"While the rich and powerful have a large amount of advantages over the common person, the biggest is arguably their access to potions or arrays that speed up their mana or stamina recovery. This is because even the most hardworking commoner can only train for as long as those resources last, which for most is an hour or less if they have skills that actively use them, before having to wait for hours until those resources regenerate, whereas the rich and powerful need only down a potion, or wait for a vastly shorter time period, before they can continue, meaning that they can effectively train for multiple times longer than those without such resources."

-Archibald Covenas, Instructor at the Royal Academy of Elestra

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The rest of that day was spent alternating between staff training and stamina exercises, occasionally making a construct of random animals that came to mind to see if they would work. Throughout the day, I found that the systems definition of beast was much more vast than I originally thought, as the only things that actually failed due to being out of the skills perview were microorganisms such as bacterias, humans or humanlike mythicals like elves or dwarves, and regular bugs, though I was able to make a construct of the giant mantis we'd seen in the tutorial, though only barely as I had almost no understanding of it. Naturally I also tried mythical creatures such as dragons and gryphons, but while the skill did activate, I lacked both the understanding and mana to actually construct them, so I was only able to confirm that it was possible in the future.

Testing what I could make constructs of was actually extremely cheap mana-wise, as I only had to make sure that the skill started to work before cutting it off and making the skill fizzle, only needing 10 mana at most per test, so I decided to create a small permanent crystal knife with the excess mana at the end of the day, though it was actually just a blade about as long as my hand, to use for all of my connection practices so that I wouldn't have to waste mana making stuff to practice with every time, and I still hadn't given up my dream of telekinetic flying knives. A dream that got a little bit closer every day as I made small improvements to my connection and control abilities with the few hours of practice I always did before bed.

The next day, rather than immediately going to the training area, I waited for Leo and Jason to wake up, as today we had planned to go hunting instead of train. I wasn't left waiting for long, all of us used to waking up at sunrise even without the sun itself beaming light at us. We weren't planning on going very deep, as we just wanted to earn contribution points, so none of us were particularly tense or worried, though we had agreed to not chase anything too far to avoid a repeat of what happened to me.

The forest itself was mostly unchanged, though I did notice some of the thinner trees had been chopped down, so we started to walk in a random direction, making sure to mark the trees on our path. After over an hour of circling the fringes without a hint of any living creatures other than ourselves and the occasional other group of humans, it became clear that any animals had long since vacated the area, and we would need to go deeper if we wanted to find anything. Cautious of what we may find, but still confident in handling whatever it may be, we made our way deeper into the forest, the canopy thickening and reducing the amount of light that could reach the ground, the lack of light meaning that there was less greenery on the ground, making it easier to traverse as we only had to watch out for the odd root that stuck up from the ground. It wasn't until we were at least three hours of a straight walk into the forest that we finally started hearing signs of life, the occasional chirp of a bird or the rustling of branches, and the fact that took such a small amount of time for humans to hunt enough of them to make them flee made me think about how fast the settlement had grown, as even just over the week or so since our group had arrived there had been new people joining every day, the total number of people in the town exceeding 100 according to my dad. It made me hopeful for the future, as humanity was still able to carve out it's place in a now much more hostile world, though considering that there were still entire groups that went missing despite this being a 'safe' area showed that we were still far from being the uncontested rulers that we once were.

Internal musing aside, I created a hawk out of Lightning with 100 mana once we started hearing sounds of life, as it had proved to be a better hunter than we were. With the aid of a supernaturally quick predator, or rather multiple as I had to recreate it twice over the course of the day, we were able to get a pretty large haul, as the hawks initial attacks imbued with electricity managed to stun most of what it hit long enough for Jason to finish it off with cards, Leo only occasionally stepping in to block some of the more aggressive creatures. In the five or so hours that we spent hunting we managed to get; 2 rabbits, 3 birds of various species, 1 raccoon, and a rather large snake that almost snuck up on us. All of them were between level five and eight, giving me almost no EXP while Leo and Jason got none due to their lack of a second class, which made us slightly worried for the future, as a majority of people were still stuck at level 10, and if we kept pushing deeper into the forest and the animals started to outlevel the hunters, the main source of food for the town would disappear, or at least be significantly reduced. At least the faction of raiders had finally disappeared, apparently someone had attacked and killed most of their leadership one night out of revenge, collapsing the buildings they were using as living spaces on top of them and taking care of any survivors, a chilling reminder that safety in numbers wasn't nearly as reliable as it once was, even if the ones who suffered from it were better off dead.

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Shaking the thoughts out of my head, noticing that walking in the forest always made me more introspective than usual, we trekked back to the town, following the carved arrows until we reached town, deciding against selling what we hunted since the crafters of the group had apparently paid whoever was responsible for the lights and water in our houses to make a large freezer in our building, and since Jackson's dad had the [Tanner] class, he would get EXP from skinning them, and he could immediately start wiring on their hides. With a few hours left in the day and around half of my mana remaining, I decided to practice my crystal control, as just walking to and back from the training area would barely leave me with any time to actually train, and it was the only thing that I could comfortably practice inside, since I was still hesitant to practice out in the open.

