The house the Peterson’s had lived in was massive. It easily qualified as a mansion, though it lacked the large estate that the Chrightons had for their holdings. All it boasted was the size of the house and a rather modest backyard.

The family may have had money, but they were obviously nowhere near the level of the Chrighton’s or Lindsay’s family. Although Nate had never actually seen the Travers’ estate, he knew enough about them to know it wouldn’t be small.

Unfortunately, it was immediately obvious that the family had either been putting on airs the entire time, or all their money was somewhere else. All the items in the house were fake. Every golden candelabra, silver fork, and fine vase was plated and fake. They looked good, but they were thin veneers, nothing more.

The group's stop there ultimately ended up being rather short overall, as the amount of supplies they found was limited. Nate still managed to walk away with a number of manuals for different affinities and a couple for energy skills. They weren’t anything impressive, however, more information was always appreciated.

At some point, he wanted to experiment with creating or modifying energy skills. That was far in the future still and depended on him continuing to evolve his skill, basic ties. Brick Jones had definitely been onto something when he had made sure Mira gave him that particular skill. It was one that had hidden depths to it, far beyond what was immediately apparent.

None of that stopped Nate from grabbing everything he deemed somewhat valuable that wasn’t nailed down. TVs, laptops, and books all went inside a new tab. All the food and other immediately usable supplies went into the back of the trucks to be taken back to the estate.

“Well, that was a disappointment,” Lindsay said as their procession of trucks hit the road again toward the second house.

The other two nodded.

“How common is it for people to decorate their houses with cheap knockoffs like that?” Nate wondered aloud.

“It depends on a couple of factors,” Angie began. “The Petersons were fairly new to their wealth and station in life, at least as these things go. I think it was the current head of the house, Randall, whose father, that raised them to where they are now. They haven’t had generations to accumulate their wealth and the items in their house. Unless they wanted to waste their money, they were left with two options. Not displaying how rich they are, or doing what they did.”

“What are the other factors you mentioned?”

“The family itself, and where they want to put their money.” She shrugged. “Though, usually those sorts of families don’t worry about the image they give off anyway.”

“You’ll notice that there is nothing like that in her house,” Lindsay interjected with a smirk. “However, the entire place pretty much smacks of wealth as it is.”

Angie shrugged. “I’m not going to apologize for something my family has worked tirelessly to obtain.”

Nate looked out the window, tuning the two girls out as they started what he sensed was a familiar topic of playful bickering for them.

The city was surprisingly intact. There were a few people who were going around attempting to loot, but that was it. Stealing and creating too much trouble was surprisingly hard in a world where nearly anyone could be a cultivator. You could never tell if the store you were about to rob was staffed by someone in the same realm as you, or maybe even higher.

This wasn’t like the stories he had read on Old Earth, where the higher your cultivation, the more people respected you. That was true to an extent here, but it was also mainly just another aspect of who they were. Unless they were full-time expedition hunters, the professionals, then their actual cultivation only came into play during the required expeditions.

Still, after seeing how panicked everyone had been the day before, and full the roads had been. Nate had been expecting more damage and fires set by angry mobs and the like. For the moment at least, the area he could see looked relatively normal.

Anna was already out of the truck she had been in and was talking to a man that Nate recognized as Leon Pritchley when they arrived at the Turner mansion. Leon was the father of the girl who had held back during the attack on him. She hadn’t possessed the mental fortitude at the time to stop people that she considered friends from doing something she knew was wrong. However, she also hadn’t participated in it.

Leon’s eyes flickered to the girls and Nate as they exited the truck. “They were both many things, I will give you that, and their boys were worse. However, never in the years that I have known them have they shown themselves to be cowards.”

Anna pointed at the door of the house. “After you then. You came here for a reason; we don’t mind entering the house after you. We just came from the Peterson place though, and it had been abandoned. Absolutely garish interior.”

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He winced at that comment. “Yes, most of those were bought years ago when they were just starting out. They never replaced them, regardless of how often we told them that they needed to. I’d like to say that they were a reminder of where they came from, but I think we both know that would be a lie.”

Leon ran a hand through his hair, smoothing it back as he nodded to Angie and Lindsay. “Nathan, you are looking well. I was disappointed to hear about your core. However, it seems my concerns were at least partially misplaced, as I see you have already raised its rank by one. Impressive.”

With the pleasantries over with, he turned to the door, and after finding it locked, simply broke it down with a well-placed kick. The inside of the house was completely empty. They had packed everything down to the last piece of silverware when they fled.

