Vetsmon pounded on the Crawler, his voice acting like a douse of cold water.

My eyes opened as I frowned, looking straight up toward the ceiling.

It took me a few seconds to mentally prepare myself, my mood worsening just thinking about Hemet.

“...Fine.”

I got up, feeling my wounds get aggravated as I stood and cracked my neck.

Umara got up with me, the two of us silent as I exited the Crawler.

Since I was shirtless and it was becoming evening, I was hit with a cool breeze that gave me goosebumps. But it felt good despite that, so I took some deep breaths to calm myself down.

Vetsmon looked at me with a smile, which turned a bit as I saw him check me out.

“That’s a lot of wounds. And scars.”

“Eh, comes with the job. So where is he?”

“Over there.”

He pointed, and I saw a figure on an opposing hillside making its way toward us.

He wasn’t running or making any kind of haste, so it would be a while before he actually got here. I tapped Vetsmon and pointed.

“Hey, you mind going over there and checking on him? We should make sure our commanding officer isn’t horribly wounded.”

“Sure.”

He nodded before bounding over there. I saw him traverse the entire distance in less than a minute, arriving by Hemet’s side.

They stopped and spoke to each other, and as they did so, I lifted my Aerial to my mouth, speaking into the group channel.

“Vetsmon, ask if we can get the keys for the Crawler. I can drive it over.”

“...”

There was no response as they discussed for a little while longer. Then, I saw Hemet hand something over to Vetsmon before he came running back.

I looked over to Tana, Umara, and Feiden.

“Load up. We’re leaving.”

“Roger.”

They moved with haste, packing everyone and loading into the vehicle.

Then Vetsmon arrived, handing the keys to me.

“He’s wounded. Do you really know how to drive that thing?”

“You mean they don’t teach you? And I thought I was the uneducated one. Gimme.”

I grabbed the keys from Vetsmon, smiling as I jumped into the driver’s seat.

The key wasn’t a normal key. Instead, it was a keycard type object that you could slot into a holder next to the steering wheel.

I threw it in, following the obvious patterns to point it straight, and watched as the dashboard glowed and the vehicle started.

There were some mechanical parts on this Crawler that generated some vibrations, so I could tell when it was ready to ride.

Like that, I placed my hand on a stick located where the center console would be. From watching Hemet drive, I knew that these cars only had two gears, one for drive, and one for reverse.

It was magically driven, so it was more similar to electric cars than gas cars.

With that, I tapped the gas pedal, feeling the Crawler move forward and instantly getting a feel for its power.

“Alright, here we go.”

My first time driving in this world started without a hitch.

Spinning the car around, I found a clear path and drive down, encountering some mild turbulence but nothing that would flip us as I made my way toward Hemet’s figure.

Before long, I pulled right up to his side. He was sitting down on a rock, some of his clothes a bit bloody and very obviously injured.

I poked my head out and flicked my head toward him.

“Get in.”

……

…

When the sun finally set, we arrived back at base.

I rolled directly through the open gates, skidding to a halt over the dirt ground.

After that I jumped out, a smile on my face.

“That was fun. It was more powerful than I thought.”

“Ugh, oh god.”

Tana stumbled out of the Crawler, as did Umara and Vetsmon. Feiden seemed to be alright though.

I didn’t mind them and looked at the clock.

“Hm, turned an hour drive into a 30 minute drive. Pretty damn good.”

“You… You don’t know how to drive.”

Sir Hemet mumbled as he almost fell from the Crawler.

But I rebuked.

“Please, I’m one of the best.”

“We almost died.”

“No way. I always had control.”

“We drove sideways!”

“It’s called drifting, and it was intentional.”

I continued to quip back as everyone critiqued me.

The road back was hardly a road, just a dirt trail that hadn’t been tread in a while. So it wasn’t super smooth, but we were in a truck, so we were fine.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

There was also a speedometer, and even at my fastest there was still 40 on the dash. Considering the highest speed was around 100 mph, I wasn’t going that fast.

But I suppose since most people in this world weren’t used to driving, they found it a bit rougher than normal.

“I was taking it easy too since I’m still hurting. Right, I should head to the doctor.”

“Blegh…”

As I walked off, I heard some weird noises behind me. But I ignored it. I seriously needed to get my body taken care of.

After arriving at the medical bay, I was seen by a doctor who checked me in and started fixing me up.

The man was quick and efficient. After giving me one of their stronger healing pills, he went to work on sewing me up.

I laid there for close to an hour as he worked. We talked about my cigars as well, him telling me that he had only seen them a few times in his life since they were apparently rare and valuable.

I didn’t reveal much, but the fact that I had a case full of them was rather telling. Still, unlike Umara, he didn’t pry and only told me that they were a good thing to have.

With that, I was taken care of and released.

Since it was night, I caught up with my squad and ate some dinner before retiring.

……

…

The next few days weren’t as eventful.

Sir Hemet had been successful in killing the commanding entity, and while we had been forced to fend off a small army in the process, it was nothing that needed to be stressed about since nobody had gotten too hurt.

Still, when I was called in for a debrief with an officer, my displeasure in regard to certain decisions on Sir Hemet’s part was made known. Not that it would do anything, but I liked knowing that my feelings on the matter were officially documented.

So our mission was wrapped up. Since I had gotten hurt and there were plenty of other teams that could use the work, we wouldn’t have another mission for a while. And even if there was a mission for us to complete, it wouldn’t be anything like killing a commanding entity. Plus, since we had cleared out the surrounding several miles of Scourge beasts, there wouldn’t even be search and destroy missions.

We had effectively made the rest of our trip boring. It was quite unfortunate for the other teams.

But that didn’t mean we weren’t active. I, especially, had work on my plate.

