Anna had the groups separate after a few minutes. “That wasn’t bad, but I don’t think it counts as group tactics either, since we separated you. I’m going to stand off to the side this time and just watch. Landon, up your speed a little more so you can handle all three of them at the same time. Ladies, Nate, don’t forget to use your secondary weapons whenever you can.”

Nate broke off from the group to grab a crossbow with an attached quiver. The number of bolts he could fire would be far more limited with such a small holding quiver. However, it was something he needed to get used to either way. He might not always be in a situation where he could use the storage to refill his quiver.

He took a moment to pull it back into the charged position before hanging it from his back.

This was going to be a learning experience, that was for sure.

Anna eyed his crossbow and Angie’s sling with a speculative expression. The two might work better than others would originally think. The crossbow was a mid to long-range weapon, while the sling was definitely a close-to-mid-range weapon. The same went for the darts that Lindsay was carrying.

Their secondary weapons actually complemented each other rather well, in her opinion.

In a normal fight, they would be able to hold off any beasts from getting close to Nate while he took the time to pull back the powerful string on his crossbow. A regular bow would have been better, of course, but you couldn’t have everything.

“Why didn’t you go for a regular bow? If I’m not mistaken, that’s what Angie said your mother uses.” She asked as he got back into position.

“A powerful crossbow sort of fell into my lap when I was trying to decide. It comes with its cocking assembly as well, so it’s not as slow as you might think either.” He replied with a shrug, sticking mostly with the truth.

A lot of newer crossbows in his past life had cocking assemblies that you could slap on the back of the crossbow to pull the string into position. They still took several seconds, but were much easier than trying to do it yourself.

She nodded in understanding and motioned for them to get into position. “Landon, give them opportunities to use each of their weapons. Make sure to smack them if they don’t take advantage of the opening.”

***

Nate had been feeling mostly normal for a couple of hours by the time school let out. Yet, by the time they were done practicing at Angie’s, he felt even worse than he had that morning. Everything hurt and muscles he didn’t even know he’d possessed were screaming at him in protest at their abuse.

“I think she is getting even more sadistic,” He grumbled, dragging his body into the car with Angie and Lindsay, both of whom looked only a little better than him.

“I personally blame Lindsay’s brother for this one,” Angie grouched with a wince as she touched her sensitive shoulder. “Who knew those two would be such a match made in heaven?”

“Ugh, I don’t know how I feel about calling Anna older sister. She enjoys picking on me far too much.” Lindsay blinked in realization as she melted into the comfortable car seat. “Huh, then again, it’s like she’s already family.”

Nate rolled his eyes and settled in for the ride back to his house.

“Don’t forget to ask your parents about this weekend!” Both girls said as the car stopped in front of his house.

“I will. Don’t forget to get permission from your own as well.” He grabbed his bag and waved to them as he hurried up the steps of his house.

Inside the front room, he found his parents sitting around piles of food, snacks, water bottles, arrows, and other equipment. It was more than they had bought in the past. But with his mother’s new storage bracelet, they could afford to carry more, just in case something happened.

“I take it you are both still going to stick with the same schedule you decided on last week, then?” He asked as Aura leaped out of his chest.

“Hmm?” Niall looked up. “Oh, hey son. I didn’t realize it was that late already. And yes, we have already begun to make some headway on the debt we took on buying that rig and trailer. Even if it was used, it wasn’t exactly cheap.”

“I thought you’ve had them both for a while now.”

“The truck, yes, but the trailer we bought when we decided to create our company.” Nina supplied tiredly while stretching her arms overhead. “We never needed our own trailer before as the previous company had ones we could always tow.”

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“Well, be careful while you’re out there, and avoid any cultivators from other cities. Until we hear back from that delegation you mentioned, we have no idea what they are doing.” He plopped himself onto the couch right behind them with a groan. “By the way, Angie and Lindsay want to come with us again this weekend. Apparently, the company their parents hired for their last expedition gave them the deluxe princess treatment, and they hated every minute of it.”

“That’s fine,” His mother said after a moment. “Same rules as last time though. If they want extra security, then they need to provide it. We’ll be more careful this time either way, but we’ll also be heading into a slightly stronger area than we did this last weekend. Your father and I are going to take a few hours to scout out a few locations either tomorrow or as we are coming back.”

“I figured that would be your answer, but I thought it would be smart to get your permission still just in case.”

“We appreciate it,” His father replied wryly, patting his son on the leg. “Are you going to be fine here by yourself? You seemed a little jittery last time when we got back.”

