The Ghost Shepherd

Abyssal Demon (part 1)

“1000 Ethereal Coins?”

“Yes, for a body with minimal damage. The meat is a little tough but when you grinded, it loosens the fibers and it has a rich meat flavor”.

“I know, I am addicted to those burgers but still 1000 E. Coins...Isn’t that too much?”

Ethereal Coins were the currency used by the members of the alliance and it no longer had physical form. Everyone had an ID assigned to them since birth and with it came a virtual bank account that kept track of the earnings and expenses and could be accessed by their chips. Since it was data, the value of things could be less than 1 EC and it went all the way down to about 1/100 of an EC.

A draco burger cost was 0.1 EC and the monthly rent of a person living in the bottom part of the city was about 100 E. Coins per month.

The mission of killing two Argonians required by the government after a hunter’s first enhancement was designed to help the novice hunters transition from free room and board to becoming independent but most of all to give them a taste of the high profitability of the profession. The Novice could always find a job that didn’t involve putting their lives on the line but that of course came with lower wages and poorer living conditions.

The choice of becoming “something” different to a hunter was left to the individuals that were not chosen as part of the E.F.S program. The government didn’t have the luxury to waste precious Varanium on people that did not want to be hunters. E.F.S individuals that did not meet expectations or decided to live a quiet life often met with “accidents” and were very often hunted down for the precious metal. The system was both a blessing and a curse as it allowed its users to gain riches and power but it also forced them into a life full of danger.

Sly walked through packed streets with people of different races, some were tall and had tentacles instead of hair, others had horns, and some were extremely bizarre by human standards. Dwarfs were not short like in the majority of Planet Earth’s fantasy novels but they did have short legs and arms compared to their torsos. They were 9 ft tall with muscles that look like they were chisel out of rock.

Sly’s skin became extremely white after his enhancement and had a very leathery feel to it, this made him self conscious but thanks to the uniqueness of all the other races and the effects of genetic enhancements he was able to blend right in.

The city was an organized Chaos, there were three enormous towers joined together by various sky bridges and people walked from side to side on the different levels. From the point of view of an outsider looking at the scene, the city life happened inside those towers and there was no need to step outside for anything at all, however, that was not the case. The ground level of the city was as lively as the top but if one paid attention to details, they could find that the majority of the people on the outside of the towers were hunters coming and going to the wilderness to do what they do best.

The ground floor was also home to the students and people with low resources that worked as vendors and did miscellaneous jobs in some of the lower floors inside the three towers.

The ones inside the towers enjoyed a better lifestyle and at the highest floors, (E.F.S teachers), politicians, and the truly strong enjoyed the best view and the finest products. Each tower took the space of a small neighborhood and was able to provide housing and other amenities in each and everyone of its floors. There were Restaurants, Weapon Shops, Residential areas, Shopping Centers, and Auction Houses inside the towers that cater to the wealthy with increased levels of luxury as one moved up.

Sly walked the streets quickly and discovered that he felt very comfortable, it felt like the night was embracing him but at the same time the bright lights that illuminate the road started to bother him. K.C was constantly checking Sly’s bios and saw that there was an abnormal level of stimuli coming into the occipital lobe and needed it to be addressed.

She told him to squint his eyes for the time being and to quickly reach home and wait for it to pass. There were plenty of cases recorded in the database ever since the enhancement of individuals came to fruition. There were Argonians with sight far more advanced than the races of the alliance and an enhancement with improved sight needed an assimilation period for the brain to accommodate the changes.

The food stall was packed with students but the majority of them had not received their enhancement yet.

“Sly?”

A very cute girl from the Umdali race called out to him with surprise in her voice.

It was not impossible to see an Umdali walking the streets but they were very rare, usually if they were sent to planet Alpha for training, they lived in the highest floors of the tower and acted as professors in charge of the technological advancement classes as well as the synchronization of Chip and Nanotrons.

The Girl in front of him was one of those Umdalis, she had a humanoid body but her dark skin had patterns that looked like circuits and on her hair there were thick metallic like tentacles that move on their own and sometimes had small electric discharges passing through. The hair looked like rastafari dreadlocks and her eyes had a very distinct contrast between the red sclera and black iris.

“Oh... Hi Millie” Said Sly with half open eyes.

