Aura was silent when she revived and slumped onto the ground in front of him. Her ears were limp, and she looked ragged. Strictly speaking, when she revived it was to perfect health, however, that was only physically. All the mental exhaustion, damage, and other problems that had begun to build up over time were still there and beginning to rear their ugly heads.

“We need to talk,” Nate told her as soon as he saw how terrible she looked. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Aura.” He reached toward her and gently pointed her sharp muzzle at him, so she couldn’t avoid his gaze. “I know you didn’t ask for this, or for your entire family to be murdered. I understand that, but you are my companion now and linked to this dungeon.

“I’m not going to just let you throw your life away by going berserk and dying each night. There are better ways to handle your grief. If you want revenge and power, then help me take control of the portal here. I have no idea what will happen then, but I know something will. No matter what, anything is better than continuing to do what you have been doing.”

He felt more than a little guilty because he had been mostly ignoring her. Part of that was because she kept dying, but it was also because she was inside the dungeon, even when he wasn’t. There was a separation there. She could breach that barrier, but it was up to her to do that. He hadn’t even thought about doing it the other way around before that moment.

She was silent for a long minute before adjusting her position so her limpid eyes could look up at him. “I know. I need a purpose of some kind, some greater reason for continuing on each day. I’m linked to the dungeon, but I don’t know what your purpose with all of this is.”

“Before I answer that, tell me, why do your people go through the portals? They seem almost desperate to cross through them.”

“Each of the races your people have encountered at the various portals gain strength in slightly different ways. However, there is one constant that holds true for us all. Battle pushes us to ever greater heights faster than if we were to simply stay at home and cultivate peacefully. The portals are a way to gain strength without decimating our own people through constant war with each other.”

Nate reeled back at that answer. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting her to say, but it wasn’t that. Not that they were being purposefully invaded. Instead, it was simply because the easiest way to gain strength was through fighting.

“All of our worlds were suddenly thrown into pandemonium, just like yours, when the portals appeared at some point in our history. Each and every single one of our worlds has a few of these infernal portals. Though I will admit, your world does seem to have many times that number more than normal and is linked to several more worlds than is typical.

“From what we have discovered in the past, two to three different races per world is considered normal. With each race having access to maybe three portals for the entire world, if they are lucky. Then we have your world, which is practically a meeting hub for everyone…” She chuckled dryly. “It’s odd.”

“I’m sure everyone here will be overjoyed to hear that if they are ever lucky enough to learn it.” Nate snarked, his mind full of confusion.

If the circumstances on Earth were so different from others, then there must be a reason behind it all. He had been somewhat convinced before that the goal of the dungeons was to close each of the incursions. Now, he wasn’t so sure that is what he had been working toward anymore.

Unfortunately, Nate would have to wait until he managed to actually take control of the first dungeon to learn more. Only then would he be presented with the options it had promised and learn more.

Aura silently watched him for a minute before he remembered what he had told her before.

“Right, sorry. To be honest with you though, I’m not sure what my purpose with all of this is either. Not entirely, anyway. When I created the first dungeon, it was so I could… make a difference… or find a way to stop the invaders.” He chuckled mirthlessly and rested his head against the stone wall. “I don’t really remember what my exact reasoning was at the time, and it doesn’t really matter now.

“I have learned a lot since then, both in regards to how this world works, and now from you. I’m not entirely sure that closing the portals would even be for the best. However, I do think they need to be brought under some form of control. So, I guess for now that is our goal. To create as many dungeons as possible and to change the current dynamic. However, I’m sure that goal will change or be refined once we see the options that are presented when we take full control of this portal.”

A short while later, they finally stood up and headed for the second level to start their latest training session.

***

When Nate woke up the next morning, he was surprised by how much of a difference his new core grade had made. He was used to his backup core, taking a large chunk of his energy, which it did to improve his main core. What he had realized before though, was that when he upgraded his main core, it had also upgraded his backup core.

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The amount of energy he was getting from the rainbow cores was still the same as before, yet looking at his status, you wouldn’t know it. Where each rainbow core would have given him a solid handful of qi points before, those had been halved now. And then further split between the two cores.

In other words, the amount of progress he had made in the latest training session hadn’t been as great as it would have been before. That was to be expected as the grade of his core increased. It would become even more of an issue when his cultivation realm increased as well.

Dragging himself from bed, Nate grabbed another herb from the box the McFadden’s had given his parents and went to take his shower.

Near the end of the shower, he shoved the wet herb into his mouth. Quickly chewing and swallowing the bitter herb down, he felt the familiar burst of energy that went entirely toward his backup core. He wasn’t sure how it worked for everyone else, but that was how it did for him.

