Everybody was wandering around camp restlessly, and Max couldn’t help but feel extra anxious. Together with the Grace Period buildings he had placed yesterday, he had gotten an innate sense about the duration of their shields.

He could feel the hours tickling down until they would be vulnerable and open to the world again. Technically it should only be for an hour. He really hoped that. He was worried what would happen if their plan didn’t work out, that’s why he was stalking around the clearing.

The barrier that surrounded them was transparent from the inside and according to Dave, projected a false image to the outside. People on the other side would only see an empty clearing, whereas Max and his group could see everything that happened outside perfectly, like it only happened a few feet away. Which it did in a way.

Technically there was no reason to worry, they had meticulously watched the surrounding area during the last day, Bixby had even sat watch during night, and there was no sign of Nodefoxes or other dangers.

Still Max didn’t like the feeling of being exposed again. It felt like bringing the trash out during the deepest of winter. Sure you were only out for two minutes at best, but leaving the warm embrace of home to trod into the biting cold always felt like tearing off a part of your soul.

Everyone was trying to keep busy, doing chores or trying to improve their camp. Only Dave had been training restlessly for most of the day.

He hadn’t contributed much to their camp per se, but when Mira went to confront him about it, she was stopped short by his training intensity. Max couldn’t fault her, even just watching Dave felt dangerous somehow.

Since then nobody had really complained about Dave’s lack of contribution. Probably because they realized that him getting stronger might even be the best contribution any of them could hope for. After feeling Dave fight and watching him train, Max knew that Dave was their only chance if they ever had to brace an attack from the Nodefoxes.

By the end of the second evening, some of Dave’s mentality had rubbed off on the others. Most of them had started training as well, it gave them a purpose to work towards and a way to channel their anxiety. Only sitting around, wondering if they would make it through tomorrow would drive the calmest man crazy.

There was another little space that was somewhat semi secluded, where the rest of them went to train. Ryland’s training was a combination of rigorous body weight exercises and using whatever he found for weight training. After seeing him bench press a tree branch that looked like it weighed twice as much as himself without breaking a sweat, Max's respect for Ryland skyrocketed..

Sarah was working on her mana projectile accuracy, she had found a marvelous old oak tree, it was giant and its bark carried a soft golden brown coloring. Or rather it had a soft golden brown coloring before Sarah charred it by sending projectile after projectile into it until she felt satisfied, punishing the poor tree for her own perfectionism.

While Sam didn’t have any wounds to heal, he was preparing something for worst case scenarios. With the store credit Max had bought a first aid kit and some tools for Sam. Their personal doctor had also found a few herbs that he was growing with Mira’s help. So now he was working on something like a sick station, having as many tools to heal as he could. Max wasn’t sure if that was also growing some skill of Sam, but nevertheless he was impressed by Sam’s meticulous planning and preparation.

Mira was mostly caring for her garden, ensuring their food production, but also helping Sam grow herbs and such. And even Bixby was busy, mostly with scouting or giving a few pointers to Sarah.

So naturally, Max felt out of place. He didn’t have any ability that he could effectively train to get stronger and no real utility Skill that would make their survival more comfortable. Sure he could still help here and there, or train to become stronger, but he just wasn’t sure that would be the best use of his time. That’s what made him feel so restless.

So he instead decided to focus on what only he could do. Interacting with the Node. He walked over to the secluded center of their clearing. The heart of operations, the place where the Node sat.

Max stepped by the two Grace Period buildings, they vaguely reminded him of too small eiffel towers, and past the mine he had just placed yesterday.

Mine was the wrong word for it in his opinion, but that was what the category of buildings was called. The “Small Newbie Mana Concentrator'' he had bought, as well as the other buildings he had seen in that category so far, didn’t even resemble what one would expect from a mine. It looked like a very thin fountain, barely a meter across, but the thing that would let the water out instead pulled soft blue lines of energy out of the atmosphere.

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It was fascinating to watch and held a surprisingly elegant beauty to it, but it definitely didn’t look like a mine.

These thoughts were quickly pushed to the back of Max mind when passed the ring of trees that stood as a last line between the Node and the rest of the camp. Immediately he felt the strange energy all around him to a much higher degree. Every time he saw the Node, he had to stop himself from gawking. It felt like watching a miracle over and over again. The soft blue mixed and twined in deeply mysterious patterns. Creating shapes and forms that Max could only marvel at.

