I woke up, staring at the wooden ceiling in my room. The light wood paneling spanned between the round tree branch like beams, sloping up to the ridge high above. Sitting up, I was glad to be in my own bed. It was comfortable and familiar. I never did well sleeping at some place strange. Took me a while to get used to it.

  So last night had been a good night's sleep.

  The company and activity had helped too.

  As I got out of the bed, careful to not wake Tracy, I strode for the large window at the end of the room. I glanced at the large bed, Tracy pulling the covers up tighter as she rolled over. She was just a friend, with benefits. We both knew there was no time for a relationship. Just physical, which was fine. No strings attached. I just didn’t have time and she was swamped with her team, and there was no way she’d have a relationship with anyone in the team. It worked out good for us. For now at least.

  We knew the stories about friends with benefits, but this new world was different. Worries for another day.

  My bedroom in Solacetown was large. Too big in my opinion, but I hadn’t been asked. The bed was against the back wall, the door out to the side on the right, the left was a door that led to the closet and the bathroom with more crystal-activated fixtures. Hanging over the bed was the Clan’s banner and a giant bear head. The sidewalls were wood paneling, with long and thin windows high up, letting the sunlight in. One side had a couch and a couple chairs. The other side was a desk and some bookshelves.

  Not like I had time to read, the shelves instead filled with mementos and trophies I’d gathered over the years. There were some pre-System artifacts I’d managed to find and salvage.

  The endwall had a large square window with a round one high up in the gable end of the roof. The round roof was stained glass in the shape of a bear’s head. The other window looked out over Solacetown.

  I’d built my house up on the side of the mountain that was the northwest border of Solacetown. Mine wasn’t the only house on the slopes. Roads led down the mountain into the town itself, which had a roughly circular shape, surrounded by a wall made of stone and wood. The southeastern part of the wall stopped at the shores of the lake, docks lining the shore with boats already out in the waters. Maer Ursine, nicknamed Bear Lake, was about the size of the old world Lake Michigan.

  Leaning against the wall, looking to the right, I could see the waterfall. The water crashed out of the mountain, falling down to a wide pond at the base, contained inside the walls of the town, the river flowing through the town to the shores of the Lake. A large wide park, filled with groves of tree and green grass, surrounded the pond. The river moved behind the hill that contained the Golden Hall, bordering the smaller park that surrounded the town’s hall. One and two story buildings made up the town, which was arranged in a seemingly haphazard layout, the cobblestone roads coming in together at squares with fountains. Each home having small backyards connected by alleys. There were a couple larger three story inns and some warehouse buildings down by the port.

  Solace was a sloping city, some higher sections in the northwest and southwest. Lots of little hills. The town had a mix of architectural styles. Viking, Celtic, log cabins. A mix of stone on the first floors and wood on the upper. Chimneys let out smoke, drifting up into the air and disappearing into the mountains.

  I loved my town.

  I never got tired of the view looking out over it, the morning’s sun shining on the lake. I’d worked hard to make all this and no way was I ever going to let it fall.

  There were other cities in the Solace Territory, but Solacetown was the best. By the territory’s largest mines, Shale, was all stone, most of it actually built on the side of the mountain. Aegis, down on the Atlantic coast, was huge. Three and four story buildings, laid out in blocks. Large waterfront and harbor. Personally, I thought it was ugly, but it served its purpose. Glacier was to the north, near the tundra and down south was Shadowdale. There were lots of smaller villages and stuff scattered around. Farming, mining, lumber towns. But Aegis, Glacier, Shale, Shadowdale and Solacetown were the largest and main cities in the territory.

  For now. As we expanded, we’d need to build more. The expansion was to the south and west, so there would soon be a need for more cities that way.

  But expansion for us was slow. Done on purpose.

  Roads led out of the Solacetown wall to the south, leading a couple miles to the shimmering portal I could just make out, surrounded by trees.

  And guards.

  Lots of guards.

  The road north out of town led deeper into the mountains. There were a couple hidden valleys there filled with resources and some mines. One more road led west, heading for Shale about a week’s travel away.

  Tracy walked up beside me, belting a robe around her.

  “What’s on your agenda today?” she asked. “Have time for a run out to Rockslide Dungeon?”

  “Meeting with Kat and Michael Fields,” I grumbled.

  “Eeew,” Tracy said, face scrunching up in displeasure.

  Fields was not my favorite person. The richest merchant in Solace, he was important to the Clan’s success, but he was as slimy as they came. Usually I let Kat deal with him, as most times just hearing him talk made me want to punch him in the jaw. I hadn’t yet, barely. But one of these days I would slip…

  “Yeah,” I said. “And after that it’s back to Crossroads.”

  “Already?”

  “Have a meeting set up with a merchant from another planet,” I said and chuckled. “So weird to say that and actually be serious.”

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Tracy laughed.

  “Can’t wait for you and the others to get to Crossroads. You’re going to love the Infinite Tower. The first Biome is pretty fun so far.”

  “We’re getting there,” she said. “Only a couple more Levels.”

  “You guys find a Healer?”

  “We’ve got it down to two, a Level 85 and a Level 88. Interviewing them both tomorrow and might take them out to Rockslide and really test them out.”

  Rockslide Dungeon was a couple miles north of town. A pretty high level Dungeon. It was great to run just for fun. Lots of earth elementals of various types and even some creatures called Duergar which were basically dwarves made out of iron.

  I wondered if there were Duergar in the Multiverse. I had noticed some Dwarves but hadn’t gotten a chance to really examine them.

  “Wish I could run the Dungeon,” I said, turning away from the window and heading for the closet. It was time to go get some breakfast and get ready for the meetings. “I hate meetings.”

