Soon, the new doorway placed into the wall was properly kept shut with the ladder. The tables and chairs were brought back inside, since it was looking like rain tonight. People were starting to go to bed after rations had been passed around, though the building was already running low on those.

  If there weren't any more people coming in, they would last for another two days at best using the food that was scavenged from the surrounding area already. But considering that there were more and more people coming in at all times, it was unlikely for the little food they had access to to last that long.

  The only saving grace was that it was the middle of summer and they, for the time being, didn't have to worry about heating. Water was another issue, but they decided to put any container they possibly could outside to catch some rainwater.

  People were busy working and preparing for the night, making sure that they could act in the case of an emergency.

  And meanwhile, Ashton was napping.

  It was a particularly warm evening, so he decided to take a rest outside, and fell asleep on one of the benches. His jacket was draped over the bench's back, and Poppy was sleeping on his belly.

  Of course, falling asleep out here had another reason. The man with the 'Watchman' class specifically stayed out here at night. Due to the skills that he had, he could see through the night's darkness better than basically anyone else right now. Especially because of the thick clouds that were draped over the sky, it was truly pitch black out.

  Anyway, since the Watchman was awake all night anyway, Ashton asked to be woken up after an hour or two. Not for free, of course - Ashton gave him a hundred coins. In this scenario, people like Watchmen had to get their coins from others, since they didn't have any direct combat capabilities. And for the time being, killing monsters was really the only way to get your hands on coins beside being given them like this.

  Clearly, the watchman was incredibly happy to receive that much money simply for waking Ashton, and did so gladly and happily. He was so eager that he ended up waking him right on the dot.

  With a groan, Ashton opened his eyes. He could already feel a slight drizzle coming down on him, but that wasn't a big deal. It actually helped him wake up. He pulled his legs over the edge of the bench and looked down at his watch while covering the still-sleepy pixie with his arm.

  "Thanks, man. Managed to get a couple hours in," Ashton stood up and stretched. The others must already be sleeping now. "And remember our deal, don't tell anyone that I'm out, okay?"

  The watchman slowly nodded, though he was clearly hesitant. "Are you sure you will be fine on your own? It's dark, and it's supposed to rain."

  Ashton stood up with a yawn and nodded. "There's a few nocturnal monsters I want to look for."

  "Nocturnal... but won't you be at a disadvantage?"

  "Nah, not tonight," Ashton rubbed that extreme tiredness out of his eyes, trying not to think back on the dream that he just had. It was just another bad memory of his time in Lumia haunting him. Ashton clicked his fingers, and the Backpacker appeared in front of him. "Can you give me one of the bottles with the undine's water? And my staff, while you're at it, please."

  The spirit quickly pushed their hands into the bag and looked for it. They pulled everything out and Ashton smiled. He leaned his staff onto the side of the bench and then summoned the undine with the water in this bottle.

  "Rainy weather is the perfect time for a water elemental to shine," Ashton said with a smile, reaching his hand out to the floating fish made of water and slightly patting the side of its body. The koi fish basically leaned against the finger, almost swallowing it with their body. "For the past couple days, I've been using the elementals simultaneously a lot, but I figure it's about time I focus more on mastering their powers individually."

  The Watchman seemed relieved. If that was the case, then obviously that made sense. It wasn't hard to understand Ashton's intentions right now. And so, without further ado, the summoner made his way back down to the bottom of the building. He stopped by Sam's office for a second, hearing his friend snoring inside, and everyone from Jacky's party seemed to be getting ready to sleep, too. The only one that still seemed to be awake was Oliver, who was trying his best to figure out how to get the 'Occultist' class.

  However, by the time Ashton got to the walls outside, the Backpacker stopped him. He held the phone toward him, and Ashton curiously looked down at the spirit. "What's up?"

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  He looked at the screen, and saw a game on there. It was some kind of gatcha game. Internet already wasn't working anymore, and even if it did, it was unlikely for all the game servers to still be up and running. The game did have an offline mode, but it wasn't possible to buy any of the premium currency, so the Backpacker was struggling a bit at points with just the free currency they could get.

  At least there was some premium currency left in there, so the Backpacker got to see a few fun new pulls and managed to get some goodies through that. Ashton barely remembered it before the spirit showed the game to him for the first time, but it looked like before all this started, he had spent quite a lot of time playing this. There were actually a ton of games on there. Some of them required an online connection, but a lot were available for the Backpacker even now.

