?

  I hadn’t yet acquired a gun, or a street howler bike, or any followers for that matter. Ha-Rin had however, repaired the spear she made me, and had added some extra heft to the armor harness I’d first gone hunting in.

  The metal chestplate no longer expanded out from a small device at the center of the harness; rather, it was a solid piece at all times. I honestly wasn’t bothered by the loss of convenience, not compared to the increased durability.

  While I’d like to think I had hunting the drones that the strange mechanical jungle periodically spat out down to a science. I’d be lying if I said they didn’t still represent a significant threat under the right circumstances. Namely, if they could catch me unawares, or box me in somewhere too confined for my spear.

  While such ambushes were becoming less and less effective as I grew accustomed to this new hunting ground of mine, I still couldn’t underestimate the Over-Surge Green drones. Especially since, unlike the red ones, they had no need for a human component. Somewhere deep in those twisting ‘miles’ of overgrown city was a machine or machine creating the drones from scrap, which seemingly kept their numbers healthy no matter how many I slaughtered.

  So I’m sure you can imagine my irritation at the fact that on this day, the day I planned to kill far more than I could possibly salvage in order to push myself to level two I found none. Not a smaller than usual amount, none whatsoever. Well, none alive at least.

  After the first ‘ mile’ that I ventured into the mechanical jungle, I began to encounter dismembered drone bodies. Not cut up for salvage, just ripped to pieces and left to rust. The further into the jungle I went, the more frequently I encountered slain drones, the more bizarre their manner of deaths became, and the more irritated I got.

  “What is doing this?” I asked Diaochan. “A group of those people from the higher tiers?”

  The A.I., who was hovering beside me, bent down to inspect the most recent drone corpse I ran into. This one’s limbs had been ripped from their sockets, and then its bug-eyed head stomped in.

  “ A Raindrop in an Evolution Suit.” Diaochan quietly confirmed. “But not a group, just one in a…[Comparative Analysis Running]. I waited impatiently while she compared the wounds on the dead drones to similar damage with known causes listed on the city network.

  “An Enkidu mark 3, or someone with the [BeastLord] class and quite a few levels.” Daiochan continued as though she had never paused. “It is at this point that I must recommend you call off today’s hunt and retreat back.” Her ethereal features twisted into a wince when she realized she had ruined her plea. Lu Bu never retreats…even when he does. Also, she should know better; Mount Tai could crumble around me and I would never admit to having fled the field of battle. back out of the Over-Surge infected zone.” She finished lamely.

  “No.”

  The A.I. hung her pretty head and let out a sigh.

  “I knew it, but please be careful. Even you would struggle against a raindrop of your own level. So if you do happen to encounter them, there is no need to escalate things. Most citizens of the sky tiers are either trying to actively get stronger or just party when they come down here. If you remain polite, there is a good chance they won’t want to fight us.”

  I could tell from her voice, which was filled with equal parts defeat and anxiety that she knew I didn’t feel the same way. Whoever was stalking the artificial jungle had been poaching prey I had already claimed. Granted, no one else knew that I had claimed the drones here as mine to slay, but whoever this was would soon learn all about it.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  To be clear, I wasn’t stomping about the hunting ground shouting challenges or anything. Even I am not as arrogant as all that. Instead, I stalked quietly through the jungle on measured steps and bent knees. Despite how annoyed I was at this unknown interloper stealing my ability to level up, I couldn’t simply throw caution to the wind.

  A labyrinthine mass of overgrown buildings and tight streets that coiled in on each other randomly, the hunting grounds were simply too big and too dense to reliably find someone, leaving me with little choice but to approach this hunt like I would a normal one. To my credit, I did eventually come upon three drones unawares, and by slaughtering them was able to fill my soul expansion gauge by an extra fifty-two points, bringing it up to a total of [393/500].

  Depending on how powerful the drones were, I would only need to kill somewhere between five and ten more, and I would finally reach the next level. Diaochan had informed me It would be at least one more level after that before I got a new ability; one of the few annoying things about this ‘system’ of theirs.

  Back home, if I wanted to learn a new technique, I simply went and learned how to manipulate my Qi in the appropriate fashion. Granted, there were plenty of techniques that required you to be a certain stage of cultivation. There were however, countless techniques even a low level foundation stage could acquire, or even create if they had the ingenuity.

  I would be given the option to increase the level of one of my existing abilities, and more importantly, my upper limit would increase, as would the destructive potential of the weapons I used.

  None of that would happen if I couldn’t find more drones to slay. I wandered around that jungle for another two whole hours without finding a living drone. I saw plenty more dead ones, though, whoever this guy was, he had gone through and had seemingly cleared out the entire hunting grounds. I was so incensed I almost left to go slaughter the human slum dwellers who had welcomed me in.

  I honestly would have if Diaochan hadn’t reminded me that if I did, the city system would take all but one point per kill if I slew people. So I would have had to kill more than a hundred of them. I would probably have taken me all day with how weak this body still was, plus if word of my actions spread, I didn’t think I would have much luck recruiting underlings later on.

  So I continued to stalk the jungle with increasing aimlessness. I was going to be meeting dangerous elements of the criminal underworld tonight, and while I didn’t believe one additional level towards my class of [Legendary Warlord] would make a significant difference to my effectiveness, I wanted to display as much strength as I could when I encountered such ruffians.

  The little clock in my vision, which I now understood informed me that I had agreed to meet Ji-Ho and Ha-Rin so we could go over the plan for tonight in only two more hours, so I decided to head back after I had searched one last crumbling and overgrown apartment building.

  At least that had been the plan until I caught sight of yet another vivisected drone. This one was unique among all the dead drones I had encountered that day for one very simple reason. It was plummeting to the ground in front of the block of apartments.

  With a look up from where it had come, I finally caught sight of my hunting ground’s interloper. When I did the ghostly form of Diaochan that only I could see and hear, let out a little gasp. I wasn’t entirely sure, but I assumed it was in the details my HUD displayed about the figure. Though I suppose it could have been the appearance of the figure as well.

  It was a man, obviously. I doubted any woman not named Lu Linqui would have the stomach to slaughter their way through this many foes in a single day, even if they had the power.

  I could see his ghostly pale face, framed by hair the colour of old hay, but that was the only human part on display. The rest of him was covered in deep green painted metal armor, which had been carved to evoke the image of scales. His gauntlets ended in dagger-length claws on each finger, with similar but more curved talons on his feet. He was using one-bladed hand and one-bladed foot to keep hold himself like a spider on the wall of the apartment. Most shocking was the clearly mechanical tail that swayed behind him.

  ‘A lizard.’ I thought to myself, his armor was designed to make him seem like a man-sized lizard.

  [Class: Specumancer]

  [Level: 3]

  [Evolution Suit: Enkidu Mark 3]

  [Evolution Suit Level: 11]

  “Fengxian,” Said Diaochan, using my courtly name in a pleading tone. “I know I’m not really the girl you love, but please, just this once, listen to me, and don’t try to fight this man. His suit is too strong for you right now.”

  Obviously, I wasn’t going to listen to that claim, weak body or not; I was Lu Bu, and I knew I could find a way to defeat any foe, no matter how strong.

  “Hey! Stupid Egg!” I called up at the lizard-armored man. “ You have been stealing my kills!”