Angelica was currently driving the rugged RV that all of their parents had chipped in to buy for them. It wasn’t a top-of-the-line product; they hadn’t wanted that. Instead, it was something that could take a beating and keep on going. It was comfortable and had plenty of power, with absolutely massive tires that could roll right over smaller trees.

  They would be doing expeditions while they were out and about, taking advantage of Nate’s impressive amount of storage. Something that had become somewhat of an open secret among the group after he had returned the contents of George’s entire house to him.

  They would be keeping most of the cores they found. Nate could use them with his gun -a secret they did not know about-, but the RV also used them as fuel. They needed to be processed first before they could be used as a fuel. A small core converter had been installed on the RV for exactly that purpose. It had terrible efficiency compared to the larger permanently installed converters in cities. However, it worked, and that was all that mattered.

  The first stop on their trip after they dropped off Anna was going to be one of the odd-dimensional zones Nate had been seeing on his Dungeon Creation map. They would take the RV as far off-road as they could before heading the rest of the way to the destination on foot.

  Nate played around with his notes at the table while Lindsay paid attention to Aura for the next couple of hours. Anna was in the front passenger seat, acting as navigator and general copilot.

  With the current number of dungeons that he had; it was long since past the point where it became too much to manage by himself. The Dungeon Cores were supposed to be taking up the slack in that regard. Except they didn’t actually do that until level three, and level four was where it became truly useful.

  He wasn’t really looking forward to the day when he had hundreds of dungeons all clamoring for his attention. He snapped his notebook closed and stared out the window for a few minutes. The road they were on was taking them in the direction of the city of Pueblo.

  The leadership of the city had been the primary group behind the attack on their city the year before. While the matter had been settled, and they had helped them rebuild, it still left a bad taste in all of their mouths.

  That was fine. They were only stopping there for the night, and then they would be continuing onward. They were on the old I-25 road, and not particularly enjoying themselves. The weather and time had not been kind to this section of the interstate. The yearly freezing and thawing over the last hundred years, along with countless beasts and other animals walking across the pavement had led to it crumbling.

  Scraggly crabgrass and small trees had sprung up in between the cracks, further breaking the pavement.

  It wasn’t the worst section of road they had come across during the last year of going on weekend expeditions, but it was close. Thankfully, the large tires and hefty suspension of the overlander RV could handle it with ease.

  After leaving Pueblo, they would continue on down to New Mexico. It was there they would investigate the first of the weird extra dimensional zone sights. There were others that were closer. However, he didn’t want to tip his hand too soon. Besides, they would be getting rid of Anna in Trinidad.

  That was where Lindsay’s brother, Landon, had eventually scurried off to after having enough family time. Having all the Travers kids called back home after the attack on the city had been a nice reunion for them… at first. Then, within four days, their strong personalities began to make themselves known.

  For the sake of everyone’s sanity, James and Lisa had told their kids that while it was nice to see them, calling them all back had been a mistake. In other words, they needed to get lost, pronto. They had all been happy to read between the lines, after making sure to give Lindsay plenty of grief, of course. She was the baby of the family, and they would always be there for her, but they also showed their love in typical older sibling fashion.

  Whenever the driver would get tired, they’d switch out and continue driving. In that manner, even having to go somewhat slowly for most of the day, they still managed to reach Pueblo while the sun was still high in the sky.

  Lindsay, who was currently driving, slowed the large vehicle as the towering, compacted walls of the city came into view. “Ugh,” She muttered in distaste. “I know it wasn’t the people of the city who orchestrated the attack on our city, but it was their cultivators who still carried it out. Can we just, like, keep driving? Maybe sleep in the RV tonight?”

  Anna looked at the other two, and then Aura, before shrugging. “I’m fine with that. Just know we’ll have to deal with any issues that arise as a result.”

  Lindsay put the truck back into gear with a grin. “That’s fine with me.”

  Both of the girls had seen their cultivations grow steadily in the beginning as they worked with Nate. Then later, once the energy skill basic ties had evolved, they were able to fix even more of the issues. It was an ongoing process still, but their realms were solidly in ‘Core Refining’, putting them an entire realm ahead of Nate.

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  The benefits of having a great quality core right from the start could not be understated. Even with meditation arts that hadn’t been perfected for them, their cultivation speed had still been greater than his own, despite his advantages. The gap was slowly closing, but it would be some time yet before it disappeared entirely.

  She drove them around the city, bypassing it entirely, and then continued on until the light began to fade. With just a little more time, they would have made it to Colorado City, but it wasn’t to be. They had already been dodging beasts for the last hour of the trip.

