The territory he planned to add to the town was where his old apartment was. From what he read on the map, it was close to the far border. Since he could walk through the territory freely, that meant the dungeon hadn’t taken over the entirety of the territory. It was a good sign as Joseph’s group had been fighting in that dungeon for a couple of days, and he had no desire to spend that long clearing a dungeon.

His main goal at that moment was to scout out where the dungeon was. The other ones he had entered on his own, but now he had the backing of people who were willing to work with him.

The familiarity of the streets made what had happened much more noticeable. Plants could be seen growing up buildings, with vines working their way into dark windows. It looked like the earth was trying to reclaim the land, buildings and all. Concrete that had been mostly whole just days ago now had weeds, and in some cases, small trees breaking through.

Callum spent nearly thirty minutes wandering through streets that he assumed to be in the center of the territory with no signs of finding the entrance. His next step was to start randomly opening doors. That lasted for another fifteen minutes before finding something.

It was not an above-ground door that finally was the entrance to the dungeon, but a below-street-level door that led into a cellar. At least he assumed it was a cellar since when he touched the handle for the door, he felt the stirring of mana behind it. There was a strength and a signature to the mana. By now, he was familiar with what his own mana and that of the mana in the air felt like, but this was something new.

He found a street sign nearby and made a mental note of where it was. There was an impulse to go ahead into the dungeon, but he suppressed that and moved on. It would be a better learning experience for those who hadn’t been exposed to the dangers, but with Callum there to prevent anyone from dying.

With his scouting mission complete, he turned to head back to the town. He felt better having laid eyes on where they were headed. The journey back to the town was more of the same scenes he had been seeing.

As he walked back into the town, the clack of wooden swords and the twang of a single bowstring could be heard. Despite the lack of rhythm to any of it, Callum found it pleasing to hear because it meant people were getting to work. Embracing the new changes in the world.

He first stopped by the training ground and found that the twenty or so warriors were practicing with a variety of weapons. Strolling through the area, he gave pointers where he could. He asked questions and learned a few things. Most had gained a level or two in their weapons skill and it didn’t matter what weapon they trained with, it leveled just the same. They also found a lot of help in the skill, as it seemed to come with an intrinsic sense of what they could do to practice.

The mages were progressing similarly, though the rangers and rogues were having some difficulties. The rangers because of the lack of weapons, but the rogue's problem was different entirely. They had paired off, with one person trying to spot the other moving from one point to another, and then swapping roles. It was working, but only two out of the six had managed to gain a level.

Since everyone else was training, Callum took the opportunity to do some practice of his own. He felt good about his swordsmanship so far, but he wanted a better grasp on how his Combat Magic worked.

As he thought about it, the meditative method that he was using seemed at odds with how his mana felt. He switched tactics and instead focused on feeding it more power to see what it could do.

The training dummies would make for a good test, as Callum had noticed that they regenerated. He didn’t know how long it took, but some that had marks from wooden swords were restored to perfect condition. Hopefully, nothing he did would permanently damage the dummy.

He paced off ten feet from the dummy and squared his feet with it. There were a few odd looks from some of the people in the training ground, but he ignored them. They wouldn’t be getting much of a show today, or so he thought.

The mana in him was an ever-present source now. He tapped into that flow, and channeled it from the center of his chest, through his arm, and then finally into his hand. It thrashed against the barriers he had set in place, and he forced his will on it, forced it to pool in his hand.

When he reached the limit of what he could contain, he released it. There was a whizzing sound as it crossed the distance and struck the dummy with a thud. A few splinters were thrown back, but overall a disappointing first trial. That was more than fine with Callum, though. Not everything came easy, and he knew that hard work would eventually pay off.

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So he continued. A second bolt, then a third, then a fourth until he lost count and just focused on the repetition. Only about half hit the target, but with each one, his aim got a little better. He could pack a little more energy into this invisible projectile.

Over the repetitions, the projectile gained a little more shape. This led him down the path of what the projectile would look like. He could barely picture it in his mind. A small dart, only a few inches long, but launched at a speed that would do real damage.

