Nate rolled out of his bed the next morning with a groan. His entire body ached and felt uncomfortably close to the condition of his previous body. He had gotten far more practice with his healing skill than he had initially planned on.

The beasts had swarmed his location and slowly worn him down until his mistakes started to pile up. From there, it was simply a matter of time until they dragged him under a horde of claws, teeth, and the occasional rare energy skill.

Slowly, he gathered up his towel and clothes and hobbled his way to the shower. Nate was tempted to take one of the healing pills he had in storage, but also knew that he wasn’t really injured. What he was feeling right now was the damage that had been transferred over from the avatar. It wasn’t cutting damage, but something more akin to bone-deep bruising.

It hurt, but his bracelet would take care of the worst of it over the next couple of hours. By the time school let out for the day, he expected all of it to be healed, or ignorable.

It was too bad his basic healing skill wasn’t capable of doing anything that serious just yet.

He slipped beneath the steaming water and hissed as it hit his skin with a vengeance.

Nate let his head rest against the wall, the water striking the back of his neck and rolling down his back. With a sigh of relief, he pulled up ‘Dungeon Interface’ on the wrist computer. He highlighted the first dungeon’s Dungeon Core and selected it.

‘Energy requirement for upgrade – Met. Would you like to proceed with the Level 3 Core upgrade at this time? Yes/No’

After having been through this once already, he knew what to expect. He pushed the ‘Yes’ button and then glanced up at the energy resource counter.

Slowly, the stored energy began to tick down. He watched it for several seconds, attempting to grasp a rough average. Again, his prior experience came into play here. It was counting down a little faster than that last time, but not by much. However, the cost of the upgrade had increased by seven times. As a result, at the current speed of energy consumption, it would take around roughly thirty hours to finish.

Thankfully, just like the first time, the dungeon remained in normal operational mode during its upgrade.

With that done, he closed out the menu and focused on his shower.

The research project for the beginning laser tech tree still had a couple more hours to go before it finished. By the time school let out, he would be ready to start another research project. It was just a matter of what would give the dungeon the most immediate benefits.

Nate pushed the matter to the back of his mind as he let the heat from the water soak into his muscles. The near-scalding temperature soothing his body from the damage that had been passed through from his avatar.

Curled protectively around his cores, Aura was in little better shape than his avatar had been in when he left. Neither of them had died, though it had been close more than once. Thankfully, Aura healed at a far faster pace than normal when she was resting in his chest. Something that they had only just now discovered.

He was feeling a little more human by the time he made it down the stairs. The remaining stiffness would fade as he moved about.

His mother saw the odd way he was walking and pushed a muffin and plate of bacon toward him. “Rough night?”

He nodded and grunted in appreciation. “It was decently productive but incredibly painful and rough. I made a decent amount of progress on my energy skills though. At least I think I did. I used them a lot. That has to count for something.”

“It does. Just make sure you always have what your skills need to evolve toward in mind and try to use them more in that direction if possible.” She agreed.

Nate pushed the empty box his parents had gotten from the Chrightons across the table. “I’m not sure if they’ll give me more now or if we should wait a while before approaching them for the next dose.”

Nina took the box slowly, a lone finger remaining atop its lid to tap at it every few seconds. “We’ll have to look into the process and see how long this sort of thing usually takes. Your backup core might have made it easier for you to absorb the energy from the items. We need to make sure that there isn’t supposed to be a waiting period of some sort at the end. Once your father and I know what to expect, we’ll approach them again.”

“Is that alright? They won’t try to hurt you, us, or anything, will they?” He asked, suddenly second-guessing his request.

“They shouldn’t no. This is something they said they would do. However, I wouldn’t depend on them being willing to actually provide the herbs and items more than one or two more times. After that, the costs will have piled up and they will start to second guess themselves.”

“Better to use them now then, before they have too much time to think.” He replied with a grin.

The glint of sunlight flashing across the windows alerted them both to the presence of a car pulling up outside.

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“It looks like the girls are here. You better get going, have fun at school, and tell them both hello for me.”

Nate kissed his mother on the cheek and snagged his bag as he hurried to the front door.

Angelica was already out of the car when he opened the door and stepped out.

“You come out too quickly these days. We haven’t had a chance to say hello to your parents in a while.” She said with a slight pout.

“Oh? My apologies. I didn’t realize my parents were so interesting to you two.”

Lindsay stared at him with dead, fishlike eyes as he slid into the car. “We need to talk to your parents! Do you understand?”

“Not really no.”

“This weekend was-”

“A fudging disaster!” Lindsay practically snarled, the girl coming closer to cursing than he had heard her in a long while.

“Yes, that. It was beyond unpleasant.” Angie agreed without a second’s hesitation. “The group our parents hired took us to the privileged zone.” She spat out the name. “They let us perform the kill strikes exactly one time, each on an already wounded beast. Then we were sent back to a shared camp with all the other rich, privileged teens our age. It was HUMILIATING.” She finished with a snarl.