  “That’s what you get for being the guy in charge,” Tracy said, walking around the room and gathering up the various pieces of her clothing from where they’d been tossed last night.

  For us, it was a release. A way to let off steam and with our bodies modified by Arcanum, sex was a whole new world compared to Pre-System.

  I walked out of the closet, dressed in wool pants with leather armor pads, along with boots that had metal on the toe and sides, and another graphic t-shirt. This one had the Northtown Brewery logo. Tracy was already dressed in the same clothes from last night. She’d get to do the walk of shame.

  I’d told her she could keep some clothes in my room, instantly regretting that I’d said it, as that was too much like a relationship. It had made both of us laugh.

  A shadow passed in front of the window and I walked over. A large airship was landing in the lake. Nowadays, we had both kinds of ships. Air and water. The airships could only dock in the water, using Arcanum crystals and Gravity Essence to stay aloft, they worked as air and water ships. The one landing was a large freighter.

  “Looks like Fields just arrived,” I grumbled.

  He was early, which meant I wouldn’t have time to sit and eat breakfast. I’d have to grab something on the way to the Golden Hall.

  ***

  “Yes Kat, I’m on my way,” I said, holding my Lexicon in my left hand as I held a donut in the other.

  And it was one of the good kinds of donuts. The kind that was called a cake donut. Not that soft and fluffy, mostly filled with air, kind of donuts. This was the good kind with the top half covered in chocolate. It was still warm, which made it extra good.

  I’d gotten a couple dozen extra to bring back to Crossroads. I wondered if they had donuts in the Multiverse. Could be another thing to start trading.

  Jeriyan had mentioned that the Celestial Challenge System kept firm control on the recipes for trade goods, those could not be traded. It wanted to encourage trade across the Multiverse, so if something was made on Planet A then it would always be made on Planet A. The other planets could make their own version, but it wouldn’t be as good of quality. If anyone could make everything, there would be no need for trade and each planet would just do its own thing.

  The whole point of the Multiversal Nexus and the Infinite Tower was to encourage alliances and fighting between the various races of the Multiverse.

  I put the Lexicon back into my Storage, keeping up my brisk pace. I’d thrown a sweatshirt on, pulling the hood up, so I’d be a little less noticeable. The walk from my house to the Golden Hall was an hour from door to door if I didn’t get stopped by the Clanmembers. I always got stopped.

  The streets of the city were crowded, even this early. There were Adventurers, mostly third generation, below Level Fifty. Those above Level Fifty spent most of their time out in the wilds to the extreme edges of the territory or deep in the mountains and the tundra. They came back occasionally but I could tell from the armor and such that most of the people I was passing were lower Leveled. Shopkeeps plied their wares, porters moved things through the streets. We all had Spatial Storages, but the default one wasn’t that big and wouldn’t hold that much, so there were still the need for Porters. The larger ones, like mine, got bigger when our Arcanum Cores increased.

  Most people, there wasn’t a need to go above Level Twenty-Five, when are aging really slowed down. They weren’t out fighting monsters, just trying to live their lives and what they needed to do didn’t require high Levels. And also, since the only way to gain Levels was through Level Up Essences, and the only way to gain those was by doing something worthy of Leveling up, most people Leveled extremely slow. They could still be amazing cooks, waiters, merchants, bankers, all that stuff without being Level 100 or Adventurers. They still had to Challenge themselves somehow.

  There were basically three types of people in the Challenge System. Citizens, the ones that didn’t need to Level and just went about their lives. They’d gain Levels now and then, but it wasn’t the driving force in their lives. Adventurers, the ones that strove to Level and keep pushing themselves to Level more and Advance to face greater and greater Challenges. And those that reached their individual plateaus. Those that knew what their limits were, reached those limits and were content with that. They still Challenged themselves in small ways, enough to satisfy the System, but they didn’t push themselves.

  I passed by a Guard patrol, who did recognize me, but knew better than to call attention to it. They gave me discreet nods, which I returned. I thought I recognized one of them, someone I might have helped train on the occasions I visited the guard barracks and sparred with them. Guards in Solace had a kind of uniform. Their armor was mostly leather with a chain shirt. They had helms they could wear, but it wasn’t forced. They were allowed to carry a shield and weapon of their choice from mace, sword or axe. There were some that carried spears and bows, but those were special units. The armor was a mix and match kind of thing, whatever suited them and matched their individual Levels. The uniform came in the forest green cloaks and the brown tabard with the Clan’s symbol sewn on the front. The cloaks and tabards were Arcanum-Infused, helping protect them from weather, elemental damage and gave some Stat benefits.

  No guard in Solace paid for their own gear. It was one of the perks. They just had to risk their lives for the good of the territory. The training they received helped Level them quickly at the beginning, being given Essences to help their status of Guards, and then they were assigned their posts. They Leveled up depending on what they did as Guards, with those reaching higher Levels, if they wanted, being sent to the elite squadrons that traveled the territory dealing with rampaging monsters.

  The ones I didn’t deal with when I was bored.

  Guards tended to fall into the third group of people in the Celestial Challenge System. They Leveled, and kept Leveling, as a result of their job. But they could also plateau and if they didn’t want to keep pushing themselves or taking on more dangerous assignments, they could be content to maintain a post and just take the Levels that came naturally through the course of their day to day job. Guards and even some of the other folks that ran into combat never entered the Challenge Tutorial, not like Adventurers. There were some Adventurers that reached their individual plateau and would never hit Level 100 and go visit Crossroads.

  The new world was an interesting place.