Owen and his group all glanced around after seeing the castle in the distance. They were standing in a camp of what looked like a combination of the homeless and the forgotten. There were several well dressed knights in the mixed as well walking around and giving aid to those having the hardest time in the camp sight.

"Dear god! Where did you come from?" A man said to Owen. Owen looked at him and almost immediately brandished a weapon. The man had a slight greenish tinge to his skin, with large tusk jutting out of the sides of his mouth. He had intricate tattoo lines that reached from the tips of his fingers and snaked up both arms, across his back, up his neck, and finally meeting together creating a lifelike eye in the dead center of his forehead.

"You're an Orc." Owen said surprised, he had made it sound like a question, but he had said it more as a matter of fact. The man then looked back at him with a mock look of shock on his face, "And you're a human?" Owen could feels his ears burn pink, but he held himself back from saying anything stupid again. "Sorry, I just don't think I have met an orc before, my friends and I are new to this area and we are looking for work." Owen stumbled through the lie as the man glanced between each of his friends pausing when his eyes met Briar's

"Well, I have to say it's not often more unusual than that, though I'm surprised you haven't met an orc yet, must come from far away." The orc said as it began tying back its main of white hair. "I have to say you picked a bad time to come looking for work, the whole country is experiencing a civil war right now and the army is only a couple hours march from here. That's why we are camped way out here instead of next to or inside the castle walls. You'd best move on if work is what you're looking for, unless you plan on trying to join the war. Though that's a fools game." The orc said shaking his head.

"Most of the humans here call me Michael, so you can just call me that too. You can stick around as long as you don't cause any fights and keep to yourselves." Michael said. Owen thanked him and tried asking several more questions, but he began to feel unsettled as Michael seemed to pause for a moment before responding. "I have to say you picked a bad time to come looking for work, the whole country is experiencing a civil war right now and the army is only a couple hours march from here. That's why we are camped way out here instead of next to or inside the castle walls. You'd best move on if work is what you're looking for, unless you plan on trying to join the war. Though that's a fools game."

Owen stared at him blankly feeling confused, "You told me that already, I was asking if you know what caused the civil war." Michael stared at him and repeated himself a third time leaving Owen even more confused. Peggy walked up and patted Owen's arm. "Leave him be for now, let's just go over what we know." Owen agreed and moved to sit by his friends. It was weird the whole world seemed so realistic, but Michael's weird conversation made him feel like he was talking to an NPC. As he watched the others staying in the camp, he noticed more and more of them repeated odd habits as if he were standing inside of a video game world.

It didn't make sense, as he had seen highly detailed worlds from the system inside of the previous gates that seemed more life like than these people. Since there hadn't been any people in the others and only monsters, Owen chocked it up to being easier to make monsters, but he still mentioned his thoughts to his friends. Myra was already nodding as Owen began to list out the weird occurrences with the people in the campsite they had spawned inside. "Maybe the people actually involved with the quest will be more realistic, but I do have to agree these guys are weird." Myra said as she watched Michael repeat the same several movements throughout the camp looking like he was standing guard.

"So, is the plan to just join the civil war and try and lead them to victory?" Lucas asked seriously, bringing the conversation back to the topic at hand. "Yeah, I think that's going to be the easiest way to clear this gate quickly." Peggy nodded. They made idle conversation after that, coming up with random plans in case they wouldn't be allowed to join, but they soon heard the marching footsteps and got up to watch the approaching army.

Each soldier was decked out in gear that looked like it had been made out of scrap clothes found around a junkyard. Owen had been shocked at the lack of quality, though thinking about how the gate's quest was phrased, as well as how the normal folks in the campsite looked, it was starting to make more sense. The army continued marching towards the castle in the distance and as more and more soldiers passed the quality of the gear began to gradually increase. Going from essentially cloth rags to well padded leathers and then finally steel plating for those in the furthest back section of the marching army.

He had remembered thinking about the amount of horses he had thought an army would use, but as he looked on the marching army, it appeared like there were only three horses total instead of the hundreds Owen had expected to see. The three men riding horses were riding next to or behind the army and the quality of their gear rivaled the system given gear of Owen's team. The woman who looked to be leading the army was wearing a richly decorated armor set that covered most any possible exposed section which he couldn't help but marvel at.

There weren't any joints in the steel, but it seemed to bend with each of her movements anyways. Almost forgetting they were trying to join the battle, Owen ran up to those riding their horses and stood at attention, hoping it would help his first impression. "We want to help in overthrowing to royal family."

The woman looked down on him unimpressed, until a golden light flashed through her eyes and she opened them wide in shock. "Your strength is beyond impressive, I would love to have you on my team." The woman's voice sounded rich and left him with a warm feeling, but he pushed it aside as fast as the feeling had formed. He realized that she hadn't been talking to him, but was looking inquisitively at Myra.

Realizing it quickly, Myra stepped forward and gave an awkward bow. "Yes, my friend is right, we would all like to join." The woman nodded. "I am General Advika, if you wish to join, join those collected at the front and demonstrate your worth." She said simply and shooed them away. Their group hesitantly joined the troops, but it was only after joining the group in front that Owen realized that Peggy had stayed behind to talk more with the general. Owen was about to go run and grab her, but he saw a flash of power and realized Peggy was showing off her healing ability, which quickly had one of the others demounting and helping Peggy onto one of the horses.

