“Welcome back. Can we be brief for now—not everyone has a Body attribute above 20 and needs hardly any sleep.” Adam was grumpy; it was quite late.

  Ben nodded placatingly.

  Barry cleared his throat. “Okay, in short, you remember the benefits to learning and researching and the free perks on concluding a structured program?”

  Ben nodded.

  “Good. Now the facilities themselves are excellent. There are lecture halls, labs, and workshops for all kinds of disciplines—I am sure they will benefit the teachers and students dramatically, and we have only scratched the surface; there is likely more.

  “What you don’t know yet is that the spatial nodes work for the Academy as well. The main building comes with the ability to identify and attract teachers from the regions covered by the spatial nodes. We can define what topics and expertise we are looking for and what we are offering, then the systems will identify the individuals, present them with our offer, and if they accept, they get a single-use portal to join us. It does cost a few thousand Credits per person, but it is cheap compared to having to buy that ability.

  “On top of that, one of the add-ons we can buy is dorms. Student housing. And those come with the ability to attract talented students—it works very similar to the teachers, except that we can set what it would cost them to join, and that does not have to be Credits, but could also be commitments to work in the Protectorate or similar. The initial dorm would cost 5,000 SCs; later ones would be much cheaper.”

  Ben rubbed his forehead. “It really sounds like the systems want us to build a network of nodes across the globe. It’s expensive, but the benefits of attracting all these people, pushing our civilization forward and helping those areas grow, is very compelling.”

  “Yes, only correction: in the grand scheme of things, it is not that expensive. We talked about how much we will have to spend on apartments over the next nine months. Compared to that—and keeping in mind that some of these investments will have their own direct payback—it is not that expensive. It just looks like it right now because we are cash-constrained. But if tomorrow you get a bunch of Tier 2 cores, things will look different right away!” Adam had found his enthusiasm again, thinking about the opportunities ahead.

  “Good.” Ben clapped his hands. “Let’s make some money, collect the monthly funding, hopefully the mission award for Tier 2 dungeons as well, and then we are going to invest into our future!”

  ***

  “Son, before you go to bed, let’s have a brief chat.”

  “Of course, Mom. What’s going on?”

  “I’ve been thinking about this for some time and initially thought I could leverage the SEALs for my plan, but I think Akira is even better.

  “The truth is that over the last few weeks, the workload coordinating the Protectors has grown quite a bit, and now we have the Guild Hall that we need to understand and make sure we leverage to the fullest. I think I can help you and the Protectorate more if I focus on that versus spending most of my time running dungeons or recuperating afterward. While I do have a lot more energy than I used to, the day only has 24 hours. What do you think?”

  Ben grimaced. “You know, I totally understand and had thought the point might come, but I have to admit that I will miss you by my side, Mom—so will the others. Maybe you will still join us from time to time?”

  “I would love to! If I focus more on the Protectors, I must also make sure not to lose my credibility by just sitting on my butt all day long.”

  “That’s great. I’ll talk with Akira and see whether he wants to join us on a more permanent basis.”

  “Very well. Just promise me to be careful and not fall back into bad habits?”

  “I will, Mom, I promise.”

  ***

  “Team,” Ben had knocked early in the morning on the door of the apartment that Jamal, Michael, and Anne lived in at the HQ. “My mother has decided to focus on her job as Guild Master and leader of the Protectors for now. Akira has agreed to help us out. I hope that is okay?”

  “Boss Mom is out? That is not good. But Akira seems like a good dude. We will manage,” Jamal seemed fine with the change.

  Michael just nodded, and Anne made the point that they should probably have a few training sessions as a team once they came back from their next trip.

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  “Thank you, let’s go and meet him at the gate. Let’s see what the upper areas of the mountain will bring.”

  Hercules enthusiastically accompanied them on their hike that would take them beyond Old Man’s Hill and several hundred meters of elevation up.

  It had been a long time since Ben had last hiked through the area. Probably before the accident. It was a beautiful day, though, and Hercules fed him the positive emotion of soaring through the sky.

  The first major obstacle they had to cross was a gorge that water had carved out of the mountain a very long time ago. It was about a kilometer long and the last mostly flat area on their trail for a while.

  It was a truly spectacular experience to walk through the bottom of the gorge, with the steep walls just meters away to the left and right and the sky visible only as a narrow line dozens of meters above them.

  About halfway through, the walls on the right side of the gorge started to become a bit less straight, and a few small trees had managed to nestle into the gray rock.