“I don’t know how appropriate this is to say,” Nate began hesitantly, as they all came back together in the foyer after combing through the large house. “But I don’t think their leaving was a last-minute decision. With everything that was in this house, they would have needed multiple moving trucks or several storage bracelets of a large size.”

Leon was completely pale. The faith he’d possessed in his friends shattered. He didn’t even react to what Nate said. He couldn’t, the evidence suggesting otherwise was nonexistent.

The group left him standing in the entryway of the house, a lost look on the man’s face as they drove away. His friends had utterly betrayed him and the city. What was perhaps worse was they hadn’t even had the decency to invite him along.

Back at the Chrighton estate, they found all three groups of parents waiting for them, wanting an update on the city. They were still in contact with people on the wall, but more and more cultivators were deciding not to show up for their assigned shifts. Everyone knew the wall would fall, and instead, they were choosing to look after their families.

After the ill-advised attempt to leave the city yesterday, people were grouping up and creating their own little shelters.

No one was under any illusion that the city would be anywhere near the same after this was over and done with. The period of rebuilding would be harsh on them, and while they were nearing winter, that wasn’t too much of a concern for the cultivators.

Nate simply wished he could do more, but he couldn’t. The sort of things that he was capable of doing in the dungeon were limited to the dungeon. That was his space. The city most definitely was not.

Aden Chrighton, Angie’s father, immediately headed to his office to begin making some phone calls to other cities after hearing what they had to say.

“Do you think the McFaddens are still around? Janett was related to one of them, wasn’t she?” Niall asked. “If just these two families leaving is creating a power vacuum, them doing the same would cause an absolute collapse.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” Trissa, Angie’s mother, said. “I know you don’t like them-“

“We don’t particularly care for them either way,” Nina interrupted her. “It was Jace we didn’t like. The McFadden’s were more or less typical powerful rich people in our dealings with them. Always trying to use their influence to force us to back down. Luckily for them, what we wanted was something their money could provide. The proper ingredients to upgrade Nate’s core.”

Lisa, Lindsay’s mother, coughed, directing their attention to her. “In answer to Niall’s question. Yes, Dean Turner is Janett’s stepbrother. So, the question about whether or not they are still here isn’t entirely without merit. Even if they are, she might know where he fled, since it seems he was far more prepared than Randall.”

Nate slowly backed away from the gathering. It sounded as though they were going to check on the McFadden’s after all, and that was not something he was interested in. He would rather spend his time working on his meditation art. For the moment at least, he had finished working on the first stanza with basic ties and had moved on to the second one.

There were still a few yellow words in the first stanza, but he could live with that for the moment. He needed to keep moving forward. Which meant that he needed to work toward understanding the next stanza, and then beginning to modify it. He already knew what the entire art was supposed to mean as a whole. It would be impossible to modify it properly otherwise, as he would risk changing the meaning of things too much.

Knowing what something meant as a whole, and the deeper meaning behind a localized stanza, however, was not the same thing. This was generally the main step for a cultivator before they integrated them into their meditation models. With him, it was simply another step on the path he was creating for himself.

He had already begun to work toward understanding the second stanza days before and was eager to get back to it.

Angie and Lindsay followed him out, with Aura slipping away a moment later as well.

“What are you up to?” Lindsay wondered as they followed along behind him.

He chuckled at the incongruency going on at the moment. They were inside Angie’s house, and yet they were following him.

“I’m going to go get some studying done on my meditation art,” He told them honestly. “The way I’m doing it is a little convoluted and will take a while to complete. However, the results should be exceptional if it works out.”

“You’re talking about the changes you’ve been making basic ties?” Angie asked.

He nodded. “Mr. Jones told you?”

“He came by the other day after this had all just started, and told us both, in confidence, what you had discovered. He had brought the basic ties skill book from the school just so we could both learn it right then.” Lindsay said softly.

“Oh, that’s good then,” He replied with a grin, not particularly minding that the teacher had told them. It had never even occurred to him that the man would keep it a secret anyway. “And? How’s it been going? Have you made any progress with the skill or your meditation arts yet?”

The two girls frowned and shook their heads.

“It’s not going so good on my part,” Angie said after a moment. “I haven’t gotten it to work on my meditation art at all, and it’s confusing when used on other things.”

Lindsay nodded, her face more than a little red with embarrassment.

“Huh, okay, well, I guess the first thing we need to do is make sure you both understand how the skill works. Brick did say that the way I use mine was different than the way he used his, or something. Worst-case scenario, you’ll both have to wait until the skill has evolved to do this. However, I don’t really see why that would be the case since all three of us have really only just gotten the skill.”