Nate stood atop the wall, looking back over the city. They had made a lot of progress in the last eight months.

  After the other somewhat close cities had started sending in aid and other support, things had really started to take off. That didn’t mean they had forgiven the ones directly involved with causing the beast wave. Once word had gotten back to the rest of the people in those particular cities, it didn’t take long for those responsible to be ousted.

  Very few of the common cultivators agreed with any decision that resulted in the destruction of a city. The cultivators who had chosen to follow orders, willingly or not, wisely chose to keep their mouths shut.

  Regardless, looking out over the city revealed a different sight from the one a year before.

  They hadn’t rebuilt it in the same way that it had been originally, but instead, had attempted to improve it. Unfortunately, that meant that most regular houses had been demolished. They were either being replaced with duplexes or full one-apartment complexes.

  Underneath each of the apartment buildings, a bunker was put in place as well. They might never see any use. Everyone hoped they wouldn’t, but they had seen how effective the ones at the schools had been.

  The reveal of the bunkers had changed their plans with regard to the schools as well. They had decided to keep the number the same because of them.

  More cultivators with an affinity for earth meant that a lot of items moved quickly despite the cold.

  Of course, he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that they were doing all of this simply because they were feeling guilty. No, they wanted access to the community outside the dungeon, which had truly begun to show its worth.

  The flying squirrel that had gone back to its world had done some good as more and more path-trained beasts requested access to the community. Now that he owned the portal, Nate had eventually lowered the difficulty of the traps so that more beasts could begin entering the first floor and exiting the dungeon.

  The number of paths and shops they had spread throughout the community had skyrocketed along with the size of its clearing. In the beginning, the clearing had a radius of a hundred and fifty feet from the dungeon in the center to the walls at the edge. Now it was closer to five hundred feet.

  Much had happened in the last eight months, both to the city and him.

  He had continued to train using the dungeons, the number of which had slowly continued to grow. The milestones that needed to be reached before he could create a new Dungeon Core had remained the same. The cost of each Core upgrade, along with how much it cost to create a new Core, however, had not.

  At the moment, he managed to upgrade his own core from Pyrite to Silver, and then again to what it was now at Opal. Silver was the second stage of [Basic Quality] cores, whereas Opal was the first in [Regular Quality]. Each upgrade had felt incredible, though his progress had slowed significantly after he finished that second batch of alchemical core enhancement items. It was still there thanks to his backup core; it just wasn’t coming as rapidly.

  Having had his energy compressed so many times, made the amount of qi he possessed closer to what was normal. Finally, he wasn’t depending on what his backup core held all the time, just so he would be exhausted immediately.

  Along with the increase in his core quality was the overall growth of his cultivation realm. He had also come to learn a few things about how it all worked for him, and what made him different. The status sheet that always appeared on the left-hand side of his wrist computer screen had always shown his various attributes. Yet they had never meant much to him. Sure, he could feel himself getting healthier, faster, and stronger, but the numbers themselves didn’t seem to correlate with the actual increase.

  Early on, he had tried to figure out if there was any link between the numbers and his actual abilities. At first, that seemed to be the case. However, that theory faded and vanished as the numbers continued to grow higher, but he couldn’t suddenly bench-press a car.

  Instead, all they seemed to be was a marker of sorts. A system that let him know where his gains were being consolidated towards, and they were always reset with each realm upgrade. That was another thing. The plus sign he had grown used to seeing beside his ‘Constitution’ for so long had finally vanished as well. It had given him a seven-point bonus when he finally increased his realm, giving him a head start on that particular attribute.

  All he needed to go to the next realm was a score of one-hundred in energy and then he could choose to move up a realm or hold off for a while. Maxing out the other attributes would make him stronger overall, but it wasn’t needed.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try and max out those numbers every time, regardless. At least now that he knew. Just staring at the odd number next to his speed was a constant annoying tickle at his brain.

  Nate’s mother found him standing there a while later, Aura by his side. “Are you ready for this?” She asked her son, joining him in staring out over the partially rebuilt city.

  He shook his head, a flicker of unease entering his chest. “No, not really. I know you and dad will be safe here once I leave. Your business has taken off, and you have employees, not to mention you have also become friends with the Chrightons, Travers, George, and Claire. Despite that, it just doesn’t feel right to leave you both behind.”

  Spending the last year with them had been a balm to his soul in many ways. He still found himself having the occasional problem with night terrors, but by and large, those had stopped.

  She placed her hand on his shoulder and pulled him close, bringing his larger frame in for a hug. “As you said, we won’t be alone, and you won’t be either. You’ll have Aura and the girls with you and Anna for at least part of the journey.”