  Hercules screeched, and Ben felt a mix of warning and excitement through their bond.

  He called for the others to slow down and be aware of potential enemies, and it took only a minute or two until a group of Goat-Antelopes, fortunately Tier 1, attacked them by running down the walls and trying to ram them with their thick horns.

  Despite there being a dozen of the beasts, it was a short fight. Hercules had grabbed one of the beasts and tried to lift it up into the air but had to admit that the creature was too heavy, despite his recent growth. He gleefully ate its core after Anne had dispatched the goat as it struggled to free itself from the eagle’s claws.

  After the gorge, they had to circle back up a pretty steep climb, only to end up at a bridge crossing the gorge that was made from a mix of wood and rope.

  Everybody stopped and looked at the bridge warily. It didn’t necessarily look worn, but given that physics had changed over the last three months, it didn’t seem smart to just trust your life to a construction from the ‘before’ times.

  Ben pulled out a rope that he carried in his bag of holding. He tied it to a boulder on their side, grinned at his friends, and then ran toward the bridge and leaped over it.

  He wasn’t sure whether this would be a world-record long jump, if such a thing still existed, but it was probably pretty close. A Body attribute beyond 20 had its upsides.

  One after another, the rest of the team crossed the bridge, holding on to the rope that Ben had secured. It turned out not to be necessary, but better safe than sorry.

  Shortly after the bridge, Ben felt a change in the atmosphere. It felt more… intense. He was reminded of Arrival Day and the pulse of Energy that had been the beginning of their current journey.

  This was how Tier 2 environments must feel.

  From now on, they needed to be extra careful.

  After the air, the trees and plants around them changed.

  Less and less looked like the trees they had known all their lives. Not all of them were energy-infused, but quite a few were. In general, they were taller and broader, the canopy letting little light fall to the forest floor.

  Ben was about to harvest a bunch of interesting-looking mushrooms when Hercules screeched a warning at him. The whole team went on alert, but it turned out the warning had been about the mushrooms.

  Ben borrowed gloves from Jamal to harvest them, but unfortunately it wasn’t the touch that was dangerous but the spores they emitted upon being harvested.

  Ben felt the spores enter his circulatory system, trying to take hold, but he also felt his Constitution ramp up. He got hotter and hotter, and he felt a battle inside his body taking place, but after about ten minutes, his body won and returned to normal.

  He placed the two mushrooms into a vial and promised himself not to try that again soon.

  “Are you still on mushrooms, boss?”

  “No, Jamal, all good. Thanks for asking, though.”

  “I am here for you, boss! Next time, you should share, though.”

  “I will keep it in mind… Anyway, Michael, I think it would be good if you could scout a bit further out. But don’t take any risks—we have to understand what we are dealing with.”

  The man nodded and vanished between the trees.

  Hercules was a bit more limited in his scouting abilities, as he could basically not see the ground if he flew above the canopy, forcing him to take extended leaps from tree to tree, given that his wingspan did not allow him to fly freely through the forest.

  Ben decided to wait for Michael to return instead of slowly following. He remembered the promise to his mother to be careful, and they were not under immediate time pressure either.

  Instead, he handed out a few snacks to the others and sorted through the bits and bobs he had collected on their trip so far. A few cores, a few plants—nothing earth-shattering—but he was sure that their alchemists would be interested in some of their finds.

  It was time to get serious about their new economy. He promised himself to resist the temptation to only buy new stuff and instead make sure they had enough places for people to start their businesses.

  A few minutes later, Michael returned. Surprisingly, Ben got the sense that the man was, if not worried, at least less unflappable than usual.

  “Found the dungeon portal. But tribe of Ice Howlers camped outside.”

  “Ice Howlers?”

  “Tier 2 humanoid wolves—large.”

  “How many?”

  “Twenty. Mostly warriors, two shamans.”

  “Mesa said that the dungeons had broken a long time ago. So if we have them outside, likely there will be many more inside.”

  “What do we do, boss?”

  Ben looked at the others. “A straight attack on their camp is going to get us killed. So we will need to combine stealth with hit and run. I guess we will be here for a while…”

  Akira spoke up tentatively; he had been relatively quiet on their trip so far. “I am afraid I am not very good at stealth.”

  “Don’t worry about it, neither am I,” Ben winked. “But Michael is good enough for the rest of us combined. Michael, did you see them patrol the area? Good—so cleaning up the patrols should be our first step. Sounds like an interesting challenge!”