My trip home was uneventful which gave me time to look over all of the notifications from the previous day.

The number of points for conquering the fallen pylon wasn't small and all of the monsters that we had to fight to do that added up. I skipped over the two levels I received but that was only part of the reward.

The beasts themselves were walking bags of points. There were almost 500 of the things surrounding the pylon. We fought half just getting to the center and the other half because of the wolf's howl.

500 monsters all over level 30 was a huge windfall of points and was exactly the reason we did it in the first place. With everything that had happened afterward, I almost forgot the reason we left in the first place.

We were trying to gain enough points for a bloodline.

Over the entire tutorial, I earned just over 300,000 points so far. Conquering the pylon nearly doubled that.

We didn't kill the entirety of the monsters, as some ran away, but others were over level 30 and gave extra points to make up for it. Both Austin and I earned over 200,000 points each.

A hefty prize and one that was greatly needed. It was like rain during a long drought and made the points category on my status sheet swell.

Following the many notifications of defeating beasts, came ones for the raiders.

50 humans. I had killed 50 humans. There were more than 100 notifications total but with the mixture of humans and beasts, only 50 turned out to be people.

All added together gave another 50,000 points. The humans didn't give any extra points other than the normal amount for their level. It seemed like all of their points resided with the one controlling them.

Hearing that they were 'thralls' and not normal people helped me mentally but I hadn't thought I would add to that number so soon. I knew that the bandits wouldn't be the last nor would the people I just killed.

I just hadn't thought the number would grow so quickly.

The fact I was ok with that and not more upset concerned me. I felt justified in my response, as I should be, but it was still 50 lives I reaped. A part of me thought I should be more torn up about it.

I wasn't.

They raised up arms against my family, and for that, they deserved death. It was unfortunate that they couldn't be saved from their predicament, but it mattered little. Tracy had said undoing the mental compulsion was impossible and I knew nothing to disprove that.

It most likely was possible, just not something we could do with our current amount of strength. It didn't matter in the long run though, it wasn't something I would worry about now. I had bigger fish to fry. The best thing I could do for them was give them a swift end.

It was the only small mercy I could give them.

In the grand scheme of things, I hadn't expected to get over killing people so quickly. It must have been the constant death I had been drowning in hastening the process. There was a chance of death every time I picked up my hammer and if it was me who lived, it was someone else who died. Death had to claim one of us.

Death would be claiming a lot more soon.

My retribution wasn't complete. I had 9 pylons to work my way through and I wouldn't be using words.

Tracy had given me a map of all the pylons the 'Mindbreaker' owned and I had come up with a plan of action.

The wave in a few hours wouldn't be the only fighting I would do today.

When I returned home, I was bombarded with questions. Everyone wanted to know what I had found out and it took a while to inform everyone of the information I had learned.

I kept the last thing Tracy said to myself though. Now wasn't the time for that conversation.

To say my family was shocked was an understatement. Some couldn't believe that a person would do something like this. They had noticed during the battle that the raiders were acting weird and the strangeness about them, something I had missed, but they didn't suspect mind control was the reason.

I was too busy killing them to notice anything odd about them.

The ability to do that came as a surprise to all. We would all have to reevaluate the possible things we could face. We didn't have the pylon level required to buy mental defense skills yet but I would soon change that.

That was the first thing that I needed to fix. Running into a fight ill-prepared was just asking to die. I was confident in my strength of arms but a mental attack was new ground.

I wanted to be as prepared as I could be.

The 24th wave wouldn't deliver anything new to worry about and with my new skill, I was as ready as I could be. My armor still had nicks in it from the fight with the wolf but it would be fine for the battle ahead.

Austin hadn't spent the rest of the day running around the wilderness and had time to heal up completely. He even got the hole in his armor repaired while I was away.

Everything was already set up and the only thing left to do was wait. I got back just before sunrise and could have spent a few hours in the forge, but I didn't.

I needed all the rest I could get and took the scant few hours before the wave to do so. I even put off interrogating Austin about his skill for later, even though I really wanted to.

The only thing I did before going to sleep was use [Permafrost(Un)] in front of the gate I would be fighting at. Some of the effects would melt away but empowering it with my Law mitigated most of that.

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Some of it would still be there by the time the wave spawned in and would be one less thing I had to spend mana on. I had used mostly physical strength during my trip and my mana was mostly full by the time I got back which let me use some now since I didn't have to recover it.

After dumping a decent amount of mana into the skill, I went to sleep. I used just enough mana so that it would regenerate to full before noon.

Austin woke me up an hour before the wave so I could get ready. It gave me time to do some quick repairs on my armor before putting it on.

The 24th wave went swiftly, and if I was being honest, a bit anti-climactic. After fighting the pseudo dungeon and the would-be raiders, I expected more. Anticlimactic was good though and the mutated reptile things the wave spawned went down easily.

They had sharp claws and teeth they used to attack and had little in the way of magic. They relied almost entirely on their body.

The boss gave a few good licks but all told, it went without issue. Some damage to the camp and light injuries to a few people, but mostly fine in terms of heavy damage.

The wave earned me another 40,000 points. Every wave increased its bounty along with its difficulty.

After the normal wave came the pylon upgrade. We faced both back to back so I could keep my full power boost from [Momentum of the Avalanche(R)].

I spent a few minutes in the woods extending the duration so people could heal and recover, but we faced the second wave within an hour of the first.

