Instead of new enemies, it was the Golden Eagle he had helped a few weeks earlier that attacked the wolf from above. It did not deal any damage, but it was irritating enough for Ben to capitalize. He moved forward and struck at the monster’s throat, cutting a vein and likely dealing a mortal wound, though the wolf wasn’t down yet.

  The eagle continued to harass the wolf, so Ben could turn to help his friends. Jamal had been mostly defending, but Michael had appeared to [Backstab] the Energy-born creature Anne had been fighting. Together they quickly finished their prey, and the four of them managed to kill the last wolf shortly thereafter.

  Meanwhile, the eagle sat proudly on its victim and started to hack at its chest, probably to remove the beast’s core.

  Ben laughed at the sight. “Thank you for your help. This time you’ve earned your meal.”

  The eagle looked at him briefly and continued to extract the core, which it promptly swallowed. It seemed to rest for a moment to digest the Energy, but as Michael went to harvest the core from one of the other wolves, it screeched in indignation and hopped over, claiming the beast as well.

  Michael looked at Ben with a raised eyebrow.

  Ben just shrugged. Sure, every Credit helped, but if a little goodwill now would gain them a flying friend that would help keep Energy-born creatures in the area under control, it seemed worth it. “Leave him be. I am curious to see where our friendship will take us.”

  It wasn’t long before the eagle had extracted and eaten all three cores. It shook itself a few times, and Ben could swear that it looked a little bit bigger than before, screeched loudly, and, with an imperious glance at them, flew into the sky.

  “What a fascinating creature! Have you met it before?” the professor exclaimed.

  “Yes, we have met once or twice. It seems to believe that all Energy cores in its vicinity belong to it,” Ben said with a chuckle.

  “If you agree, Ben, we should set up a research group for the evolving flora and fauna in this new world in the Academy.”

  “It sounds like a great idea, Randal, but it is Barry’s decision. Do you have somebody in mind who could run this?”

  “Yes, there were a couple of biologists in the Antarctic expedition, one or more of them might be interested.”

  “Very well, I would suggest you discuss it with Barry once we are back.”

  As they moved on, Ben spent several hours reflecting on the fight and where the new fighting style had helped and hindered, and how to evolve it further.

  He was not discouraged by the hiccups, but saw them as a learning opportunity that would help him get there eventually.

  As they didn’t make any stops to harvest other resources, they made their way relatively quickly to the grove.

  Ben had had Thomas, their tinkerer, create two flexible ladders made of rope and some wooden steps.

  After a couple of tries, he managed to throw the end of the rope over a branch of the Silent Sentinel Maples. Anne and Jamal held the rope while Ben climbed up to the branch where he tied the rope down. He then moved to a branch that reached into the grove, fixed the second ladder, and then signaled to the rest of the team to climb up the ladders and thereby evade the Ironthorn Vines.

  After just twenty minutes at the grove, everyone was inside, this time without Ben having to go through the painful experience of forcing his way in.

  “I can feel it—the environment is truly made for meditation. Miraculous.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Ben said with a smile. “As discussed, we should really see how this environment benefits people in Tier 1 as well. I definitely can’t see a downside, but I’m not sure there’s a strong short-term benefit for you.”

  The others nodded, and they spread out around the Ironthorn Vines’ central body, trying to find comfortable places to sit between the vines that reached out to the Silent Sentinel Maples that surrounded them.

  Ben took a quick look at the hollow on top of the Vines that had held the sap, but it hadn’t refilled since their recent visit. It seemed that it would take weeks or maybe even months.

  He settled down and briefly reflected on his plan for this experiment. They had agreed that it would be reckless to use [Clarity] right away without some proper tests. But Ben had one perk in mind that he had spent a lot of time thinking about and would now attempt to improve.

  He closed his eyes and entered [Meditation].

  ***

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Damien was close to panic.

  This had been the first mission that Allison had entrusted him to lead—beyond their regular dungeon runs—and it seemed to have gone spectacularly wrong.

  He had just stepped away for a few minutes to relieve himself and he returned to a nightmare.

  His team had been surrounded by 15 goons from the Warriors—Damien had heard the stories of the interactions the boss and his team had with them so far and recognized them right away.

  They were led by the man he’d seen during their visit to the councilor in the settlement. He looked mean, and he treated Damien’s people that way.

  It looked like Nils had resisted and now he was lying on the ground, bleeding. He hoped that it was just an injury and not the worst case…

  Allison and Ben would never trust him with anything. His thoughts were spinning wildly as he peeked around the corner of the warehouse he was hiding behind.

  Adam was apparently trying to calmly negotiate with the lead Warrior, at least that’s what his gestures looked like, but the only answer was a shove to the chest that nearly tripped him.

  The goons, who had already disarmed them and collected the weapons, shouted for his team to get up so loudly he heard it from a hundred meters away.

