Chapter 1: Ch.1 Past Lives
Staring down at the black dragon that was the size of multiple sky scrapers, the man lazily lifted up his sword and slashed forward. With just the swipe of his sword the dragons head had been severed from its neck, collapsing to the ground.
Just as the dragons head made contact with the ground, the scenery changed as a young man awoke from his dream and saw the cracked and stained ceiling if his cheap apartments, not the slain head if a dragon.
Despite the dream being so vivid and heart racing, the man didn't think much if it as he'd been having similar dreams all his life.
Like all dreams, the memory of it soon fades away and even the notes he'd written about them didn't conjure up any mental images.
Getting up, the man name John Jackson took a shower and left his house. His destination, the Dungeon Bureau HQ located in Kansas.
"Welcome, Hunter. How may I help you?" Said a portly middle age man, he sat behind the front desk at the Dungeon Bureau.
"I'd like to check if I was matched up with anyone." Through the Dungeon Bureau's matching system, Hunters with a similar level of skill would be matched up.
The middle aged mans face flickered with irritation. "I'm sorry, Hunter. When the matching is ready, we'll contact you separately."
"I thought the matching might be finished by now"
"If you weren't contacted by us, then you haven't been matched." This had been the 7th time that day that a low level hunter had asked if they were matched.
"Could you please just check one more time? I've already waited a month."
The middle aged man let out a disgruntled sigh, John could only bitterly smile
"I understand. Could you please tell me your name and your rank?"
"John Jackson. D-rank, Healer."
"Ah, so you're John Jackeon? The legendary Healer?" For the first time since the conversation started, the middle aged man cracked a smile.
"Ha ha, yes… that's me." John awkwardly laughed. When he had first awakened as a D-rank Healer, he had become world renown as The Legendary healer.
Walking past the front desk, a newbie party member overheard the conversation. "That guys a legendary Hunter? What did he do to be called that?" A young man wearing leather armour said to his party leader who was wearing head to toe shimmering armour.
"He didn't do anything, it's just a joke man. It's because his healing power are the lowest recorded rank throughout the entire world. 90% of healers are atleast B-rank, the lowest rank of healers are C-rank Healer which make up 1% of healers and that man is the sole outlier, the only D ranked healer in the world."
"Ha, really? That's kinda pathetic." Hearing this, the man lost all interest in John's conversation and started walking away.
John could only let out a listless sigh, this hadn't been the first time he'd been insulted and it wouldn't be his last. At this point John grew a thick enough skin to not let the words of random people hurt his feelings, after all it was well known that unless someone went through a double awakening, they'd be stuck at the strength they first awakened and john had accepted his fate.
Although most Healers kept a high-self esteem and we're the most important member on a team, John's was a special case. He had an outrageously low healing power, allowing him to heal minors cuts and bruises.
An additional D ranked warrior that could defeat monsters would be ten times more beneficial than a healer that would only heal minor inconvenient wounds.
With his face to the ground, John swore to himself "One day, I'll definitely succeed."
As long as he could achieve his dreams, he didn't care about the lives of other people, let alone their opinions.
"I'll go and check now. Please wait one moment," said the middle aged man irritatedly
John watched eagerly, though he would soon realize the fruitlessness of his request.
Checked his computer, the middle aged man sighed and shook his head. "We didn't find any matches. You'll have to wait a bit longer"
"I see, I'll be back..." John suppressed his frustration and returned home.
Holding his smartphone he checked his bank balance. [$74.87]
He had burned through the $1500 that he received from his F-rank dungeon run a month ago and the few hundred dollars he got from his side hustles.
John utilized most of it on his brother's medical expenses, but now… he only had $75 to his name and his bills were once again due.
With tears welling up in his eyes, John feebly dropped his phone on the floor as he desperately held back his tears from falling.
'I spend most of my paycheck just to allow Walter to remain at the hospital, let's alone treatment that could actually help him. I'm surviving off of expired food that I get from food drives, I can't find a single group that wants to raid with me and when I do find one, I'll have to spend half a day inside of a dungeon with absolutely no way to defend myself, surrounded by deadly monsters and allies who think that I'm dead weight.'
