Not having his goals set on anything specific, Owen spent the next several days helping out at the clinic building that Audrey had purchased to be their headquarters. Myra was pushing to level 30, trying to find any straggler monsters that might be hiding somewhere in the city. He spent large portions of time healing people with pursuit of change and most of the rest of his time was spent grinding out the rest of the free stats he could gain before level 30.

He was currently sitting in Peggy and Myra's apartment, after they had both already left to go about their day, either at the clinic or training. He was planning on attempting a meditating spree as he had finally decided to put all of the free stats into mana. It took to much to level up otherwise and he was trying to have his mana stat reach fifty as quickly as possible. Both of his Polymath skills supposedly had special effects that would be unlocked when his mana reserves were enough.

He was floating in his core space looking carefully to watch for his mana fluctuations. It was interesting as he controlled his breathing, the energy of his core gradually began to spin and the energy rushed through his body as if a dam had broken. He carefully tried to watch the energy seep through his entire body and in amazement saw a constellation form in the center of his body branching out through every extremity. He was pretty sure these would be called meridians as each of the different pathways glowed a green hue as the energy raced through it.

The energy coursing through him slowly began to feel tiring, but Owen didn't take it as a sign to stop his meditation yet. He tried to get as close to one of the pathways as possible and watching smaller amounts of energy raced through them. While nothing about his meridians were interesting by themselves after having stared at them for a while, he realized he was right about calling the pathways in his body a constellation.

Each pathway was connected to what looked like a star, they were dim and didn't stand out much on their own, but as he forced more energy through his body again, the star seemed to pulse with energy for less than a moment, before the energy passed the star and flowed into the next meridian. He was sure there was something he was supposed to do about the stars, but still didn't feel like he had a firm grasp. He tried circulation his energy and focus it into one of the stars in his hand, but after several seconds with no response, he sat back disappointed. He thought he had really found something, but at least for now, there wasn't anything he could do about it.

Opening his eyes, he was surprised that the lights had been turned off on him, unsure as to why, he started going about his day normally and began making himself lunch. He had just spent a couple hours inside his own head, so hopefully that meant either one or both of the girls had returned. He started making himself some food and started to plan out the rest of his day.

He needed to go help out at the clinic again and then go meet with Officer Adams. His goal was to trying and make it so that he and his friends had whatever clearance was needed to get past the guards blocking gates in the future. Part of their issue had been that they were limited in the gates they could choose making it so that most of the gates cleared were on the outskirts of the city.

He also needed to go and have a talk with the army recruiter that had started creating trouble for them ever since the first day of the clinic being open. He knew he didn't necessarily need to be the one talking to them, but Myra had taken charge of the guild and meeting with Audrey on occasion. Peggy was in charge of the clinic itself for now, leaving Owen to follow both of their leads. He didn't mind the idea, but at the same time he wanted to help out as best as possible, so if that meant talking to some government people, he would take care of it.

"Ah, you're finally awake." Myra's voice called out to him. Owen looked up from his phone surprised. "I'm surprised I didn't hear you come back, did Peggy come back as well?" Myra gave him a weird look and nodded before looking at his slices of peanut butter toast. "Go ahead, it's your food anyways." Owen said smiling. Grabbing one of the slices, Myra said her thanks before eating all of it in almost one bite. "So, what are your plans for tomorrow?" This time it was Owen's turn to look confused and he looked down at his phone again and realized that the time wasn't 3pm rather it was 3am.

"I was stuck in my head all day? Why didn't you guys wake me up?" Owen said shocked. Myra shrugged, "Neither of us came back until a couples hours ago, we spent some time looking for you earlier, but we eventually figured out you hadn't shown up anywhere today and when we got here you were still meditating." A whole day was gone in what had felt like only a couples hours, "I guess I might need to be more careful then." Owen said in a softer tone and Myra again nodded before snatching another piece of toast.

