"Well fuck," Owen cursed, as both he and Myra quickly shot up out of their seats. They didn't waste anytime talking, as they both moved at breakneck speeds. While running, Owen pulled out one of the messenger constructs and contacted both Audrey and Mark. "I need both of you guys to meet with everyone in the guild building, in ten minutes." He heard affirmative answers from both of them before slowly down his run to a slight jog.

This had been one of the many things everyone had been worried about. They had been prepping for some guild to wage war or to need to fight back a series of gate breaks, but none of them had expected a bounty placed on their heads. "Shit, if only I had some powerful mentor that could give me advice and maybe even add in a tip that something like this could happen." Owen said under his breath. "He wasn't actually all that annoyed at Xerxes, but it was still aggravating that he had met with a goddess and had an extremely powerful mentor and despite both of those things, he could still be caught off guard."

He quickly sent messages to the military base, as well as Moxius, he didn't want to leave anyone out that could have an effect.

Only ten minutes later was everyone important gathered, except for Myra, who was meeting with several civilians who came knocking with questions. One benefit to being in charge of the guild, was dealing with people in general; Speeches, meetings with people, and well wishing. It was all very political in nature and Owen wasn't very keen on trying to do any of it himself. With Myra busy trying to calm down several of their visitors, the rest of them began their planning in earnest.

"We either need everyone to gather in one place, or give up now," Moxius urged. Kenneth glanced over and Owen could tell he was going to try and push aside the concern. "He's right," Peggy followed up. "Right now, we know who some of the highest leveled people are, thanks to that system forced meeting a couple weeks ago. There are people out there that are already more than double the highest leveled person here, and its not just one person that is that strong, but all thousands of them."

"A bounty of 15 million credits is almost all of the money we have used in the reconstruction process in the past couple weeks combined. Not only that, but we have to move further and further away to try and find enough gates to provide the finances we need to keep all of the defenses up and running. It isn't going to be a few people that come looking, it will be anyone that thinks it will be worth the risk." Peggy continued and everyone in the room had a grave look on their faces.

"The first step, is a better allocation of resources and the first step to that is by not having everyone subsidiary to us living more than an hours run away." Peggy said and Moxius nodded.

"My people and I can pack up and move over within a couple hours. Is there a location for us already?" He asked and this time, Owen answered. "I've got enough spare credits on me, that we can make some additional housing units. I can transfer the money to Audrey and have her take care of the rest."

He glanced over at Audrey who nodded and began jotting down a couple notes. Owen did another scan around the room and felt some of his worry slip away, though he was still concerned. Over the past couple weeks, they had had several plans to try and boost the general power or their force. One of those plans had included, prioritizing their management system and increasing everyone's base level to an acceptable level.

Glancing out at everyone present, he was surprised to see that all of them had finally reached past level 25, which meant their defense were that much better since a couple weeks ago.

*Kenneth Wright - Level 31

Moxius - Level 47

Audrey Bower - 26

Mark Adams - 26

Peggy Dayton - 51*

Everyone had grown in power, but he remembered the faces of those people he had been standing with during the informational event. Most had been in the seventies or higher and there was still that one guy, Malik, who had been more than 75 levels above his own.

Owen was well aware already that once you reached level 100, you could upgrade your class. Apparently it was possible earlier on, but you needed a combination of luck, skill, the system getting involved, and an incredible achievement. For someone like Owen, it might take him clearing a level ten gate by himself, without being hit. There were no guarantees though, so even with his combat resonance it wasn't worth the risk.

Still, most of their guild members were higher leveled than the average, so he hoped it would be enough to keep back most people hunting for their bounty. He turned his attention back to the conversation, just as Myra was able to join the meeting.

"I was just able to confirm it, everyone, regardless of being a part of the guild or not, got that message." Myra started as she sat down with an exhausted expression on her face.