  The leader kicked Nils one more time for good measure and then left him lying on the street where they’d been ambushed, and wandered off to the northeast with his goons and the rest of Damien’s team, who were made to push the cart with the food chest.

  After they had left, he sprinted to his friend and relief rushed through him as he saw that Nils was still breathing. He pulled out a healing potion that Allison had given to him before they left and tried to make Nils swallow the red liquid.

  It worked. The bleeding stopped and Nils slowly regained consciousness. Damien rose, picked Nils up, and carried him into the doorway of one of the abandoned buildings on the outskirts of the city.

  “Nils, can you hear me? Wake up—it’s urgent.”

  His friend looked at him from slightly unfocused eyes but seemed to regain his faculties.

  “Nod if you can hear me.”

  His friend reacted positively.

  “You need to stay here, I have to run and pursue the others, then I will come back and we need to get the boss and the others. OK?”

  Nils nodded weakly and waved him off.

  Damien ran off without turning back.

  Fortunately, the large group ahead of him was relatively slow, so he managed to catch up quickly. He stayed well back and didn’t risk being seen. If he were captured, it would be incredibly difficult for the boss to find his people.

  Damien could only imagine the fury Ben would unleash if he heard about this. As much as he liked and respected his boss, the [Knight Protector] of their emerging city, he could be scary when he got into one of those moods… and those moods were typically triggered when one of his people was at risk or even hurt.

  He tried to focus on his situation and banish all other thoughts.

  It took more than half an hour, but eventually they made their way out of the warehouse district and into one of the nicer areas of the city.

  A city block full of mansions was surrounded by a makeshift wall that was patrolled by more of the Warriors, recognizable by their stature, similar dark clothes, and machetes.

  His team was led to one of the buildings, but at least it didn’t look like they had been beaten up further. Damien memorized the location and made his way back to Nils.

  They would have to make the trip up the mountain on their own and report to Ben and Allison—he dreaded the moment he would have to tell them about his failure.

  He knew they wouldn’t blame him—but that didn’t stop him from blaming himself.

  ***

  Ben opened his eyes and found himself in the space of nothingness he had briefly experienced during his first visit to the grove.

  He thought his best path to success lay in recreating what had worked during his tier up process. He imagined himself standing on the golden, square platform and surrounded by the light gray mist that the systems had created for him.

  It worked—somewhat. Everything was slightly translucent and the edges looked washed out, but it was good enough. It had to.

  Next he summoned the golden sphere of Energy that represented [Party Coordination]. He had thought a lot about what to work on first and, as much as he wanted to get rid of [Frenzy], he needed to learn the process of manually evolving a perk first.

  The system had asked him three questions when he had created his own perk [Palisade of the Mind] with their guidance.

  He was clear on the first—what do you want?—and the second—what do you need? They were aligned. He wanted and needed to transform from somebody who coordinated—which was not his natural strength—to somebody who led.

  In his mind, a coordinator was somebody who organized, micromanaged, called individual shots.

  A leader was somebody who set goals, gave purpose, empowered and enabled people, and inspired with their actions.

  He had no illusions about being perfect at any of this, but it felt more like him than a coordinator.

  Now, the big question was “How will it work?”

  He spent a long time thinking about this. He wasn’t aiming for a rare perk—the jump from common seemed too big, especially for a first attempt—which meant that he was unlikely to realize his full vision of empowering everybody around him, but if he could share some of his strength with his teammates, it would help keep them safe.

  He fell deeper into meditation and tried to visualize the perk based on all his experiences—not just the last two months but before as well—trying to incorporate what had worked and what hadn’t. All the times he had forgotten to call the shots properly, all the times he had rushed ahead instead of staying with the team—but where they had succeeded anyway, through their individual strength as well as the deep understanding of each other’s capabilities and styles that they had built up battle after battle.

  An indeterminate period of time passed and slowly he could sense how the golden sphere that represented his perk changed. It gained in brightness and eventually it settled.

  He felt it align more with the Path of the Unyielding Protector—with who he was—and he felt the Path in turn provide Energy to strengthen the perk.

  He opened his eyes and saw a golden notification waiting for him.

  Exhaustion rolled over him like a tidal wave—mostly mental, but he also felt weaker.

  Before he opened it, he looked around. It was very dark. They had arrived in the afternoon and now it was late at night. He looked around for his companions and found them settled around him, watching with varying degrees of frustration, boredom, and amusement.

  “Did you sleep well?” was Anne’s slightly exasperated greeting.

  “How long was I out?”

  The professor answered, “Almost half a day—the sun should rise soon. You look drained. Did you achieve what you wanted?”

  “I am sorry for keeping you all waiting—it didn’t feel that long while I was in [Meditation]. Let me check what the outcome is.”