At least this time, he didn’t need to worry about cleaning a ton of gunk off his body. That wouldn’t happen again until the next time he upgraded his core, or possibly when he increased his realm.

Nate was waiting on the front steps of his house, nibbling on a piece of toast, when Angie’s car rolled up.

Hopping up, he hurried toward it before the driver even had a chance to fully bring the car to a stop.

Inside, he found the two girls glaring at each other with their arms crossed and eyes narrowed in displeasure. “Um, I can walk to school?” He offered, already reaching for the door.

“Touch that door and I’ll make sure you regret it,” Angie snapped at him.

“Alright, sheesh. What did I do?”

Lindsay turned over the phone on her lap and showed him the screen. It held an image of a sling similar to the one Anna had shown them the night before.

“Ah,” He muttered. “I take it you don’t like the weapon?”

“Like it?” Angie snorted derisively. “My parents would never even let me use it. If I even dared to so much as show something like that to them, they would blow their tops.”

“Did Lindsay at least explain the reasoning behind the choice?”

The girl in question shook her head. “She wouldn’t let me. Angie took one look at the picture and then started screaming at me. I never had a chance to explain anything.” She was more than a little put out by her friend’s behavior.

Nate had figured as much, otherwise, he doubted Angie would be so against using it. She didn’t seem to be so caught up in appearances as other people in her position. The way she had reacted was more likely a simple knee-jerk reaction than anything against the sling itself.

“We already know it isn’t an elegant weapon, whatever that even means. However, it is perfect for use with the enhancement you received.” He was quick to say before Angie took their concern for her the wrong way.

Her mouth opened and closed as her brows furrowed. Against her side, one of her hands made a small twirling motion, as though she was already using a sling.

Lindsay rolled her eyes and turned away from her friend for the moment. She was still angry with her. Instead, she focused on Nathan, and the two were soon lost in a discussion on the various intricacies of their meditation arts.

Lindsay’s mood had thawed a little by the time they reached the school, and Angie was looking a little sheepish.

“Sorry, Linds, I guess I should have listened to you earlier, before I reacted.”

“Yeah, you should have!” She shot back irritably.

***

After what had happened that morning, they had decided to skip any potential training session at Angie’s. The girl had something more important that she needed to do that afternoon. She needed to talk to her parents about what she had come to accept as her new secondary weapon.

If they thought she had reacted badly to just seeing the image on Lindsay’s phone, it was nothing to how she expected her mother to react.

That left Nathan sitting on his couch, with his crossbow resting on his legs, as he slowly wrapped the rail where it tended to glow. He had ripped up a couple of his old shirts into strips and was carefully layering them, ensuring everything remained flat. All the knots went on the bottom of the rail, where his hand would rest, along with several dabs of glue on each strip of cloth.

The strips of ripped shirt gave it a sort of weird raider vibe which he dug. He still needed to get a supply of bolts for the crossbow though. At least with the glowing portions now covered, he didn’t need to worry about using it in the open.

Pushing the crossbow to the side, he grabbed his laptop and started working on his meditation art. Brick Jones, the teacher in charge of that class, had given him a lot of help on different items he had been struggling with that day. He had also mentioned that his new void art had been confirmed, but wasn’t going to arrive until the end of the week at the earliest. Which meant that Nate wouldn’t be able to start practicing it until next week sometime, since the teacher needed to look it over first.

He was making a fair bit of progress toward integrating the shadow meditation art into his meditation model. The pieces he had been struggling with the teacher had been able to help him with earlier during school. It helped that he had also continued to analyze the other shadow meditation arts he had found on the internet. He still had no idea how many of them were real, versus, cobbled together messes, however, he was tracking what each had in common, and where each one differed.

Granted, his sample size wasn’t the greatest, but every bit of information helped.

Slowly, as he understood each portion of the meditation art, Nate changed it to fit himself specifically. Then, he would integrate into his meditation model, just as they had been taught to do. He didn’t need to incorporate the new system all at once for it to be effective. Instead, it was more like he was layering it over a base system.

In computer terms, his meditation model was Unix OS or a translation layer for everything. The mediation art was more akin to Windows or Apple OS, which ran on top of the translation layer. It wasn’t a one-to-one example, but it made more sense than thinking of the meditation art as a program or app in his opinion.

Regardless, every time he included a new portion of the art, the OS got an update, and it would run a little faster or have a new feature.

He could still cultivate in his current state, and it was faster than before, but it was nowhere near what it would someday become.