The next morning, Nate was the first one up, as he was the only one who had actually gotten any sleep. His avatar let his body sleep while he was inside the dungeon at night. It was a benefit that the others did not have who were entering the dungeon with the real bodies. By the time three o’clock in the morning had rolled around, they were all practically dead on their feet and needed to go to bed.

  He and Aura stayed for another hour, heading back to the wendigo dungeon for some easy gains before deciding to go to sleep themselves.

  Nate opened the door and let Aura out to get some exercise and do her morning business.

  With a yawn, he raised the blinds behind the sink in the small Overlander kitchen and began grabbing different items for their breakfast. They kept most of their food in their storage, but whatever they were planning to eat within the next day or so was placed in the fridge or cupboards.

  Generally, for breakfast, they had some form of omelet, since they were easy, but he was getting tired of them. Besides, what he had in mind was easy as well, though it would take a couple of extra minutes. He was going to make sausage and egg sandwiches on toasted flat muffins, with cheese and bacon added as extras, because he wanted those as well.

  While everything was cooking, he took a moment to review the increase in his status during the night, before moving on to the different items they had gotten.

  It had taken a while, but his backup core was getting closer to being full again, which would allow him to upgrade his main core. Looking at his stats, they were increasing a pace with his energy. They probably would have been far higher, except he had been spending more time in the RV instead of in the dungeons or doing expeditions.

  After taking a few moments to review everything, he moved over to the storage function and tapped on the ‘New’ tab.

  Nate flipped the sausage patties, placed a piece of cheese on top of each one, and began reviewing the items they had gotten during the night. He had seen the information of each one as the orbs burst, but hadn’t taken the time to truly inspect each one since they were busy at the time.

  There were plenty of herbs, including some new ones that he would need to look up later. There were also a couple of healing pills, along with an antidote pill. Those were all normal and what they tended to get each night, though the herbs varied from dungeon to dungeon.

  The second most common orb was the healing orb, which was white and yellow or gold striped.

  Then it was the rainbow qi orbs coming in at third. Earlier on, he had thought the odds for certain items were higher, but over time, it had settled down and changed to the current order.

  Last night, he had gotten a yellow orb. It was only the third time he had gotten a yellow orb during all of his dungeon runs, qualifying them as the rarest. The first time he had gotten his ‘Bracelet of Basic Health Recovery’, the second time had been his mothers storage bracelet. This time, he had received a ring.

  Tapping on the ring, he pulled up its information and then removed the sausage patties from the pan. He placed them on a paper towel to soak up the grease, and then quickly cleaned the pan before adding the eggs.

  It was not something he had ever seen before and was frankly a little overpowered, in his opinion. The bigger issue was that while it could help him, it would only truly shine with Angelica. Giving it to her was a little bit of a shame to that greedy little goblin inside him, but he wouldn’t be swayed.

  The ring would go to her.

  It was the ‘Ring of Plus Speed’. The name was stupid, and they usually tended to be for these sorts of things. However, the effect was anything but.

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  ‘This ring synchronizes with the wearer and increases the speed of their projectile-based attacks between 25%-50%. The increase depends on the type of attack, along with several other factors.’

  Nathan used a crossbow for his ranged attacks. A twenty-five percent increase in speed wasn’t bad and would certainly be useful. That said, Angie’s affinity increased her personal attack speed already; this ring would make that even more potent. If his guess was correct, then she would be able to synchronize to a far higher level than he would have been able to.

  Oh well, it was nice, but part of being in a party meant that not everything could go to him.

  Closing out his menu, he focused on the eggs, carefully sliding the spatula beneath the large singular piece and flipping it over. With that done, he used the spatula’s edge to cut it into pieces and then sprinkled some salt and pepper onto it.

  Nate slipped a steaming hot egg onto the partially melted pieces of cheese that he had placed on the sausage patties earlier, further melting them. All that was left was to cook the bacon, make some tea, and then wake the girls.

  “That smells good,” Aura said, as she hopped back inside the Overlander. “The area outside is clear for the moment. We must not be close to any dimensional zones. There were a few animals that had formed cores, and a couple of beasts, but nothing that dared to approach me.”

  He grunted in acknowledgment, his eyes drifting to the map they had left spread across the table the night before. The qi in the air had been steadily rising as they drew closer to New York. Now, after only a single day of driving, it had decreased significantly.

  They were about halfway to Ohio, he believed. They had made good time thanks to the road through the new sect’s territory, already being in decent condition.

