The next week passed by in a blur of movement.

  When Tyler wasn’t fighting, he was training. And when he wasn’t training, he was studying. And all throughout those activities, he was buoyed by the massive influx of energy that arose from the oversized bunch of magic bananas in front of him.

  Each of the bananas individually might have had less of an effect than the original, but there were more than fifty of them on the bulb, and each one was almost the length of his forearm and packed with magical energy. Every banana held within it the accumulated Resilience from dozens of duneclaws, and each fruit gave him an influx of energy equal to more than a day’s worth of training.

  And he realized that they carried with them more than just raw Resilience. They weren’t just strengthening him — they were healing him, cleansing his entire being. He noticed his skin was perfect, despite the godawful living conditions he’d been set in. His now-shoulder-length hair had gained a lustrous shine, and if he weren’t completely incapable of growing facial hair, he suspected he would have had a glorious bushy beard like a true wildman.

  Even without advancing, he suspected a couple of them were enough to heal minor wounds in a minute. It wasn’t like he had much opportunity to test that hypothesis, though. By the time he was halfway through, he didn’t even need the Dragon’s Bones to tank the duneclaws’ strong tail pincers.

  And then, right as he was about halfway through the bunch:

  Congratulations! You have reached Peak-Novice.

  He’d marveled at the feeling of being… full? That wasn’t exactly the right word, but it was something close to that. This Saturation Point was far stronger than the ones within Novice, and he felt the Resonance within him settle, like it had no more room to grow.

  He could now do a flawless handstand while pushing himself up with a single arm, and his body was so tough that he could throw himself off the highest trees on the island and land with barely a scratch. He could stand completely still in a swarm of duneclaws and come away with only surface wounds, and he was strong enough now to kill even the largest ones in a single blow.

  Maybe most impressive, though, was the fact that the inflammation was almost gone. Bit by bit, as he’d strengthened his body, his condition had gone from a major detriment to his abilities to barely a nuisance. Some days, he couldn’t even feel it at all.

  That lack of pain still felt foreign to him, like new shoes that he still hadn’t quite broken in yet. He’d woken up numerous times over the past couple of weeks expecting it to have gone back to how it had been for years, just as it had after all the other times it’d lessened for a moment. But as the inflammation grew weaker and weaker and Tyler grew stronger and stronger, he began to understand — at least logically — that he was actually being healed. The same way that the Aspect of Resilience healed his cuts and scrapes and broken bones, it was slowly making known its treatment of the deep-rooted disease within him.

  And so, invigorated by the influx of strength and good news, he’d gone on the offensive.

  With a body now capable of executing some of the higher martial forms of the Art of the Sandstorm, he became a living hurricane, wreaking havoc on the creatures at such a high rate that he could trigger their mass flight instinct on a daily basis. But he could chase them down, now that he’d advanced another step, and he took great joy in finally turning the tables on these creatures that had harassed him relentlessly for months.

  With the corpses, Tyler had managed to ripen the entirety of his first bulb and begin growing a second one.

  The accumulated Resonance from the last half-week just sat there in his soul, waiting. He couldn’t really use it for anything — this Saturation Point made his soul actively reject any more Resilience he tried to weave in, but it floated around like a cloud on top of his mana. The more bananas that he ate, the denser the cloud became.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  He’d begun researching what was needed to advance beyond this hurdle, but his Analysis seemed to think that he still didn’t know enough about the subject himself. He pondered the cave carvings and explored his own soul as much as he could during his downtime, but right now the only thing that he could do was keep accumulating Resonance.

  And he was sure that he was about to accumulate a lot of Resonance, because finally, after months of searching — he’d found the duneclaw nest.

  “God, I’m thinking of so many nasty things that I could do,” Tyler cackled as he eyed the well-hidden crack in the ground from a distant tree. It was covered in loose grass and leaves, and it would have blended right in if it weren’t for the tiny spots of Resilience shining out from within that matched some of the broken magical items that Tyler had found lying around the cave.

  It looked like he wasn’t the only one profiting off of Savadiere’s leftovers.

  He’d been trying to tail one to it since he started being capable of fighting off the swarms, but the creatures seemed to be naturally evasive, burrowing into random places or even straight-up letting themselves die if they noticed they were being followed back to their nest. But he’d realized that they hadn’t evolved in an environment where their blood could be so easily tracked, and so he’d purposefully let a handful of injured ones scurry away to lead him back to their home.

  But as much as he wanted to exact his vengeance right away, for now he’d just watch from a distance.

  It was currently mid-afternoon, so their vision would be working fairly well, and he didn’t want to scare them off from the nest.

  He clutched the Core of Protection in his free hand, tugging at the length of string he’d tied around it to keep it on his chest like a necklace. He prayed that the scent of its magic wouldn’t wake them from their slumbers, but he considered coming back without the Core if it did. It had only activated twice over the past few months, and he was getting more and more confident that he could handle any number of duneclaws.

  Then again…

  He thought back to the fight he’d witnessed the day he’d come to the island. Even as strong as he was, he knew for a fact that he’d stand just as little of a chance against either of them now as he would have back when he’d witnessed it.

  No matter how invincible he might have felt against his current enemies, he couldn’t forget that there were always bigger fish in the sea. Who knew if the duneclaws had some kind of nasty surprise waiting for him in there?

  And speaking of seas, he thought as his eyes flashed over to the ever-boiling ocean of chaos surrounding the island. He’d always glimpsed some far-off islands once he’d gotten used to his enhanced vision, and of course there was the constant backdrop of skyscrapers sitting just beneath the liquid’s black-and-violet surface, but he was beginning to see more things in there — not just buildings and inanimate objects, but creatures that would make him shiver the moment he caught a glimpse of them. Something was going on out there, and he wasn’t sure —

  He froze, his eyes locked on a particular point in the distance. He was near the center of the island, so he normally wouldn’t have been able to see the ‘water’ at all, but he was looking from one of the highest trees. Though even with his newly enhanced eyesight, he was doubting his vision.

  There was something out there. And it…

  He felt the familiar sense of his Analysis activating.

  The Dimensional Storm is Coming.

  “No. No, fuck. No!”

  He jumped down 30 feet from where he was perched and sprinted back to his cave.

  With his newfound strength, his legs ate up the distance like it was nothing, leaving clouds of sand and tufts of kicked up grass behind him as he scrambled along the lush terrain. His surroundings flashed by, and he clenched his jaw as he finally made it to the edge of the sandy area.

  It couldn’t have taken him more than a minute, but that still felt like far too long.

  He wrenched his makeshift door open, panting with exertion. Running alongside the jagged carvings lining the walls, he quickly grabbed at food and weaponry by the handful, piling them all up behind the tree and covering them with the fallen leaves that he’d begun using as blankets and carpets. He didn't know what they would possibly do against the Storm, but he couldn't just sit here and do nothing.

  Why was it coming again? Hadn’t it done enough damage the first time?

  Tyler gripped his door-log tight using the two makeshift handles he’d carved into the wood, wedging it into the cave entrance with all the force the Flowing Sands could muster. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t move it back out. He just needed to protect these things.

  Fuck.

  And things were finally going well, too.

  What else should he do? What else could he do? He felt so powerless again, despite the strong magic coursing through his soul. It all felt so —

  The Dimensional Storm Has Come.