The Umdali did not need chips to aid them in their calculations, their thinking speed was amplified by the metallic conductor like hair and so far it was unrival in the cosmos at least from the point of view of the alliance. There were many rumors that in the Argonian leadership, there was one Mythical Level creature with an intellect that could rival the great Zero.

“What kind of enhancement did you get? The results are something I have never seen and you also disappeared for a full week”. Millie moved around him and inspected him like he was the most interesting subject ever. She was fast, she touched his skin and observed his eyes that were so dilated that there was barely any sclera visible.

After a careful inspection, she showed disinterest but her attitude flipped to interest once more the moment she discovered the position of his core, it was right in the middle of the chest and she knew that there was only one phenomenon that could make that happen.

It wasn’t uncommon to see it on Geniuses and the Children of the wealthy, but Sly was neither, which made it so much more interesting. Only the core of a high ranking Argonian at the Border of the Lord Class needed a direct link to the heart to grow.

Millie smiled brightly but didn’t say anything about it, “How are you feeling”

“I am feeling great… except for the lights, they hurt my eyes but my chip says ``is OK”.

“TWO DRACO BURGERS PLEASE”

“So did you get your wish of a close combat weapon?”

Hmm…

Sly remembered the simulation and almost puke, just the feeling of his guts spilling out after one s***h from the Draco’s claws made him regret that he ever wanted to go toe to toe with an Argonian up close.

“It was... unexpected”

“You died against the Draco, Didn’t you?”

Nod…

“Don’t worry... everyone does… if you actually managed to wound him, you are basically in the top 5%”

“Oh”

The statement didn’t make Sly feel any better but that was very typical of the Umdali race, they love statistics and were very pragmatic.

“Now that you are a Novice Hunter you have access to real fighting footage of hunters versus the common Argonians of this planet. The videos are extensive so I suggest that you have your chip download the content so you can watch it as you go through your changes”

Sly took a bite of the Burger and coughed it up right away, “What is this! It tastes like rubber.. But it smelled so good just a second ago”.

Sniff … Sniff

Sly came closer to the car that was selling them and realized that the left side that contained the raw meat smelled delicious while the cooked ones, even if they were at a medium temperature started to look less appetizing to him.

“Boss!!...Two more but this time make them rare”

Sly passed the previous ones to Millie that ate them with gusto since they were truly delicious.

“That’s it Boss, flip it once and then take them off otherwise you’ll burn them…”

The shop owner was taken aback but did as told, he lived by one motto, the customer was always right. The Hamburger patties literally were on the grill 5 sec on each side, he didn’t know if it was enough to kill any bacteria on them, but at least they were holding together.

This time Sly was in heaven, the raw meat inside felt refreshing to his paladar and even though the other toppings tasted weird, it somehow worked.

Millie kept looking at Sly and taking it all in, she had seen people from the nobility side of town go through the changes but not so fast. She was fascinated and wanted to take sly to a lab right away and do further research into Gene Enhancement with high level Argonian DNA.

Her hypothesis was that introducing Lord class DNA during the first enhancement was sometimes detrimental to the evolution of the hunter and that they should take into consideration factors such as the race of the host.

Gene Enhancement through Argonian blood was very safe while using common class creatures; however, with the E.F.S and the achievements of the alliance in recent years using Commander class creatures was becoming more popular but Lord class or close to Lord Class enhancements were almost unheard of.

Millie didn’t know that Sly in fact was presented with the blood of specimens from a 1 star Soldier to the 5 star Commander for his choosing.

Was the ghostly behemoth a rare specimen? Yes, it was.

Was it powerful? In the eyes of the alliance, it was not.

The person that killed it was a 3 Star Commander Rank Hunter. This meant that the highest difficulty monster the hunter had killed was in fact a 3 star Commander and since the specimen was so easy to get, the Ghostly Behemoth was giving a 1 star Commander rating. After the specimen was extracted, the planet was mysteriously destroyed and nobody had ever encountered a monster similar to that one, so there was no other source for comparison.

Sly ate six burgers and said goodbye to Millie before heading towards his room. He was pretty much on autopilot while traveling there and failed to realize that K.C and his Nanotrons weren’t acting up like they usually did.

K.C had her hands full and for the first time the Nanotrons were working in unison to prevent Sly from turning into a monster. Millie was right, the blood of a high ranking Argonian was too strong and for some reason, the one given to Sly contained memories or more precisely a spirit energy that was trying to overwhelm the human DNA and changed the body into his former self to somehow be revived.