Nate and Aura were more careful in how they approached the second floor this time around. Both had a feeling that their time actively hunting in the first dungeon was quickly coming to an end. Outside of when they had screwed up like the night before, most of the beasts didn’t present enough of a challenge by themselves anymore.

The dungeon itself seemed to recognize that, as the rewards they got decreased each night as well.

However, it did give Nate plenty of downtime to work on his new meditation art, or the second dungeon as needed.

The real issue was that while the challenge the first dungeon presented was quickly disappearing, the second was still too strong for them. Ideally, there would have been another dungeon or two separating them, but it was what it was. There was no changing things now.

The beasts in the first dungeon were still stronger than Nate when it came to cultivation. However, his skill with the kukri and kriegsmesser had grown by leaps and bounds. It was a matter of his skills and equipment being too good for the area he was in.

As they had already seen, that didn’t necessarily translate to anything when going against thinking beings that could also train. At this point, his cultivation was the limiting factor. Which is why, about halfway through the night, he eventually called it quits and found a quiet corner to work on his meditation art the rest of the night. He needed to get serious about his regular cultivation if he didn’t want to fall behind the others.

Sure, he had been making do with the dungeon, but its usefulness was apparently coming to an end for the moment at least.

Aura settled into his chest and curled up around his cores as she went to sleep.

***

Nate checked the progress he had made on the first stanza of the void meditation art as he was drying himself from his shower. He had made good progress on it in his opinion. His previous experience from working with the shadow meditation art was definitely helping him this time around.

He pulled up his information and reviewed the changes. His energy had gone up a fair bit from the rainbow orbs he had gotten. The charge on the backup core, on the other hand, had only increased by a small amount.

Nathaniel Holmes

Age: 17 years

Realm: Mortal (Recently Awakened, Backup Core Available, 35% Charged)

Core: Bronze Grade [Low Quality]

Strength: 43

Speed: 37

Constitution: 43.5 [+]

Energy: 55

Meditative Art: (School Void)

Energy Skills: 3/14

Attack: Point Break

Support: Basic Ties

Basic Healing

Companion Beast: Aura (Kitsune 4-Tails)

Dungeon Creation - Current limit 2

Dungeon Interface

Dungeon - 2

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Equip

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Items

Storage

Overall, while he was making progress, it just didn’t feel as fast as he would have liked it to.

Downstairs, his parents were taking the morning a little slow, Usually, they would have left before the sun had even risen. This time they were simply sitting at the table eating breakfast, waiting for him to leave first.

“Have you had any luck finding employees?” He asked, joining them at the table.

His dad laughed, quickly turning his head, as crumbs from his muffin spewed out.

“That’s nasty, dear.” Nina admonished him. “And no, unfortunately, we haven’t really had time to advertise the company since we started working again. Then there is the matter of our weapons, that our incredibly thoughtful son dropped in our lap the other day. Explaining those to anyone who was constantly near us might be a problem, so we haven’t even thought about it the last few days.”

Niall finished cleaning up his mess. “I’m assuming at least some of the guards will come with the girls again this weekend, assuming their parents agree, of course. We’ll be able to see how the guards react to them, then.”

“What time are you expecting to be back on Thursday?” Nate asked, while quickly mowing his way through breakfast.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Not sure, but we’ll likely be here either by the time you get back from school or shortly after that.”

He nodded. It was more or less the answer he had expected and was how they had operated the last time around.

“Now, go on and get out of here. The girls just drove up.” Niall told him, pointing his fork at the front door.

Nate hugged his parents, grabbed his bag, and hurried out the door. Only to stop a few steps later.

Angie and Lindsay were running up the path toward him with intense looks on their faces. “Have your parents left yet?” Angie asked as they pushed him back inside the house.

“What? No, they were having a slow morning. Why, what’s going on?”

“Where’s your TV? You all need to see this.” The sound of the girls’ raised voices brought his parents to the front hallway.

“The TV is in the living room, hanging on the wall. What’s going on?” Nina asked, thoroughly confused by how they were acting.

Lindsay rushed into the living room and found the remote for the TV. By the time they had all joined her, the screen was on and tuned to the news.

“This came across the radio while we were on our way here,” Angie told them.

The news was showing the tall earthen walls that surrounded the city. In front of them was an absolutely massive horde of beasts. It was a wave of beasts, all attacking the wall for as far as the camera could see in every direction.

Everyone in the room limply fell onto whatever chair was closest, as their legs refused to hold them up any longer.

“Some of them must have gone through with it,” Niall muttered. “The insane idiots actually chose to destroy some of the natural treasure spots.”

“Like that spring we visited?” Nate asked.

