Ben struck again. This time Barry moved slightly backward before Ben could connect.

  “Better. But one, you left your stance during the strike, so you couldn’t get enough force behind it. And two, you didn’t return to rooted stance afterward—you just left your arm hanging in the air. Again.”

  It was night, and Ben was on the wall again—this time with Howard, with whom he hadn’t had many touchpoints yet.

  “How have your first couple of days with us been?” Ben asked Sarah’s father while scanning for dangers under the faint starlight.

  “Good, very good. We’re very grateful for the opportunity to be here. I have to admit, though—I feel a bit guilty for not really contributing anything yet,” Howard said, rubbing his face nervously.

  “It’s just been a couple of days. We need everyone to contribute, but it’s perfectly okay to find your own path. Also, I think I saw you helping Luz in the kitchen, didn’t I?”

  “Yes. Cooking’s always been a hobby of mine. But to be honest,” he said with a chuckle, “I’m not sure if I’m helping or hindering her more… There’s quite a difference between preparing a fancy dinner occasionally and feeding thirty people three times a day, every day.”

  “That’s certainly true. I never really learned to cook… Maybe someday. What did you do before all this?”

  “I’m a sociologist. A researcher. So in a way, the Protectorate is the perfect experiment—how a human society forms under pressure. I could write beautiful research papers. Unfortunately, there’s no one to read them, and it doesn’t really help you or keep my family safe.”

  Ben looked at the man, who seemed a bit embarrassed.

  “Don’t feel the need to apologize. I definitely aim for the Protectorate to become a place where researchers have a role. One of the things I’m most worried about is that we’ll eventually need to integrate thousands of people into this community. I have no clue how to do that—or how to do it in a way that keeps this place feeling like home for the people already living here. Maybe that’s something that can keep your mind busy short-term while you help Luz? In the mid-term, once we have people to integrate, maybe you could help Adam with that process?”

  Howard stood a little straighter at that—which reminded Ben to pay more attention to body language. “I’d be absolutely delighted to help with that. If you give me a little time, I’ll come back with suggestions.”

  Ben and Barry had met at the training field as always for their one-on-one session, but this time Barry had directed them to the gate, where Jamal and Michael were already waiting.

  Ben greeted the two men and, raising an eyebrow, turned to Barry. “What are we doing?”

  “Do you remember the second question?”

  “Sure—what is my body capable of?”

  “Exactly. Let’s experiment a bit. Michael and Jamal have kindly offered to watch over us.” With that, he led them out of the settlement toward the clearing’s edge.

  “Give me that, and take this.” Barry motioned for Ben to hand over his battle axe and handed him a version of the woodcutting axe that had accompanied Ben through much of his life—and the first week after the System’s arrival. It felt natural in his hands again.

  “Now, I have a very simple task for you. One we’ve all done probably thousands of times: cut that tree—and do it as quickly as possible.” He pointed to an oak of medium age and girth.

  Ben shrugged, gave the tree a quick inspection, knocked on it to check for rot, made sure everyone was safely out of the way, then fell into the rhythm he knew so well. After ten strikes, the tree toppled.

  Ben smiled and rolled his shoulders. “That was pretty good, wasn’t it?”

  Barry’s face remained unreadable. “Did you use your full strength?”

  Ben hesitated. “I think so. Pretty close, at least.”

  Barry pursed his lips, frowned, then pointed to the fallen trunk. “Lift that.”

  “What? That tree easily weighs a ton. Impossible.”

  “Ben, I need you to take a deep breath, free your mind, and just do as I ask.”

  Ben closed his eyes and thought about his reaction so far. Why hadn’t he simply done what Barry asked? What was the worst that could happen? He didn’t think he could lift the tree—but so what? It was worth a try.

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  He stepped to the end of the trunk, dropped into a deep squat, wrapped his arms around it, and pulled. He was so surprised when the tree actually started to move that he immediately let go and stepped back.

  That was surprising. But why am I being such a wuss? After a few seconds of introspection, he had to admit—he was scared. Scared of hurting himself. Scared of overdoing it and undoing the miraculous recovery. It was strange: he’d thrown himself into fights without hesitation, trusting his [Resilient Body] to see him through—but this scared him.

  He shook himself, stepped forward again, and lifted—this time without stopping, without hesitation. It was hard. Really hard. He felt every muscle in his lower and upper body strain—but he managed to lift one end of the tree off the ground. It wasn’t far, and it wasn’t long, but it moved.

  Barry nodded. “Very well. I don’t think that tree actually weighed a ton—maybe 700 or 800 kilos. Not bad. Now I need you to cut down that tree. No holding back this time.”