“Look, we gave this other company a chance, and they were terrible. Please, we are begging you, get your parents to let us come with you again.”

“Uhh, I mean, I can ask, but I doubt they’ll have a problem with it. The ones you need to convince are your parents, not mine.”

Both of them sighed with relief at his admission.

“Good, we already have a plan in place to convince our parents. Don’t worry about that,” Lindsay told him, a mischievous glint entering her eye.

“Righttt, that’s not slightly ominous or anything. So, outside of an apparently relaxing expedition, how was your weekend?” He quickly dodged both girls’ attempts to kick him.

“Oh!” Lindsay suddenly sat up, an excited look on her face. “You should have seen Angie using her sling out there. It works great with her enhancement. We didn’t get much hunting done, but she certainly intimidated the other kids in camp.”

Angie blushed and nodded, her hair bouncing until it covered most of her face. “You guys really were right; the sling synergizes with the enhancement I got from my matched core awakening. Although, they are incredibly hard to aim as a result. Right now, getting anything even close to the target is more a matter of luck than anything else."

Lindsay waved away the girl’s comment. “I saw her shoot a marble through a tree, Nate! And it wasn’t some piddling pine tree either. This was a proper thick tree.”

“Really?” He asked in surprise.

“I had been spinning the sling for a while by that point, so the windup takes forever, but yeah, it happened.” She seemed inordinately pleased with herself, not that it wasn’t deserved.

“Wow, that’s impressive, no matter how it happened.”

***

Mira Moorish was waiting for them when they entered the classroom. Her eyes took in each of them in turn, looking for injuries or other marks. When she was satisfied that they were alright she moved aside and let them take their seats.

“Let’s start off the class with each of you telling me how your expeditions went. Afterward, we can discuss any items you wish you had known more about. This is the last week where I will have you for the entire morning. We need to make sure that we cover the items that will do you the most good in a real-world setting first. I’ll try to weave in items from the curriculum throughout all of that.”

Nate decided to go first since he had already heard how Lindsay and Angie’s expedition went.

They all enjoyed hearing about the spring and how the different animals were all treating it as a safe place. There were appropriate noises of disgust when it came to the foreign cultivators. Mira especially seemed disturbed to learn about them and what they were nearly willing to do.

He told them about the regulars who appeared, and how they had asked to join them. The only thing he didn’t mention was Aura. Without knowing how the official process of getting a beast companion happened, it would be hard to explain her if anyone asked. He didn’t particularly enjoy lying to his friends and wanted to keep them to a minimum as much as possible.

The girls groaned when he finished, splaying themselves across their desks.

“Your expedition was so much more exciting and interesting than ours. All we did was sit at camp. The group our parents hired wouldn’t even let us leave to hunt after we both got the single kill we needed for the expedition.”

Mira shook her head, appalled as the girls recalled their own expedition. “Right, well, those sorts of expeditions aren’t going to do them any favors in the long run. I would suggest not participating in them if at all possible.”

Her eyes took on a distant look as she mentally reviewed everything. “Okay, let’s start with safe havens and move on from there. They are important to know about, and if you even so much as accidentally hurt anything while in one’s territory, you will be in a world of trouble. And yes, I said anything that includes other cultivators. Safe havens aren’t just for those who live in wilds.”

***

By the time lunchtime rolled around, all three were feeling slightly wrung out. Mira had been especially eager to teach them that day, and the amount of information she had thrown their way had been enormous.

Nate dragged his feet along the cafeteria line, selecting the food that appealed to him at the moment. His mind was mostly asleep, and it took him until they were sitting at their normal table to remember what had happened the last time. How the two had been approached by one of the other students after he had left the table early on Friday.

“What happened last week? What did the other students want to talk to you about?” He asked as he grabbed his slice of gourmet cardboard pizza. Some things never changed, it seemed, even at expensive schools.

“You saw that, huh?” Lindsay bit into her own slice as she looked over her shoulder. “It was odd. She apologized for their previous behavior and said that they wouldn’t be bothering us anymore. I asked my brothers about it when I got home and apparently, every school has two factions. The cultivators, IE us, and those who haven’t formed their cores yet. We are the first in our grade to form our cores, so we are at the top, and now outside of their hierarchy. And since we don’t do anything with the other grades really…” She shrugged.

“Weird, but okay, at least that means you won’t be pestered by people constantly like you were before.”

They nodded and then pinned him down with twin stares. “Of course, that also means you aren’t allowed to go anywhere now. We’d be lonely without you. They may have been annoying for sure, but they also kept us company in this large school.” Angie told him, displaying a rare hint of real emotional fragility.

He nodded readily, unable to keep the surprise from his face. Nathan never would have suspected that these two ever felt lonely with how attached at the hip they seemed to be.

“There’s no need to be surprised. We might always be together, but even we sometimes feel the need to have others around, at least occasionally.” Lindsay said as she swallowed her bite of pizza.