His father nodded. “It was a safe haven and a natural treasure. If they ruined it…” He waved his hand at the screen.

“I don’t think we’re going to be heading out after all,” Nina muttered, her eyes glued to the screen.

“Are we still going to have school today?” Nate was less worried about skipping class and more interested in what would suddenly be canceled because of this. “I assume they would have heard about this before it reached the radio waves.”

“They would have, yes,” Niall said without looking away from the TV. “However, no, school wouldn’t be canceled. They will want all the kids in one where they can watch them in case something goes wrong. Besides, it’s more likely that a lot of their parents are going to get called up to defend the wall. Same for all of us. Now that you have your cores, defending the city in times like this has become part of your duty.”

“What will we need to do?” Lindsay wondered, her voice trembling.

“It’s hard to say, but Nate, Angie, and myself, will likely get stationed atop the wall at various points. We all have long-distance attacks. As for you two… Niall may get sent on retrieval missions with a team outside the wall if they can create a good enough opening for them to leave through. Lindsay, maybe security, or some sort of driver? I don’t know.” Nina guessed. “Nothing has happened like this in years here, and certainly not on this scale.”

Angie stood. “I guess we should head back home then and get our gear together while we wait for the call.”

Nate walked them both out to the car. “Be safe on the way back to your homes, and Angie start carrying your cell phone so we can all stay in touch with each other.”

Lindsay smirked at that.

Distaste colored Angie’s face at the suggestion. “If I start carrying it though, then my mom will be able to get a hold of me whenever she wants.”

“Fine, whatever, I just thought it would be nice if we could all get in touch with each other while we were on the wall or doing whatever.”

She briefly ground her teeth together and then nodded. “Alright, I’ll make sure it stays in my pocket after I get home. If I don’t see you again before you and your parents get called up, stay safe.”

“Yeah, you might have cooties, but you’re alright for a guy,” Lindsay added with a playful wink.

He shoved them both toward the waiting door of the car. “That goes double for the both of you. Keep yourselves and your cooties safe.”

Back inside the house, he found his parents gathering up his equipment and adding it to their pile in the middle of the house.

“It’s lucky you two decided to not leave as early as you normally do.”

“Yeah, lucky…” His parents shared a look. “We were going to, but it just felt wrong at the time. So, we decided to just go back to sleep for another couple of hours until after you left for school.”

His mom handed him a paper they had printed out. “Here, this is the method for getting a companion beast normally. There are others, but this is the most popular and widespread method. If you are going to keep Aura around, then you need to know the method in case someone asks questions.”

It was something that he had meant to look into himself but had forgotten amongst all the other items pushing for his attention. He had it now though, and that is what was important.

The TV was still playing in the background as they placed their equipment on the floor at each of their feet. The news provided a constant stream of updates as they performed maintenance on everything. Everything had already been cleaned. That was one of the things they did right away whenever they returned. The main thing they were doing at the moment was making sure all the runes on their weapons were still covered.

The phone call came shortly before ten o’clock, calling all three of them up.

They needed to report to the licensing bureau by the wall to get their assignments.

***

A harried couple of people were busy checking everyone when they arrived at the bureau.

“Names, status, and placement, please.” The one in front of them said wearily. The attack had only reached the news a few hours before, but they had already been dealing with check-ins long before that.

“Niall, Nina, and Nathaniel Holmes. Two hunters and one student. I’m a close-range fighter, and they both have long-range capability.” Niall informed the tired clerk.

She quickly scrawled down several lines of information and handed them three slips of paper. “You will need to meet up with the group by the gate. The information for your squad leader is on the paper. Your wife and son are on the wall. Here is their squad leader’s information. Be careful.”

That was it. They were quickly shuffled off to the side as another cultivator in line took their place.

Niall handed the two slips of paper over to Nate and Nina and then followed the action up with a tight hug. “Stay safe, both of you.”

It took them a minute to find a shuttle going to the wall, and then they were off. Niall went into a different shuttle, separating them.

“He’ll be alright mom,” Nate whispered, holding her close.

Atop the wide densely packed earthen walls that protected the city, they both received a shock they hadn’t been prepared for.

The number of beasts shown by the news had been severely undercutting how many there actually were. The only reason they hadn’t overrun the season in an instant was because of the wall’s strength, and the beasts had a hard time climbing its reversed concave surface.

There were plenty of spots where the beasts had begun to tear their way through the hardened wall. However, every inch they clawed out was hard won, and filled with bodies.

Unfortunately, if there was one thing the beasts had in great supply at the moment, it was numbers.

Even from his position several stories in the air, Nate couldn’t see an end to them. All of the beasts in the area were coming out to attack them.