“Ginger slow down!” Mark called out, a hand outstretched toward me. Years of military training kept him fit, despite a slightly limp and a bad back, allowing him to keep pace.

  The girl he called for was, of course, his six-year-old daughter, Ginger. She had bright copper hair and freckles over her entire face.

  Currently, she rode a tricycle, pedaling as fast and as hard as she possibly could.

  The tricycle had been bought shortly after adoption, meant to fit a girl of the age she used to be, and not a girl of the age she now was. As such, when Ginger pedaled faster, she inevitably slipped, jamming her foot against the pedal and the tar below, flipping the tricycle over her face, scraping her knee against a yard of pavement.

  “DAD!” Ginger cried, wailing and clutching her bloody knee.

  When Mark reached her, he knelt down, pressing a hand by her knee. “Ginger…you need to be more careful. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Ginger snuffled.

  “Mom’s going to kill me,” Mark muttered under his breath, just barely loud enough for his daughter to hear. As he’d hoped, she let out a giggle. “How about we go home, bandage that knee, and get the two of us some ice cream?” Mark asked, scooping Ginger into his arms.

  Ginger beamed, her knee forgotten as Mark ran back toward the house. He put on a brave face, but that knee was bad. If he didn’t get it bandaged soon it could be infected—

  He stopped.

  “Dad?” Ginger asked.

  Mark scowled. He spun around, away from his simple one-story house, to the open street.

  “Where are we?” Mark whispered.

  “Dad?” Ginger asked.

  He set her down, and his daughter vanished in a fizzle of cold energy.

  Mark let out a sigh. “Ginger?”

  [Yes?] I asked.

  “What have you been up to?” Mark snapped.

  [Protical.] I said.

  Mark rubbed his forehead. “I asked you to run through a memory, yes?”

  [For testing purposes.]

  He sighed a little louder. “My daughter wasn’t named Ginger.”

  [No?]

  “No.”

  [My mistake.]

  Mark groaned. “That’s the third time, Ginger. Maybe I should take another look into your hardware…”

  [It’s a simple glitch. A result of gaps in knowledge.]

  “I’ve told you my daughter’s name, haven’t I?” Mark asked.

  [It may have been deleted from my system.]

  “Right. Commit the following to permanent memory. My daughter’s name is Sern. S-E-R-N. It’s short for Serenity. She has blond hair, is about four feet tall, and is as cute as a button.” He let out a chuckle. “I actually considered calling her Gertrude, but Sarah shot that down. I said it was a fine name but…well, you know what Sarah was like.” He cleared his throat. “You don’t have to add that last bit, Ginger. Did you get the rest?”

  [Yes.]

  “Great,” Mark said. “Let’s run that again.”

  {Hospital Sleep Bonus}

  [Exhaustion V- cleared]

  [Hunger III delayed (1:00:00)]

  [Hp set to max]

  I blinked hard, forcing myself out from the dream.

  “What was that?” I muttered.

  Sern yawned, stretching on my lap. When she realized I was awake, she jumped forward, grabbing me in a smothering hug.

  “Missed you,” I laughed, ruffling up her hair.

  Sern laughed back.

  S-E-R-N.

  Though names couldn’t possibly be a conscience, could they?

  Serenity started giving me a weird look, and I realized that I’d been giving her a weird look, so I broke into a reassuring smile.

  “Oh sorry,” I said. “It was just a dream.”

  A dream in a series with a disturbing amount of consistency. I could just feel that some absolute bombshells of knowledge were being dropped…but if they were from my past…why were they so weird?

  And how was I even supposed to use them?

  I cleared my throat. “Ginger.”

  Nothing happened.

  Well, okay, that wasn’t entirely accurate. Sern started giving me a weird look again, but other than that nothing happened.

  Sern grabbed the sides of my face, and made what I could only describe as a warbling sound.

  “Where’s everyone else?” I asked, glancing around the empty hospital room.

  Sern blinked. Then she kissed me on the cheek and scampered out of the room, only to zip back in, dragging a nurse along.

  The nurse was pale, none too happy to have an unknown elf dragging her into a room, though to her credit, she didn’t protest.

  I ought to give her a tip for that.

  Do nurses get tips?

  Well I’m broke anyway. Not like it matters.

  The nurse cleared her throat. “Grind? You’re free to go.”

  Before she could continue, Sern grabbed my arm and dragged me away, out the door, down the stairs, and into the open street.

  I glanced down at my thin little hospital gown.

  “Uh, Sern?”

  She blinked.

  Fortunately, this time, the hospital staff hadn’t burned my old clothes, so we could run back in, grab my stuff, and get going the moment I changed.

  Speaking of going places—

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

  Sern giggled, skipping ahead, pointing to every little bit of flowers and signs posted up.

  {Feast of Heroes}

  [In dedication of the Saviors of the unnamed lands : ]

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  {Ardenidi} {Bruce} {Cierin} {Dexten} {Eere} {Grind & Sern} {Harva} {Irion} {Leo} {Mall} {Throttle}

  {Quin} was also there

  I had to read the signs again.