“That was just bad memories creeping in, probably. Besides, I won’t be alone this time. I’ll have Aura here to keep me company.”

The kitsune returned at that moment with an untoasted bagel in her mouth. “What? I was hungry?” She projected to them all.

“Yup, she’ll keep you company alright. Up to the point, you start looking like a bagel, apparently.” His mother teased.

“Hmph, I would never. He smells terrible when he gets all sweaty. I’d never be able to reconcile the past smell with what I was eating. I’m afraid he is permanently off the menu!” Aura told them while managing to convey her thoughts in an utterly regal tone of images.

“Gee thanks, and you smell like roses too,” Nate grumbled. He had seen her just as covered in blood as himself before. “Anyway, I got my new void meditation art today, so I’m going to head upstairs and start working on that. Call up for me if you need anything.”

Aura stayed downstairs with his parents, while he went up and began working on the new art. The first thing he had to do was a net search for other void meditation arts. He had been holding off on collecting them before he had a real copy to compare them against.

Now that he had a real version of the art, he would know what to look for.

The mass of shadow meditation arts he had collected had not been nearly as useful as he had hoped. Especially once he figured out the trick with basic ties. However, there was an absolute variety there that helped inspire him in the direction certain stanzas should go. Seeing the direction others had gone with theirs, either on purpose or in an effort to ruin others, still helped him.

It took him a while to collect a few of them, as even on the net, the void meditation arts were fairly rare.

Regardless, with that finally done, he sat back and began comparing them as he wrote out the first section with his qi. If he was going to practice it, then he might as well practice the best version he could right from the beginning.

By the time his mother called him down for dinner a while later, the first stanza had no more red in it. There was plenty of yellow, some of which had been added by him, but all the words that had shown up as red were now gone.

It was progress, and that was all he could really hope to make in the short term.

Downstairs, everything had been organized and put away when he made his way down. The only items left out were the gear they would be wearing the next day.

“Are you all ready to go?” He asked as he sat down at the table across from his parents.

His father nodded. “Last week showed us what we actually needed to bring and what we didn’t. It would have gone even faster this time around if it hadn’t been for that bracelet you gave your mother. We ended up over packing a little bit because of all the extra room we had.”

“There aren’t going to be any frozen pizzas in our future, that’s for sure,” Nina told him with a wink.

“Just be careful while you’re out there. I don’t trust those other cultivators. I’m not sure what the other cities are thinking, but something is definitely going on.”

“With any luck, we’ll know the answer to that fairly soon. They sent out the first of the delegations today.” His mother told him as she began dishing up their dinner.

***

Unfortunately, when his parents had approached the Chrightons earlier that day, they had come up empty. The family had not been prepared to put in the second order so soon.

It was an annoyance, but one they had been expecting.

As soon as Nate entered the dungeon that night, he began reviewing how the research project had affected the traps. Looking inside the laser-based traps, he noticed that what had once been black-box technology was now an area filled with proper technology. There were still plenty of black boxes all over the place. However, it was no longer one massive, unknowable block.

It had been broken up into chunks, with sections of mostly recognizable technology in-between.

That meant he could either continue to research the laser technology tree and bring down the energy cost. Which was a very good thing. Or he could dip his proverbial toe into researching the traps and bring their costs down some first. The gravity generator was especially costly, while the frequency and vibration modifier were mostly established technology.

He wasn’t using nearly as many of the gravity generators as he was laser traps. At the same time, the few he did have were still a significant expense. At least they were before he had disabled all of the traps outside of the one by the exit. However, the gravity trap in that room still equated to nearly half of the overall cost.

More now that the lasers had just become slightly more efficient.

Well, realizing that made the decision rather easy for him. He was going to have to do all of the various research items in a staggered fashion; it seemed. Instead of just blowing through an entire tech tree lineup in one go like he would have preferred.

Such was life, no matter how annoying it was at times.

With the matter decided, he made his selection and watched as the new timer appeared. Sixty hours again, same as the last time. If he had to make a guess, then that would mean this was also just the beginning of a brand-new technology tree he had to research piece by piece to get the full benefit.

That was annoying, but it also made sense to him. Without these obstacles, it would be entirely too easy for him to grow in power quickly. Though, why that would be a bad thing, he didn’t have a clue.

Either way, with that done, he set his eyes on his training area for the night, and with Aura by his side, headed to the second floor of the first dungeon.