As Callum locked eyes with the bear, he could tell it was running low on stamina. This intuition most likely came from Discerning Intent, but Callum’s own sense for these things was not to be discounted.

The man groaned as he attempted to get up, but Callum waved him off. Clearly, the man was badly injured, and Callum believed he could handle the bear at this point. He still had a good chunk of his stamina reserves.

And so, the dance, however crude, began. Callum rushed the bear, using a different method with his rapier. Where before, he had been only seeking to pierce vital organs with accurate strikes, he now switched to using the sharp tip of his sword to cut the beast’s flesh into shreds.

With such a large target, it was impossible to miss, but the key was to cut places that mattered. He couldn’t sever tendons with a single strike, but through repeated cuts at the same point, a feat of dexterity he was capable of, he could reach his target.

The bear, meanwhile, was not taking this well. With each swipe of the blade, the bear enraged further, that when they missed, and all did, the wind whipped Callum’s hair, and sent up puffs of dirt.

From the man on the ground’s point of view, it seemed as though Callum was a blur. The bear was striking where he wasn’t. The whole time the ground was turning a dark shade of red as the bear’s blood flowed into it.

After a minute and a half of constant slashes and dodges, Callum stepped back from the bear, and it simply collapsed. Whether due to lack of blood, or stamina, it didn’t matter to Callum. The thing was dead. He wasn’t sure how he instinctively knew, but it was, and that was all that mattered to him, for the moment.

[Rapier Apprentice 2 → Apprentice 3]

[Rapier Apprentice 3 → Apprentice 4]

[Identify Level 3 → Level 4]

[Spellblade Level 10 → Level 11]

[The Savage Woods]

He drank in the fruits of his labor for just a moment, before turning to the man lying on the ground. There was a lot of blood surrounding him as well. Callum rushed over, seeing the man’s eyes had closed. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, having never been trained in first aid, but he felt at the man’s neck. There was a faint pulse there.

Callum slung the man over his shoulders, finding him to weigh almost nothing. He knew that the man didn’t weigh so little, it was due to his heightened strength that he was able to carry him with such ease.

He turned to run him back to the town hall, where Sally could help him when he spotted the pedestal that signaled the end of the dungeon. Torn, for just a moment, he ran over to it and claimed the territory without bothering to read anything else.

He then set off at a sprint towards the town hall. Luckily, as soon as he had claimed the dungeon and its associated territory, the trees had begun to shrink down to a somewhat normal size, though still bigger than any he had seen in his life.

Callum stopped for nothing in his mad dash through the forest. He was pretty sure that this man was dying, and it was likely that Sally was the only one who could save him. The wind whipped at his hair and torn clothes, and leaves and sticks crunched as he ran.

He knew absolutely nothing about this man, but someone who had nearly leveled as fast as him, and was either brave or dumb, enough to take on that bear deserved to live. If he turned out to be a bad apple, Callum would have to live with that, though he wasn’t worried about the man attacking himself, more so the rest of the people in the town. Power could go to a person’s head.

In only ten minutes, he had made it back to the town hall, and as he saw that he was getting near, he was yelling for Sally as he ran.

His yells were heard, and Sally was coming out of the wooden building as he approached.

“Here, lay him down,” she instructed.

Callum gently deposited the man on the ground and watched as Sally went to work. It was still a fascinating thing, despite the dire circumstances. She knelt by the man and placed a hand on him. Her eyes got a faraway look but began glowing softly green.

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A frown of concentration crossed over her face, and Callum watched as the healing process began. It was an incredible thing, that she could knit flesh and bone back together with a thought. Ten minutes passed, and Callum assumed she had leveled up, or the skill had leveled due to the increased time she was able to heal. The first time she healed him having only been able to manage it for seven or eight minutes.

At around twelve minutes, she withdrew her hand and took a shaky breath in. “That is all I can do, I think. He will live, but is going to need time. I have to ask, where did you find him?”

“The dungeon, out into the woods that way,” Callum said, pointing to indicate where. “He was already fighting the boss of the dungeon when I arrived.”