  “We get a feast?!” I gagged.

  “A feast for an entire week!” Quin shouted, running up to me and smacking my back. “Nice to see you recovered, by the way. Oh, and other than food, we get discounts for weapons and gear! And a stupid amount of money!”

  A sparkle flashed across my eyes.. “How much is a ‘stupid amount?’”

  He held up a hand, on which there were three rings, made from a brilliant blue and silver metal. “Tantalum rings. Each of these is equivalent to ten gold rings.”

  “Which is a hundred silver rings.” I muttered.

  “Which is a thousand bronze rings.” He continued.

  “A bronze ring is about as much as a singular increase of any one stat,” I muttered. “How much money did the union give us?”

  Quin cackled. “Well we saved the entire town, so they gave us half the town’s worth in rings, then split it over everybody. Whatever loot Ardenidi managed to salvage from the Core was just a bonus.” He winked at me. “Speaking of which, I’m told you’re expected to get a sizable share.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Well you pretty much killed the core on your own,” Quin stated. “At the end, anyway. That thing with the shovel? Brilliant.”

  “It could have gone horribly, horribly wrong.”

  “But it didn’t!” Quin laughed. “Anyway, you should grab your money and get spending, cause tonight, we party!”

  Sern hugged Quin, giggling to herself, before running off.

  Quin flinched backward. “What’s with her?”

  “I think she’s just happy that we’re alright,” I said. “Thanks for taking care of her, by the way.”

  He snorted. “I just needed an excuse to stay away from the danger, buddy.”

  “Of course.”

  “Yeah.” Quin said. He cleared his throat. “If you need me for some reason or whatever I’m going to be wildly irresponsible with the amount of money I have. Oh, and ask Irion for spending advice. Three tantalum rings can buy a lot if you use it right. Oh, and don’t spend it all on the same merchant or they’ll charge you more as you clean out their stock.”

  Sern huffed, running back over to me, jumping out and down to get my attention.

  “I seem to have been summoned,” I stated. “See you later, Quin.”

  He sprinted off, leaving Sern and me to the rest of the party.

  Irion and Eere were back to playing cards, with Bruce, Harva, Leo, and Dexten in one corner. Cierin and Mall were off somewhere else, probably buying things. The same likely went for Ardenidi.

  When we walked over, Irion perked up.

  “You’re awake!” He smiled, adjusting the glasses on the bridge of his nose. Evidently, he’d used a portion of his money to buy some new ones. Not a large portion, mind you…they were just glasses…but those glasses looked remarkably high-quality.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, scratching the back of my head.

  The party had taken up residence in the town square, at a series of large tables. Around the tables, there were piles of food, drinks, and people, all moving around and about. Despite the crowd, nobody went near our little sectioned area.

  “It’s a feast,” Irion stated. “All this, all for us. Of course it hasn’t officially started yet, since we need some time to recover, but once it’s night, then the entire city has been invited to a union festival. By the end of the week, you’ll probably be sick of the whole thing, but that’s just the burden a hero has to pay.”

  “Speaking of pay,” I started, trying to hide the feverish glint in my eye as I glanced around for the rings. “Where’s all my money?”

  “I’ve got it, ” Irion said, fishing around his inventory, pulling several blueish rings from his pocket. Each had some sort of a field around them, crackling with red energy. “Since you did most of the work, the union has decided to give you a larger portion of the reward, but I’m sure Quin already told you that much.”

  He pressed four tantalum rings into my hand, and the fields vanished.

  {Union Reward Claimed}

  [4 {tantalum} rings acquired.]

  “I recommend keeping those in your pocket,” Irion whispered. “I doubt many would rob the hero of the unnamed lands, but flaunting money like that is only asking for trouble.”

  I sent them into my inventory.

  “Anyway, I’m sure you’re excited to buy some stats,” Irion said, eyes sparkling.

  He seemed to be waiting for something.

  “Do you have any advice?” I asked.

  Irion cackled, summoning several massive binders from his inventory. The table visibly buckled underneath their weight. “I’ve categorized every stat, correlating stat, compound stat, and build you can buy in the unnamed lands, second area, and third area, from common to legendary and with all the various ways different subcultures of statistical anomalies feed into one another!”

  I flipped through the binders, noting thousands of pages of crammed Irion’s neat handwriting. “Why?”

  “For fun,” Irion said, as if that explained everything. He gave his glasses a little adjustment. “It just feels good to nerd out every once in a while. Now, what were you wanting?”

  “Strength and health,” I said. “Really I'd like just as much of those two stats as I can get my hands on.”

  “You know there are some magical builds that may just—”

  “No”

  “Well I also noticed you seem to have some sort of super-unique racial ability which allows you to apply a strange glitchy prosperity to items and i just think there could be some incredible applications—”

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “After what it did to the core, I’m not trying it on any items lower than legendary.”

  “You’ve got a point,” Irion muttered, swallowing hard. “Then what do you want?”

