1.

Santi had some choices to make. He stared at the list of spells available, having three free slots now. He’d be able to slot in Air Manipulation, but in the meantime he’d be going without the advantages three more spell forms would give him. With the morph blade he was kicking-ass, but he still needed to find materials for it to evolve with him. He could feel its hunger. Within a day of the goblin nest raid it had begun to grow anxious, and now a week later, it was ravenous.

It leeched his potential and mana. He had noticed it after the fighting had slowed down. It was such a minute amount it had taken him nearly three days to realize the drain. It wasn’t a problem. Yet.

Which was why he was debating on the spell choices in front of him. After he had claimed his levels he had procrastinated opening his achievements and claiming the spells. There was no particular reason, but he already had too much stuff. His small cubby of a room was overflowing with a horde of resources and wealth. He really needed to find and secure a living situation that didn’t involve him living out of a former sanitation closet.

He let the list fall away. He was already running late to the next meeting he was supposed to be leading. The rescue party that was going out towards where his family should be coming from. Other groups had gone out and come back with survivors, their camp growing quickly. Nearly a thousand people now squatted in the building and neighborhood around it. Walls of rusting cars, cement bricks, repurposed lumber, rebar, and anything else that was kinda sturdy had been erected.

Most of them without direction.

The entire region was a maze of impromptu walls, half demolished buildings, and vaguely organized patrols. The only constant was the building Santi had secured, Homebase. It was a dumb name, but it had stuck.

The brick wall around it had been fortified with more bricks and mortars. There was a blockade on every street corner and patrols who walked the streets. Otherwise it was kept clear. Homebase housed all of their healers, most of the highest leveled fighters, and every member of the Council. Another recent naming convention that had been met with rolled eyes and disgruntled acceptance.

Santi had been unanimously told he had to be on it. Tank was also sitting next to him, as a representative of all the healers. Marisol had taken a spot, as had Abraham. Eugene had taken the death of his son hard, exiling himself off to a house and doing the bare minimum required to stay alive.

The fifth and final member of the Council was a firefighter. Helena Carter was a solid five feet and eight inches of muscle. She had been one of the survivors Daniel and Hana had rounded up and had fought well and had the respect of her fellow professional survivors. Her inclusion to the Council had given them five people and they had decided it’d be enough for now. Santi knew they’d have to expand on it later when people started to evolve.

Right now he was in charge of the fighters and expanding the operational boundaries of the camp. Helena was in charge of the inside of the walls, wherever said walls seemed to spring up overnight. Marisol had taken over the duties of a quartermaster with the help of her daughters. Her sharp eyes kept track of all the goods that Abraham’s scavenger teams brought in.

It had been decided that those who were willing to risk death for food vs. those who would risk death to see numbers go up, should be split up. Chloe had come with Santi, while Rayleigh had gone with Abraham. Santi had seen the split coming, but losing Rayleigh was rough. The beating she had taken in the hospital had shaken her just as much as the dart that had nearly killed her the first day of the integration.

Her job was still dangerous and she was on the precipice of maxing out the Initiate tier, but it was the safer of the two jobs. In most cases she led her teams into places that Santi had already checked out. While monsters or beasts might have come after he left, it wasn’t common.

Chloe on the other hand had looked insulted when Santi had asked if she wanted to stay with her friend. She had taken to the fighting like a natural and she seemed to have the drive needed to strive far. She had maxed out her level and was waiting, trying to figure out how to evolve. Santi had told everyone that he had figured it out, but needed ingredients.

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The grimoire he had earned had several easy to follow evolution rituals that could help someone become an Acolyte. And he had no problem using those rituals on others. For himself and his closest friends though, he had other ideas.

Evolving was far more involved than leveling up. It was rebuilding oneself from the ground-up. How one evolved was important as were the ingredients one used to fuel the evolution. The goblin’s had acquired plenty of low grade treasures that would let several people evolve, but Santi had ideas.

The rift heart would be a good central piece to one of the evolutions. A piece of pure mana and potential. There were several other components he had found that would be helpful, but he was missing the key ingredient. His affinity.

Right now his wind affinity was only Common grade. He wanted to upgrade it and the best time to do that was during an evolution. He needed a wind attuned treasure or something similar. The time affinity would become overpowered with enough time, but its weaker affinity would take him longer to grow and he didn’t know of many natural time affinity treasures off the top of his head.

There were plenty of wind elementals that he could harvest. Elemental cores could be used in place of treasures if he continued to strike out on finding one. He had already found a flesh treasure for Tank, an anatomically correct crystalized heart that pulsed with vitality. Chloe’s affinity was metal and only a lesser affinity at that. If she had the nerve for it, he knew how to upgrade and specialize her affinity. It would be painful and expensive, but would help her become a true monster.

All of those were plans for the future. Right now he had to go in and convince the rest of the council to approve of his newest long range scouting and rescue attempt. They didn’t know he was planning on finding his family in the direction he was going. He couldn’t tell them either, for how was he going to explain how he knew that his family would be coming down the road?

He felt good it would work. There was nothing nearby that was a significant threat and Abraham’s scavenger teams and Helena’s security teams were all approaching the top of the tier. Santi still stood at the pinnacle, but the mountain below him was growing crowded.

“Bout time you got here. This is your meeting and you're late,” Tank said gruffly. They had found a few legitimate nurses and one doctor. While Tank had the most powerful and leveled skills, the others outclassed him in knowledge. He had been going through a grind of learning on top of his daily responsibilities. It would be good for him in the long run, but for the moment he was looking a little run down.

“Sorry, I got caught up in looking at my spell choices.”

“You still haven’t chosen? It’s been a week, man.”

“I know. It’s just that there’s a lot of good options for me.”

“Well, come on. Need to get one of them to agree to a long range scout team.”

“I think Abraham will agree with us.”

“Why would that prick agree with us?”

“He doesn’t want me around.” Santi met Tank’s eyes and raised his eyebrows. The other man rolled his eyes and gave a half shrug. Abraham’s insecurity was a growing realization around the camp as everyone found out how the man was wildly insecure about being weaker than ‘the children’.

“Helena and Marisol like keeping you close. Also, have you seen the list of people you want to take?”

“Why, yes I have. I wrote that list.”

“You. Chloe. Daniel. Hana. Adam. Chad. Penelope.”

“Yeah. That sounds right. Why?”

“You and Chloe are the two best fighters. Daniel and Hana are the best scouts. Adam and Chad are the best ranged fighters we have and Penelope is the best healer we have.”

“Yeah, that's why I wanted them to come with me.”

“It’s also why Helena and Marisol don’t want them going.”

“Helena and Rayleigh are just as skilled as Chloe and Chad’s brother is staying.”

“You don’t even know his name, do you?”

“I’ll plead the fifth on that one.” It was the way the world worked. Chad’s brother had gotten hurt and hadn’t gone on the mission with them. Chad had gotten a ton of experience and levels which meant he kept getting picked to go on missions and kept leveling. Now that he was closing in on the cap, his brother might catch up. Until then Santi was planning on using Chad and not Tristan.

“Let’s get this over with. I just hope that Abe’s jealousy works for us for once.”