Yom looked to the goblin that cowered behind their red curtain. It would be easy enough to murder her here, but it provided no benefit to him. A handful of Ferrous clan stood behind him, but they were all jobbies and none of them had a Constitution yet. Still, just the reputation of his clan was enough for a monster to quiver.

"I heard you know something about a leaf monster that fought through here." The goblin nodded, but didn't elaborate so he channeled his inner Ferra. "Out with it."

The snap in his voice didn't have the same effect as his Progenitor but it was enough for this. The goblin stammered over herself trying to respond. "I-I-I didn't see anything. Much! I didn't see much! That leaf monster was chasing one of yours and then one of the dockies tore it in half."

It hadn't been one of theirs, just some monster that looked like a Iron Ferret, but Yom didn't correct her. "What did the dockie look like?"

"U-um... Big! Definitely a classer. Blue goblin. Its arms swelled to a giant size as it tore apart the Myshkin."

A blue goblin? There had been a clan of blue goblins several seasons ago, but what little influence they'd had disappeared. Probably pissed off another one of the Ground clans. Regardless, it was a lead.

"Congratulations. You get to live." Yom booted the goblin back into her house before turning to his other clanmates. "Let's head to the docks and try to get this wrapped up before the attack."

****

Since Elizabeth had drifted off to go loot the buildings, Gi walked over to the blue crystal at the center of the encampment. It stuck out against the red rock that made up the bricked floor and buildings, but it wasn't garishly so. Instead, it brightened the red marble-like material to a fetching lilac that blended smoothly to the deep reds of the encampment.

Tentatively, Gi placed his paw against the crystal.

Encampment

Primary Compound:

Control (Houses 10)

Supporting Buildings

Farm

Quarters x4

Current Population: 0

Would you like to claim the Control as your residence?

"Yes?" He didn't really see any reason not to. Nothing was going to prevent him from sleeping in the Underbridge if need be. After agreeing, there wasn't any grand displays of power like before, but another prompt did interrupt his view.

Foundational Territory Task complete!

100 Soul Orbs rewarded. Current Soul Orbs: 209.

Odd. He received 100 Soul Orbs for completing both tasks. Would that continue to be his reward for the rest of the tasks? He pulled them up just to reference them.

Tasks:

Foundational Event - Find and survive a Unique opportunity (Complete)

Foundational Belief - Expand your Focus into a Belief

Foundational Strength - Defeat your hated rival

Foundational Territory - Found a Home (Complete)

Power - Complete a Dungeon run.

He still had no clue how to complete any of the others barring the Power task. Assuming it was like before, he'd need to find a portal to the Dungeon Stream. He turned his attention back to the Encampment menu, but there wasn't much that he could do with it currently.

However, there was a new tab in it.

Residence Menu:

No Body or Heart Orbs.

Use Soul Orbs to increase Stats?

Felix had mentioned that a hundred Soul Orbs could boost his stats. Gi had assumed it work just like the Child Stage and hadn't given it much thought since he didn't have a hundred Soul Orbs at the time. Gi took out his notebook and started writing. Taking notes about his Constitution and progressing stats, he barely registered how well the notebook held up. It would probably work just as well underwater. After stowing his notebook back in his robe, he affirmed his desire to use the Soul Orbs.

Current Soul Orbs: 209

Choose a stat to increase.

Stats

Strength - F+ (N/A)

Agility - D (0/1000)

Vitality - E (N/A)

Wisdom - D (0/1000)

Gi willed a hundred Soul Orbs into Wisdom. It was his main attacking stat, so he knew it wouldn't be a waste no matter what. Unlike the Child Stage where using a Body Orb came with almost no sensation, this one caused the tiniest spark of pain that spread out along his entire body. It itched more than anything else.

You have leveled up!

Current Soul Orbs: 109

Choose a stat to increase.

Stats

Strength - F+ (N/A)

Agility - D (0/1000)

Vitality - E (N/A)

Wisdom - D1 (100/1000)

He'd forgotten levels were a thing. Felix had mentioned it and he also mentioned that he got some sort of benefit every five levels if he recalled correctly. Gi opened his notebook and jotted a few more items down. He really wished he'd had this since starting the Adolescent Stage.

Gi slotted another hundred Soul Orbs into Wisdom and increased himself another level. It looked like he wouldn't be able to increase his other stats unless he got to the cap which he'd need to find some Body Orbs for he assumed.

As Gi had explored the Encampment Menu, Elizabeth stepped back out of the buildings.

"Did you find anything?" He asked.

"I'm satisfied." Without further explanation, she left towards the edge of the encampment, grabbing her giant net of kills as she did. He shook his head until he realized that if he didn't follow her he'd have to make his way back alone through the Pike infested lake.

"Good talk...," he muttered before chasing after her and diving into the lake. The dome around his new encampment wasn't huge and Gi tried to memorize the way back as best he could. Elizabeth didn't seem bothered as he caught up to her, peacefully making her way towards the surface.

Killing their Progenitor must have wreaked havoc on the Dragon Pikes as they didn't hit any resistance on the way up. They broke the surface and Elizabeth tossed him four coppers before heading off towards Grung.

Gi ducked into his house, but Poe wasn't back yet so he decided to see if there was any more information on the attack that they had been prepping for. He activated [Concealing Light], moving out from under the bridge as he did so. His injured leg and back felt stiff from his battle with the progenitor, but upgrading his Constitution had made it bearable. Despite being a ranged fighter, it felt like he was constantly getting the shit kicked out of him. He really needed to get his Vitality to the stat cap.