John was beginning to crack under the immense pressure that he's been dealing with most of his life. At the age of 16, he awakened his incredibly weak healing powers the very same day his parents disappeared, leaving him to take care of his little brother.
Not having any other family members and not wanting to be separated, John never told the government about their disappearance and began working.
As he couldn't enter Dungeon Gates at 16, John would spend most of his time at gyms, fight schools and elderly homes. Going there, he could eventually find someone who would pay him to fix up their bruises, cuts and sore muscle.
John had tried on multiple occasions to hold down a regular job as well as entering dungeons, but with the sporadic and dangerous life of a hunter, very few companies wanted to take on such liability as there was a high likelihood of the hunter dying and forcing the company to pay life insurance.
John knew that if he took a regular job he'd be making a little more money, but he'd never make enough to actually help Walter's condition. So he could get only grit his teeth and hope that he'd one day enter a dungeon that had a rare item or knowledge of the gates that he could sell and actually change his situation.
'Its been three years since I've began Dungeon hunting and I've yet to make any progress on helping Walter. Im not a powerful S rank hunters like Christopher Reed or Thomas Andre that can make millions off of one gate...What's the point of living such a miserable life.... Perhaps with my life insurance policy, I'm more useful de- *Ring Ring Ring*
At lightning speed he picked up his phone.
"H-Hello?"
"Hello, Hunter. This is the Dungeon Bureau. We have matched you with a D-rank dungeon. There are five members including you. Would you like to proceed?"
'Yes', is what he wanted to immediately say, but a D-rank dungeon... While being a healer made him much weaker than a similarly ranked warrior, he could still take on lower level enemies.
If push came to shove and his team abandoned him, John could take two or three F ranked monsters if need be, but he didn't see himself defeating a single D ranked monster.
"I'll go." Choices are for those that have options, and John need that money.
He came an hour early to the rendezvous point. He was humiliatingly renowned as the Legend, due to his pathetic healing power and his overall uselessness. However, he could still make a decent living as long as he survived the Dungeon, and he learned early on how the weak survive.
"So it's you John? You're here so early."
A tanned hunter armed with a greatsword arrived, and was familiar to John.
"Ah, Thomas! It's been a while" Thomas Fuentes was a D-rank Combat Hunter, someone John had cleared a few dungeons with, and knew that his abilities were quite good.
'We should be able to clear the dungeon quite easily.' John genuinely smiled cheek to cheek knowing his chances of survival just skyrocketed, however he quickly had to hide his sour disposition when he saw the next Hunter that arrived.
"What's this? You somehow managed to snag the Legendary healer?" A man with a larger scar across his face spokem. The new arrival was Alex, a similarly a D-rank Combat Hunter and John assumed the girl by his side was Alex's new girlfriend as she stuck to his arm like glue.
"Alex baby, is he super strong?" The woman cutely tilted her head.
"Ah, you haven't awakened for very long, have you sarah? The Legendardy healer is quite simply a useless leech that takes part of our earnings."
"Ah, I see! But why are we bring such waste with us?"
"Alex that's enough." Thomas stepped forward with a serious face
"It was just a joke. Haha!"
Interrupting the bully session, Thomas didn't like having hostility brewing amongst his temporary party, and was glad that John didn't take things to heart.
Lastly, a naive-looking E-rank Hunter joined them to round out their party. After Thomas received authorization from the Dungeon Bureau, John and his party finally entered dungeon.
They stepped towards the 8 foot tall blue portal which moved in ways beyond human comprehension. The gate looked like it had tore a hole in reality and exuded danger, but humans were too foolish to heed their natural instincts as John and his group stepped forth into the gate.
The immediately change in air quality and smell hit them as John felt that their was slightly more energy in the air.
"Stay on your toes, it's a D-rank dungeon!" Thomas said as he positioned his greatsword infront of him, acting as a semi shield.
