Chapter 3: I can fight too?

As soon as Saransh saw the huge hole on the ground, he understood that whatever came here had completely annihilated the vault.

'The only way of knowing what happened here is to go down.'

He approached the gate in the hope of getting down.

'The stem is out of charge for the day and it was only obvious because my bad luck has reached a whole new realm since morning.'

The stem which was supposed to get him down had already used its full energy for today.

'The stem is closed and that means either the team led by Jagdish were the last ones who used it today or it had already been used up when they came.'

'So that means there is a possibility that team Jagdish is still lurking around the upper ground and didn't enter the vault to begin with.'

Saransh scratched his head and said.

"oh… It's so frustrating…"

The phone which he had with him wouldn't work outside the vault.

Moreover, he was also not able to send any distress signal to Vishal from his wrist band.

'Where is Vishal anyway?'.

The only choice he had left was to look for Vishal by running around the whole perimeter of the newly created huge hole in the ground.

'What a Drag?'

'Anyway, what kind of destructive power could have created such a big hole in the first place?'

The ground had huge cracks which made it impossible to perfectly run around the abyss and it was nearly impossible to observe what is on the other side of the hole because of its huge stature.

'Whew…Run…Run…Run, that's the only thing I've been doing the whole day.'

And after a certain amount of time had passed. He stopped as if he saw something unexpected.

'How is it even possible? How is there a second stem gate?'

Saransh didn't expect to find a second stem gate but it was right in front of him and it was a huge one compared to the one he had just seen before or the one he had back at his home vault.

The fact that there existed a second gate was not the problem but rather if it had charge to take him to the vault. Vaults were actually built in such a fashion that it used the plasma energy of the mansters to create a barrier with a single purpose of masking the vault from the mansters. And that means even if the vault is destroyed, it would still would be able hide itself from the mansters. So, it was the safest place for him right now.

He went closer to the gate and looked at its charge level.

'Please let it be full…let it be full…'

'It had 2 Energy bars left and that means, there was still some energy left for a round-way trip.'

"Oh…yeah, finally!"

He stepped into one of the compartments and started pressing some buttons on the control panel. It was one of the things that was taught while being trained to become a huntsman.

*GRRRR*

And the engine started up and the compartment finally started moving down.

'if I'm right, then this vault is comparatively smaller than his home vault.'

He looked at his wrist band and it was already 12am.

'Whew, a lot had happened in just 5 hrs and I still need to find Vishal before I kick my bucket all alone'.

Saransh knew all too well that without Vishal accompanying him, his survival rate drops below zero if a manster comes.

A certain amount of time passed.

*CRRNG*

With a creaky sound, the compartment had finally landed and the huge stem gates started opening from either sides. The structure was pretty similar to a lift.

And he started walking through narrow passageway which connected the stem gate with the vault.

'Why is it so humid in here?'

Back in his home vault, whenever he passed through the passageway, he was usually greeted with a gentle smile of a lady in her twenties but this time what greeted him was something else entirely.

It was an inhuman structure standing on its two feet. It had a long neck and broad shoulders. But it had very short legs and looked very inappropriate for the upper body. The weirdest thing about the creature was its appearance. It had some clothing. And not just any clothing it was probably some kind of uniform.

Fortunately, it hasn't noticed the presence of Saransh yet.

'Oh... Come on, why is there a manster in a vault of all places?'

'Wait, I don't have time for this. I need to act quickly.'

Saransh thought.

He quickly crouched and started a scan on his wrist band. He needed some information on the manster before arriving at a decision. Saransh was always calm and composed even in the deadliest of the situations. He was quick to arrive at good decision after analysing the situation at hand.

Anyway, he knew that he couldn't leave this place because if he went up there now, he would have no chance of defending himself from the horde of mansters, once the plasma of the shadow manster is dissipated. The only reason he could travel all this way and even run around the huge hole was because of the remnants of the shadow manster.

The scan he just started was completed and a notification arrived.

*[Level 2 Manster. Type: Lizard men] *

The entrance to the vault was built on a platform and it had stairs running down. The lizardman took a box from one of relatively larger packages and started unpacking it. He took out something and as if it already got what it was looking for, it closed the box, put it back into package and started walking down the stairs.