  The stupid things seemed to think it was a good idea to jump out of the trees and bushes and attempt to ram the side of the RV. Only one had actually managed to accomplish the feat, their dazed rear end had then been promptly run over by a set of massive tires.

  Anna, now in the driver's seat, had managed to dodge the rest.

  Under excellent conditions, the drive to Colorado City from Pueblo would have only taken them thirty minutes to do. Unfortunately, those sorts of circumstances hadn’t existed for years. The degrading road didn’t allow people to maintain the speeds that would get them there that quickly. At least not without shaking their vehicle to pieces.

  Anna found the remains of an old rest stop and pulled over for the night.

  Nate and Aura were sent out in one direction to do a quick clearing run, while the other three went the other way. They would each complete a half circle and then meet back up at the RV.

  The girls were stronger than him, but still weaker than Aura, so the groups more or less evened out.

  This far from the dimensional zone they were familiar with, the beasts and animals they encountered were no longer familiar to them. The animals were the same for the most part, but the beasts were completely different. Some of them were the result of breeding with the local wildlife, while others had migrated from much farther away.

  What Aura made clear though, is that none of them were from her world. Or at the very least, not the section of the world that her family had ruled over.

  That’s not to say that the fights were hard though. They weren’t. Nate had grown rather adept with the crossbow and kukris over the last few months. And Aura was always there to back him up, no matter what.

  The time they had spent training in the dungeons had done them both good. While dying or suffering grievous injuries was unpleasant, it was always a valuable learning experience. Those injuries and deaths merely served to reinforce all the lessons with blood.

  The progress they had made as a result of fighting together was impressive. That said, Nate would be needing a new crossbow sometime soon. The weapon had been carrying him for a while now, but those days would be coming to an end once he upgraded his realm.

  That actually went for a lot of his equipment. Both inside and outside the dungeons. He had been using the kriegsmesser more and more lately because he needed the extra power he could get with the swings. The gun was still useful, as the power of its attacks depended on the strength of the core he put in the hopper. However, now that they were on their own, he couldn’t depend on his parents to keep him supplied with the high grade cores he needed.

  Thankfully, he had built up a fair stock, but they wouldn’t last forever.

  Eventually, he would need to get new equipment from the dungeons, but the energy and resource costs involved had made him hesitant to take that step. He had discovered that equipment almost never actually dropped naturally. He could make it drop, but again, it would be expensive, and according to Aura came with some rather arbitrary limitations, such as he could only do it for those related to him. There were ways around this, but the cost would increase exponentially.

  That meant he wouldn’t be able to do anything for the girls anyway. Not, while they were away from the dungeons, or in the normal fashion anyway.

  However, the introduction of the community had introduced another change. Monsters inside the dungeons would now occasionally drop usable body parts when they were absorbed. It had taken him so long to notice this change, as it had never occurred in the first dungeon.

  Whether that was because of the community, or Aura, he had no idea, but for her sake, he was glad.

  Skeletons from the third dungeon dropped various brittle bones. He collected a few but left the rest, as he could see no possible use for the weak items. The drops from the zombies were even worse, and he never even bothered to pick those up.

  By far the most useful were the drops from the ant dungeon. It was also the dungeon he and Aura hated going to the most. The ants would drop pieces of their hardened carapace and stringy muscle fibers. Everything a person would need to make armor, in other words.

  They just needed to collect more of it, and there was the rub. The hardened shell of the giant ants worked well as armor because it naturally was armor. They were difficult to fight, and like natural insects, there were swarms of them. The dungeon that housed them was odd, with maze-like dirt tunnels instead of the stone walls he usually made.

  The rat and kobold dungeons were somewhat useful as well, though again, they were difficult monsters to fight against properly in their own ways. The rats also used swarm tactics. Individually, they were weak, but there was never just one, and if by some miracle you did find one alone, its injured cries would bring more running to its rescue. They were annoying, practically boneless buggers that would gnaw and claw at you until you died. Sure, dozens of them would die in the process as well, but they didn’t care about that. They were kamikaze-type monsters and a pain to fight unless you had a death wish.

  The kobolds were more normal. They were just plain tough with the dragon scales that covered parts of their bodies. If you could get around those and deal with the entire group they always traveled in, then you would be fine.

  All of the parts they had been collecting had been going to the beasts in the community. As they needed to become familiar with the materials first, and then work out what they could even make with them.

  The process would have typically taken even longer, except the community had provided the craftbeasts with personalized tools to help them along. It had cost some energy and resources, but it had been worth it. Unsurprisingly, the general shape of most paws was rather ill-suited to performing fine-detailed work. Certain tools needed to be created to help them along.

  They could manage without them, but it would take far longer.

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