When he finally returned home, Daiki didn't stay up for long. He got his nightly physical training session in, before heading to bed.
He awoke early the next morning, had some pre-work out and threw himself into his morning physical training from six in the morning to nine, before finishing up and going for his lovely protein muscle enhancing breakfast.
By time he was done making his breakfast and eating it, the time was approaching eleven in the morning. He'd started a bit later than usual today of course since Signal Academy was out for Summer Break.
"Looks like I'm done healing." Daiki noted. He as usual, had left enough aura in the tank to heal his muscles quicker after training. Aura was hell'a useful like that.
But man, he loved his semblance, but he almost salivated at the thought of having that putz Jaune's Aura Amplification Semblance. He could probably constantly heal as he trained, getting in multiple times more training than he usually would in a single session.
That shit was fucking broken.
Too bad it belonged to an idiot who would never use it properly.
Such a waste.
But, speaking of training and gains, curiosity got the better of Daiki, 'Status'.' he thought to himself, a second later, the familiar status screen that appeared before him last night shimmering into existence in front of his eyes.
He'd figured out how to work the thing on his way back home last night. It wasn't exactly complicated. He could summon it with a thought and banish it. And it did nothing else he could figure out, beyond showing him a numerical value of his abilities.
…It wasn't exactly all that impressive as far as a gaming system went in comparison to stories he'd seen. But oh well.
Daiki frowned as he looked over the status screen, "That can't be right." he uttered, a bit confused.
Name: Daiki Yurei
Age: 14
Aura Capacity: 126/968
Magic Power: -/-
Strength: 10.003/100
Endurance: 10.004/100
Durability: 10.002/100
Agility: 10.001/100
CQC: 23/500
Weapon Wielding: 35/500
Aura Control: 40.03/500
Semblance:
Lightning King Revolt: You are capable of augmenting your body, enhancing your speed, agility, reaction time and physical strength by converting your aura into electricity and can freely expel lightning from your body. You are capable of subjugating any single being you kill, gaining a portion of their abilities for your own and gaining the ability to summon them to fight for you. You can only use the subjugation effect once.
…Even with those two back breaking training sessions he went through, his stats hadn't risen more than a max amount of a twenty fifth of a single point.
So just to see a single point of growth in Endurance and Strength training as he had been, he'd need to train for an entire month. And would take him an entire year to get up over twenty in them.
Suddenly, it was beginning to make sense why his physical stats were only listed as just breaking into ten.
…At least his aura growth seemed more impressive. He worked on his control with his aura and used it like a muscle to enhance his capacity with it from every training session, and it had risen a whole single point.
Daiki laughed at the absurdity of it all, "This is crazy." he leaned back into the cushion of the large couch he was sitting on in his living room.
If he for instance wanted to max out his strength, there wasn't much else he could do to boost his rate of growth in that sense, and assuming the growth didn't slow down and was consistent, it would take him nine years.
He'd be well into his twenties by time he hit his cap with Strength and Endurance and still be a ways off in Durability and Agility.
And that wasn't even going into the fact he obviously couldn't let his actual skills fall by the way side.
It made his decision to use his ability on a creature of grimm, all the more important now. He really would have to make it count.
He'd ruminated on the thought long and hard both last night and this morning, before deciding on a single target.
A Sea Feilong.
They were huge and powerful serpentine-dragon grimm that lived in the ocean. They were the biggest grimm around besides the truly ancient ones and a team of skilled hunters should be capable of bringing one down. It's immense size and strength meant, he would probably see a rather large notable increase in his physical abilities and on top of that, the Sea Feilong were known for being able to fire out powerful beams of lightning from their mouths.
If he was lucky, perhaps that innate power of the Sea Feilong would make his own lightning based semblance even stronger.
…The only problem was, he was definitely nowhere near strong enough to hunt a beast such as that himself.
Meaning his only option other than getting lucky, would be to hire a team of huntsmen to kill one for him.
Which would probably cost a pretty penny.
'I've got just below twelve thousand lien saved up right now.' Daiki mused. He wasn't sure if that would be enough though, he'd need to ask an actual hunter for an estimate.
He didn't need to worry about paying for anything in regards to his home. His parents had bought the property outright, so there was no rent needed there, and hunters were free from paying land and housing tax in Vale. The only thing he really needed to pay for in regards to his house was lightning dust to keep the generators running, the water and plumbing and general living expenses.