Saransh sighed.

'That was a close call.'

He came out of hiding and stepped into the platform from the passageway.

'What was he doing here? And why is he wearing some kind of uniform?'

He knew where he could get some clues. He approached one of the packages on the platform and took out a box from it. The box was pretty heavy for its small size.

And it had an emblem on it.

'It is a dragon...yup definitely!'.

The emblem contained a sturdy dragon with pure white scales.

Saransh started opening the box upon which, he found something unexpected yet again.

'These are guns.'

'and not just any guns, these guns also used plasma energy to operate!'

'I have never heard of such guns being used by anyone in his home vault'.

He was a little confused now.

There were a couple of plasma guns in the box.

In an earth filled with mansters which used plasma as their energy source, it became a necessity to kill those mansters with the same energy source, otherwise it was very hard to exterminate them.

Weapons encumbered with plasma were invented for this sole purpose. But a tricky situation tagged alone with it. Each weapon thus made were only operational when the user could synchronize with the plasma inside the weapon.

The most effective solution was to channel their own plasma into the weapon. But this synchronisation wasn't successful all the time and one couldn't select the weapon of their choice. This made a common saying on the Earth nowadays.

'Owners doesn't get to choose their weapon, but it is the weapon that chooses them.'

'A pretty much clichéd "saying" if you ask me!'

The same weapon could produce different results depending upon the knowledge as well as aptitude of the wielders.

The plasma casters commonly known as 'Mages' could use staffs to cast either destructive spells or protective spells depending upon the knowledge and aptitude of the wielder themselves which is represented as skills.

'Synchronisation...huh?'

He thought to himself.

Saransh wasn't able to synchronize with any of the weapons so far. He had tried staffs, shields, swords of all kinds and even healing rings; which is why he started his huntsmen career as a dismantler.

'But, I haven't tried guns yet!'

Saransh grabbed the gun and hid himself behind one of the huge packages.

*[Would you like to register this weapon in the database?] *

The wrist band responded.

'So it doesn't exist in huntsmen database.'

He tapped on the 'Yes' button.

*[Please channel your plasma to start synchronising] *

Saransh pictured the gun in his mind and started channelling his plasma energy into the gun from all directions.

The wrist band was notifying him of his progress.

*[You have started channelling your plasma] *

The Wrist band was a highly sophisticated device which could accurately measure and observe the flow of plasma energy.

*[You are starting to synchronize.] *

Saransh started channelling the plasma much more intensely.

*[10%...30%...50%...70%...100%] *

*[You have successfully synchronized with the weapon] *

"What???", he was caught off guard with the surprising turn of events.

The weapon which he had in his hand looked similar to a typical pistol, pitch black in colour, except for the fact that it worked with plasma energy.

"So, all these times, the weapon which was suited for him was guns and it didn't even exist in the database. And I thought my bad luck had reached a new realm just today…. ",

*[This weapon contains multiple skills. Would you like to accept them all?]

He clicked on the 'Yes' button almost instantly, similar to when one closes the pop up window while surfing on the web.

*[You have the acquired skills: Rapid Fire(Lv1), Snipe(Lv1) and Astro Sound(Lv1)] *

"Is this really happening to me?".

For all this time, he never thought he could use any weapons let alone use any skills.

"Finally...", he already had tears of joy in his eyes.

"Now, at least I have some way of defending myself."

*THUD THUD*

*THUD THUD*

Someone was climbing up the stairs to the platform.

It was the same manster which came on to the platform just a while ago.

'Ok I need to plan this out before using my skills.', He thought to himself.

'Rapid fire, wasn't? sounds like a cool attack!'

He pointed the gun at the entrance and thought of attacking the manster as soon as it enters platform. The platform was a closed room with no windows, and exactly two entrances, one to the passageway and the other one led to the stairs.

Since Saransh was trained in being a dismantler, he knew the soft-spots in the manster's body where vital injuries could be made. But the problem was his aim. He wasn't sure whether it would hit or not.

Suddenly an idea popped in his head.

���What if I tried to attack in close-quarters?'

The Lizardman was almost at the entrance. Saransh moved his body instinctively and leaped towards the sides of the entrance.