"So, what are you planning on getting up to tomorrow?" Myra asked again and Owen told her about what his plan for the day had been. "I think it's a good idea to try and get us passes somehow, but I think you'd need something like that from the military rather than some policeman. This city is already in shambles as it stands, I don't think some pass would help all that much." Owen knew what she meant, during the first break they had lost large portions of the population do to the suddenness of the break and the lack of preparation.

They had lost less people during the second break, but there was more widespread damage to the city as a result of the stronger monsters. "I know, but I don't want to act separately in case someone gets upset and tries to take us down or something." Owen said. Myra started laughing, but stopped just as quickly. "I honestly hadn't thought you were serious but the look on your face tells me you are. I don't think you understand how strong we are in both influence and actual power right now." Myra said staring at him flatly.

"Right now, Peggy is being considered as a saint practically, with you not too far behind since you also have a healing skill now. The fact we aren't charging as well right now has made it so that people absolutely love us and Lucas has been going around like an idiot bragging about how his team saved the city. People know how strong we are and also love us, while that doesn't make us invincible, it does gives us influence.

In actual power, you and I are about the same in strength and I'm level 29 right now. We got a notification saying only a couple people are level thirty. We are some of the strongest people on earth right now."

Owen had to give himself several seconds to process her words, he knew she was right at least to an extent. They were strong, but he was worried about them treating them as monsters themselves if they were to forceful with their power, regardless of who the people liked. The idea made him uncomfortable to think about, but that was just the way the world tended to work. The government wasn't just going to hand actually power or cities to people who were strong. They would wait at least until the person was strong enough to destroy the government by themselves.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

He explained his thoughts to Myra who seemed to take them into consideration. "I understand your worries, but right now the treatment of the gates was a major fuck up by them. Right now they need strong people on their side and they will want us to comply before anything else. In fact they will probably try to hire each of us before long. They will want to try and be friends with us and control that relationship to an extent, but it will only be after we are obstinate that we will have to actually worry about backlash."

He wasn't sure he agreed with her level of certainty, but he did think she was right at least partially. He was still going to go and meet with the army recruiter the next day and see if he could schedule a meeting with their superior, but until then, they would try and focus on rebuilding the city.

The next day he was able to schedule the meeting with the recruiter, who seemed more than a little annoyed that his boss had agreed to a meeting. Owen had walked around helping out where ever he could for the rest of the day, he was anxious that his team were going to fall behind in strength as they still hadn't gone to any tier 3 gates, but looking at most of the people they had saved, the highest levels he saw were some people sitting around level 9 or 10. They had already began to run out of people that needed healing and his support change to helping clear out the rubble of some buildings and trying to see if anyone was still inside.

It hadn't felt like much time had passed, but some of the people they saved had slowly begun walking up to his friends or him asking for jobs. They didn't have money to pay anyone yet, but most signed up as members of the guild anyways. They hadn't talked much about the guild yet as most of the conversations were about how to make it succeed, but as it was now a system guild, they got more out of it than they had thought they might. That morning, Myra had showed them she had gotten a quest sometime after she had gone to sleep.

*Your Guild is building influence and power. Have more than 50% of the city ally with your guild to establish it as your property. Reward - Upgraded Guild System.*

They had all been surprised by the quest, but it had changed how the meeting with the recruiter had gone, allowing them to set up a meeting with his superior. The goal each of them had now was to try and let as many people as wanted to, join their guild. It had sent them into a fervor as Owen, Lucas, and Myra had set off with separate groups of people to clear more of the rubble and try to have more people join. It seemed as well that many of the people that had joined closer to the beginning received something called a class quest.

Several more days passed, as they cleaned up the city and Owen prepared for two separate meetings that would determine the rest of his life from now. One was with a sergeant first class of the military and the other was with a goddess he had met almost 10 days ago. A car came to pick him up from the clinic the day he was to meet with the Sergeant and drove him to an army base more than a couple hours away. He and the driver had tried to make small talk, but after the first hour of what seemed like the driver prying for information, Owen remained silent for the rest of the drive.

