Into The Portal: Monster Invasion

Chapter 256: First Trouble

When Miles was first dropped, he recorded the bird’s eye view in his brain and then entered the valley. He could hear monsters roaring, walking dead moaning, and animals fighting. But he was already prepared for it.

He quickly donned the camouflage armor and activated elemental vision. He refrained from using heat vision for two reasons. First, most monsters and animals didn’t release any heat. Second, the walking dead were, well, dead. They also couldn’t be spotted by heat vision. But through elemental vision, he could see every part of the forest to their finest details unless it was blocked by a strong element.

For example, he couldn’t see too deep in the ground because the earth element was blocking the other elements. But he could see if a monster was hiding behind a tree.

“I heard there is an active portal in this valley. Please be careful Miles.” Coin said.

“You shouldn’t worry about that, buddy. Unity wouldn’t let a portal pour out monsters so close to walls. The portal itself is guarded by the academy, and only lets monsters when the number is below a certain point. This whole valley is a testing ground. If it was an active portal, not even Form-Rank could survive here.” Miles looked at Coin’s new body as he thought in his mind. Coin was now different from before. After all, Miles was now a Form-Rank hunter and could use Frenzy-Rank orbs and cores.

When Miles leveled up to Form-Rank, he wagered with Malcolm and won a rare core. To Miles's surprise, the core Malcolm gave him had a rare branch of Psychic Element. It was Mental Link. Miles also found a golden electricity core, which was also quite rare. It was ten times more powerful than regular electricity elemental cores. Miles tried to merge two cores and was able to create the first-ever dual elemental wristwatch.josei

With the mental link, Miles and Coin could communicate through telepathically. It was much faster and more convenient than normal psychic monster cores. When linked, Miles and Coin were connected more than ever. They could instantly see through each other’s minds.

“So, this is just a big training ground?” Coin asked.

“Yeah. It is still challenging, but it is not as impossible as fighting a horde of monsters.” Miles said in his mind and kept on walking.

“Hiss!”

Miles stopped on his track and looked around. His pupils dilated to the limit when he just heard a hissing, but he couldn’t see anything with his elemental vision. He looked at the forest with his eyes bulging.

‘How can that be? Although some monsters and animals are elementless, they would stick out like a sore thumb in elemental vision because they would be like a black spot on the colorful canvas. But I didn’t notice it at all!’ Miles listened to the wind, and trees whistling. He couldn’t hear the hissing again, but his back was still cold with danger.

He looked around and all of a sudden noticed his vision was bloody. It was as if his vision was covered with a red filter. Everything he laid his eyes on had a red hue.

“Miles I didn’t hear any hissing.” Coin talked in his mind.

“How can that be? Your equipment is ten times more sensitive to sound than my ears.” Miles asked in shock.

“I guess you are hallucinating.” Coin said.

“What?” Miles asked in shock. “Why did you say so?”

“Because there are three monsters approaching, but you are not reacting at all!” Coin said, at the same time sharing a vague vision in his mind. Miles looked in front of him but all he could see was a silent forest, but in the image Coin was sharing there were three monsters slowly approaching him.

“Shit! Can you keep streaming the image into my mind?” Miles asked as he fished out an orb.

“It would overload your mind. Although our minds are connected, if the data is too big, it will only hurt you.” Coin said.

“Alright, create an outline, and point at me their location and attacks by lighting up the dots,” Miles said and showed an example by imagining. It was like a tiger covered by Christmas lights. When its claw was attacking, it would light up so Miles could see its location and dodge. It wasn’t as good as seeing with one's eyes, but it was better than nothing.

Soon the battle began. Three monsters approached from three sides of him. Luckily the academy wouldn’t allow fresh Form-Rank hunters to battle against monsters of the same rank. Although there were lots of monsters in the forest, none was at Frenzy-Rank.

Miles looked at the new image in his mind with his eyes closed. Coin was scanning the surroundings and streaming in his mind as a two-dimensional image by adding deepness through the lights. Miles looked around him and checked the monsters. One of them looked like a tiger with a horn. The other two were big cats.

The first to attack was the tiger. It attacked Miles from the front by swinging its claw. Lights shone in Miles’s mind, so he dodged back with Charge. Although it was overkill, he still didn’t want to risk it. When he was at a safe distance, he used the Charge again and Coin released golden electricity. The orb in Miles's hand melted and formed a spear with a dark element, Miles pointed it to the tiger and used Stab. The spear was covered by energy thrust towards the tiger at a speed that cannot be seen.

The spear came back off the tiger's head, while the cat was still in midst of their attack. Coin lit up their locations, so Miles swung the spear accordingly and cut open two monsters’ heads. “Phew, I thought it would be a hard battle, but it was easier than I thought. But why do I still hallucinate?”

Miles said and walked to collect cores.