EX-Rank Villain: Rise Beyond Fate - Chapter 38 - 2: The Forest That Lies

10 years ago, after “the Gate” that connected the real world with the monster world opened, some of the ordinary, everyday people received the power to hunt monsters within the Gate. They are known as “Hunters”. However, not all Hunters are powerful. My name is Sung Jin-Woo, an E-rank Hunter. I’m someone who has to risk his life in the lowliest of dungeons, the “World’s Weakest”. Having no skills whatsoever to display, I barely earned the required money by fighting in low-leveled dungeons… at least until I found a hidden dungeon with the hardest difficulty within the D-rank dungeons! In the end, as I was accepting death, I suddenly received a strange power, a quest log that only I could see, a secret to leveling up that only I know about! If I trained in accordance with my quests and hunted monsters, my level would rise. Changing from the weakest Hunter to the strongest S-rank Hunter!

For the sake of his family, Ren embarked on the popular VRMMORPG, COVENANT, that used real-time in-game currency. But being a mediocre player who only knows how to gather information, he was put in a supporting role.

As the game explodes in popularity and every multibillion-dollar company invested in the game, things have turned for the worse for Ren. Due to the amount of information he gathered, the cheats, secrets, quests, and bugs he discovered, he was silent in fear of selling the information to the other guilds.

But given a second chance, he went back in time when his father was still alive and COVENANT was just in its starting phase.

This time . . . he wouldn’t be that guy on the side who gathered information from day in and day out for ten years.

Equipped with the games knowledge he accumulated, he will become . . . an Alchemist!

Chrono Mage? Djin Master? Summoner? Necromancer?
Chaos Lord?

What good are those?

Sure they’re powerful and rare classes and sought after by guilds, but it’s the alchemist who forged artifacts and concocts rare items and potions that gets the most coins at the end of the day!

It was better than being a blacksmith or a crafter! Plus, he could use all sorts of magic without limit to race and class!

It was the ultimate class! And no one even knows it!

Lu Qingshan, a renowned player ranked in the top ten of the Sword Cultivators’ leaderboard in “Nine Heavens,” had been reincarnated into the very game world for which he had always strived. Sword Cultivator, a class in “Nine Heavens,” known for dealing the highest damage but also having the least amount of health, leading to their nickname “Brute.” In this life, Lu Qingshan had still chosen the path of the Sword Cultivator. However, this Sword Cultivator seemed a bit too stable???

The year was 2026, and the world wasn't what it used to be. Ever since the Abyss Gates cracked open three years ago, spilling monsters and dungeons across the planet, life had turned into a chaotic mess. Cities were half-ruined, half-rebuilt, and people clung to whatever normalcy they could find. Hunters—those brave or crazy enough to fight the monsters—became the new heroes. Everyone else? Well, they just tried to survive.Fin wasn't a Hunter. He wasn't a hero either.He was just… Fin. A lanky 19-year-old with messy brown hair, a chipped front tooth from a dumb skateboard accident, and a power that everyone called useless. Absorption. Sounds cool, right? Like he could suck up energy or steal someone's strength. Nope. All it did was let him “feel” things he touched a little more than normal. He could tell you the exact texture of a brick wall or how warm a coffee mug was—big whoop. No fireballs, no super strength, no flashy moves. Just a glorified touchy-feely trick.“Fin, you gonna eat that sandwich or just stare at it like it's gonna confess its life story?” Meg's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.He blinked and looked across the rickety table at his best friend. Meg was short, loud, and had a wild mop of dyed purple hair that she swore made her look “intimidating.” It didn't.