Congratulations, your insights have allowed you to transform the perk [Party Coordination] into [Strength of the Protector] — Once a day provide your team members with a small amount of your attributes for a short duration. Uncommon — Path Alignment: Positive

  Ben was stunned. He had expected something like [Party Leader], which would have built on the theme of coordination, but his true desires must have shaped the perk as much as his conscious thoughts did.

  The new perk lacked team-interaction benefits, but Ben thought that those were no longer as necessary. They had spent the last few months fighting through dozens of dungeon runs and worked together ceaselessly—this perk’s ability to let him help his team when it really mattered seemed much more valuable to him. The rest they could work out on their own with enough training and effort.

  He turned around to the others, still bone-tired, but smiling. “It did work! I managed to turn a common perk into an uncommon one that has a positive Path alignment. I am quite pleased.”

  “Great news, boss!” Jamal lounged, his backpack as a pillow.

  “Great news, indeed! I can confirm that there are no short-term benefits for Tier 1s—at least none of us has been able to directly evolve a perk. It is, however, of course, possible that our efforts here will impact the system-awarded perks down the line.”

  “Okay, that’s unfortunate, but not a big issue. I can confirm that this process was extremely draining. If we were at home, I would now sleep for the next ten hours.”

  “It must be a mix of mental exertion while forming the image of the new skill, as well as Energy potentially being extracted from your body—and likely the environment—to form the perk.”

  “It makes me wonder whether it’s feasible to create Rare perks in this environment without additional Energy influx?” Ben mused.

  “Very good question—something we’ll have to research extensively. I don’t want to use [Clarity] on someone only for them to starve to death while they try to develop a perk!” The professor seemed a bit shaken by the idea.

  “It could also have something to do with this being a Tier 1 grove and me being Tier 2. Maybe your perk and the grove are required for Rare upgrades.

  “Anyway, let’s head back home—I guess I’m not the only one who’s tired!”

  ***

  The trek back had been uneventful, but tough for Ben due to his exhaustion. These days he rarely slept more than four or five hours, but when they got home, he had fallen asleep quickly and not woken up until late afternoon.

  He had caught up with some people who usually worked with Adam but needed some guidance in Adam’s absence. He was sitting in his office, still a bit weak and quite hungry when a blue notification began blinking rapidly in his vision.

  Ben groaned as those messages typically meant rescue missions and he didn’t feel up to one right now, but he opened it anyway.

  Mission alert – Heritage retention

  A site of importance to your civilization is about to be overrun with Energy-born creatures.

  Rescue as much of the heritage as possible.

  Few locals remain; you can offer them shelter in the Protectorate. No further efforts will be made to protect them.

  Once you are ready, find and acknowledge this mission under your [Knight Protector] perk and a portal to the settlement will be opened on the central plaza; it will remain active as long as the mission is ongoing.

  Target: Saint Catherine’s Monastery Library

  Importance: High

  Urgency: Very high (4 h)

  Ben took a quick look in his Bag of Holding to ensure that he had his library scanner, then he reached out to his team via his Band of Coordination; fortunately, all were within range and ready to go within minutes.

  They assembled on the plaza; two Protectors waited with them to guard the portal once they had gone, so Ben did not hesitate to confirm the mission.

  Whatever Ben had expected from the name of the library, it wasn’t that.

  He stepped through the portal and stood in the desert. Before him, perched at the foot of a mountain, stood the monastery, which looked more like a compact stone village surrounded by low, thick walls. Multiple buildings were tightly clustered and connected by narrow courtyards with a few gnarled trees; at the center stood a small square basilica.

  It looked old. Really old. Old Testament old.

  Ben had to make himself stop assessing the architecture and focus on the present, as the reason for the mission was immediately visible.

  Their portal had opened on the walkway atop the wall. From where he stood, he could see dozens of beasts in the surrounding lands and some were scaling the walls.

  They looked like mongooses: long, narrow bodies, pointed snouts with lots of pointed teeth, and coarse, brown fur. Unfortunately, instead of being half a meter long, they were three times as large.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Egyptian Mongoose – Mutation. Energy-born. Tier 1. Epic Challenge.

  A whole pack of mutated beasts. Ben hadn’t known that this was possible; he hadn’t even seen a mutated beast outside of a dungeon yet. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to tangle with them—at least not with multiple at the same time.

  He turned toward the center of the monastery. Most of the buildings looked like regular living quarters or maybe mess halls and similar functional buildings. However, a few buildings around the basilica looked more ornate, and Ben guessed that those would be good starting points to search for the library.

  Michael pointed to one of those buildings, “Movement in top-left window.”

  Ben nodded. “Let’s go!”

  Before they left, Allison popped back through the portal for a second to ask the guard to pull in more Protectors—should one of those mongooses make its way to the portal, they didn’t want it to run rampant in the Protectorate.

  They made their way down the stone stairs to the ground floor. Ben used the opportunity to look up the mountain behind them. It looked jagged, almost flat on top across a couple of peaks. The stone was reddish. Even though it didn’t seem extremely high, it still looked deeply impressive and monumental.

  “Does anyone know where we are?”

  “Not sure, but based on the surroundings and the mountain I think we might be in Egypt and this could be Mount Sinai,” Anne replied.

  Ben nodded. He had no way to confirm, but it sounded plausible to him.