He opened his Node Menu and saw that he still held exactly 0 Mana Shards. It had all worked out perfectly when buying their defense, the mine and the store, although now he was broke as a pauper.

He quickly checked the store upgrade he bought, instead of the buildings, upgrades weren’t there in physical forms but rather as an extension to the Node Menu. There was still a credit of 2 Mana Shards, together with what he estimated the mine had produced so far, that brought them to 5 Mana Shards at most.

Pretty meager considering they needed 2000 for their escape plan. The mine brought around 5 Mana Shards a day, so with only one it would take him well over a year to escape. Considering their options before would’ve been sure dead, that was acceptable. More than that really.

However by buying more mining buildings they could drastically increase their income. They hadn’t really done the math into detail, but they knew they could shorten the time dramatically. A mine needed around twenty two days to generate their own costs back, after that it was pure profit.

Also Max had quests that would also grant them shards, as well as a possibility of getting shards after leveling up.

He was doing exactly what he had hated most about his last jobs. Business. He was calculating profits, looking for ways to earn money, and increasing numbers exponentially. Sure there was more of a motivation since their life kind of depended on it, but still Max didn’t like it. Still he knew it was his job.

He sighed, and kept walking, trying to calm himself enough to catch at least a few hours of sleep tonight.

The night passed quickly and before long the group found themselves standing close to the Grace Period border, waiting anxiously. Max watched the last few seconds tickle down in his mind.

There was only a fizzle in the air. Like the brief illumination of lightning in a thunderstorm. Then the barrier was gone. Although everything looked exactly as before, Max couldn’t help feeling naked.

“Alright, everybody knows what to do?” Max asked, fighting to keep his voice calm.

“Scouting and looking for tracks.” Ryland replied.

“Then let's go, we will meet back here in an hour.”

Only a few days prior they had been walking around here almost casually, but now after getting used to the safety of their camp, everybody was nervous. Sure it would only be around an hour of walking around in close proximity to the camp, but when confronted with monsters and bloodthirsty squirrels, common sense went out of the window pretty fast.

They had decided to use the hour to make sure they were still safe and explore their surroundings a bit. In theory staying at the clearing wouldn’t keep them much safer than being outside. There was a higher risk of being spotted, but the potential benefit of gathering information or finding useful tools for survival outweighed the risks.

They decided to walk together in little groups, Mira and Sarah taking east, Sam and Ryland west and Dave and Max north. Bixby was covering south on his own, since he was faster alone, moving through the trees.

After almost an hour, Max and Dave were walking back towards camp. They hadn’t seen anything that indicated Nodefox activity or any other immediate danger. In fact they had spent most of the last hour trodding through the forest playing “Who Am I.” to keep them somewhat entertained. It was all just leaves and rocks. Less monotone than the jungle they had tracked through a few days ago, but still boring.

Max would rather take a boring walk over stumbling upon a Nodefox army any day though.

The other male parts of their group were already waiting at the camp. Sam was walking around restlessly while Ryland was leaning back against a tree and talking to Bixby.

As he spotted them, Sam darted over to them. “There you are!' Thank god I was worried, what took you so long?”

“Sam, it has only been like 40 minutes.” Max laughed easily and checked his internal timer for the Grace Period cooldown. In his mind he saw it like a digital watch, slowly ticking down.

"Oh, really?' Sorry, I’m just nervous I guess.”

“He has been like that the whole time. Jumping at every tree that looked at him wrong.” Ryland laughed.

“That’s alright, I actually feel you Sam.” Max said, “Have you guys found anything?”

Both men shared a glance before Ryland spoke. “I don’t know… Nothing that looked like Nodefoxes, but we found a footprint that looked rather big.”

“How big?” Dave raised his eyebrows and turned to look at Ryland.

"Big. Very big. Like eating that blue tiger for breakfast - big.” His voice was shaking a little. Max could understand that, he found it concerning that an animal that big would be roaming around these parts.

Before they could elaborate further, Mira and Sarah emerged out of the trees. Both women were carrying an armload of what looked like different plants and vegetables. Mira was dirty from head to toe, dirt all over her clothes, but with a big grin on her face.

“Look what we found!”