Life had a way of moving on, whether you wanted to or not. Austin took time to deal with his feelings but he wasn't the same anymore. He let anger come quickly and frustration got the better of him. It was sad to see my friend hurt the way he was.

I wasn't a feelings guy. I didn't know what to say or do to help him through what he was going through. I used humor and sarcasm to get through most of my issues and even those were failing me after so much had happened.

There were therapy sessions that the camp paid for but I couldn't force him to go. I probably wouldn't if I was in his shoes. Time would help him through it and I couldn't stop what I was doing to hold his hand.

We hunted in mostly silence ever since his Dad died. He targeted stronger creatures than we usually did, but I let him take the lead. The higher levels weren't enough to stop our combined might.

My new skill turned me into a walking tank with enough power to hold my own. The level difference alone wasn't enough to stop me.

Austin used anger to fuel his attacks and they fed on that emotion well. His style became more cynical if that made sense. Surgical precision mixed with ruthless efficiency killed anything that stood in his way. There was no playing around or anything resembling the jovial troublemaker he was before.

The feints and misdirections he used to throw out were mostly gone now. They were still there but they served a different purpose now. If they weren't necessary in a fight, he didn't use them. He leveraged his speed to keep him ahead of foes and poked them to death with his spear.

He dove into training with such abandon that it was hard for me to keep up. I liked the slower approach that I had been using. A couple of hours hunting, a couple of hours in the forge, a couple of hours spent practicing mana manipulation and [Ice Manipulation]. Some time spent on my Law. An even approach.

I had to trim down some of the time I spent on other areas to make sure that Austin didn't kill himself on a monster too strong for him to handle. He was strong, as strong as me, but the path he was headed on only ended one way.

Fighting the stronger enemies, our skills refined themselves in other ways. Practical experience was a teacher in its own right. A merciless one too. Injures were common but we learned quickly not to make the same mistake. Fighting the stronger enemies, the stakes were higher. There was less room for error and a larger strain on skill. We usually overwhelmed the bosses with numbers with 5 of us attacking it, now with only two we had to adjust.

Austin's skills advanced as I noted before, but mine were evolving in their own way. My skill with the hammer increased and I felt myself becoming more comfortable with the weapon.

If my past self was told that I would become comfortable wielding a Warhammer to battle against monsters of fantasy, he would balk at you.

To the me of now, it was just another way that life had changed. I could feel how close I was to improving my [Heavy Weapon Proficiency] to the next tier. Constant use of the weapon made me better and better with it.

A skill I had since the beginning finally upgraded from use. I used it in almost every fight and it finally decided to increase in rank.

Fortified Body(Common) – Uses mana to fortify the body. Bonus to fortitude while active and the user is harder to knock back while skill is active.

[Fortified Body(C)] was the second skill I received since the start of this thing and I used it in nearly every battle. The upgrade didn't change much about what the skill did but made it better at what it already did.

Reinforced Body(Uncommon) – Uses mana to reinforce the body. Bonus to fortitude and increased magical protections while active. The user is harder to displace while the skill is active.

It came during a particularly trying fight with a monster that was way above us in power. We were still on the ground next to it trying to recover. Both of us were bleeding and only had the use of one healing potion to try and get us back in shape.

We didn't want to waste points on healing potions too much so we limited ourselves in their use, but sometimes using it was worth it instead of waiting to recover.

Austin's increasingly destructive tendencies caught up to us and nearly ended badly, just like I thought it would. Why I came along was to stop that from happening and drag him back to camp before he picked a fight to large for even us.

Well, he wasn't the one who started the fight so it wasn't entirely his fault. We were just finishing up with a panther-like creature when a loud screech filled the air.

The biggest eagle I had ever seen swooped down and attacked us while we were harvesting the panther. Sharp talons glided through our armor and carved into us with ease.

The bird of prey quickly flapped its wings to get away from any retaliatory attacks before diving back down.

It had some sort of wind law because it could shoot out blades of wind that could carve through even my ice. After getting through, it was blunted enough that my body could take it, but it was still alarming. Not a lot of things could claim to be able to do the same. My ice was strong. [Frost Armor(R)] was boosted by both my insane fortitude and my law. It being a rare skill helped too.

The beast wasn't that high of a level either. During our trip, we ventured further toward the mountains in search of higher-level prey and were fighting level 41s and 42s.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The bird was only level 37 but it was way more powerful than the normal monsters around where we were.

It most likely came down from the mountain for a meal and locked onto us. Or it was trying to steal the panther's body from us, I wasn't sure. The end result was clear.

The flying creature revealed yet another deficiency in my repertoire that I would need to fix. I had no way to hit the creature. My hammer was too slow to catch up to its body when it attacked and my ice wasn't fast enough to catch up to it.

The bird had free reign to attack me without me being able to do anything about it. I tried dumping a massive amount of mana in [Hail] when it was close but the eagle just flapped its wings a few times and it was able to blow the ice chunks away before leaving the area of the skill.

I could have created an [Ice Fortress(Un)] around me to protect myself but that made it target Austin while I was encased in ice. Austin was the only one who had done any damage by that point, so I dismissed the skill to get its attention back.

I mostly had to watch as wind and light beams met and canceled each other out or blew off course. I constantly used my ice to try to hinder or snare the bird but it was just too fast.

Its talons were wicked sharp and even with my new boost to fortitude, it penetrated skin and drew blood. The wounds weren't deep and were nowhere close to fatal, but it was annoying to have my new power brought low so soon after I got it. The eagle was using some kind of skill to be able to do it but I wasn't sure how.

