~~~Lee~~~

Nothing happened for a full minute following the message, and Lee stood nervously in the courtyard the whole excruciating time, his hand on the machete growing more and more slick with sweat. He wasn't the only nervous person, either.

Though, Bradley was the only obviously scared person present. He stood directly outside the small shelter he'd made to protect the kids. A last line of defense... that Lee honestly wouldn't have put much faith in. Of course, he suspected that Maria only put him there as an anchor for her movement ability. In case she had to leave and get back quickly.

As for Maria, she had to be nervous, considering what was at stake for her, but if so, she showed none of it in her expression. She met his gaze briefly when he looked up at her, then went back to searching the sky above, her expression a blank mask.

Alejandro looked worried where he stood at Lee's side, as the shield to protect the bait, but he seemed more focused than scared. The only thing off with him were the looks he kept sending Saira's way...

Saira stood just under the balcony, with a support pillar at her back and a pile of uprooted bushes and trees next to her. Mar was presumably nearby, but Lee wasn't close enough to detect her, even with the recently increased range of his Mana Mind.

Everyone here was F-grade, except for Bradley and the kids. Bradley hadn't quite earned enough before the snake, and the children couldn't even absorb cores... How they were expected to survive like that was a mystery.

"We got eyes on something!" Sandy yelled down from the roof a second before the signature sound of Jake's exploding arrows heralded the start of the fight.

Lee was counting on Jake to do a lot of damage today. Hell, they were all counting on him, and he could see the tension ramping up in everyone as the first snarl reached their ears.

"Beasts!" Sandy yelled, "Dozens of them, and they're fast!"

More explosions, interspersed by the more subdued sound of regular arrows firing off.

"They're splitting up across the complex! A dozen inbound on us!"

Lee pressed his back to what remained of the snake carcass and waited for the monsters, his grip tight on the machete and eyes jumping from the open sky above to the doorways they'd intentionally left open on the ground floor. The idea being to lure whatever showed up into using the doors rather than coming in from random directions. Plus, they'd trapped the hallways behind each door with Bradley's stone spikes.

Unfortunately, the spikes didn't appear to slow the dark shapes that rushed through the gaps.

Alejandro stepped forward to meet the first one, his shield high as something with claws pounced. He lunged ahead and slammed the front of his shield into the monster's face, arresting its momentum completely. Then he stabbed past the shield with his own machete and impaled the creature straight through the head.

The whole encounter from start to deadly finish happened so quickly and smoothly that it momentarily distracted Lee from the second creature coming his way. However, the distraction did nothing to prevent his Mana Mind from noticing.

Lee slid sideways, acting almost purely on instinct, as the cat-like monster landed claws first against the dead snake where he'd just been standing. Those same claws sank disturbingly deep into the corpse...

His Mana Mind also clearly highlighted the fact that these monsters had two long tails. Tails that moved far more independently than he'd expected when they both lashed out in his direction. Each one ended in a wicked spike and both were on track to impale Lee.

He cut one tail clean off, mostly by accident in the process of swinging for the cat's body next to him. The second tail aborted its attack in the bare instant before he could take it off as well, and then whipped around his blade and came in again.

Luckily, the cat sprang up the side of the snake's corpse to dodge his machete, which had the benefit of pulling its remaining tail away before it could stab him. It also left the way clear for the next cat monster to pounce, and Lee got a good look at that one as it flew toward his face. With his eyes this time instead of only Mana Mind.

It looked like a panther, only five times bigger and with two tails, both of which were twice the length of its body and tipped with a silvery fang.

Alejandro blurred in between Lee and the panther with his own movement skill, which turned out to work a lot like Maria's with how it latched onto him before the man appeared.

He'd only just arrived when another cat followed from the direction Alejandro had come from and tackled him right back out of the way.

Just in time for the first one to sail directly into Lee.

It was too close to dodge, especially with its massive reach. He would get absolutely shredded by those claws and probably stabbed to death by the tails. So Lee didn't even try. Instead, he launched himself forward to meet it head on.

His Mana Mind told him exactly where every piece of the cat was as it closed on him. Unfortunately, knowing was only half the battle. He still had to actually move his body in ways that were almost completely foreign to him just a few days before.

Still, who hadn't waved a stick around, or swung a bat a few times. That was something practically instinctive to all humans, and that was what Lee did. It wasn't fancy or skilled; he didn't have good footwork, and he would most assuredly get stabbed and or mauled in the process. But he did have something extra beyond ordinary humans. He would heal from almost anything.

