“One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four,” Jack and Brian were chanting.

The contraption was heavy, so they needed breaks.

When they were inside the siege tower, they had to crouch.

“One,” Jack and Brian said. They grabbed the top of the siege tower with their hands and supported it on their shoulders.

“Two,” Jack and Brian said. They squatted the siege tower, lifting it up and temporarily exposing their legs while the tower was lifted off the ground.

“Three,” Jack and Brian said. They took one step forward.

“Four,” Jack and Brian said. They dropped the siege tower.

Jack wiped away sweat from his face. The inside of the contraption was moist with sweat. The only ventilation came from small slits made for looking outside and shooting from.

They were in sweaty t-shirts and jeans.

They didn’t trust leaving their stuff at the Butterfly Monster zone, so they brought it with them and it was weighing on them.

“Break!” Jack said. Jack needed more breaks than Brian. Brian was more bulky and muscular. Jack was taller than Brian and also muscular, but his muscles were smaller.

From the eye slits, they could see the yellow trees.

I miss the green trees. These yellow ones look creepy as hell. And the grass too is creepy to look at. I like green, Jack thought.

“When the hell is it coming? Last time the wolf attacked it was almost two seconds after entering,” Jack said.

“I dunno. Don’t talk. Let’s listen,” Brian said.

While lifting, they would constantly check all eye slits. Front, sides, behind.

“What the fuck is that?” Brian said.

Jack went to the same eye slit as Brian and took a look.

It was very big. About 3 meters tall. It was a massive, blue slime. It was slowly moving towards them.

“Shoot!” Jack said, and covered his ears.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Brian kept shooting until his clip was empty.

The blue slime just slowly rolled towards them like nothing had happened.

“Let’s get out of here now!” Brian said.

They both lifted and flipped the makeshift siege tower over.

The slime was closer and now looked massive.

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“Run! We don’t know if it can shoot acid!” Jack said. They ran for about 50 meters.

They looked behind and saw it eating hours and hours of Jack’s work.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Jack yelled.

Brian touched his shoulder.

“Yo, let’s go princess,” Brian said.

Jack kept looking back at the blue slime as they ran away.

…

Jack was stabbing the ground with his machete.

“Fuck!”

“Okay princess. We take a break. Sneak over to the goblin zone. Build another tower. And do this again. Get our skill point. Then get the fuck back to Lucas.”

Jack sighed.

“Okay,” he said. And laid down on the ground.

After a break they headed over to the goblin monster zone. Like last time, Brian grinded in circles around Jack within shouting distance while Jack built the spear siege tower.

I need to design the lifting structure better. A lot of my stamina was wasted not on the lifting itself but on balancing it on my shoulders while lifting. I’ll make indentations to fit on our shoulders. I also know where to put the eye slits now. I should also add eye slits on the roof for ventilation and so we can see if anything is flying.

Jack kept thinking through design ideas and improvements while he was looking at the base of his wooden construction. He had finally finished chopping all the materials he needed.

Achievement unlocked: Field Engineering

Reward: Blueprint visualizer: Rank 1

“Oh. Oh! Thank you oh great super system! I love you!” Jack said, and jumped up and down.

“How do I use this?” He said to himself. “Blueprint visualizer?”

A new user interface was overimposed over his field of vision.

There was a work hammer icon. There was an icon of a paper with lines on it. And then there was an icon of a pencil.

He mentally pressed the paper icon, like he would the exit button.

Like augmented reality, overlapping the real world, there on the ground there was a blue see-through blueprint layout of the spear circle he had made back in the wolf zone. In the corner of his eye he saw there was also another thing he could choose. He mentally pressed it and a blueprint of the siege tower that was destroyed popped up.

“This is the coolest skill I’ve gotten so far. God, this is so cool!”

He mentally pressed the work hammer icon. Nothing happened. He pressed it again. Nothing happened. He double-pressed it. Nothing happened. He tried to right click press it, nothing happened.

Oh well.

He pressed the pencil icon. A user interface popped up which allowed him to design new blueprints with previously used materials. He used this to design the new, improved siege tower in front of him before he started working on it.

This is such a time-saver. I’m so happy I got this.

Many hours later, Brian came back with no skill crystals for the day. He helped Jack with building the spear siege tower. When it was night they took shifts sleeping. When they woke up they worked on the siege tower until it was finished.

“Okay. Second time’s the charm. Let’s finally get that fucking skill point and go back and heal Lucas,” Jack said.

/////

Jack:

Knife Fighting: Rank 1

Knife Fighting: Rank 2

Python (programming language): Rank 1

Mana generation: Rank 1

Sand to Glass Conversion Mana Blueprint: Rank 1

Healing Mana Blueprint: Rank 1

Origami: Rank 1

Enhanced Bodily Recovery: Rank 1

Speed Counting: Rank 1

Enemy Weakness Identification: Rank 1

Poetry: Rank 2

Blueprint visualizer: Rank 1

Brian:

Shield Defending: Rank 1

Marksmanship (pistol): Rank 1

Right Arm Increased Strength: Rank 1

Mana manipulation: Rank 1

Mana Sense: Rank 1

Enhanced Propriosense in Toes: Rank 1

Enhanced Bodily Recovery: Rank 1

Flame Shield Dispel: Rank 1

Cryptography: Rank 1

Enemy Pattern Recognition: Rank 1

Airplane Pilot: Rank 1

Lucas:

Insect Movement Control: Rank 1

Enlarged Penis: Rank 1

Mana sense: Rank 1

Mana Manipulation: Rank 1

Surfing: Rank 1

Arithmetic: Rank 1