I was still riding the confidence boost from an over 100-point increase to the stat and nothing we had fought so far today had bested it, until the eagle.

Given that the eagle was both fast and able to damage me, it wasn't very durable. Beasts usually focused on one or two aspects of power and it couldn't have been all three at its level.

It was either fast and strong, but not durable. Strong and durable, but not fast. Or fast and durable, but not strong. To be powerful enough to beat out other monsters it needed to focus on which way it needed to specialize.

Still, getting carved up by an oversized chicken didn't feel good. My armor of both metal and ice was cut through after the first few attacks before more started landing on my body.

[Fortified Body(C)] did little to help against the razor-sharp talons and wind blades carved through what was left.

I tried sending in more mana into the skill but it wasn't what upgraded it. It was the intent behind what I wanted the skill to become. I wanted to make my body stronger, to reinforce it with enough mana that the talons wouldn't be able to cut me anymore. Making my body unrelenting.

Mana and willpower combined to form my upgraded skill. [Reinforced Body(Un)] worked similarly to [Fortified Body(C)] with a few small changes. It worked to strengthen my body further than what [Fortified Body(C)] did and it did it in different ways.

It increased the lowest threshold needed to pierce my skin and added against piercing and slashing attacks. I wasn't sure how it would deal with blunt attacks but my ice armor was well-suited to deal with those.

I could feel it reach a deeper level than the Common skill I used to have but it also had the downside of requiring more mana to keep active. With my wisdom stat orders of magnitude higher than when it started, it wasn't that big of a deal.

The new skill also had an empowered version I could use when I needed it that worked similarly to using a Law. It ran on willpower and that wasn't an infinite resource either.

I wasn't sure how much of it I had or what other skills required it, but this was the first time that I felt it drain.

I had felt similar things when I pushed my body too hard or in the heat of the moment when I needed more than my body could give, so I related it to my spirit.

The store had information about it but I couldn't recall the specifics behind how it worked. Abigail would know so I could ask her when I got back. She would berate me for not paying attention in the first place but would still end up telling me.

With the skill upgrade, the talons barely did any damage and after a few lucky hits from Austin's skills, the eagle slowed enough for me to catch it. I spent most of the fight throwing javelins made of ice and launching [Ice Arrows(Un)] and after it slowed down from injury, a few [Ice Arrows(Un)] were enough to ground it. It didn't last long after that. It was not made for ground combat.

Austin and I were sitting in the blood-soaked grass trying to get our breathing under control from the hard battle. The eagle was dead next to us and it looked like the area we were in was hit with a hurricane. Trees were torn asunder and blown over from the wind the eagle produced and concentrated burn marks indicated missed light beams from Austin. We made no move to start harvesting it yet.

"That was the last," I said out loud for him to hear.

"Yeah, we need to go get healed up," Austin answered while looking himself over.

"No. That was the last." I said firmer.

It took a moment for it to click, but he got it. I had allowed him to vent for long enough, it was over. That last battle wasn't something we should have gone into without any preparation, or at least without a plan.

Stupidity and overconfidence were killers that we couldn't ignore. We were both confident from our fights with the waves and thought that nothing near our level could hurt us and we were wrong. Beasts had skills that we still had to be wary of. Like the talons the eagle had. With my high fortitude, I thought nothing would hurt me. It seemed the eagle had skills designed for piercing armor and negating high fortitude.

The eagle ran circles around me and I could do nothing about it. Austin himself barely had the speed to keep up.

It also flew which made most of our attacks useless since we couldn't get close enough to land them. My hammer was taken out of play almost entirely.

"We were getting good experience, look at how fast we gained levels." He tried to make excuses and reasonings for continuing.

I just gave him a weighted stare. While we did gain a few quick levels, it wasn't worth the danger.

He knew what we were doing was dangerous and if either of us died, our family would soon follow. They didn't have the strength necessary to fight off the waves without us.

It was a risk that we couldn't take and he knew that. He just didn't want to see it. The only reason I allowed to get this far was because the eagle was a surprise.

*Sigh* "I know. You're right, let's go back." He finally caved under my gaze.

This would be the end of it. He would have to find other outlets for dealing with everything.

"I know that you feel stifled and want to go explore, but our family needs us. After this is all over you can go wherever you want, I'll take care of them." I said to try and cheer him up.

I wasn't stupid. I knew how he felt. How he wanted to go see all the new things that the changes would bring and venture into the unknown. He had an explorer's heart and this new system made that possible. He constantly had to restrain himself and cull that urge inside of him.

Everything on earth was mostly explored beforehand and there wasn't a need for explorers anymore but the system changed that.

The whole planet would be different and we would have to re-explore it in all its glory. We had talked about his fantasies often. It was what he was looking forward to most when we got back.

I had made my decision about what I was going to do by now and Austin would be free to do what he wanted. I would set up a seat of power to keep my family as safe as I could which would leave him free to do as he wished.

"It's fine. I don't need to. I can stay and help protect them." He tried to deflect but I knew that wasn't how he really felt.

I didn't say anything in response, he would either go or he wouldn't. That was a decision he would have to make for himself. He was a good man and I knew that the choice was eating at him.

He had to choose between following his heart and doing what was right for his family. It was a choice I didn't envy. I would do what I could to convince him that I could deal with his absence, but the choice was ultimately his.

After the tutorial was over and we made it back to earth, he would have to choose.

I knew what he was going to do even if he didn't.