For one, I needed to study and cultivate that advancement formation. Maxwell was expecting me to have completely comprehended it by the time I got back, so I needed to work on that.

Although, I had already cultivated half of it. He had said that I would be able to grow my Spark as I managed to complete more of it, the two going hand in hand since I had made the Spark in the first place. Normally one would need to comprehend the entire thing before gradually forming the spark afterward.

So since I had deviated from the normal path, the timeline was probably different. Shorter or longer, I didn’t know. All I knew was that the deeper I went, the more difficult the formation became.

The entire formation was a huge instruction set for Psyka to follow. By following the formation I had, a Spark would be created. However, the formation on the paper didn’t match the formation when actually applied.

Well, it did but didn’t. The formation given to me was a guide. By mimicking the shape of the lines with my Psyka and Aura, I was able to glean the true shape and get the correct formation.

The reason the formation on paper wasn’t technically correct was because the shapes drawn with Psyka during cultivation weren’t something that could be put on paper. It was similar, but also completely different.

So I had to remember the true shape of the formation, as well as constantly study the parts that only continued to get more complicated.

I was lucky to comprehend so much in my dreams, getting inspired from time to time. But I still needed to study the formation if I wanted to take advantage of dreaming at all.

So for a couple hours each morning and night, I would study the formation. Although using Aura and Psyka was novel at first, studying still got boring. I wasn’t able to spend 6 hours a day just sitting down and printing formations like a computer.

Plus, I also wasn’t forsaking productivity during the rest of the day.

The others in my squad also had things to do. Feiden, Vetsmon, and Tana were all knights who trained their bodies and martial arts. So they would be found on the fields going through their own routines or sparring. Since they were in a squad, they often sparred each other.

Umara also studied spells since she was a warlock, and that was on top of her advancement formation. Warlocks were considered isolated researchers for a reason. They may not emerge from a room for half the day simply because their training was comprised entirely of studying and more studying. There wasn’t as much practical training.

As for myself, other than studying the formation, I also worked with my summons.

That practice was basically either shooting or searching for more guns to shoot.

After finding the Remington-Lee modified sniper, there wasn’t anything else that really caught my eye. I had done a lot of searching, but all I found were swaths of lever actions, revolvers, and the occasional double barrel shotgun.

There wasn’t much variation and the power of those spirits wasn’t outstanding, nothing that would compel me to change my current selections.

I had a long rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol. That was all I really needed and ended up using.

So until I found an outstanding weapon variant, there wasn’t much reason to spend a lot of time searching.

That just left shooting practice.

For this I went to the Puppet Master who got me permission to do what I wanted. After he talked to Commander Bosnen, I was given the authority to go wherever along the walls and shoot.

So I picked a nice secluded spot and got to work.

On the east side of the base, there was a tree line that led into a forest about 200 meters away. It was that tree line that I used for target practice.

I picked some trees that stood out and started. Some trees stuck out from the forest and some were deeper in. I picked several across varying distances and simply opened fire.

My gunshots were heard across the entire base, but I had gotten permission, so it was fine.

For a few hours I simply shot regular bullets. I would riddle one tree with bullet holes before moving on to another, my goal being to keep my grouping tight.

The scope on this rifle wasn’t modern, so there was no such thing as adjustment dials. That meant I had to gauge the distance with my eye and adjust my shot accordingly.

For shorter distances closer than 500 meters or so, that was fine. But pushing any farther than that would require a bit more precision, not to mention this rifle wasn’t even accurate past 300 meters.

Regardless of my target though, I sought tight groupings and consistency.

I even pushed myself and bit and tried to shoot down some birds that flew by. I never hit one, but I still tried.

So I spent several hours of my day behind a rifle. I also didn’t forsake my peacekeeper, but since I couldn't go outside the walls by myself, there wasn’t much practice I could get with it other than practicing my reloading after fanning the hammer into the distance, seeing how many rounds I could fire in a minute.

And when I wasn’t doing anything productive at all, I was doing one of two things.

Eating or flirting with Umara, sometimes both.

Since we could talk to each other via Aerial, we would find times to meet and hangout. And when we weren’t together, like during the night after curfew, we would be texting.

And during that, I couldn’t help but feel a weird sense of… novelty.

Umara would text back within seconds. The only time spent without a response was the time it took for her to read the words and then type back a response and hit send. There was very little deviation from that.

Which was nice, because back on Earth, it definitely wasn’t like that.

With relationship experience came both good and bad points, and it was never fun being interested in a girl who would play as if dating was a game.

Seeing a message when it was sent, but only texting back several minutes later because doing so in a timely manner may be seen as desperate, needy, or whatever other negative trait they came up with, was common with some girls. And it was something I hated.

But here on this world, where texting was barely a thing and the social standards were different, there was none of that.

Of course, I hadn’t been around on this world for long and had only had a relationship with two women, but the difference was so stark that it could be taken as the standard, even if there were outliers.

When I texted Umara, she simply responded. How great was that?

And our conversations seemed to go on endlessly, both via text and in person.

We would tell stories, spill some harmless secrets, talk about family and all the quirks we loved and hated.

It was all so fresh. Talking with her made me feel light. Although it was a new relationship and that made me a bit blind, every moment with her felt fun.

I think the best part of it all was how she had come on to me first. It was clear that she liked me and I made it clear that I liked her. There was no suspense, and that made everything flow so smoothly. Neither of us had to be reserved out of fear, every interaction and moment of intimacy advancing our relationship forward.

It was so different from everything I had experienced on Earth, which made it even more enjoyable.

In fact, it was so enjoyable that the days flew by quicker than I could keep up with.

Before I even realized, the end of our trip approached.