*Myra Dayton - Level 54*

Owen hadn't scanned her during their date, but he was glad to see that despite either of their responsibilities, they both had managed to keep up with each other, as he had just reached the same level earlier that day. They had spent some time power leveling some of their members, to raise the average level, but they found out that if the enemy was a high enough level, experience would end up getting split by contribution, rather than evenly. It had made it slower, but it hadn't made it impossible to power level some of their weaker members.

Owen tuned back into the conversation, once Peggy had caught Myra up on what they had planned so far and Myra turned to Owen seriously. "What is the highest leveled gate you think you could clear?" Myra asked. Owen wasn't immediately sure why the change in topic, but he gave himself a couple seconds to think about it before shaking his head. "I didn't really struggle inside of the tier six gate, unless I held myself back. If I took things seriously from the beginning, I suppose I could maybe clear a tier 8 gate, though it would be close."

Each tier of gate offered a higher difficulty and higher rewards as well. After having unlocked the highest leveled guild, they would able to purchase information about the gates and had learned a lot about how they functioned. Owen had gotten extremely lucky, or unlucky depending on if he had been weaker, but the highest leveled enemy you could come across inside a tier six gate was a level 125. Gates after six increased that level cap by an even greater amount, but after level seven, monster were no longer limited to base attributes and skills.

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

At tier eight, monsters gained titles. Tier nine, they gained classes and tier ten they gained secondary classes. The difference between a tier 10 gate and a tier eight, was an increase of almost 100% in monsters base attributes, if not more.

Myra stared at him seriously, but when he didn't back down she sighed. "Okay, then I am going to need you to put together a team and go out and clear as many gates as possible. Mark, do you still have the map of uncleared gates and is it updated?" Myra asked. Mark clearly hadn't been planning on being called on, but he recovered quickly, as he shuffled through some papers. "Yes, we know the locations of 3 tier nine gates and 7 tier eight gates. The rest we already have teams currently aiming towards and clearing out as we speak." Mark said, looking slightly frazzled.

"We are going to need as many credits as we can get, but we can't afford to send out too many people. Call back all of the teams except for one and Owen's team will work on taking out all of the high tiered gates." Myra said. Mark nodded and immediately left the room to take care of the matter. Owen felt a pit form in his stomach, he wasn't comfortable leaving, when they could experience danger at any moment.

Sighing, he transferred the rest of his credits to the guild and got up. "I am going to take Moxius and one of my groups." He told Myra who hesitated, but finally nodded. "He has the most experience other than us at clearing gates at this point. Moxius, come back after their are only tier seven gates and above." Myra said and Moxius nodded and got up to leave with Owen.

They didn't spend a lot of time prepping, Owen already walked around with everything he needed inside of his storage bracelet, so they both moved towards the barracks. Gathering up everyone Owen wanted, didn't take much time, but he only had to consider who could help complete lower leveled gates. Once everyone was gathered, Owen took one of the maps he had and they set off towards the nearest cluster of gates.

Most gates didn't spawn very close to each other and sometimes were more than several miles apart. This had made it hard to accurately keep count of all the gates that could potentially threaten their base, but they had gotten lucky that most of the dangerous ones were surprisingly close together. As they ran towards the closest one, Owen turned to Moxius. "How long ago did you hit level 47?" Owen asked, and there was a flash of confusion on Moxius's face, before he answered. "Yesterday evening?" He answered, still looking slightly confused.

"Then join me for the first couple tier eight gates, we are going to push you to level 50 tonight." Owen stated confidently and Moxius's face blanched. Owen scanned those running around him and was certain the group of nine could clear up to a tier 6 on their own and maybe a tier seven with Moxius's help, but it would be even easier if he could give at least one of them access to their secondary class. The others seemed to get the idea and Darren, one of the soldiers he had been training, increased his speed until it matched Owen's.

"We can focus on tier five gates and below, just message us when you are ready and we can come rushing back to help the alien out." Owen nodded, but couldn't hide the sigh that escaped his lips. Each and every soldier he had ended up training, and the ones he didn't, all considered Moxius and his people to be aliens. While it was technically accurate, Owen wasn't even sure what the differences between the two races was. To him, Moxius looked like pretty much any other human, especially after most everyone boosted their looks using the self creator skill.

