that was going on there.

But since today was their birthday, it wouldn’t be bad if he rendered some wishes, right?

[Roman: Have a very happy birthday, Melissa and Melisandra.]

[Melissa: On there’s it! The new guy is the only sensible person we have here. Even North herself is a... Rrrrr. I won’t talk.]

[Melisandra: Yeah better. But thanks to you, Roman. When we meet, I’ll buy you a cup of beer.]

[Roman: Sure. Will appreciate that.]

It hadn’t taken long before the rest of the group members became active and rendered their wishes, and next, the conversation switched to something Roman wasn’t really interested in, so he left and switched to the most important he had wanted to do before resting.

[Attribute Points: 679.]

After hunting with Rena, he had gathered a lot more Attribute Points, and now he was ready to allocate everything.

[Attributes: STR: 13.0, AGI: 7.0, END: 6.5, PER: 8.0, INT: 16.5, CAR: 3.5.]

This was what his Attributes was looking like, and well, if he was to say a thing, he would love to describe how excited he was to raise these Attributes to good, big numbers.

Roman first counted how many Attribute figures he had got.

"One, two, three, four, five, six..."

Six Attributes, and he has six hundred and seventy nine Attribute points to allocate.

"Phew..."

The first thing Roman did was to splash down a hundred attribute points on each Attribute, and soon, they were already in significant numbers.

However, what had made the biggest reaction was the sudden change in his body, as suddenly felt a huge rise in his strengt, flexibility...

He literally felt more lighter than before, and even more vibrant than he used to be.

His skin had just sudden more tougher, his eyes more sharper, and his brain seem to be in the heat intellectual balance possible.

One thing was just sure...

He was no longer the same, and it was crazy how all these changes came in once., and Roman knew it was simply because he had allocated a lot of Attribute points all at once.

[Attributes: STR: 113.0, AGI: 107.0, END: 106.5, PER: 108.0, INT: 116.5, CAR: 103.5.]

Rakn

"This is the Attribute stat of an E ranker..." Roman thought.

And he had just gotten to gather them in the space of one day. If he happens to do it in more consecutive days...

How crazily powerful would he be?

******

Rena finally returned to her room after parting ways with Roman, and the very moment the door closed behind her, she let out a slow breath and leaned against it for a second.

The hunt with Roman had been far more intense than she expected, especially the battle with the Red Serpents. Even now, her body still felt traces of soreness from several impacts and movements she had forced herself through during the fight.

But despite all that, there was still a faint smile resting on her lips.

"Crazy day..." She muttered softly.

Her thoughts drifted toward Roman again, and just remembering some moments made her cheeks warm slightly.

Rena quickly shook her head.

"No... Don’t start thinking about that now," she whispered to herself before moving further into the room.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and slowly opened the BSP screen before her. The blue holographic panel expanded gently in the air, casting a soft glow across the dark room.

Unlike Roman, she wasn’t interested in checking levels or Attributes first.

Her eyes went straight to something else.

The Talent section.

It was something she barely showed interest in publicly, and even during academy assessments, she had always avoided revealing too much about it.

Rena pressed lightly on the panel.

[SSS Rank Talent: Channeling.]

[Talent Description: You have the ability to store energy and strength from every damage you sustain to every point possible, and can unleash them all at once at will.]

Her calm eyes stared quietly at the words.

Even after all this time, seeing the "SSS Rank" label still felt unreal to her.

A Talent of that level was something people would kill for.

Kingdoms would fight over it.

Guilds would desperately try to recruit her.

And if the wrong people found out about it, her peaceful life would disappear completely.

That was the exact reason she kept it hidden from everyone.

Even her father didn’t know the true Talent she had awakened.

The only thing the Empire knew was that she graduated with a First Class Academic Standard. Nothing more.

Rena clicked further into the stats.

[Damages: 14.]

[Energy: 700.]

[Strength: 700.]

A faint glow reflected in her eyes.

"So it reached seven hundred already..." she murmured.

Her Talent converted the damages she sustained into stored power. Every registered damage multiplied by one hundred before splitting into both Energy and Strength reserves.

Seven damages.

Seven hundred Energy.

Seven hundred Strength.

Simple... And terrifying.

That was why the more dangerous the battle became for her, the more frightening she herself would become in return.

Rena slowly closed the panel and leaned back slightly on the bed.

"I still can’t let anyone know about this yet," she whispered.

Not the people in the outpost.

Not the Empire.

Not even Roman.

At least... not now.

She trusted him more than anyone already, but even then, some secrets were too dangerous to reveal carelessly.

Especially one like this.

Rena slowly laid down on the bed, staring quietly at the ceiling while thinking about him again.

Her boyfriend.

The strange guy who somehow kept making her feel safe despite being surrounded by danger every single time.

A soft smile appeared on her lips once more.

She was keeping it away from her boyfriend, but little did she know that he himself even had his own deeper secrets.