Only Wisdom Awakened - Chapter 177

Chapter 177: Gray Fog
‘Hans Richter has come to San Diego…

what does he want?’

“Good morning, I’m here to see the branch leader”

“Which one sir?”

The employee asked.

In any other Association branch, this would’ve been a stupid question, but in San Diego, it actually made perfect sense.

“Preston”

“Okay, I will call him Mr. Preston immediately, please wait here”

“No, there is no need to do that, if you could lead me to his office it would be better, I don’t want to waste his precious time”

“I-i see…”

The man said surprised.

Most S-ranks thought of themselves as important guests and their eccentric personalities were difficult to keep at bay.

“Then… if you would like to follow me”

He finally raised his head, and turned around, leading Hans toward the place he had requested to visit.

“Knock knock”

“Who is it”

Replied a serious voice from behind the door.

“Sir, Hans Richter is here to request a meeting with you”

‘Uh? Hans? What is he doing here? Did someone cause him any trouble? I hope not, turning a seventh-tier magician against our branch is the last thing we need right now.’

“I’ll come right away”

“There is no need to do that”

Said a voice coming from outside the room.

As soon as he heard it, Preston, who was already walking toward the door, stopped, before saying:

“I see that you’re already here.

Please come in”

Hans opened the door, and the person who had escorted him to the office walked away.

“I’m sorry for the sudden visit, I know you’re a busy man and I don’t want to interrupt your work, but I would need a favor”

“There is no need to worry, since you’re Caleb’s friend you are also this place’s ally, I will do my best to assist you in any of your requests.”

“It’s nothing big, but I have a problem I need to solve.

You see, just a few days ago, I passed by Santa Monica and cleared a gate I had booked through the app.

As soon as I was done, I found myself surrounded by reporters and people who had come to see me.

I don’t want so many people to be focused on me, and I am afraid the same would happen if I were to raid a gate here.”

“Oh, that’s not a problem, do you just need me to cover your name, or do you want a secondary registration.”

There’s no need for another registration, and it might create some problems for you.

If you could just cover up my track I would be extremely grateful for it.”

“That is not a problem at all, however, it might be difficult to find a gate you would consider challenging.

B-rank gates here are extremely rare, I will see if I can find a C-rank one but it might take a few hours for it to appear, if it does I will call you, in the meantime, if you want you can raid any of the gates around the city”

“I’m sorry for the trouble and I’m thankful for your help, then, I won’t hold you here any more than I already have.”

After saying those words, Hans left the place and began searching on the app for a gate worth raiding.

Inside his office, Preston was thinking about him:

‘What a strange boy.

Awakened, especially high-ranking ones, have enormous egos, they are selfish and do not care about other people.

Not everyone is like that, but being always treated with respect and revered as some kind of superhero eventually gets to their head.

This would make even more sense in a case like his.

A young boy is considered the most talented mage on the planet whose power rivals that of the people who can control the world.

Hearing of him like this, you might think he’d be the worst piece of shit you would ever meet in your life, but he’s surprisingly easygoing.

Sigh… if only all awakened were like this… we would have ten times less trouble.’

“This one seems good”

Hans had finally found a target for today’s practice.

Since he wanted to test his skills without using any spells, he decided to challenge a gate filled with close-range monsters who had humanoid figures.

[D-rank gate: wild forest

Mission: close the gate

Monsters:

Monkey-type animals are similar to gorillas, they have high strength and move with high dexterity between the trees’ branches.

Note: the monsters are strong but there aren’t many of them.

Boss Monster: -unknown-

Reward: 80% of the sum received after selling the expedition’s materials.]

The gate wasn’t far away from him, so instead of calling a cab he decided to walk, and fifteen minutes later, he arrived at his destination.

The gate was pretty small, located in a little park just beside a residential area.

‘Let’s go and test it out’

Said Hans, grabbing the sword he had borrowed from the old Master.

As he entered the gate, he unsheathed the sword, getting ready for battle.

The gate’s environment resembled that of a forest, as he expected by the name, but the trees were out of the ordinary, with their height reaching various dozens of meters.

A scream of a gorilla caught him by surprise, and he hurriedly raised his chin to spot the enemy.

Before Hans could even think, his body moved on instinct, avoiding the falling gorilla.

Smashing both its arms against the ground and raising a cloud of dust, the gorilla landed where Hans had been standing up till a few seconds earlier.

The two huge arms of the gorilla began beating its chest as an alarmingly loud roar came out of its mouth.

‘I read about it in an encyclopedia, whenever gorillas start beating their chests, it means they have perceived you as a threat in their territory, and they will most definitely attack you.

Come on… let’s do this!’

Hans set his stats to 140, which were around the average for a high C-rank hunter.

A C-rank hunter wouldn’t ever dream of clearing a D-rank gate alone, but Hans had the advantage of his skill {ghostification} coupled with his incredibly high stamina.

Also, his strength and dexterity being over a hundred allowed him to use aura.

His aura was different from all the others, while some auras increased the sharpness of the blade or the strength of the attack, his aura seemed to have the ability to improve all his stats.

The black aura painted by countless stars began coming out of his body and covering his blade.

He dashed forward, slashing the monster vertically, and splitting its body in two.

‘That was… quite underwhelming if I must say so.

It’s not like that was a normal animal, it was a D-rank monster.

For such a monster to fall so easily even while restricting myself… did my aura grow stronger than last time?

Whatever, I’ll see if the boss will be able to pose a challenge for me.’

Searching for the boss, Hans explored a lot of the forest, slaughtering the beasts as he encountered them.

He had been sprinting for thirty minutes in a straight direction when he finally found what he was looking for.

It wasn’t the boss, but instead a thick grey fog.

‘It’s the first time I made it up to here…

The gate’s limit.’

Gates were not a planet, but a little space, limited by borders.

As soon as the first gates’ explorations began.

Scientists and researchers assumed the gates were like a bridge between different dimensions or planets.

This seemed to be an extremely big opportunity for the future of mankind since the resources on earth would run out in the future.

But they were wrong, gates are like smaller dimensions, and the materials in them are minimal.

The fog surrounding these dimensions isn’t any normal fog.

The mana in them is… weird.

Hans touched the fog with his hand, and he could immediately feel it:

‘This mana… it’s chaotic… extremely chaotic’

The mana inside the gates was also chaotic, but compared to the one inside that fog, it felt river-smooth.

‘Someone once decided to step into the fog but… they never came back

I have no intention of wasting my life, I just wanted to feel it once.

These gates are like smaller dimensions, but the one in Greenland…

If I had wandered around a bit more, would I have found the fog? Or would I have been able to travel the entire world?

If I had to guess, it would probably be the second option, since the system said that was a ‘portal’ and not a ‘gate’.

Whatever, I’ll check if I ever find another one.

Hans turned his back to the mist and got to work, searching for the boss once again.

…

An hour later:

“Finally… I found you… sneaky monkey.”

Standing in front of Hans was a monster that could definitely not be described as ‘sneaky’.

“Do you have any idea… of how much time you made me waste?!”