Most dungeons were underground, so they decided that the last member, the E ranked warrior Erick, carried the magic lamp and lead the group through the Dungeon.
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*tap tap tap*
Hearing a faint noise and feeling a slight vibrations in the ground, Erick yelled out
"They're coming!"
He backed up and rejoined the group while the monsters' red eyes reflected off of the lanterns glow. And when they finally revealed themselves . . .
"Goblins!" John yelled out.
The battle began as soon as they spotted the Enemies. Sarah raised her hand towards Thomas and Alex, as her body glowed a faint purple light, and they too started to glow slightly. She used her support magic to buff the both of them before they fought.
Thomas used wide horizontal swings of his great sword to take care of multiple goblin at once, while Alex used a rapier to accurately pierce the brains of the goblin
Meanwhile the E ranked warrior, Erick, guarded Sarah while john made sure to stick next to her vigilantly.
Slashings through the group of goblins with ease, Thomas and Alex hardly took any damage.
"Hoo! Is that all of them? Continue forward." Thomas swipt his sword in the air to clear off the blood, and decided to lead the charge this time.
The party advanced through the D rank dungeon with relative ease, as the goblins were too weak to even be considered a threat to the party, and the only thing that hurt John was the constant verbal abuse from Alex and Sarah.
It wasn't strange or unheard of that a highly skilled D ranked Warrior could solo a D ranked goblin dungeon. So two experienced Warriors, two supports and an additional E ranked Warrior could be considered overkill, but in a world where being underprepared means death, being overkill is common place.
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After slaughtering a total of 5 group of goblins, the group ran across a colossal stone gate.
"It looks like the Boss Room," Erick said.
"Hopefully the boss drops some good items, these goblin magic stone are shit quality," Alex complained and walked over to John.
He extended his right arm. It had a semi deep cut by a Goblin's dagger. "Heal me," Alex ordered, as he wanted to be full prepared for the boss
"Okay, one second."
John bit back his bitterness and started healing him, after all it was the only reason he was getting paid.
Raising his hand above Alex's wound, a white light flew from John and enveloped the wound and extremely slowly started to close, lasting over 30 seconds.
"You truly are the legendary healer huh, half a minute for a shallow cut is insane. I've seen videos of B ranked healer closing up fatal wounds mid battle within ten seconds" Alex said.
While having a healer is better than not, John was more of a convenience than a necessity. John couldn't be useful during the battle, but after the battle he could heal up shallow wounds and stop heavy bleeding, but that's it.
The party walked up to the gigantic stones Gate, and John noticed familiar looking inscriptions and hieroglyphs that lined the door frame.
''Shrine..... Of....past...lives?" Reading the inscription, John subconsciously didn't say the next part aloud.
'Draw....sword....awaken...past' Reading every other couple of words, John came to the conclusion that if you drew a sword inside of the room, you'd awaken something from your last life, whatever that meant.
Thomas walked to John.
"You know how to speak the language of the other world?" Thomas asked curiously.
"Just a little, it's more of a hobby."
'Hobby my ass, I'm trying to get good enough to start making money off of transcribing shit!' Training with weapons made little sense for him as a healer, as having amazing sword technique means nothing when facing monsters moving faster than the eye could see, so with his free time he tried learning money making skills.
"Atleast he is useful in some aspects, because he ain't that useful when it comes to healing" Sarah said as she clung onto Alex's arm, to which he quickly pulled away from
"What did I tell you about grabbing my arm in a dungeon! I need to move unhindered in order to kill the monsters!" Alex yelled out.
"Sorry baby! I didn't mean too" saying this, Sarah still had a cheeky smile on her face.
"let's go." Giving john an encouraging pat on the back, Thomas lightly touched the stone door, and and a mechanism started to automatically open the door for them.
Leading the party, Erick stood infront with his magic lantern brightening up the ginormious room, and once John stepped into the stone chamber, the stones closed.
"Alex!?" Sarah worriedly looked at the exit of the boss room closing behind them.
"Everything's fine. Once we take down the Boss, the doors will open again, it's just how dungeons work." Alex said, reassuring Sarah.