Head and heart. That was all he worried about as he swung toward the giant panther's head, and it was all his Mana Mind looked for as well. As long as he didn't get hit in his head or his heart, it would be okay. It would still hurt though...

Debuff: [Heavy Bleeding]

It did hurt. Quite a lot, in fact. But even when he squeezed his eyes shut at the last moment, he still 'saw' his machete cleave right through the cat's head. It would have likely split the entire thing straight down the middle, except the split halves didn't lose any momentum from his attack and the dead cat bowled him over.

Lee was buried under the beast but still saw Maria zip next to the cat and kick it sideways off him. She followed up by grabbing his wrist to keep him from waving the machete, and then running a finger over the two large holes in his abdomen, left there courtesy of the cat's tails. The actual collision with the giant cat had hurt far less than expected...

Buff: [Improved Regeneration]

Debuff Downgraded: [Internal Bleeding]

Then she hauled him upright and vanished back upstairs.

Alejandro was just finishing his own cat, though he took a stab to his side from a tail before it died. Lee moved closer to him as he glanced around, but found no living targets in sight. Four of the beasts lay dead on the ground... Hadn't Sandy said there were a dozen coming? Did Jake kill the rest?

"Saira, healing!" Alejandro dragged him toward the healer woman, but Lee shrugged him off.

"Save it for the others. I'll heal." It still hurt like a bitch; Maria hadn't healed nearly enough, but he was riding high on adrenaline and would rather save the healing until it was more urgent.

Debuff: [Hungry]

On that note, he stuffed some rattlesnake meat in his mouth.

An explosion from the roof heralded the start of round two, followed immediately by Sandy yelling. "Shit! More coming, and from every direction!"

Lee was more prepared when the next batch of over-sized panthers squeezed through the doors and charged him. He was not prepared for the handful that jumped down into the courtyard from above.

Alejandro shouldered him aside just before he got dog-piled, or cat-piled... and Lee managed to stay on his feet, mostly because they slid easily over the blood coating the floor. It left him further away and with a great view to see the man get buried under a pile of panthers.

He was trying to run closer on the slick floor when Maria appeared, stabbed a panther in the head, blurred a half-dozen feet to the side, and stabbed another one through the skull. She zipped away just ahead of the striking tails, but it proved enough of a distraction for Alejandro to handle the others. It wasn't hard with them all so close and an enchanted blade in his hand that could cut through them like butter.

Lee resorted to jumping from corpse to corpse to reach Alejandro, who was now covered in blood and seemed disoriented. It might have only been the blood in his eyes, but Lee shoved him toward Saira, just in case. Then he went down under what had to be five hundred pounds of panther.

Mana Mind gave just enough warning that his machete met the descending cat before it reached him. His machete won.

Of course, he couldn't dodge on the slippery tiles and got buried beneath the falling body.

Once again, the impact hurt, but more akin to being smacked with a mattress. This time, he shoved it off without Maria's help and found that easier than expected as well. This was technically his first battle since reaching F-grade... all he'd done before was run really fast.

"Holy shit!" Sandy's yell came while she was already diving into the courtyard. Passing across the sky above and behind her was another panther. Only, this one's size was on par with the damn rattlesnake... and it looked like Jake might have been in its mouth.

"Jake!" Alejandro yelled after the man and took a few pointless steps. They were already out of sight. Who knew how far and how fast that thing could go? They would never catch up in time...

"There's more coming!" Sandy said, while limping toward Saira. She was covered in blood, but Lee suspected that was mostly from the puddle she'd landed in.

He looked up at her warning and was just in time to see another over-sized cat jumping into the courtyard. At least twice again as large as the others, though much smaller than whatever got Jake, and it behaved differently.

Where the others had pounced immediately, this one jumped to the far side of the courtyard and landed atop the dead snake that still filled the area. Then it just stood there, watching them.

No one had time to ponder the matter, though, because a dozen more of the smaller panthers followed it down. Those newcomers didn't hesitate to attack, and they charged eagerly after the outnumbered humans.

Everyone got swarmed, which meant Lee couldn't count on Alejandro's help when three of the beasts came straight for him, completely boxing him in with nowhere to run...