Seeing how much we were missing out on by not upgrading our pylon convinced us to change that. The things that became available and the upgrades it unlocked were worth fighting another wave.

I hadn't asked Tracy what the upgrade entailed but if they could do it, we could do it. I had extreme confidence in our ability. We were strong, I could feel it.

Seeing what constituted a strong camp gave me something to compare against. While their camp had stronger fortifications, we had stronger people. I felt that we were better where it mattered.

The pylon upgrade to the large town level went the same as the wave before it. Most of everyone in the camp had passed level 35 which made us more than prepared to face the attack.

The upgrade spawned a humanoid insect monster that [Identify] called a Skirn. The things were hideous and looked like the bastard child of an ant and a human.

Their skin was covered in patches of chitin and instead of mouths, they had mandibles. They didn't wear clothes or use weapons, relying on the natural weapons from their exoskeleton. They didn't even bleed normal blood.

We dealt with the upgrade easier than the wave before it. Our keep grew in both size and height, its walls thickened and turned more castle-like with every upgrade.

I also received another 25,000 points. I killed less of them personally than during normal waves and split points with more of my family. The monsters were easier to kill which made everyone contribute more and spread the points around.

All of it added together, I earned north of 315,000 points in two days.

The mental defense skill I had to buy put a dent in that total though, running me 25 large ones. It effectively wiped out my gain from the upgrade.

It was my second skill at such a price and the next one was even higher. I didn't see myself getting another. Paying 125,000 for a skill didn't seem worth it.

Especially when there were other things worthy of spending points on.

Bloodlines specifically. The cheapest rang up at just over 7 digits and a costly skill would put a dent in my savings.

The skill available for purchase, and the one I got, was called [Mental Walls].

Mental Walls(Common) – Using mana and mental power, strengthen your mind against foreign intrusion. Increases mental defense against mental manipulation and most psionic-based abilities.

It worked to eliminate the possibility of being mind-controlled, a rising fear of mine in the past day. Being only a common skill was worrying but mental manipulation required a substantial difference in power.

A common defense skill could hold up against a rare attacking skill with enough willpower and strong enough spirit, or so the information we bought about it said.

After Abigail learned about the threat, she bought all of the information she could about mental abilities and anything remotely psionic-related. We were more prepared against it than any other affinity.

After getting the skill, I attempted to upgrade it the same way I had with [Ice Wall(C)]. Attempting to make it more substantial and more fortress-like, but it didn't result in anything.

I had only just gotten the skill and knew too little about how it worked. It would have to be something I worked on in the coming days.

Just because my skill wouldn't upgrade didn't mean that I would sit around and do nothing. I was given the location of my target, and it was time for payback.

Fighting both waves had drained me, but not enough to forget about that. [Meditation(C)] worked in overdrive to see me recovered enough to do what I needed.

I had offered to bring some of the stronger people in camp along, like Rachel and Hal, but they had declined. They said they were needed here in case of another attack. I had a sneaking suspicion that they took killing people less well than I had and weren't looking to do it again.

After the shock of the attack wore off, people had to face what they had done. For most, it was the first time they had killed a person. Only Austin and I had done it before with the bandits.

That was fine. Austin and I were enough. He was just as mad as I was and was itching for some payback.

The only reason he hadn't joined me on my chase was the injury he got fighting the wolf. He hadn't joined the defense at 100% and stayed to recover while I ran off.

He was in a good enough state now and we would be enough on our own. After being told about our attackers, I asked Tracy for all the information they had.

They had a lot of information.

They had an estimated troop count of both total amount and by pylon. They had strength estimates, camp defenses, and pylon upgrades purchased. It was scary how much they knew.

Of the nine pylons, only one was invested in heavily. It seemed like the capital of all of them and was the most defensible. We would save it for last.

It was also where the man responsible was no doubt staying. I guessed he had holed up in his castle at the edge of the tutorial area and was attempting to rebuild his army.

The more time he had to do that the harder he would be to fight.

The strongest of the nine pylons sat in the northeastern corner of the tutorial area and was the farthest away from our camp. The nine pylons he owned spread from the corner down both the eastern and northern borders.

The one Austin and I were headed toward was the closest to us and furthest west along the northern border. Based on the information I was given only around 100 defenders held the pylon and the walls weren't even stone.

How they survived the waves was a mystery. I had a feeling that the roaming monsters that were out in the forest returned during the waves. If that was the case we would be facing more than the estimated 100.

That was fine. Numbers didn't scare me.

The only thing we had to be wary of was the hand-built siege weapons. The pylon not being high enough for the store-bought kind, they had built catapults and trebuchets from scratch.

They wouldn't have the magical enhancements from the store but they would still hurt to get hit with. I wasn't sure how deadly they would be until I saw them for myself.

I wasn't worried about Austin. If his speedy ass got hit with the slow-moving projectiles something went horribly wrong. If he could dodge a level 46 wolf boss, he could dodge some flying rocks.

I, on the other hand, had a lot more stationary fighting style. I still moved during battle, but not as quickly as him. I doubted I would be hit, but it wasn't a possibility I could ignore.

A part of me even wanted to see if I could tank one, just to see if I could.

We would see when the time came. The pylon wasn't far away and would only take us a few hours to reach.

A few hours and I would pay the man responsible for attacking my family back.

It would be the first of nine.