  He snorted at that. The past few months had opened his eyes to many things about the sadistic trainer. Namely, that she did not have it as together as she liked to project or have everyone believe. However, having her as a chaperone for the first little bit had been an understandable condition by the various parents involved.

  Originally, it had only been him and Aura who were going to leave and explore the burgeoning dungeon sites. He had been working to fill out his physical map and wanted to find out what all the different smaller dimensional zones were. They didn’t seem to be regular incursion areas, and yet they still appeared on his dungeon creation map.

  There had to be something there, and he wanted to know what before he selected one, and wasted what had become an increasingly expensive creation. The first couple of new Cores had been cheap enough that he had initially barely noticed the cost, especially once the shared resource pool came into play.

  That changed when he created the fourth dungeon, as by that point, the costs associated with the creation of the Cores had finally begun to reveal themselves. It wasn’t much back then, but every Dungeon Core he made got a little more expensive. It was a good thing that he had so many of them by this point.

  There were a few that weren’t huge earners, such as the second dungeon with the blighted elves which had mostly gone unused since Samhain. Every once in a while, a party of cultivators would appear in it, or some blighted elves would come through the portal, but that was it. They had taken the chance to mark it as off-limits for their people.

  Meanwhile, the first dungeon was only contributing a small amount to the shared pool, as the rest of it was going to the upkeep of the community.

  By and large, however, the vast majority of the dungeons were doing well. He was rather disappointed that the only ones he had managed to close since the first belonged to things he couldn’t form communities around though. Not to mention that for whatever reason there was an abnormal number of dimensional zones, at least in his opinion, that led to annoying places. He had created several dungeons for kobolds, ants, rats, and one particularly terrifying dungeon that he refused to enter which housed giant earwigs.

  He had come uncomfortably close to losing that last dungeon at one point as well. Nate really did not like earwigs. Most people professed to hating spiders or cockroaches, well he hated earwigs. They were unnatural and gross.

  All of it had helped to shape the way he approached dungeons the last few months. Including the eight portals that he had closed as soon as they had been conquered. The skeleton and zombie dungeons had been relatively easy portals for him, and also indicative of something else he hadn’t understood up to that point.

  Most dimensional zones were actually limited to one species.

  The portal would appear inside the claimed territory of a specific species, and they alone would make use of it. It was only when the portal appeared in public places, contested lands, or otherwise shared locations that multiple species got involved. That is what had happened on Aura’s world. The portal there had appeared just outside of their capital, and there had been no hiding it.

  Since then, most of the dungeons he had created had belonged to one single species. He had to admit; it was more boring that way. Only needing to plan out traps for rats, or whatever the current enemy was, lacked a certain freedom he had enjoyed in the first two dungeons. It wasn’t entirely terrible as these single specie dimensional zones tended to have stronger, and therefore smarter, enemies. That at least offered up some variety.

  Not much, but some.

  Aura pulled at his hand with her mouth, her sharp teeth never piercing his skin. She was always careful to never draw blood with her mouth, understanding just how strong her jaws and sharp teeth could be. “Come on,” She sent to him, pulling him toward his waiting mother. “Everyone is waiting for us at the house, and I’m getting hungry.”

  He rolled his eyes, allowing himself to be pulled along. That was just an excuse, and they both knew it. What she really wanted was to be pampered by Lisa Travers, Lindsay’s mom. It had taken some time for the woman to give in to her urges, but eventually, she had pounced on Aura with a vengeance.

  The kitsune had hidden from her for a month straight afterward. Now, she absolutely loved the treatment she got from her and Lindsay.

  A short time later, they arrived at the Chrighton estate, where everyone was waiting to get the party started. In the morning, the kids, Aura, and Anna would all be leaving to go on their own adventure.

  How could they not let them all go with a party of close friends and family?

  Gifts had even been prepared for them, mainly in the form of healing pills. Something that the beast alchemists who lived in the community outside the first dungeon were remarkably adept at making. Nate had always sort of assumed that was the case, considering how many he received from the dungeon when he was practicing there.

  George and Claire were there as well. Ostensibly, they were still taking things slow. If anyone took a second to actually look and watch them, they would see that the two were never far from each other outside of working hours.

  They would also notice the layer of dust that had begun to collect in the apartment Claire was renting.

  Still, no one said anything, content to let them maintain their illusion of privacy. Most were simply glad that George was happier than he had been in a long time.

  The older gentleman hugged Nate as he walked in, slipping a piece of paper into his palm as he did so. “Take a look at that later, but you might want to add heading to Arizona onto your list of stops.” He whispered with a wink.

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