One of the few onlookers was the first to notice the change, not that they would comment on it and ruin his focus. The darts started taking on a red hue. At first, it was indistinct, barely noticeable in the afternoon sun. Around the fiftieth shot, they could make out the image he had conjured in his mind. A small dart, with a broad arrowhead, but no feathering, as it was propelled by magic.

As the form of it shifted, it went from blunt force damage to piercing the wooden exterior. Its damage was still somewhat limited, but it proved that his magic could maim. Callum’s magic was still in its infancy, but he was learning.

Around the eightieth dart, he was forced to take a break, the beginnings of a mana headache disrupting his focus. Looking around, he saw that several people had stopped to watch him work. They were staring, some with mouths slightly ajar, but before he said anything, they went back to their practice.

A few notifications appeared, confirming that his combat magic had improved. Oddly, it had only gone up a single level. He felt that it should have increased more based on the improvements he had made.

While he waited for his mana to refill, he watched as their training resumed, and noticed that most were fighting with a competency that no one had possessed at the beginning of the day. The majority were still working on basic swings and footing, getting accustomed to how it felt to swing a sword, but others had broken off into pairs to spar.

It took a little more than thirty minutes for his mana to refill, but once it had, he went back to work. Now that his accuracy had improved, could he shoot two darts at once?

The resounding answer was no. Every way he tried it, he couldn’t fit a second dart into his mental picture. He tried making the first, then adding a second. He tried making two at once. He tried one in each hand. It just didn’t work. He had a few theories, but with how little he knew about everything, he had no clue which would be right.

What he could improve was how long it took to form and fire each dart. His first try, before picturing them as darts, had taken nearly fifteen seconds, an eternity in combat. Once he had the mental picture correct, that dropped the time to ten seconds. From there it was slow, incremental progress. By the time he ran out of mana again, it had dropped to five seconds. That he could at least work with, but he felt he should move on. The sun was getting closer to the horizon, and he wanted to see how much wood had been accumulated before the day was over.

His training had not been in vain, as his notifications informed him.

[Combat Magic Novice 6 → Novice 7]

[Combat Magic Novice 7 → Novice 8]

It was more than expected. He attributed the jump in level to him trying his hardest to push the boundaries of what he could do, but it would require more testing.

The training ground had nearly cleared out by that point, but the town hall still held a lot of people. The town menu listed his citizens at just under one hundred. It was pretty close to the halfway point to his goal of two hundred citizens for the next town upgrade. When he considered that this was the end of the third day, it was promising. Once they were able to start actively recruiting, he was sure it would be met in no time.

This did bring up the problem of housing. The thirty homes that he currently had were not enough for all the people who had joined in the last twenty-four hours. The solution was relatively simple, but costly: just build more houses. Doing some rough math, he figured that he would need another forty houses for everyone. That was 2,000 wood, much more than he wanted to spend. He had enough, but that would bring him down to 1,000 in reserve.

Ultimately, he decided to build some of the houses. The wolf attack seemed to be a one-off event, as he hadn’t seen any signs of dungeons starting to leak. His compromise to himself was that he would set up guards during the night, including himself. The town menu gave him a breakdown of classes and levels of everyone who was a citizen, so he could use that to determine who would be best for guard duty. At least setting a guard would assuage some of his worries, and now he had people competent enough that they wouldn’t be an easy meal for whatever came along.

The people in the town hall were preparing to sleep there, and his decision was reinforced. It was very cramped, with each person barely having enough room. Relief washed over them as he informed them that the new houses had been built, and they wouldn’t need to stay in such a compact area.

Before they left, he called names for who would be taking guard. The town menu’s information was coming in very handy there, as it listed the names associated with the classes and levels. Overall, they weren’t excited about the prospect of having to stay awake through some sections of the night, but they were at least understanding.

He ended the day by finding the people who had already returned to their homes, and telling them what was expected. The sun had nearly set by that point, so he gathered the first shift of the night and explained his plan.