He as a hunter in training attending a combat school for hunters also thankfully fell under that law.
He could probably get by just from taking the minor missions that combat academy students were allowed to take, mostly clearing out minor packs of small and young grimm.
It would be tight though.
'I'm being hasty.' he noted, crossing his arms and clicking his tongue.
He knew why of course, there was a count down to the literal apocalypse more or less right now. He didn't want to be some faceless fool killed because of Cinder fucking Fall and the pmsing Grimm Queen.
Still, with his knowledge now, there were options open to him as well. For instance, he knew of a certain gang leader, information broker and bar owner that may be a good option to hit up for earning some quick and steady lien.
'I'll have to do it.' he decided, hiring some hunters to do his dirty work for him, he just had to make sure that he got it down in the mission contract that he had to be the one to strike the finishing blow.
He could actually head out now to the hunter association building in the middle of the city where missions could be put up.
Or…hmm.
'I could head over to Signal.' he mused.
He knew at least one hunter there that was far above the general ability of normal hunters and who worked as a teacher there. Qrow Branwen.
And one of the other professors was Taiyang Xiao Long, Qrow's teammate and father of both Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long. If he was anywhere near as skilled as Qrow, the both of them together could probably handle a Sea Feilong between them.
On top of that, he actually knew them personally, what with being teachers at his academy and all.
In the end, Daiki decided to check out Signal Academy first and hit up Qrow or Taiyang.
If it didn't work out with them, he could always head to the hunter association building after that.
So that was what he did.
Changing out of his exercise clothing and having a shower, Daiki changed into his standard gear, a dark blue tank top with a holster over his chest that allowed him to sheathe his battle axes on his back, a pair of black cargo pants and a set of dark blue and black sturdy combat boots match his clothing.
Locking his door behind him, he made his way into the city. Signal was on Patch, that was a decent lengths away and on a small island off the coast, but it wasn't exactly a long journey on a bullhead, and it only cost a couple lien.
It was his typical way of getting to Signal each morning during the school year.
Less than an hour later, Daiki stepped out of the bullhead and onto the Patch landing pad.
'Maybe I should get a motorcycle like Xiao Long?' he mused. There was a bridge connecting the city to the island of Patch, and if he worked on his control with his semblance, he might be able to fill up the battery on one without using lightning dust at all.
In the long run, it would probably save him money on transportation and considering how much he was probably going to be forking out, something he actually had to think of right now.
Such was the sacrifices he had to make for gains.
He was half expecting not to find either of his quarries. There was generally a few teachers on hand during the summer since Signal itself was kept open for students to come in to use the facilities.
He was correct for Taiyang, the man wasn't in the teachers lounge area, his office or his classroom. Which made sense, teacher he may be, but he was also still a Hunter that took missions from time to time and had two daughters that would soon be going to Beacon Academy.
Surprisingly though, Professor Qrow Branwen was in his classroom, ever present flask of alcohol sitting on his desk as he poured over stacks of test papers from Daiki's guess as he made his way into the mans classroom.
"Hey professor." Daiki greeted the man as he entered.
Qrow looked up from his papers and gave him an odd look, red eyes giving him a confused look, "Sparky?" he said, surprised, "What are you doing here? A tune up for your weapons?"
He was quick to come to that conclusion. Which meant he actually remembered when Daiki told him about his physical conditioning training and the fact that he had a personal gym set up in the basement at his home.
Honestly, his place was pretty big, a cottage, but really only in name, and was almost large enough to qualify as a mansion. The place had three bathrooms and five bedrooms beyond the master bedroom for six in total, the living room being upstairs directly above the kitchen with both having a wide semi-circular viewing terrace and he even had his own small greenhouse area connected to the house as well.
It was a pretty swanky place. Let it not be said that being a huntsman didn't pay well.
"Nah, nothing like that professor," Daiki replied, making his way over to the man and standing in front of his desk, "I was actually looking for you. You or professor Xiao Long, though I was expecting it to be more likely to be him and not you I found here."
"You can blame you stupid kids and your messy ass handwriting, I'd be long done and free off this hellhole if I wasn't having so much trouble grading this crap," Qrow snorted and rolled his eyes, "And what do you need me for?"
"Well, you're a pretty strong hunter, right?" Daiki asked, smothering a grin at his discontent at grading papers.
He at least knew he wasn't complaining about his own, after all, he'd always been especially talented when it came to handwriting, drawing and painting and the like.