The Lizardman who didn't see Saransh hiding at the sides of the entrance went past the entrance and approached one of the packages. And finally, Saransh sneaked in behind the lizardman without any hesitation and pointed the gun under its waist and shouted "Rapid Fire".

*PIYUUNG*

*PIYUUNG*

*PIYUUNG*

Before the monster could react, three balls of plasma energy in the shape of bullets already left the gun and penetrated the soft skin under its waist.

*KRRAAA*

The manster cried in pain.

As soon as Saransh hit his target, the wrist band reacted to the interrupted flow of plasma in the manster and sent a notification.

*[The manster is dead.] *

*[You can now activate a passive skill.] *

Saransh felt blissful since it was the first time he was able to kill a manster in his entire life.

While working as a dismantler he often had to visit various sites to dismantle the corpses to fully extract the plasma energy inside the manster. But those mansters were killed by someone else so he wasn't allowed to take even 5% of the fully extracted plasma.

And the other times, when he did the same job for his home vault, he was compensated in rupees. But this was the first time, when he was going to extract the full plasma for himself.

"Finally, something I'm familiar with. It is 'Dismantle' time.", he said while smiling.

'And This time I'll take it all for myself'.

That was the moment when he remembered something.

'I forgot my backpack at the stem gate of my home vault.'

He forgot to pick his backpack after coming out of the stem gate at his home vault because of all the commotion created by the dragon.

'Holy sh1t.'

'Without a knife, I won't be able to dismantle it and extract the plasma within it.'

'I think I know where exactly to look for it.'

He approached one of the opened packages.

'Package God, please give me a knife this time'.

And he started searching each and every box in the package.

'This one is guns'.

'And…This one staff'.

'This one also guns'.

'And…This one also staffs…Why dammit?'.

And after searching for a while.

'And…This one… are short swords'.

Finally, he had got something, which could be used for dismantling. Even if it wasn't a knife, it could still be used for piercing the manster.

Saransh held the shortsword in the right hand and started cutting its skin behind the neck.

All Mansters had two sources of plasma energy. The first one sustained their lives and the other one which is spread throughout its body helped them to use various skills. Once a manster dies all its plasma energy gets condensed inside it's body. For different mansters, the location of what is called its life stone is different.

'And for the Lizardmen, it's right under its neck.'

After making a clean cut behind the neck, he used the same shortsword to pull out the life stone by applying a little force. It came out pretty easily as he was good at dismantling and he already knew the location of life stone within various mansters.

He dropped the shortsword onto the ground and held the life stone in his right hand where he had his wrist band.

*[Please channel your plasma into the life stone to absorb the plasma from...] *

Saransh ignored the notification and swiped it away as he already knew what he was doing and started channelling the plasma.

The life stone shrunk by each passing second until it finally vanished into thin air.

*[You have absorbed 609 points of pure plasma] *

'Even though, I absorbed huge amount of plasma, I still couldn't level up and I'm still at level one.'

'Well I shouldn't be greedy; I never imagined I would gain this many points of pure plasma to begin with.'

*SIGH*

'My job is not complete it yet. I still need to hide its body'.

Saransh dragged its body towards the narrow passageway and hid it around the corners.

'I almost forgot to look at my skills.'

He unlocked his wrist band and started searching for his skill set.

Skills:

(Weapon dependent skills)

1. Rapid Fire (Lv2)

2. Snipe (Lv1)

3. Astro Sound (Lv2)

(Passive skills)

1. Vital Point Insight (Lv1)

*[Would you like to activate the skill "Vital Point Insight" permanently?] *

'Ohho....This skill must be the representation of my actual knowledge about the vitals points in different mansters.'

He clicked on 'Yes' almost instantly and he smirked as if to signify that he had become an expert at 'Clicking Yes'.

'At least, skills are levelling up faster than I thought.'

'I could understand why Rapid fire went up by a level but why did Astro Sound became level 2 too?'

He scratched his head and looked confused.

"Oh…it's so frustrating."

He was annoyed because of the unknown parameters piling up one after the another.

He picked up the shortsword into his right hand from the ground and thats when he received the next notification.

*[Would you like to register this weapon in the database?] *

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