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The march after that, felt like it lasted days as they moved at an even pace towards the castle at a decent pace. Not enough to tire anyone out, but enough to still make a decent time. Several hours passed as they moved towards the castle and Owen spent his time refilling mana and forcing the stars in his constellation full of mana. By the time they reached close enough to see detail on the castles walls, Owen had managed to imbue his entire right arm's stars. It had been becoming easier and he had even gained several more stat points in mana during the process.

*You have gained 4 stat points in your mana stat.*

Taking a quick look at his stats he grinned wide, he was only a few steps away from reaching 50 points in his mana stat, which is when supposedly he would unlock even more functionality with his skills. During the march, whenever his mana had been low he had focused on trying to unlock any other polymath skills. He hadn't realized the hard part was going to be knowing what counted as a class skill and could only be learned through levels versus skills that he could learn through effort.

He thought back to his conversation with Aesona and her description of skills. He knew the tutorial had made it easier to earn specific skills, but he was only beginning to realize just how much harder it was outside of the tutorial. He had practiced the movements of a sword martial artist youtube video and hoped that if he could mastery it he might unlock a sword mastery based skill but after several hours he felt like he was missing something. He focused for the rest of the march of trying out different weapon of those around him trying to get a feeling for each type, but he still couldn't tell what he was missing.

Before he knew it they had arrived close enough to the castle walls, that they could see those mounting a defense on op of the walls that stood over ten meters in the air. There were several sections of the wall that looked like it had pipes with the ends pointing towards possible attackers. All it took was one glance for Owen to feel uncomfortable at the sight, he had read and seen to many things from movies and books to know nothing good could come for those pipes.

The commander already seemed to know this as she had the army rally far enough away that they should be out of the danger anything on the wall might cause. Peggy jumped down off of the horse and moved towards their group with a wide smile on her face. "Welcome back traitor," Myra said teasingly. Peggy just shook her head amusedly before turning to the others. "They are about to have a meeting about how to tackle that wall, but I'm not sure if they can do it. I've been identifying everyone I've seen so far and I haven't seen anyone leveled higher than level 15." Peggy said with a worried looked on her face.

Owen glanced around using Keen eye on several of the other soldiers, but also used it on their leaders and grimaced. Even the strongest people he had seen weren't very high leveled, turning his attention to the wall, he used keen eye o one of the guards there and felt the color drain from his face. "Peggy, did you scan anyone on the wall yet?" Owen said trying to figure out what they were supposed to do. Peggy was quiet for a moment as she looked out at the wall and the others in their small group did the same.

*Human Level 34

Human Level 38

Human Level 31*

The three closest people standing on the wall were all over leveled compared to the small army they were apart of. Even General Advika was only level 25, which meant she would be good for a fight, but it would be a grind especially if all of the soldiers were of a similar level. Peggy's face had blanched and both Myra and Lucas looked like they were ready to call it quits. Owen could still see a glimmer of hope in Myra's eyes as she looked at him, but it was quickly masked behind a face of indifference. Focusing back on the task Owen tried his best to come up with a plan.

Hoping not to be immediately speared, he motioned for the others to follow him as they stormed the general's tent. As soon as they had entered, Owen already felt several blades against his neck, but he used every morsel of will power to fight back against his internal screaming. "How dare you enter without permission, if the situation weren't as bad as it is, I would've had you executed on the spot for your brazen behavior." General Advika fumed. Owen just nodded sagely until she stopped speaking before dramatically clearing his throat which got him a punch on his arm.

"The guards on top of the wall are levels 34, 38, and 31. I don't know if you guys already have an estimated number of enemies soldiers, but they are too strong for anything like a frontal assault." Owen started saying, but was quickly interrupted by Advika cursing. "They have levels in the thirties? Fuck, we might have to retreat." She began speaking with her two other subordinates and this time Myra sighed before she took a turn to interrupt. "I can take down there wall and my team and I can focus on the frontal assault, we would need a retinue of soldiers to watch our backs as Peggy is far to important to be left unprotected, though I do need her for my assault." She said staring into the general's eyes as if daring her to disagree.

"You must forgive my disbelief, but you are all severely under leveled for such an endeavor." Advika said scowling. Myra leaned back as if she were trying to establish herself as superior to the general and Owen quickly intervened before things could get ugly. "Just be ready, we will begin in the next hour." His team left the tent then, leaving the general with a mixture of disdain and hope in her eyes.

An hour later they were standing just barely out of range of the attacks flying towards them from the walls. Owen and Myra had begun prepping and began boosting themselves with their skills as Peggy buffed them with Pursuit of strength. He hadn't been buffed with it too many times before, but the rush of power combined with everything else made it feels like his arms were going to pop from the excess energy. He finally charged Piercing Heavens with mana and began rushing towards the wall. Lucas tailed behind him blocking all of the attacks heading their way.

As they approached the wall, Owen jumped higher than he had ever done before causing the ground to fracture from the strength behind it. He had launched himself at the wall with every ounce of strength he could muster and at the last second stabbed his spear into the wall. He had been hoping his strength would be enough to cause it to explode with power, but he was still satisfied when large spider webbing cracks ran across the walls face. He saw one of the soldiers on the wall begin to channel something and the cracks began to fill in ever so slowly and if Owen had been the only strong person on their team he would've been distraught.

A second figure crashed into the wall before all of the cracks could be filled and enormous sections of the wall were turned into earthen shrapnel. With the fall of the wall, louds cheers were heard across the battleground and the battle began to start in earnest as soldiers began pouring out of the inner city towards where Myra had destroyed the wall.

Owen not one to waste all of the bonus power he was experience charged into the battle and he and Myra began tearing through the hordes of enemies.