"Pretty strong?" Qrow raised an eyebrow at him, before scoffing, "Try epically, legendarily strong, the best of the best and ever will be and you might come close."
It got even harder to smother his grin.
"Neat." Daiki nodded.
"You're no fun at all," Qrow huffed, "But yes, I'd say I'm definitely above average as far as hunters go. Why do you ask?"
"Just wondering, have you ever killed a Sei Feilong before?" the teen asked, getting to the point.
His second eyebrow joined the first at the question and Qrow placed his pen down and leaned back in his chair, "A Sea Feilong huh? Now that's a doozy of a grimm to ask about, not something like your typical beowolf or ursa," he whistled lightly, but nodded nonetheless, "I've killed a few of those nasty bastards in my day, brought down a particularly big one a few years back actually that was harassing a cruise liner."
Qrow gained a far off look as he explained his experience and Daiki furrowed his brow.
A cruise liner. He knew people did that of course, but god was it such a stupid idea with all the grimm in the ocean. Only the truly rich and idiotic would spring for that kind of thing, fools that didn't understand how monstrous the grimm truly were.
The elites of society like the council of Vale were full of fools like that he remembered his parents telling him years ago.
Qrow shook his head, "Anyway, yeah, I've fought and killed a few Sea Feilong before, the question is, why are you asking?" the former bandit gave him a shrewd look, red eyes narrowing lightly, "That ain't the kind of thing a kid like you should be tangling with, you better not be trying to find one to fight it, you're pretty strong for your age Yurei, but you ain't a match for the kind of thing, heck your average hunter isn't a match for one of them alone."
"Nothing like that," Daiki waved him off, "….Kinda?"
Qrow leaned forward, placing his arms on his deck and stared him in the eye, "Kinda how?" he asked, but it was more of a demand.
"I don't want to hunt one myself," he held his hands up and explained, "I wanted to ask you how much it would cost me to have one hunted and brought down."
Qrow blinked, "…What?" he uttered, confused, before falling silent. He just stared at Daiki for a few seconds before shaking his head, "And why would you want to know that? Hell why the hell do you want to pay to have one hunted down."
Hmm, now that he said it like that, it did seem like a very odd request.
Suddenly, Qrow's eyes widened, "Wait, this isn't some revenge shtick is it?" he said aloud in apparent realisation, "You never said what kinda grimm killed your folks, is that was this is about?"
It was a leap of logic for sure, but, it was actually one that could make sense, more so than him just randomly paying a guy to hunt down a single random grimm and kill it.
For a second, Daiki thought to make a story up and keep the evolution of his semblance hidden.
But then realised a second later, he didn't really need to. For one, if he did so, he wouldn't exactly be able to use that part of his semblance openly.
And secondly, it wasn't like his semblance would be the first that could do something like this. The Schnee Glyph semblance was pretty famous after all, and it could do a ton of shit, one of those being summoning past enemies that had a special connection to the user after defeating them.
"I discovered something new about my semblance lately." he admitted.
"Oh?" Qrow hummed in interest, "Your semblance is already pretty damn strong Sparky, few people are capable of creating actual elements with their aura, never mind augmenting themselves with it as well. You telling me you can do more now?"
"Yeah, I only found it out recently," Daiki nodded, "Basically, it's kinda like the Schnee Glyph's a bit in that they can summon defeated foes. I can do the same, but I can only get one summon, and to do it, I need to get the killing blow on what I want the summon to be."
"So that's it," Qrow's eyes widened a bit, "That explains quite a bit about this odd question of yours. And I don't know why I'm surprised you know about the Schnee's semblance, you look like a total himbo, but you're a nerd at heart."
Daiki snorted, "No need to be jealous professor, you could have guns like these with some proper training as well," he retorted, lifting his arm up and curling it, flexing his muscular bicep, "Anyway, like I asked before, how much would it cost me to hire either you or a team to get it done?" he asked, getting right back to the point.
Qrow clicked his tongue lightly and crossed his arms as he thought, "…Having you along for the ride and not outright killing it, just weakening it enough for you to get the killing blow on it will bring up the price for sure," he responded, "Like, if it was just me personally kid flying solo, I'd take the job for five thousand lien, but what you want specifically, would easily double the price."
Daiki grimaced, "Ten thousand at least, huh?" he noted. He hated to hear it, but at the very least, he could afford ten thousand.