As he got closer to the mountain, he could see the strange contraptions that the minotaurs had set up yesterday. Now though, they had over a hundred monsters behind those giant metal jacks. Unlike the city population which was about half goblin, the monsters assembled where were a cornucopia of different races from undead to lions to werebeasts and even more were streaming down from the mountain to join the fight in the one space. Whatever was happening, it was clearly set to happen soon.

From the size of the monsters, most of them were jobbies like himself. Though, he was sure that maybe one in ten were classers. Near the entrance to the Underbridge, Jalx was stationed beside a couple dozen of other blue goblins that Gi hadn't met. Were these the remnants of his clan? Jalx seemed nervous, but not about the battle. His head swiveled, looking through the crowd and back into the Underbridge.

Since Jalx was close to the edge, Gi dropped [Concealing Light] and headed over. On one of his checks, Jalx spotted him on the way over and called out. " Have you seen Hazz?"

Gi wasn't the best with names, but he was pretty sure that was the cute yet creepy kid with the iron teeth. Gi shook his head as he finished walking up.

"Eh," one of the other goblins said, "he wanders off all the time. He'll be fine."

Jalx glared at the offending jobbie and he dropped into silence. Obviously, Jalx thought that opinion during the pending attack was asinine. Gi took the silence to ask a question.

"Are we expecting to be attacked soon?"

Jalx didn't answer, but the talkative jobbie spoke up. "Probably tonight. Myshk only ever attacks at night. Your first battle?"

This goblin spoke quickly, but had a friendly demeanor and easy-going smile. Both seemed like a rarity from the monsters Gi had met so far. "Yeah, I'm not planning to fight at all to be honest. Seems like an unnecessary risk."

The jobbie laughed. "Oh you're one of those are you? I'd rather die than take the years required to progress without these large battles. It's the easiest way to nab Soul Orbs. Well, not easiest I guess, but quickest."

It sounded like this goblin was calling Gi a coward and that made his fur bristle, but he didn't yell at him. Was he right? Why wasn't he taking advantage of this opportunity? He was a ranged fighter who could escape into the lake if things got too crazy. Why wouldn't he get involved?

"Park," Jalx said, staring daggers at the easygoing goblin. "Go look for Hazz."

"But the Captain exp-"

"I don't care. This battle doesn't matter. He won't miss one goblin anyways."

The jobbie, Park, rolled his eyes. "Aye aye." He gave Gi a little wave and then ran off to search the Underbridge. Since Jalx clearly wasn't in a mood to talk, Gi headed back into the Underbridge and grabbed dinner for him and Poe from Grung then settled in to wait.

He didn't want to train as both his body and spirit felt strained from his earlier fight, but he didn't want to waste his time either. He took out his notepad and reviewed what he knew.

First, he could increase his stats below D by purchasing Body Orbs. That was a slight assumption from what he'd learned at the library, but it seemed safe. Second, he needed to get hundreds of Soul Orbs to progress his stats past D. Doing that would get him levels and upgrades.

Third was his new Constitution. It wasn't anywhere on his stats screen nor had his stats been impacted at all, but he could feel the difference in his Vitality alone. How did that work and were their any similar hidden ways he could improve himself?

That brought him to his fourth item - the Divine Reflection. When he'd asked Elizabeth if there were other ways to get strong, that is what she'd mentioned. It seemed to him that his new Constitution was either related to that or something similar to it since it was a hidden method.

His fifth item was something he'd been thinking about since Child Stage. Was there something he could do that would help Danna? The obvious answer seemed to be more followers, but after his disastrous attempt at [Persuasion] with Elizabeth, he wasn't confident on that path.

He laid back on his rope bed and laid the notebook on his chest. Rubbing his cheeks, he tried to calm his anxiety that had risen up from having too many things to do with little information. What he really needed was more clan members.

If he had more people he could trust, he could delegate gathering funds, get more than Poe getting information, and have someone to watch his back while he hunted. Having Elizabeth was nice, but she was such a mercenary that she took eighty percent of their earnings. It wasn't a big deal while he was learning but it wasn't sustainable.

Thinking about her made him realize that he also had his debt to her. She would kill him for it if needed. He had no doubt after watching her psychotic display against the school of Pikes protecting their Progenitor. Still despite having the silver for it, he was hesitant to pay the debt off. Having money was the best way to make more money after all. The money he'd gotten from the dungeon was the one true asset he had now so he didn't want to squander it.

At some point during his pondering, he fell asleep, only to be awoken by Poe a short time later. The two of them ate the Dragon Pike that he'd gotten from Grung and Poe jabbered away about what he'd discovered that day. Since it was essentially gossip, most of what Poe heard about was the attack tonight. Apparently, the army contributed the most monsters with struggling jobbies looking to advance whereas the twenty major clans all would have monsters there looking to gather orbs. From what Poe said, classers needed a ton of Soul Orbs as well.

Poe didn't have much information on the clans, but he'd have him gather some more on that and availability of Body Orbs after the attack. Once the two of them had eaten, they left to go wait near the exit of the Underbridge.

The army of monsters that had only been a few hundred a couple hours before had swelled to several thousand. Monsters were packed from shoulder to shoulder on the beach with even more hanging from the cliffs of the mountain. Flames lit up the fading night sky-ocean from giant braziers that lined the cliff face.

The stink and noise from so many monsters crammed into one space was almost overwhelming, but it couldn't drown out the deep thrum of drums that boomed from the forest across the river. With each second, the beating grew louder and the array of monsters grew quieter and quieter. Once the drums had reached a volume that made Gi cover his ears, it stopped.

A giant shadow in the shape of a vast tree towering over the forest stepped into view just outside of the range of light. At its appearance, an answering roar was heard from atop the mountain- a roar that could have only come from Queen Siht herself.

And at that moment, chaos.