By this time, several people had come out to investigate, and the more squeamish ones had gone back inside at the horrid sight the man was in. Others were fascinated by the healing Sally was capable of.

“I had no clue it was this dangerous. If he is so badly injured, how were you able to escape with so few injuries?” The obvious question is finally being stated.

“A nature of how I fight, and the work I have put in.” Callum went the mysterious route, as it might give some people pause before trying to attack him. He was concerned that it was a possibility but thought it unlikely.

Sally just took the comment in stride. “Well, we’ll need to move him inside. I don’t know what I can and can’t heal, and infection is not one of those things I want to test it on.”

“Don’t worry I can do that much. He fought well, and deserves that much at least.”

Callum hefted the body again and carried him to where Sally indicated. With that, he retreated to the side room he and Ryan had been using. He needed some time to calm down from the whole ordeal. While not physically straining the entire time, he felt like he had lived an entire year in just a few hours.

He fell into the slight meditation he used for focusing on magic, but this time used it to calm himself. The rhythmic breathing and relaxed position worked well, and in an hour he was able to refocus on what he needed to do for the rest of the day. He knew that at some point this constant stress was going to catch up to him, but today would not be that day.

His first stop was to check the obelisk that served as his interface for his growing territory. The first thing he noticed was the expanded area that he could see. The new territory he had acquired stretched outward from the city, making a somewhat trapezoid shape. Now that he was out of the dungeon, he could inspect the territory and was surprised that it had a modifier attached to it.

[Modifier: Forest] Trees here grow larger than normal for their variety and naturally replenish at a rapid rate.

That was a pleasant surprise. He had been worried that they would shortly run out of trees for wood, and based on what he had read from the cost of buildings, they would need a lot to furnish things that he wanted, and that would be good for this new settlement at large.

He next saw that there was a notification that he had missed. He selected it and it showed the spoils from the dungeon he had beaten.

[The Savage Woods] Rewards: Gold 50, Power Shard 1

Immediately interested, Callum focused on the power shard, hoping to find more information on what it was.

[Power Shard] Provides 5 free attribute points upon consumption.

That seemed massive, based on the scope of what he had so far. It was nearly a full level of stat points before he had advanced his class. There was an option to retrieve the rewards or let them go into the stockpile. Through great effort, he resisted, as he needed the power shard for the training grounds so that he could advance the settlement level again.

He moved on, looking at what else he had available to him. The woodcutters seemed to do a good job of stockpiling wood, as he had a little over one thousand of it now. He wanted to go ahead and purchase it because if he didn’t, he could see himself grabbing the power shard for the stat points. He had to hold off, as getting houses was the priority right now.

He walked back into the town hall for a moment to ask how many homes were needed. It was a number he had neglected to find earlier as he had been nowhere near the amount of wood needed. Now that he was close, it was better to figure out how much exactly he needed.

Twenty-five. That was how many houses he needed. He did some basic math and if he purchased the fifty wood homes, which were roughly the size of the original apartments, it would put him at needing 1,250 wood. That was a number that was most likely attainable within the day. Which, judging by the position of the sun, was about four hours. He also wanted a house for himself, Ryan, Sally, and Eliza.

As he thought that, he noticed that he hadn’t seen Eliza for some time, though it hadn’t been long, all things considered. It just felt like longer to him. He resolved to seek her out before the day was over and moved on with the tasks at hand.

Once the houses were taken care of, he could freely focus on other things that he wanted, such as homes for people closer to him, or skills that he valued. It was vain, but he was prone to occasional streaks of vanity. He also recognized that it could serve as an incentive. Want a better house? Work harder. Prove yourself. He wasn’t opposed to charity, but he realized that people also need a bit more of a push sometimes.

These thoughts danced in his mind as he approached the forest. The work the woodcutters had been putting in was evident. They had cleared some large swaths, leaving trunks where they lay. There was still quite a bit to go before they reached the forest territory, but he was impressed with the progress.

He sought out the first woodcutter he could find, Kirsti as it happened, and offered to take her axe to allow her a break while he went to work.