He was led through the base without much fanfare, reaching a waiting room. He ended up waiting for almost an hour in the waiting room and already Owen didn't think very highly of the sergeant if that was how he wanted to begin their "Friendship". The sergeant ended up being a short pudgy man with a shaved head and no facial hair. Already being in a bad mood, Owen immediately thought the man looked like a thumb. The sergeant smiled and held out his hand for a handshake and Owen hesitantly shook his hand back. The man was strong, very strong and he began to try and crush Owen's hand, but the problem was the man was only strong for someone before the system.

Trying his best not to break the sergeant's hand, Owen squeezed back, causing the smiling thumb man's eyes to bulge out of his head in surprise. He began desperately trying to release the hold and after an extra second, Owen released the hand. "It is great to meet you Sergeant, thank you for your service, even if is has been lacking the past several weeks." Owen said, following the plan Myra had told him to follow. It made his insides squirm as he pretended to be some badass, but he forced himself to play the role. The sergeant's expression seemed to darken and the soldiers in the room, moved in a half step closer to where Owen was sitting.

"Well, with how hectic it has been the past several days, I'm sure you realize how busy the whole world has been." The Sergeant said as he sat down rubbing the back of his bruised hand. "I suppose I got ahead of myself and forgot introductions. I am Sergeant Lincoln. You are Owen Cain, is that correct?" Owen immediately felt uncomfortable that they knew his full name, but he wasn't surprised. "And your associates are Myra and Peggy Dayton." Sergeant Lincoln didn't say it as a question, but Owen nodded hesitantly.

"Well, we thank you for getting our city Rochester back in order, we will send several squads in the help reestablish order and we are even willing to promote you three to officer positions if we determine your cooperation was excellent." Owen just stared blankly at the sergeant for several seconds before he couldn't hold himself back anymore. He had secretly used keen eye on the man while he had been speaking and realized that he was only level 5. Each of the soldiers in the room were also barely above level ten.

"I don't think so," Owen started and he could already see the rage building in the man's eyes, but focusing in on the role Myra gave him, he shared the quest Myra had completed the day before. They had thankfully found out that Owen also could gain the quest as the Vice guild leader, so they decided he would keep the position until he made it back into town. Sharing the quest completed screen with the Sergeant was a gamble, either he would take it in stride or he would see it as an attack. Owen already could seen the anger began to boil over as the man's face began to turn red. Owen forced his own expression to stay a friendly neutral.

"So, you think you can just start conquering portions of the united states without there being any backlash?" Sergeant Lincoln roared. Owen sighed but prepared for a fight, however the man didn't leave his chair and the soldiers didn't move as a phone call came in right as it looked like the sergeant was going to try and strangle Owen. The sergeant looked like he barely managed to contain his rage as he picked up the phone. "What can I do for you Sergeant Major? You want to meet with him? He took a city of ours!" He continued to talk with his boss on the phone as Owen sat in wait, half ready to fight his way out. Eventually the Sergeant hung up the phone and stared daggers at Owen.

"The Sergeant Major would like to have a conversation with you and your associates at your soonest convenience." Sergeant Lincoln said through gritted teeth. Owen just smiled and nodded, he was relieved that it seemed like Myra had been right, as long as he had shown sufficient power, but didn't act hastily, they wouldn't immediately attack him.

She and Peggy and had dozens of people spam messaging the Sergeant Major's social media accounts saying that they had been awarded ownership of Rochester through the system and that someone from there team was going to be meeting with a member of their organization at 3pm that day. Owen was relieved that it had gone smoothly, but still felt like he had been through enough stress to last a lifetime. The last thing he wanted was to live in the US and have their government be a hostile enemy.

He was driven home by the same driver that had brought him there, though this time, none of the questions asked were trying to pry information from him. When he made it back he quickly told Myra and Peggy how the meeting had gone and the perfect timing the phone call had been. Myra seemed frustrated that the meeting had been tense the entire time, but did seem relieved that they had managed to schedule a meeting with someone who had real sway over the military and could grant them the permissions they needed.

All that was left before the tier 3 gate now was a meeting with a goddess.