The monsters flew into his Mana Mind, and they were different... Mana Mind didn't let him see inside anyone other than himself. He could see through the dead snake's body, but every other living thing so far was an opaque wall to his senses. It had worked the same way with the first panthers, too. Only now he was seeing inside the new ones, and they felt... too empty.

Then Lee was out of time to ponder on the mysteries of magic and lining up his swing, hoping to take at least two in the first strike. He succeeded, the enchanted blade cutting clear through one's head and carving deep into the second's throat. He took a tail spike in the leg for his efforts, but two of them were down, or soon to be.

Unfortunately, there was one more, and the third had a clean shot at his back. Twin tails stabbing straight for his heart.

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He was out of time. Alejandro was surrounded. Maria was fending off two cats trying to scale the balcony, and no one else would reach him before it was too late.

In that frozen moment, Lee recalled the day in the store when he'd thought he was dying. When Stanley almost died. His chest had hurt so bad... Was it because Stanley had been stabbed in the heart? Could they really heal from something like that?

He couldn't count on his regeneration to go that far. Even if it didn't kill him, it would leave him as helpless as he was on that day. Would probably leave Stanley in the same situation... No!

Lee pushed back against his onrushing death... and it wavered. The panther soaring towards his back abruptly stopped, rippled in his Mana Mind, and along with a stabbing pain in his head, it shattered.

Skill Level Up: Mana Mind (Epic) - Level 4 (Novice)

The extra foot of range from the level up brought one of Alejandro's attackers into range, and Lee attacked it the same way. Only this time, he got to see the results with his own eyes when it shattered into motes of light and vanished. He also noticed the small thread of mana that snapped away from the destroyed panther and flew toward...

Skill Level Up: Mana Mind (Epic) - Level 5 (Novice)

"They're not real!" Lee screamed, half in warning and half at the sensation of an ice pick stabbing into his brain. "It's that... one." He turned to the still unmoving panther and found it staring very intently and very unnervingly back at him.

More panthers poured over the roof and fell like a dark tide down toward the humans. Despite his warning, Lee could see the others taking wounds from the fake monsters. His own leg was still bleeding... so maybe not illusions? Constructs? Either way, everyone was busy, which meant it was up to him to stop the monster.

"Fuck me!" Lee took off, sprinting toward what had to be the one responsible for the illusions. Assuming it wasn't an illusion as well...

It didn't respond in any way other than to stare at him as he charged, but the panthers swarming into the courtyard responded by all running straight for him.

Lee ignored them. At least until they entered his Mana Mind. Then he broke them like he'd broken the previous ones. It hurt, especially as more and more caught up to him, and Lee screamed but didn't stop. He ran in a stumbling and staggering gait, but kept getting closer to the unmoving cat, one step at a time.

It wasn't a construct, and it never moved as he approached. Not until he jumped up to meet it atop the snake, machete swinging down to chop its head open.

Then it moved. Or rather, its tails moved.

Twin tails blasted from opposite directions to impale him, and it was exactly what Lee had expected. He shifted the blade just a hair... and chopped the right tail off. The left tail stabbed through his raised left arm and into his chest.

Debuff Upgraded: [Heavy Bleeding]

Debuff Upgraded: [Starving]

Lee's ongoing screaming ended with the strike.

Air blasted from his lungs, and he choked on the blood that took its place. He wanted to keep screaming, but he'd known this was coming, had deliberately sacrificed his arm to deflect the strike away from his heart by just enough to survive the next few moments... and then he swung down on the panther's head.

Finally, it moved. For real this time.

From the way it had stood there, with nothing moving but its tails and eyes, Lee had taken a wild guess that it couldn't actually move while controlling the constructs. Luckily, he was right.

All the fake panthers swarming him popped like soap bubbles as the cat dodged his machete. It even yanked the tail out of his chest before he could cut that one off too...

Lee fell to his knees when the tail stopped holding him up, his machete heavy in his hand as it sank into the dead snake beneath him. His head pounded. Vision tunneled. He couldn't breathe... and the cat's tail shot straight for his head.

Alejandro appeared. That wonderful man and his magnificent shield! The tail ricocheted off the shield, and Maria appeared in the panther's face. Her knife plunged like a striking viper into its skull, then again and again. She vanished as the cat lunged in for a bite... and Alejandro lopped off its head.