  "Ah, do you want help with this section?" Ashton asked. It looked a bit tricky, and frankly, the Backpacker wasn't exactly an amazing gamer. With a smile, Ashton squatted down onto the ground and started playing. A muscle memory he didn't even know he had quickly took over, as he went and fought the difficult dungeon boss for the Backpacker. Or at least, he did the majority.

  When there was barely a sliver left on the boss bar, the spirit pulled the phone away from Ashton and took back over. A moment later, they looked up at Ashton panicked and tapped on the screen randomly. It looked like somehow the boss had already taken a bunch of the Backpacker's health again.

  But then, the spirit pressed on the button for the ultimate skill that Ashton made sure to save for them in advance, and a powerful meteor fell down onto the enemy, crushing it easily.

  Triumphantly, the Backpacker raised the phone up above their head, and with eyes glistening out from underneath their cloak, they looked up at Ashton.

  "Yes, yes, I saw. Good job." Ashton patted the spirit's head as he walked up to the van beside the wall and climbed on top. There were people around, obviously, but Ashton wanted to just get out quickly. He let himself down the wall, reminding himself that he didn't have the body that could deal with a four metre drop like it was nothing over and over again anymore, and went on his way.

  That nap earlier did the job for now, especially because he drank a potion beforehand that helped with mana recovery. Obviously, just because his mana was filled up again didn't mean that he wasn't tired, he certainly was, but he was at a level of tired that he knew wouldn't hinder him right now.

  Slowly, the light drizzle turned into proper raindrops, and Ashton started the first bit of tonight's training.

  "Undine, do you think you could stop the rain from falling on me?" he asked, and to show exactly what he meant, Ashton channelled the elemental, though in a different way than usual.

  Usually, he would basically grab water and move it around based on a specific small sphere. He was pulling it along, essentially 'attracting' it to where he wanted it to go. But now, Ashton wanted to almost do the opposite. He wanted to 'reject' water from entering a particular space around him.

  The undine had ultimate control over water, at least theoretically. While their current level was still low, Ashton slowly managed to push away the water falling onto him. He was using the same method that he used to shrink his channelling range, just in reverse. Ashton took the sphere of his active control and expanded it to cover his body, and pushed any water within that control sphere away. It was enough to push raindrops to the side, though it wouldn't push away any puddles forming on the ground.

  The undine, having watched the process deeply, quickly took over what Ashton was doing. And like that, while they were doing so, Ashton carefully tried to channel the elemental again and use their water magic more actively at the same time.

  This process took a bit more mental energy than it would to simply channel two individual elementals, but since it was just the undine, Ashton was fine. Now, he didn't have to worry about getting drenched while out, and he could test out some more of the undine's magic.

  The way that he was using the elementals' magic until now was really just offense-focused, but obviously, he was basically just co-opting the natural abilities of the elementals to use for combat. They weren't made for fighting, obviously. They were just living beings, just like anyone else. Even the monsters roaming around these streets were like that. If they weren't forced to fight by the council, then they might actually be extremely helpful to live alongside.

  Either way, it was about time that Ashton expanded his repertoire of available magic. It should help him figure out how to properly construct a spell to place into the wisp, too.

  There was something else that Ashton wanted to try by changing what he usually did. Usually, he exerted his will on something within his channelling range through the elementals. He focused on a specific point, ignoring all else. But there was a step before he actually grasped the element in question, where he pushed his senses out toward it to see if it was something he could control in the first place. It was something that he could fade out once he actually took control, but for that brief moment, he could basically sense everything that made up that small chunk of earth, that bubble of water, or that gust of air.

  Ashton tried to expand that moment of 'sensing' to everything else in his range. The raindrops appeared, but clouded his mental eye like static on a screen. It was too much for him to take all at once, at least with his current level of mana. He tried to filter it out, to see just a few specific parts of this.

  Instead of all the water, Ashton saw a tiny ripple appear in the place where each raindrop hit the ground. He saw the small waves in the shallow puddle that Ashton stepped into.

  In his mind, Ashton saw the road within the sphere of his channelling range appear. The walls, the grooves between the bricks, even the plants pushing their way out through the cracks in the road. There were gaps here and there, but before long, he should get an image of it all.

  As he opened his eyes again, the pitch black darkness of Drakewood's streets was illuminated with these small white ripples that slowly faded away over time.

  Ashton smiled as he started walking forward.

  "Night vision acquired, I guess."