Solo Leveling: How and why are Hunters granted their abilities? Series' power system, explained

Solo Leveling has been making waves as the first majorly successful anime adaptation in 2024 and fans want to know more about this interesting A-1 Pictures' anime, which is why they are going to the manhwa to try and understand the source material. Furthermore, if there is an element in the story that deserves a lot more attention, it is the Hunters.

Hunters are probably the most significant element in the Solo Leveling series since the protagonist, Sung Jin-Woo, starts as one of them, albeit from the last possible class. However, there is a lot of variety when it comes to Hunters and their abilities, and their origins are also tied to the greater conflict that takes place in this universe.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for this series. Any opinion expressed here belongs to the author and not Sportskeeda as a whole.

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Explaining the origin of Hunters and how they gain their abilities in the Solo Leveling series

Hunters are the humans in this universe who have been exposed to magic and have developed abilities that can hurt magic beasts and be helpful when fighting in the Dungeons that people can reach through gates. They usually rank from E to S as weakest to strongest and normally can't go stronger. They also have their categories such as Fighters, Mages, Assassins, Tankers, Rangers, and Healers, much like RPGs.

The abilities they gain are usually random and they take place right when their mana begins to manifest, as happened to the protagonist of the story, Sung Jin-Woo, when he was a few years younger. There are rare cases of Hunters getting a "second awakening," which allows them to improve their ranks and become a lot stronger.

Hunters (or at least people with mana) started to appear when the Rulers, a divine race of entities who were born at the beginning of time, decided to open the gates of monsters and magic beasts to the human world and expose humanity to mana.

This is how regular people began to manifest these abilities since the Rulers wanted to find a way to defeat their arch nemesis, the Monarchs, thus kickstarting the Hunters industry and eventually, Sung Jin-Woo's story.

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The importance and themes of Hunters

Hunters Sung Jin-Woo, Cha Hae-In, and Choi Jong-In as seen in the manhwa (Images via Chugong/DUBU/Webtoon)

Hunters are the main focus of the Solo Leveling series, although it is worth pointing out that the protagonist, Sung Jin-Woo, is the exception to the rule. While the vast majority of Hunters cannot improve, Jin-Woo had the System, which allowed him to follow a set of battles and training to become a lot stronger. This made him go from a weak E-Rank Hunter to arguably the most powerful character in the series.

Furthermore, Hunters are also an entire industry, which leads to the series' world-building of having the Dungeon raids as a business of sorts. Hunters even go as far as having guilds and planning their team-ups, making some plot points in the series feel more like a business than an adventure.

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Final thoughts

Hunters are the people who were exposed to magic in the Solo Leveling universe and would manifest special abilities and a degree of strength that they couldn't develop, for the most part.

They are usually ranked from E to S, and they started to appear once the Rulers opened the gates of magic beasts and Dungeons across the world so the human race could gain abilities and help in their war against the Monarchs.

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