Thomas and Erick examined their surroundings. In the center of the room was a pyramid of stairs that had a rusty discolored sword stuct at the top of it with a dozens and a half sets of rusty brown armor and inactive magic lamps lining the sides of the walls.
"Um . . . those aren't Living Armors, right?" Seeing familiar looking armour on the sides of the wall, John felt terror coursing through his veins at the recognition of the possible monsters.
"I don't see the boss anywhere, this can't be a hidden dungeon right?Haha...." Alex laughed nervously while looking at the walls.
"You already know that Living Armors only appear in B-rank or above dungeons, even if this is a hidden dungeon it'll still follow that rule" Thomas said, trying to prevent his party from panicking.
Despite his reassurance, John felt incredibly uneasy looking at the armour that lined the room.
Hidden Dungeons very rarely appeared in the Boss Room and even the international Dungeon Bureau had little information on them.
In exchange for a special reward, the dungeons difficulty would increase several fold. Nobody knew why or how it happened, which didn't mean a lot since they still don't know why the gates started appearing, but no two hidden dungeons were the same.
Normally, Bureau matchings would place a Hunter's rank with dungeons of the same rank. Therefore, a Hidden Dungeon often times would be too much for most Hunters.
With door closed, they had no other choice but walk foward to the center of the dim room.
Cautiously staying back, John watched as the warrior Trio walk over to the sword and individually try with all of their might to pull out the rusty sword to no avail.
"This Damn thing is stuck! Let's all try at once, John get your ass over here!" Alex yell out.
With fear in his heart, John had Stepped forward onto the very first step, only for a neutral androgynous voice to ring out in his head .
[Suitable Past Life Detected. Rank: ??????Classification, THE SWORDSMAN. Beginning test for awakening.]
The chamber shook and the magic lamps lit up.
Two red lights appeared within the helmets of the armor stands that lined the walls, as they started to move.
"No way! There're Living Armors in a D-rank dungeon!?" Erick shouted.
"T-this can't be!" Alex panicked.
Running down the stairs of the pyramid, Alex and Erick ran towards the immovable stone gate. In their hearts they knew that it wouldn't open, but they also knew for an absolute fact that fighting Living Armour is an impossibility.
A Living Armor only appeared in B-rank or over dungeons. They were a powerful monster that would easily rip apart a C-rank Hunter, let alone a D ranked hunter.
"Don't separated! We need to group up or we'll all die!" John yelled out in desperation
"Fuck o-' Erick was tackler to the ground mid sentence and a Living Armor's used their iron mace caved in his skull.
The Living Armors were very slow for their level, they made up for it with their incredible strength and extreme durability, if Erick wasn't panicking and didn't run directly at the monsters, then he might live a little longer.
Athough Alex was a rank higher than Erick, it made no difference to the Living armour, as a spear snakes forth at insane speeds towards his legs, blowing his foot clean off at the ankle.
"ALEX!" Sarah who at this point stood at the top of the pyramid with John watched in horror as four Livings Armors approached and ruthlessly stabbed him witht heir swords and spears.
"NO!!" Collapsing to the floor Sarah shrieked in fear and sadness, leaving Thomas without support at the bottom of the stairs to face off against the Living Armour.
Faced with certain death, John managed to clear his head and think about the tombstone's inscription.
'Draw the sword and awaken your past life.'
"It said to draw the sword." John unknowingly spoke to himself. Turning around, John saw the old sword in much greater detail.
The blade was an overall brownish red color from the amount of rust caked onto it, the handle was a dark and rotting wood color that threatened to give way at a moments notice, but for whatever reason, the sword exuded power.
'I'll pull out the sword!' There was not a single doubt in John's mind as the blade almost felt like it wanted to be picked up by him. It felt akin to watching a dog wag its tail at you, desperately waiting for you to patt its head.
John unconsciously stretched out his hand and grabbed the sword. When the others tried, the sword didn't so much as bend, but when John's gave it a slight tug, it glided out with ease...
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone