"Why can’t I also extract the Final Boss skills?" he asked, wondering why he couldn’t find the [Survivor] skill in the reward extraction, even if he knew he couldn’t extract it.

[Those skills are system-level skills given to you upon obtaining the Final Boss Persona System. As such, they cannot be ranked. You will be able to use them in whichever Final Boss Persona you play as.]

"How about my personal skills? Do I also get to use them in my Final Boss Persona?"

[Yes. However, it’s advisable not to use your personal skills during your Final Boss Persona so you don’t get recognised.]

Abel nodded in understanding.

"What would I get if I used my remaining Emotion Points to extract [Oppressive Aura (D)]?" Abel asked.

After realising that he could only use Rupture Decay with 50 per cent effectiveness because he didn’t have the Decay attribute, and seeing that the system was responsive, he wanted to know what kind of skill he would receive or whether he should save his Emotion Points for later.

[Host will receive [Oppressive Aura (F)] for 630EP.]

F-ranked? He doubted the skill would work as the original. In other words, it was basically useless.

Abel looked at a skill before deciding to save his points for later.

[Do you wish to accept your reward? Yes/No.]

Abel selected "Yes" without hesitation. Instantly, his vision blurred once more.

---

Abel regained consciousness in the hospital. Instantly, a severe feeling of weakness hit his body before a surge of power flowed through him. His muscles bulged, his bones cracked, and veins bulged beneath his skin under the tremendous pressure.

Mana surged from within his body, infusing into every tissue and organ.

"AHHHHHH!!!"

Abel’s lips snapped open as he screamed out with a mixture of pain and excitement, unable to bear the brunt of the transformations happening within him and understanding the reason for it.

BEEPP!! BEEEPP!!

The heartbeat monitor and other equipment beeped fiercely, sensing something irregular happening within the patient.

BANNGG!!

A visible ripple of mana poured out of Abel and spread across him like a shockwave, scattering the hospital equipment beside the bed across the room.

CLANKK!! CLANKK!

It lasted only for a minute before the transformation ended.

Abel swiftly felt his body returning to normal, except for the sudden feeling of weakness that overtook him. He was sweating and breathing heavily as he regained his composure.

"Have I awakened?" Abel spoke to himself, feeling the strange sensation within him and around his surroundings.

It was the special magical phenomenon which could only be felt by awakeners - ’Mana.’ It fit everything he had learned while trying to awaken before he had failed. Nonetheless, there was only one way to find out.

Abel gathered enough strength and said, "Status."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ Name: Abel Gregory ]

[ Race: Human ]

[ Age: 20 ]

[Talent: Final Boss Persona [???] ]

[Level: 1]

[ Mana: D- ]

[ Strength: D ]

[ Agility: D ]

[ Physique: D- ]

[ Dexterity: C+ ]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Attribute: None ]

[Skills: Chain Throw (D+), Rupture Decay (D+)]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The status screen unravelled before him.

Abel looked at his status sheet, specifically the Level One status, and realised he was now an official awakener. He’d truly obtained a fraction of the Warden’s power. Even if it wasn’t the complete power, it was still enough to make him a Level One Hunter, upgrading all his stats to D-rank and making him no different from an official Hunter.

His dexterity was [C+], making it his highest stat.

Suddenly, the weakness overwhelmed his body. His eyesight became dizzy.

At that moment, the door burst open.

A figure dressed in a white scrub dress ran into the room and rushed towards him.

That was the last thing Abel saw before he lost consciousness once more.

***

"Mr Abel! Mr Abel!!"

Abel heard an angel calling his name as he arose from his slumber.

His eyes fluttered open and squinted, almost blinded by the bright white light above him.

Suddenly, his vision adjusted, and he could make out the figure calling his name and those standing around them.

It was the familiar doctor and nurse. But there were two more nurses beside them.

"Mr Abel, how many fingers can you see?" the doctor asked, raising two fingers in Abel’s line of sight.

"Two," Abel replied.

"That’s good," the doctor responded, relieved.

He could affirm that Abel could hear and see clearly with that single question.

"All his vitals are normal," one of the nurses said.

The doctor checked the equipment and tested himself before nodding.

"What happened?" Abel asked.

"How do I explain this?" the doctor said, adjusting his glasses as he focused on Abel with a serious expression.

"First of all, allow me to congratulate you on becoming a Hunter, Mr Abel. You have undergone a miraculous awakening. Due to your injuries, it would’ve been a deadly awakening, but fortunately, you’ve succeeded. We are currently unable to ascertain your awakened abilities with our equipment at this hospital. You would need to move to a hospital with more adequate resources for Hunters. I’m sorry about this, Mr Abel," the doctor said with a respectful tone.

Abel sensed the respectful tone in his voice, which wasn’t there during their last meeting, but didn’t focus on it. He knew that Hunters were highly respected in society, so it was only natural.

"I don’t mind," Abel nodded. "How about the bills?" he asked after a brief hesitation.

"You don’t need to worry about paying the bills. I recently learned that new awakeners get free medical care for a certain period of time due to the nature of their work. As for your bills in this hospital, due to the event of your awakening, they have also been cancelled," the doctor responded with a smile.