  He led the way through narrow walkways toward the central courtyard. They were just two buildings away when he saw movement right before him, and in the next moment he found himself lying on the ground with a giant hairy mongoose on top of him. Its claws shredded his armor, and a golden shield was the only thing that held the razor-sharp teeth from ripping his throat out.

  Jamal had been the first to react with his [Bulwark Stance], based on an alert from his [Guardian’s Bond], but Anne and Michael were right behind him, both attacking the mongoose relentlessly.

  Ben couldn’t get an angle to use his axe, so he started to use his prodigious strength to wrestle with the Energy-born creature. He managed to grip a front claw, which gave him the space to interpose his forearm between his own throat and the beast’s.

  He was still worried as the hind claws had ripped his armor apart and drew blood on his abdomen. He tried to get his knees to work, but fortunately, at that moment, the beast went slack as Jamal brought his axe into play and helped the others finish it off.

  Ben threw the beast off himself and stood up.

  “Are you all right?” Allison asked worriedly. She also moved to hand him a healing potion, but he declined. Now that the fight was over, he should be fine soon.

  “I am good, thanks all. I should have expected an attack.”

  “Let me lead, boss. It’s my job.”

  “Thanks, Jamal. Please go ahead.”

  They got to the two-story building that they had aimed for a couple of minutes later. The wooden door was barred from the inside, but after a couple of robust knocks it was opened by a monk dressed in black. He had an impressive grey beard and wore a round black cap.

  “Come in, come in—quick!” He waved them in.

  After closing the door the old man looked at them in despair, “I am so sorry, but we won’t be able to protect you—there are few of us left and we can’t leave the building without getting attacked. I am afraid that this is the end.”

  It seemed that he was more worried about not being able to protect them than his own end.

  Allison stepped forward, “Please don’t worry about us, we are here on a mission from the Systems. They have asked us to rescue the heritage that you protect here for humanity and to offer you a safe home, if you like.”

  The man looked at her with ever-growing eyes and open mouth, “A miracle. The Lord protects us in our time of need. Come, come, let us go to the others.”

  He walked as fast as he could ahead of them and led them deeper into the building.

  The walls were covered in beautiful, well-preserved murals and, in the later rooms, lined with shelves with books bound in leather.

  They walked up narrow stone stairs to a large room lined with books. In the center sat three monks, all wearing the same black dresses and all with long beards. None of them looked younger than 70, probably older.

  “Brothers! The Lord has sent a miracle to save us and the library!”

  All of the men looked weak, likely from dehydration, as all of the few water bottles around them were empty, but the announcement of the monk that had greeted them stirred them, and they looked with a mix of hope and skepticism at Ben and the team.

  Allison explained the situation to the monks in a bit more detail, and all of them were delighted to learn that their priceless library—or at least the books—would be preserved.

  In turn, the team learned that the library was one of the oldest continuously operating libraries on the planet and could trace its beginning to the sixth century. They housed upwards of 3,000 books and codices, plus thousands of folios, which apparently described single sheets of writing. Some of the books were housed on shelves, others displayed in climate-controlled cases to preserve the mostly religious texts.

  Scanning the books in the building was quickly done, but the monks explained that there was one more separate building and a large room adjacent to the basilica that held priceless treasures of knowledge and history.

  They discussed their approach and agreed that the monks should stay where they were until the books were scanned. Allison and Jamal—despite his protestations—would stay with them while the others stayed together to handle the scanning. They would start with the basilica and then close with the relatively small third building.

  They carefully opened the door, but no mongoose was waiting for them, so they quickly ran over to the basilica, which was basically next door. The monks had suggested that they use the side entrance, which would lead to the back of the main hall, where the door to the library chamber was located.

  As they slowly opened the door, Ben saw movement in the church right away. It looked like two mongooses were in the process of making a nest between the pews.

  Ben looked at Michael, but he shook his head, indicating that it was unlikely that he could sneak up on the beasts.

  Ben scratched his head, wondering whether there was any way to solve this without a frontal attack, but came up blank until he glimpsed the main door that was partially open from the break-in by the mongooses. He pointed toward Michael and indicated that he should circle the basilica to get there. He and Anne would then attack from the side entrance, allowing for Michael to approach, hopefully unseen, and backstab at least one of the Energy-born creatures.

  The plan worked, but the wounds that both he and Anne took were a reminder of why it was so valuable to have a tank like Jamal in their group.

  Now that he could look around, Ben was blown away by the art and architecture around him. Beautiful mosaics on the floor, ornate carvings everywhere and the altar covered the whole back wall in a golden masterpiece of Middle Ages–era religious art.

  The back room that held the books was equally beautiful with a golden mural on the ceiling and carved shelves on the walls.

  The scanning process itself took only seconds.

  On a whim, Ben decided to drag the two dead mongooses out of the basilica with them. Fortunately, the last building was empty, and they quickly managed to complete the scanning process.

  They picked up the rest of the team and the four monks, who had packed a few icons and other religious artifacts that they wanted to preserve. Anne helped Ben by also dragging the corpse of the first mongoose that had attacked him toward the portal, and with a final glance at the 1,500-year-old monastery they stepped through.

  Ben hoped that it would be possible to reclaim sites like these eventually. With a sigh, he returned to reality and wondered whether there was a reward for the mission. Maybe more books?