Moxius and his people had an almost fae appearance to them as each one was almost indescribably beautiful. They had a couple other features that stood out more in some of them than others, but they were naturally taller than most humans and probably fit the description of elves better than humans, even if they lacked the classic pointy ear appearance. Owen hadn't paid much attention to it though, once everyone was beautiful, it was hard to find any stand outs.

Owen was planning on achieving two separate goals while clearing a tier eight gate. The first hope was that he could level up Moxius to level fifty, but his main goal was to try and unite at least some of their people with the so called aliens. Getting closer with Moxius was the best step forward in this regard, plus he was already more than interested in them as a person. They had shared some moments of awkward small talk, though it wasn't frequently they could overlap on anything.

By the time they had reached the closest gate, Owen and Moxius had started sharing in some smaller talk, but they didn't pause to make sure things at the gate would go okay. It was only a tier three, so Owen wasn't concerned about the nine people they had left to clear it, instead, they both kept running, this time aiming for one of the tier eight gates. "So, you haven't been the lord of your people for long, what do they think of earth so far?" Owen asked, as they had another ten minute or so of running ahead of them.

"Most weren't too interested in the idea, but this has still been the most prosperous we have lived in a long time. Bear had been the last of the old guard and a lot of people were hesitant to leave him behind, but most have already forgotten our time on our old world, in favor of celebrating this one." Moxius said. "Wait, Bear is still alive?" Owen asked, unable to hide his excitement. Moxius gave him a weird look, but nodded. "Yes, I don't know if I described it already, but when you are part of a gate, you are both there and not there. The Bear you fought was much closer to a projection, same with my guards. The only ones that were truly real were our sages that you fought."

Owen felt a stab of guilt that washed away the relief of not having killed Bear. "Don't worry, the sages had long since gone insane, due to their practices and it is why they appeared in the gate as themselves, rather than a projection." Moxius added, before throwing another glance at Owen looked at him back and couldn't hold back. "Why do you keep looking at me like that. You keep acting as if I am a rabid beast about to tear you to shreds." Owen asked exasperated. This hadn't been the first time they had been weird around each other. Ever since Owen had stopped being the representative between their factions, which had been pretty much been since they were allowed on earth, Moxius had treated him like he was a monster.

"You have to know, you defeated someone close to reaching the peak of their path, even if they were a lowered level. There is know way you can't be a monster with that level of strength. Even being as confident as you are in fighting against a tier eight gate on your own is an insane claim for someone barely past level fifty." Moxius said, matching Owen's own exasperated tone.

Owen had to give it some thought, but he hadn't even been to protective of his secrets, in fact he had been mostly straight forward with anyone that asked. Part of the reason for that, was if the skill was strong enough, he wouldn't be able to hide it anyways. Quinn, the scythe wielder he had fought in the past was a good example of someone who had been strong enough, they were able to just look at his stats and probably his title as well.

Protecting your secrets only really worked, when it was something that didn't show up on your system status page. Something like his affinities fell into that bracket, but everything else could be found out with a decent amount of strength.

"I have basic combat resonance and it was the sole decider in our battle. Even if he had it as well, the gates lock too much power behind whatever tier the gate is. If he had access to his titles, I would probably have died." Owen said simply. He meant it as well, Bear had been one of his toughest fights, and it was all because he had been a combination of stupid and arrogant. While he couldn't say either issue had truly been fixed, especially since they were both running towards a tier 8 gate, Bear had at least made him aware of it.

Moxius nodded, but still shook his head in awe. "Combat resonance this early into the system's arrival is insane. I had thought your friend Peggy having mental resonance was crazy, but your whole group is wild." Owen could only look at Moxius confused and they both stopped running for a moment, before Moxius turned to him just as confused. "You didn't know?"