Getting out of his capsule, he sprints downstairs, hoping that he can at least catch the tail end of dinner. Once he arrives, his family stares him down, everyone having almost finished with their meal. Lynna is trying to hold in a grin, and not succeeding too well, while his parents are looking at him in disapproval. Sen withers a bit, his excitement from the new control over wind he has fading.

“Sorry, I got caught up in practicing a skill.” Sen bows his head in apology.

His father lets out a sigh. “Just try to join us for dinner. On time.”

His mother doesn’t say anything, but the look she’s giving him is bad enough. Lynna is amused by his plight, but isn’t willing to make fun of him when their parents are already annoyed.

Sen eats as quickly as he can, and the family talks while he tries to inhale his food so as to join the conversation. Eventually, the topic switches to Earth.

“Earth has invited us to join the United Federation of Humanity. Nearly everyone is supporting the motion.” Sen’s father is letting national secrets out without preamble.

“Is that bad?” asks Lynna.

Tien shakes his head. “I think it’s premature is what it is. We know practically nothing about the current situation of Earth, and apparently many other worlds now.”

Sen is much more interested in a different topic. “If there’s a federation of humanity, does that mean that they’ve found other races?”

“While they haven’t explicitly mentioned them, they have been alluded to.”

Sen’s eyes start to sparkle. He’d always wondered if there are other races in the galaxy, and while he doesn’t have confirmation, it is extremely likely that they do exist. Sen’s father then goes on to explain that schools are going to be forced to use what is referred to as common, a language that was originally the same as the one those on Alpha spoke. After fifteen thousand years of separation though, the languages have drifted apart quite a ways, leading to communication being possible, but hard.

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They end the meal after the talk is over, Sen wondering why it is fine to tell them state secrets like that and not inform them about what is going on with Fifth Dimension. He considers going back in game, but can’t really focus, and goes on his phone to catch up on some of the novels he hasn’t read since before fifth dimension released. He falls asleep after managing to only read a portion of the updates from his favorite novel, more worn out mentally from the constant drive to do well in Fifth Dimension than he thinks.

When he wakes, he feels more rested than usual, some of the constant stress he doesn’t realize he’s putting himself under gone. He goes through his routine with his tutors, then hops back in game. When he’s back, he answers the messages from everyone that he’s fine, he just needed a bit of a rest.

The group then goes around to the two dungeons they’ve already been to for their daily runs. As they arrive near the wriggling tarantula dungeon, they see a massive fight going on, the Ares guild is fighting with the King guild, with Team Cloud watching on, possibly to take out the loser, possibly to make a deal with the winner.

Sen’s group joins in on the fighting, attacking from behind the King lines. Sen decides to try out his little air explosion skill again, though this time, as it explodes, he uses the air to smooth out the shockwave heading in his group’s direction, not wanting to cause any friendly fire.

The enemies hit by it stumble, then try to turn back, only to nearly fall over, their sense of balance gone with the damage to their ears. The rest of the group gives him a bit of a look before they crash into the lines.

The off balance enemies are easily wiped out, and as they continue, they face little resistance. It seems that King brought pretty much all of their players so as to take Ares down with numbers, but numbers seem to be the only thing they are relying on. Ares is acting as a rock as the waves crash against their formation. If a long enough time passes, the rock may be worn down, but unfortunately for King, their numbers aren’t equal to an ocean.

Eventually, the group manages to cut entirely through to Ares, and form up beside them. The following fight could more accurately be called a slaughter. The King elites have already been defeated by Ares, and so the rest of the rabble eventually takes so many casualties that they, to put it kindly, retreat.

Once they’re gone, the group from Team Cloud goes up, no weapons out, seemingly wanting to negotiate rather than start a guild war. David steps up to meet them, and they negotiate for a while. Sen and his group stay outside the dungeon in case things devolve to a fight, Julie covertly placing a few of her knives in the surrounding area so she can instantly activate an array if she needs to.

Eventually, they come to an agreement, and David and LostMind shake hands, before the group LostMind is with head over to the dungeon entrance. The group, seeing as how there’s not going to be a fight, head into the dungeon themselves, wanting to save any grinding time they can.

The group clears the dungeon significantly easier this time. Being aware that the boss has a berserk mode and can shoot strands of spiderweb beforehand makes the boss fight significantly less stressful.

Once they’re done, they head over to the twisting tiger dungeon, and then it’s off to find the third dungeon that they hadn’t gone to the day before.