  Coming from Virginia, the qi had been increasing. However, now it was decreasing at a noticeable pace. He would need to look at the dungeon creation menu to be sure, but if he had to guess, there were fewer dimensional zones in this area.

  People must have flocked here for a time when they first realized that.

  There was probably an old, crumbling city somewhere around that area where they had all moved. Well, maybe not crumbling. He doubted everyone would have abandoned it; some would have liked the safety that came with it.

  After cultivation was introduced to the world, and people regained their ability to fight back, moving to safer cities, such as what would have existed out here, would have become less appealing. The world began to revolve around hunting the beings that came through the dimensional zones and a person’s ability to grow stronger. Neither was conducive to simply playing it safe and hiding in a safe zone.

  Nate buttered the flat toasted muffins and removed the finished bacon from the pan. He tossed a crispy piece to Aura and lightly patted the rest dry. They would keep the bacon grease to use with later recipes.

  Aura moaned and rolled about on the floor. “It’s a good thing I didn’t know how good bacon was before. If I had, I might have done something terrible to the pigs and boars of my world.”

  He chuckled and shook his head as he finished putting the sandwiches together. “Would you wake the girls up while I do the dishes really quickly, please?”

  The water he had put on the stove was steaming and ready for the Wakeup-Tea mixture to be added. It only needed to steep for a short time before it was effective.

  She nodded and went to the back of the Overlander, jumping onto their bed and startling them awake. Angie and Lindsay let out shrieks while Mika shot out of the room and zipped up Nate to settle around his neck.

  “Oof, you’re getting bigger,” He told the weasel, plucking her from his neck and placing her on the bench by the table.

  Aura returned a moment later with a rather sleepy-looking Lindsay and Angie in tow. The two yawned, placed their heads on the table, barely able to keep their eyes open.

  “We need to… stop earlier… next time,” Angie muttered softly, her sentence broken up by two separate yawns.

  Lindsay nodded, her head sliding back and forth across the table.

  “That’s fine. We can certainly make it, so you two are always out by midnight, or one o’clock. Just choose a time, and we’ll stick to it.” He told them while looking at the color of the tea and nodding to himself. The color had changed enough to indicate that it was now ready to drink.

  Nate poured three mugs and set out the sandwiches, along with plates for Aura and Mika. Aura’s had everything, including extra bacon. Meanwhile, Mika’s had no muffin and no cheese, as she didn’t like bread and was a gas monster when anything milk-related was involved.

  It only took a minute for the tea to take effect and banish any lingering need for sleep from the three.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s the stuff,” Angie whispered, holding her mug tight. “I know I’ll need to take a nap later to make up for it, but feeling the fog of sleep, and the heaviness that comes with it, just leaving like that, is always a trip.”

  Lindsay nodded, more interested in drinking the tea than in speaking, at least until an idea came to her. “Hey, can you make a large pot of this later? Wouldn’t it be easier for us to just store a few thermoses of the stuff in our storage for when we need it?”

  Nate felt his mouth fall open at the suggestion. It was something so obvious, and yet before that moment wasn’t anything they had thought to do. With the storage, they could be preparing everything in bulk, food, drink, whatever they could think of. The tea held special properties, so it would be an interesting gamble to see if it retained them in that form. If it did, then it would be easy enough to do, which is exactly what he told them.

  The easiest way to test was to stick the remainder of the tea he had already prepared in his storage. If it was still usable in a few hours when he removed it, then they were good to go. They already knew the storage they possessed had a stasis function, so it would still be hot.

  After they finished eating the sandwiches -which garnered several appreciative thumbs-up from the girls and tail flicks from Aura and Mika- Nate told them what Aura had discovered earlier.

  Angie leaned over the map, which now had a couple of small grease stains, and frowned. “We should be around this area, right?”

  She was pointing to an area roughly sixty miles from the city of Pittsburgh, if the distance legend on the map was correct.

  Lindsay stared at the wall for a second before nodding. “Around there, yeah. We should reach Pittsburgh today around noon sometime. I can’t say when beyond that, since I don’t know how long the roads will stay this nice.”

  Angie waved away her concern. “That’s fine. I would like to stop there and talk to the Merchant Guild though.” Her fingers tapped the table, and she shook her head. “I’m just confused, is all. This area is just outside of that new sect’s territory. It seems off to take control of a place next to a lower-qi density area.”

  “I don’t know. It makes sense to me,” Nate disagreed. “Their territory was fine, and this area is safer, so they don’t have to worry about being attacked by strong monsters from this side. It actually makes more sense to me than what everyone else does.”

  “Well, when you put it like that.” She agreed, nodding slowly.

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