"I’m Doctor Mike," Doctor Mike said, introducing himself.

"Thank you, Doctor Mike," Abel nodded.

"Someone is here to meet you, but I’ve informed them about your condition, and they’ve decided to wait until you’re well-rested before meeting you," Doctor Mike said.

Abel nodded. He pondered whether it was still the authorities who had come to meet him or someone else.

"We’ll be taking our leave. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to let us know. The nurses will be here to attend to you," Doctor Mike said, gesturing at the nurses.

Abel glanced at the nurses.

They nodded at him with a smile.

Abel nodded at them.

Doctor Mike and the nurses walked out of the room.

Abel watched as they closed the door behind them. He waited for a few minutes to ensure that they were gone before sitting upright.

Abel sighed deeply at the complexities of men after seeing the way they treated him after learning about his awakening. He opened his hospital gown to look at his body. It was no longer frail. His muscles bulged outward and were clearly defined.

He touched his solid abs, his stomach, and muscles, which were hard and soft at the same time. He was lean and muscular.

Abel had a muscular physique previously from training his body to achieve the maximum capabilities of what he could do in this new life. However, he lost them due to depression, then acquired them again due to hunger and starvation.

Now he had regained them once more, and they seemed to be even more solid than before.

Abel nodded.

’System, when is the next Final Boss Persona?’ Abel asked inwardly. He could also communicate with the system mentally.

[The system needs time to link you to another suitable Final Boss Persona. Expect a new Persona within 24 to 72 hours.]

’So it isn’t fixed?’ Abel thought. In his view, it made sense, since Hunters are always challenging dungeons to conquer them, and since the system was searching for a suitable dungeon Final Boss Persona for him to connect to, it would obviously take some time before he could assume another Final Boss Persona again.

If that was the case, then all he had to do was rest easy until his next Final Boss Persona. While others needed to stream their dungeon raids to accumulate fame and grow stronger, all he needed was a Final Boss Persona. He had become a being meant for entertainment, except he had the ability to fight back.

Abel lay back down in his bed and rested.

An hour later,

One of the nurses walked into the room with a figure behind her. It was a man dressed in a black tuxedo with blonde hair and a cigar lit between his fingers.

After bowing towards Abel respectfully, she turned around and left.

The man arrived beside Abel’s bed and eyed him from head to toe.

"But the police were meant to be the police, but after being informed of your situation, they handed the case over to us," the man said, holding the cigar between his fingers. "However, you don’t seem like much. After they informed me that you made a ruckus during your awakening, I was expecting something more unique. But you’re quite ordinary."

Abel looked at the cigar with a frown. He pondered whether the man didn’t have the decorum to understand that he was in a hospital.

Noticing Abel’s frown, the man smiled nervously. "My bad." He pressed its butt against his trousers, wrapped it in a piece of paper, and stored it in his breast pocket.

He grabbed a stool from the other side of the room, beside the bed, and sat down on it. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Then he pulled out a small notebook and a pen.

"Let’s talk," he said, flipping open his notebook. "Your name is Abel Gregory, correct? You’re 20 years old and graduated in Computer Science from Zenith University. You work at Digigrades Software Limited and also stream part-time... Is that all accurate?"

"Yes," Abel nodded in response.

He had revealed only his name and age to confirm his identity and was a little unnerved that they had managed to uncover many other things about him, especially the fact that he was a streamer.

"You’ve just awakened. Can I confirm it myself?" the man asked.

Seeing Abel’s confusion, the man continued,"Your hand. I’ll let my mana flow into your body, and if it resonates with your mana, then it means that you’ve truly awakened to become a Hunter." One thing he didn’t say was that the more volatile the resonance, the more powerful the newly awakened was.

It was best not to give a new awakener hope that he was potentially talented.

Abel stretched his hand forward, which wasn’t pierced by a needle.

The man grabbed his hand. "It’s going to tingle at first. And don’t fight it. Stay calm."

Abel nodded in understanding.

The man slowly channelled his mana into Abel’s veins.

Two seconds... five seconds...

He barely received any feedback and even began doubting if Abel had truly awakened. He proceeded to channel more mana, circulating it around Abel’s body. At that moment...

BOOMM!!

Abel’s mana washed over like a torrent of waves, clashing against his mana, as though halting the circulation of a foreign mana within its territory.

The man blinked, then stared at Abel in disbelief. The purity of a Hunter’s mana was also one of the ways to determine the innate potential of a newly awakened Hunter because it was triggered from the Hunter’s inner mana core. The more saturated the mana, the less the innate potential.

This kind of occurrence couldn’t be faked, nor could it be replicated, which was why it was easy for anyone, even a Hunter, to verify a newly awakened.

Abel’s mana was the purest he had ever witnessed. Logically speaking, this was impossible.

But he couldn’t ignore the truth before his very eyes.

He realised that Abel had a very high innate potential.

He couldn’t help but frown, realising that something was wrong. The intensity of the mana was low. It was like testing fresh honey without its sweetness.

"Have you confirmed it?" Abel asked.

He didn’t miss the series of expressions, shock, surprise, and astonishment, that had emerged on the man’s face.