The next few days passed in much the same way, training my abilities for three days before hunting on the fourth, talking Evelynn and Jackson's mom into joining us so that they can gain EXP, though I could tell that both of them only came because they knew it was necessary, both of them mentioning that they would follow Jackson's lead and take something non-combat oriented for their second class, spending time trying to learn various crafts from others in our group to hopefully unlock the corresponding class rather than training the abilities of their current class, though Jackson's mom did do a fair amount of experimenting with her magic, which seemed to be more like coding or putting together a puzzle when she described it to me, as opposed to mine which was more like willing what I wanted into reality.

It wasn't until a week and a half after the construction of our training area that I heard from Roxy again, coming home after training one day to find a note written on one of the stone slabs from the notice board leaning against my door, telling me she finally found enough interested people and wanted us all to gather in three days for further discussion. I let Leo and Jason know that I wouldn't be training that day, both of them understanding that without a second class they wouldn't be able to keep up with any serious fights, though apparently both of them already had a plan in place to get their second, Leo having made an agreement with Jonathan to put a class on hold until he could afford it in exchange for working as a guard for a month afterwards and Jason doing as many odd jobs as he could from the notice board, only training once every three days, in order to get enough points to afford the one he wanted, as he was unable to get the same deal as Leo, and his parents had agreed to lend him points to add to his savings, which he accepted even though he refused the offers from the other members of the group to do the same. Even though they had plans, it would still take Jason another week at least to amass the contribution points he needed and even after Leo got his he wouldn't really be able to do any long excursions for a month, so Roxy's group was my only choice if I wanted to make any actual progress EXP wise.

From the details on the note that she left, there was a total of five people that she had invited, all of our names and general roles listed on the slab; Me, a mid-long range DPS, Roxy, tank with ranged capabilities, Arnold, melee DPS with rogue-esque skills, Amy, an archer that had a number of buff skills, and Jordan, another melee DPS, though he was a swordsman. All in all, the group was actually pretty balanced, and I was very surprised that she managed to find someone capable of buffing others, as most people with support skills such as healing or buffing were already members of established groups. The days leading up to the meeting were spent mostly training my connection and control over crystal, as I could feel that i was close to making it usable in a fight, now able to connect to anything within 5 meters and having the same efficiency with moving them as when they were created, only lacking finite control before I could confidently use it as more than a follow-up attack, but unfortunately I was unable to improve it to the level I wanted by the day of the meeting.

Disappointment in my progress aside, I was actually kind of excited for the meeting, as while I doubted that we would do anything besides getting to know each other and maybe a little bit of practice today, the anticipation of finally resuming my levelling, plus the unexpected desire I felt to fight things that were actually strong that made me worry I was turning into a battle-junky, made it so that I arrived at Roxy's place almost an hour before the agreed upon time, though it seemed that I still wasn't the earliest one there as I saw a man who looked to be in his early to mid thirties and had a head of shaggy brown hair, though I couldn't see his face as he was turned away from me, talking with Roxy who was across from him. Not wanting to be rude and eavesdrop, I called out to Roxy as I approached and she beckoned me to join them in her yard, which I had learned was actually something you had to pay for from my dad when I mentioned it to him if you wanted to ensure that the space was left available for you. Once I got into the yard, I was able to make out some details of the unknown man, who was wearing mostly light armor with the only metal parts being his boots and chest, and the sword that was clearly not starting equipment hung around his waist gave me a good idea of who he was. Since he turned towards me as I approached I was finally able to see his face, which was pretty ordinary with green eyes and a full but short beard, I was also able to make out the he was an inch or two taller than me as I got closer to them.

"Hey there, I'm Mason, nice to meet you."(Mason)

"Jordan, nice to meet you as well."(Jordan)

With introductions out of the way, we made small talk while we waited for the others, not going too deep into our abilities as it was better to just do it once everyone gathered as opposed to repeating it multiple times as people arrived, discussing how the town was growing and our lives before the System came. 30 or so minutes after I arrived, a rather petite woman with long red hair, green eyes, and freckles that was wearing light armor with a bow and quiver of arrows on her back, standing a head shorter than Roxy when she got close, she introduced herself as Amy, joining our smalltalk but mostly listening, only talking when something was directed at her, though she didn't seem particularly timid, as her responses were without any stuttering or hesitation. It wasn't until right around the agreed upon meeting time that the last member joined us, a lanky teen who was 18 at the oldest, black hair hanging to his shoulders, standing maybe an inch or two shorter than me with brown eyes an a sizable scar on on his cheek that went down to his jaw, two short swords on either side of his waist and lacking any metal on his armor, who awkwardly introduced himself as Arnold while apologizing for being late, to which we all reassured him that he was on time and we were just early.

"Well, now that everyone is gathered, let's get this thing started."(Roxy)