Everything got much more peaceful after that, though Lee's vision wasn't so good when Maria reappeared, this time right next to him. Then he finally got to feel what her skill was like on the other end as the world blurred around him and left him somewhere else... It was really cool...

Debuff Removed: [Heavy Bleeding]

Debuff Downgraded: [Hungry]

Lee instantly felt better and then had to roll over and cough up the blood in his lung.

Debuff Removed: [Hungry]

"Save... save it," he gasped out. "The other one that got Jake! We have to..."

"Jake's probably fine," Sandy said, and Lee looked up to see her slumped against a pillar and breathing heavily. "He… called… dibs on the big one."

Oh, right, Jake was a crazy bastard. "Was that all of them?"

Sandy shrugged. "I'm guessing we'll find out."

Lee rolled over onto his back and met Saira's worried gaze. "You okay?"

She nodded. "Mar protected me."

Mar was well within Lee's Mana Mind and he saw her perk up slightly before curling in on herself. "Thank you. Both of you."

"You are welcome... but how did you..."

Victory!

The challenge has been met, and the challenge has been won.

New Sapient Lair formed: [Greenfield Village]

Prepare. The Invaders will come, and you must defend your home or risk losing it.

For successfully founding a new Sapient Lair, area is protected from Invasion for duration. (6:23:59:55)

All participants may claim structures or areas of the Sapient Lair as their own personal reward. Size and bonuses of the claimed area dependent on contributions to the challenge.

Buff: [Greenfield Village]

So Jake must have won, after all. Not that Lee doubted the man, not after what Sandy said. Hell, he'd probably jumped into its mouth on purpose...

But now it was time for some sweet rewards. "Ooh, I want this building," Lee said, not expecting what happened next.

As the third highest contributor, Building 3 is within the limits of your claimable rewards. So long as it is not contested by the first and second place contributors.

Alejandro was watching him when Lee looked up. "You want this building? Because of the..." he trailed off with a glance at the others present. Then smiled. "I do not contest."

Building 3 is uncontested. You will forfeit all other rewards. Do you wish to claim it? Y/N

"I do want it, but..."

Building 3 is now the personal Lair domain of (Lee Cascade). Structure wide effects may be customized, and or limited to select occupants.

Buff: [Building 3]

"Crap... what were the other rewards?" He hadn't meant to actually claim the whole building out from under everyone else, especially Alejandro. He'd also glossed over the other rewards option...

Jake dropped out of the sky and landed beside him with the only warning coming from Lee's Mana Mind. "Something about leadership," he said. "Which I passed on, and stats, which I took." He grinned at Lee and then everyone around him. "Oh, and a little something for being the best."

"Figured," Lee said, sitting up finally. If Alejandro was in second place, then first had to be Jake, especially after killing the boss. Honestly, Lee was surprised to get into third place. He hadn't killed that many of the monsters...

"Congratulations!" Alejandro exclaimed, and tried to pat Jake on the back. He met with the same results as the last time.

"Since that little game is over," Jake said. "I'm going hunting." He strolled away, and no one volunteered to join him.

"You sure you didn't want to claim at least your apartment?" Lee asked Alejandro. The guy had saved his life too many times already. Or maybe he was moving out, anyway?

Alejandro kept glancing up to the balcony the whole time they'd been talking, and his face lit up a moment before he blurred away with his skill.

"Papa, Papa!" Gabriel's voice carried down to them, and Lee scooted over to lean against another of the pillars as he listened to the excited and scared children's noises.

He pulled meat from his pocket and it came out wet with panther blood... "Jamaal, you think the panthers are good to eat?" He'd seen the man emerge from the apartment behind Saira.

"I..." the man stopped next to Lee and stared wide-eyed at the surrounding carnage. "I will check..."

Lee glanced at Saira, then Sandy. "We split the cores?" A group fight like this didn't seem the place to insist on killing rights. Also, the illusions didn't drop cores... so Lee might get more in an even split.

"Fine with me," Sandy said, and Saira nodded.

"Jamaal," Lee said, resting his still aching head in his hands. "If you gather the cores, then you can have one from my share." He wanted to grab the big panther's core, to see if it might have dropped a skill, but he also really didn't want to get up.

His status said he was fine, but he felt... drained. From the looks of everyone else, the feeling was mutual. Except for Alejandro and Jake, obviously. But then, they were both crazy.

Plus, he had something else to check on.