  “Punching,” I said. “Punching. Punching and lots of punching is about as technical as I like my fighting. Everything with strength and health, really.”

  Irion rolled his eyes. “Well, you shouldn’t have an issue getting stats. If a bronze ring is equivalent to an increase in one of a given stat, then four tantalum rings is equivalent to a collective four-thousand stat increase.”

  I let that little piece of information sink in.

  With these rings, I was on the verge of increasing my stats tenfold.

  My eyes started bugging out.

  Irion grinned. “Just sank in, didn’t it? Unfortunately, it isn’t as simple as just buying all the strength and health orbs in the entire city. Not if you want the most bang for your buck.”

  He said "unfortunately," but his face lit up, and he was flipping through the largest binder like a little boy on Christmas. Irion really seemed to get a kick out of this whole process.

  “The most common stat types are ‘common.’ These stats are cheap as dirt, with constant practical applications. The most common are health, strength, mana, and durability. Health keeps you alive longer, strength makes you stronger, mana can do basically everything with enough training, and durability makes you take less damage, scaled with the strength of your opponent. These stats aren’t bad, they’re just generic.”

  I blinked. “But there’s more stats than that, aren’t there?”

  Irion nodded. “Dexterity and Attack Speed are both stats centered around improving the quality of muscular development, though they also offer absolute, tangible benefits of their own, which makes them a special case. We call these uncommon, though it isn’t an important enough game for the game to make any distinction. After uncommon, there’s affinities, which are rare stats, and beyond those, epics and legendaries. Generally speaking, the more rare a stat, the more specialized it is. Legendary stats are a little different, but there aren’t any of those in the unnamed areas.”

  I fired. “Shouldn’t rarer stats be stronger than common ones?”

  “They usually are,” Irion said. “But also kinda not. You need to understand that the more rare a stat is, the more powerful it scales with the stats beneath it, under specific conditions. The best stat for a sword fighter is sword affinity, but that affinity is borderline useless for a mage. However both can use mana.”

  One question still hung in the air, unanswered. I let out a sigh. “Then why not just buy strength? Sword affinity doesn't really matter if your opponent can blow a building apart with his bare hands."

  Irion smiled. “Do both. Let’s put it like this, they’re two fighters. One knows a thousand moves, and the other knows one move that can split a moon in half. Who would win in a fight?”

  I blinked. “That’s not a fair example.”

  Irion ignored me, continuing forward. “The man with one powerful attack would win, even if he’s less flexible. The whole point of rare stats is to exaggerate the features of a build, until you have one move, pattern, or system of techniques so ridiculously overpowered, that you can use it in any situation by proxy of its overwhelming force.”

  He smiled wider. “Remember that everything in this game can be solved with overwhelming and unstoppable force. It just might take a lot of it.”

  I started massaging my head. “Rare stats make common stats work better when you need them to?”

  “Exactly!” Irion clapped the binder shut. “And there’s always the scaling to consider.”

  “Scaling?”

  He ran a finger through the air, and mana projected a thin line. It started fast, but the slope steadily lessened, until it tapered off at the top.

  “As a player gets more of a single stat, each individual stat they gain makes slightly less of a difference. I’m sure you’ve noticed, raising your level takes more exp each time than the last.”

  I nodded. “So if I got four thousand strength, it would be more like I had three thousand strength?"

  Irion wavered. “More like having three thousand nine point nine eight strength. Scaling doesn’t become an obvious factor until the fourth and fifth area, but it still accounts for something. Anyway, now, we get to the fun part.”

  He leaned forward. “What kind of build do you want?”

  “My build?”

  “Yes,” Irion said. “A build is your calling card as a player. It’s what makes you unique from all the other players. Now I do have some ideas, especially with that glitchy ability of yours—”

  “Lots of brute force,” I stated. “Lots and lots of brute force.” I made a finger gun, flicking it toward him. “Preferably something quick with a long range.”

  “You know there are some fabulous poison-lifesteal combinations that I’ve always considered a little broken in the mid-game—”

  “Too slow.”

  “Perhaps I should reiterate the way certain exponential effects are calculated—”

  “No.”

  He seemed to deflate a little. “If you want ‘brute force’ I’ll write down a couple epics, and you can check the store for those. There’s some rares that are good, and you ought to get yourself to a thousand strength and health. But before we start going through builds, it’d help to know what class you’ve got.”

  My class.

  I groaned, pulling the notification up.

  Irion squinted, adjusting his glasses.

  “You want a brute force build with...Merchant?”

  This chapter marks the end of SEASON THREE----meaning that the final season of Grind book 1 will begin on wednesday, after my usual day off.

  However, now that July is around the corner, my posting schedule will inevitably dip into the erratic.

  As much as I like near-daily updates, there will be a few weeks where I am unlikely to post anything. These are the first week of July, the third week of July, and the fifth week of July/first week of August. and also like the third week of august.

  Again, sorry about the dip in posting.

  Anyway, I hope you're having as much fun with this as I am, because this is about the point where things get very silly, very fast. Or faster, rather.

  Proshchaniye!