"About there yeah," Qrow nodded and eyed him, "You still want it kid?" the man asked.
Daiki didn't even hesitate to nod, "Yeah, it'll knock down my savings a ton, but I can afford it," he replied, "And being able to summon a Sea Feilong will go a long ways in my career as a hunter. It's totally an investment, I'll just work some of the minor missions we get here and get a part time job to make up for the losses in my savings, no big deal."
Qrow snorted, a smirk forming on his face, "You've got quite the set on you for sure kid, most people would balk at handing over that amount of cash and then having to work harder to make up for it," he replied, then nodded, "Alright Sparky, since I'm your professor and all, I'll take up your little job for you and even give you a little discount, I'll take seven thousand five hundred for completing the job, and if I can't do it, you don't need to pay me squat."
"Sounds good to me!" Daiki punched his fists together in excitement, very glad now that he'd come clean…a bit, "When can we do it then?" he asked.
"Hold your horses kid, I'm a bit busy at the minute," Qrow rolled his eyes, holding up a hand, "Gimme a few days to get this done and look into some local sightings. I'll ring you up on your scroll when I'm ready, but make sure you're ready to move out as soon as I do, got it?"
"Got it," Daiki agreed, "Then I'll see you then?"
"Yeah, now get outta here, shoo shoo, I've got annoying papers to grade." Qrow waved him away with one hand while picking up his flask with the other and taking a long, long swig.
Daiki shrugged and turned around, walking out of the classroom and closing the door behind him.
As soon as he did though, he was forced to stop as he almost bumped into someone about to enter the classroom.
"Oops, sorry!" Ruby Rose apologised, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly.
"It's fine," Daiki waved her apology off, "Hey Ruby, didn't think I'd be seeing you for a while now that you've graduated." he greeted her.
"Eh, I came with my uncle today to keep him company, then I got bored so decided to do some maintenance on Crescent Rose," she shrugged, "What are you doing here though Daiki? You don't usually use the academy facilities." she noted.
"I was talking to Professor Branwen about a few things," Daiki shrugged, "Nothing all that important, just some stuff about next term."
"Oh, cool, cool!" she grinned, her beautiful silver eyes glittering like gemstones, "Hey, so actually, since you're here, how about we have a little spar? I was gonna ask uncle Qrow, but I can fight him anytime, I won't be seeing you until you come to Beacon like three years from now."
"Sure, fine with me." Daiki grinned back. He rarely got to spar against Ruby, and it was really good training for him considering her semblance.
"Awesome, let's go then!" the older girl reached over and grabbed his arm and pulled him along eagerly through the hall towards the combat rooms.
Besides, he wasn't exactly going to say no to getting to spend time with a hot girl like her. While she was average of height, she had exotic ebony black hair with natural crimson red highlights, gorgeous gem-like silver eyes and on top of that Ruby had quite the curvaceous body, with full luscious thighs, thick grabbable hips and a large, round bosom that was being showed off quite nicely with her outfit. Her combat outfit consisting of gothic black and red corset and combat skirt that barely came down over her thighs, a pair of black ripped stockings and gothic red and black boots, topped off with a red hooded cape over her shoulders.
And that corset did wonderful things to her breasts, giving her quite the cleavage. There was no doubt at all that she and Xiao Long were sisters in that regard.
And the return with chapter two hooo hooo heeehooo hoy? Poypoypoy?
Anyway yeah, I've not got much to say here. Daiki, has a plan. Good for him. He even has motivation, double good for him. I suppose when unlike me, he hasn't seen the travesty that is volume nine, it's easier to care about Remnant. Personally, I'd rather just join Atlas and convince Daddy Ironwood to Nuke the rest of the world or at least have Blake and Yang assassinated. Cardin, where are you when we truly need you to bully disgusting people like them? Truly, the hero remnant needs, only the Cardin 'Winner' Winchester cuz you can't spell Win without Winchester, could stop the catastrophic trash that is Bumblebee.
Well, I suppose there's another chapter posted for this on the Pa-atreon for those wanting to read ahead, though dunno why you'd want to. God, somebody just shoot Yang and Blake, I'm begging here.
Anyway, shameless Pa-atreon plug. I've got one, go by the same username on there, easy to find and all that jazz. Support me if you want, it'd be swell, but don't feel pressured lads and ladies, I'll be uploading my stuff outside it regardless and not keeping it all behind a paywall or anything like that.