[Greenfield Village]

Universal Effects:

100% Conception Rate

Reduced Offspring Incubation Duration(Dependent on Mana Density)

Accelerated Offspring Growth Rate(Dependent on Mana Density)

[Building 3]

Resident Effects:

+25% Effectiveness of All Base Attributes

+100% to all regeneration

+200% Mana regeneration (Hidden)[Liquid Mana Well]

The first one was... weird, though it made sense in a humans are monsters kind of way. Can't have all the monsters dying out... so rather than offering protection, just breed 'em faster. Terrible. But it made sense.

As for his own building, that was a nice reward, and it wasn't the only one. The building itself had changed. Something Lee noticed from his Mana Mind following the battle. There had already been mana in the building; mana was in everything now. But it had drastically increased following the whole sapient lair thing.

He refrained from testing his machete on the floor, but suspected the building would hold up much better than before. His blade might still cut into the concrete, but it would just be his machete runes doing the work and wasting their charge in the process. Even a giant snake might not crush it... though, if it started ramming the building, they'd probably still have problems.

Thinking about the building made Lee aware of another issue, one that he could remedy. Or so he expected.

Do you wish to invite (Alejandro Morales) as a Resident of Building 3? Y/N

Lee agreed and then did the same thing for everyone else, even the kids. He hadn't been sure it would work for them, and it didn’t.

Saira and Mar both reacted visibly in his Mana Mind, but Alejandro and Maria were still upstairs and out of range.

"If you guys want to," Lee said. "I’m sure this building is going to be a target in the future, just like it was today. But the buffs might help with that." He had a feeling the illusion panther and whatever Jake had killed were not standard. They felt like boss monsters, and the fact both had come here was likely a sign of things to come. Whether it was the well or him… he didn’t know.

Still, everyone accepted the invite. Though it looked like Maria acted as a proxy for the kids. That was... interesting, as for the whole creepy bit about increasing birth rates... they'd all seen it. Maria and Alejandro knew about the Mana Well, which Lee suspected would play a major role in the whole ambient mana thing. Maybe they were okay with it. Let the kids grow faster. Better chance to survive...

Jamaal brought the cores; no skill shards, unfortunately, but the cores were all the good ones that gave plus one to all attributes. Lee gave one to Jamaal as promised, then stayed where he was while the man went back to his cooking fires with a vengeance.

+0.1 All Base Attributes

+0.1 All Base Attributes

It wasn't much, but still a nice bonus on top of the new building effects. It was also fascinating to watch the absorption process with Mana Mind. The energy in the core didn't flow into his mana channels, it just sort of... dissolved into his flesh. It was hard to track because it just seemed to blend among all the mana already inside him. He could actually feel it better than see it.

Against what he'd expected, all the energy went into him from the core. From his Energetic Resilience trait, he'd expected that some of it would be resisted, or slide off... or something. But it didn't.

Jamaal churned out fresh food and the panther meat was good. The hearty meal also helped push back the headache brought on by his Mana Mind.

Despite the pain, his efforts with the skill had paid off in more ways than just saving their lives, and he'd missed a few notifications toward the end there.

Skill Level Up: Mana Mind (Epic) - Level 10 (Novice)

No Evolutions available. Upgrade to Basic rank available. Proceed? Y/N

Obviously, he accepted.

Mana Mind (Epic) - Level 10 (Basic)

Your mind is intrinsically linked to all Mana within the skill's radius, increasing Mana manipulation and granting total awareness of all Mana within range. Higher levels will increase the range and ease of manipulation.

Your mind actively consumes Mana to fuel greater mental processes. Lack of Mana to fuel this process will have a negative effect. Sustained lack may cause permanent losses.

This is a permanent effect and can not turned off so long as you have the skill.

Skill Level Effects (Basic):

+2% All Effective Mind Attributes at 100% Mana

0% Effect at 49% Mana

-2% All Effective Mind Attributes at 0% Mana

The only difference seemed to be the 'slightly' was removed from the mana manipulation. Not counting the extra attributes, of course. There was one downside to using Mana Mind like he had. His Mana Burn debuff had gained a few extra hours. It did say his mind consumed mana... so maybe using his mind to attack consumed even more?

Worth it.

He also found out later from Alejandro that the Mana Well message from the building buff was indeed hidden. Something he should have checked before inviting everyone...