  Ben stepped up, took a breath, and briefly closed his eyes—visualizing the swing, how it would be different this time. No rhythm. Just pure strength. He stepped forward, lashed out—and with a loud crack, the axe handle broke.

  Jamal burst into laughter first, quickly followed by the others. Even Michael grinned as he scanned the perimeter.

  Once the laughter subsided, Barry approached the tree and grunted as he wrenched the axe head free. “Look at that. If I had to guess, you could probably get through the whole thing in five, six swings. That’s quite different from how it used to be. Remember the feeling of that swing.”

  After cleaning up the tree a bit, the four of them managed to carry the trunk back to the settlement—where quite a few people, Sarah among them, had watched the entire spectacle.

  During their walk back Ben had been silent, thinking about what this revelation could mean for his fighting style and beyond.

  “Harmony breeds victory. What do you think it means?” Barry asked.

  Ben rubbed his head. “Is it something about being in harmony with one’s thoughts and feelings?”

  Barry winked at him. “That would be great. Let me know when you achieve it—because I haven’t. No, I tried to stay a bit more pragmatic for now. This is, I think, a very important mantra for you specifically. It’s about harmony with your team. How do you see that working so far?”

  “I think we have a great mix of capabilities, and we get along well—Anne, of course, being new. But I totally get the point that I haven’t done an amazing job at coordinating us. My instinct is always to push forward to protect the others.”

  “And everyone would agree that’s a commendable instinct. Do you think you’re achieving your goal?”

  Ben thought about their last dungeon run together. “I think there have been moments where it made sense. But I also think that sometimes I endanger myself—and even the others—by not staying with them. Not helping to cover them directly. If something passes me by, I can’t help out anymore because I’m too far away.”

  Barry nodded. “That’s right. The mantra is about aligning how you move, fight, and interact—with each other, with your environment, and with your objectives, strengths, and weaknesses. So what you describe—staying together—is the first step. But you need to take it further. You can’t just fight next to each other—you have to fight with each other. That means spacing, angles, and communication. We’ll try to touch on that in a session with the others, but it’s one of the more difficult aspects and requires lots of experience. Not something you can master in a couple of weeks. But it’s important that you pay attention to it from the start.”

  Ben sat with Allison, Adam, and Howard in the office.

  “Son, before we start—you suggested that we patrol the area. As I said before, I don’t think we have the manpower to do that regularly yet. But we can do a little expedition in two days. Does that work?”

  “Sure, Mom. I’m in.” He turned to Howard. “We discussed this just two days ago, and you already have a suggestion on integrating people? That’s impressive!”

  Howard cleared his throat. “Not at all. These are just some preliminary ideas I had, but I thought I’d share them early so I can refine them in line with your guidance.”

  Adam nodded. “Sounds great. To be honest, I’m comfortable with numbers and the business side of things—but ‘culture’ and ‘touchy-feely’ stuff was never my biggest strength.”

  “I think you’re selling yourself short. But we can all benefit from some expertise in that field to prepare ourselves,” Allison said.

  “Okay, so the key idea behind all this is that a successful community needs a strong, adaptable identity. Adaptable might sound counterintuitive, given that we want to preserve what you’ve built, but if it’s rigid, it won’t survive the changing environment. So we need to understand what really matters—what makes this community tick—and then continuously work on translating that into the new context. Does that make sense?”

  “It sounds good. I don’t think I fully understand what it means, though,” Adam said and chuckled good-naturedly.

  “Yes, sorry—I don’t want to make this a lecture. Just setting the context. Pragmatically, I suggest we think about concrete actions in three time frames.

  In the short term, we could do two things. First—and I’m happy to do this—we map the current state of cultural practices. The—in quotation marks—‘language’ you speak, etc. This also includes mapping the key memories that long-term residents have, the ones that shaped this community. Second, we should identify a few people who could form part of a welcome team. Their task would be to offer informal orientation for newcomers and flag problems before they fester.”

  “I like that—both ideas, actually. It would be nice to have our history preserved. Even though we were just a small business and community, it matters to quite a few of us,” Allison said between sips of tea, and Ben and Adam nodded in agreement.

  “Good. In the midterm—meaning whenever we actually integrate folks—we need a structured onboarding process that goes beyond telling people where to sleep. It could include shared meals, mentoring, etc. Also, we could have a listening or feedback system—whether via town halls or other means. That way people feel heard, and we can identify conflicts before they escalate. Ideally, we’d codify institutional norms. For example: how does conflict resolution work? As a specific case, I think it’s clear to everyone that Ben is the leader of the settlement—but it’s never been made explicit how decisions are actually taken.”

  Ben scratched his head. “Mmh, yeah. Good point.” He looked to his mother for input.