Sloane woke up inside the dream again.

She stared at the distant stars with constrained calmness, unlike the last few times she came here where she was caught off guard, Sloane had a goal this time around.

And that was to put as much of the alien mass she collected into the mana channel star.

Sloane didn't stray from her plan and swiftly went to one particular star while ignoring the other six, she gazed at the third-eye opened mark in the distance, glaring at it like it would give her the answers that she seek by doing so.

This was a gamble because she honestly didn't know if the reason why her crossbow was effective against the monsters is because she got this thing before making it.

Sloane stared at the dark pit surrounding the red orb, the outer edges have been filled out but that wasn't nearly enough for her purposes.

Because if this is truly the key to her managing to hurt the humanoids then she's going to need to fill it up. All of it.

Sloane raised her hand and commanded the mass inside of her to feed into the pit.

Pain burned at her entire sense of self as the mass connected with the glowing red lines in the pit, it was more intense than before and like always, she could only grit her teeth in response to the excruciating agony.

Sloane could do nothing but endure it as the mass from three dead monsters fed into the star, and by the end, her endurance had been worth it since she was now staring at a bigger portion of the darkened pit being filled.

Visibly, the lines reached a little over halfway through, but for some reason, she could sense that she had upgraded the star twice with an extra half layer added. She could also tell that the star can be upgraded four times in total.

That same instinctive feeling is also telling her that all she needed were two more monsters to kill and she'd be able to get to the third stage of the star.

Two monsters specifically. Sloane found the number strange.

It took two monsters this time around to fill a part of the pit instead of just one, did the number required for feeding it double? Then what was the growth rate for every resulting upgrade?

What about the mass she harvests from larger or more dangerous monsters? Did that change things?

The centipede had given her more than the grinning humanoids and for some reason, killing it counted as two monsters when feeding the stars.

What was the difference? The danger they pose?

Arguably, Sloane knew that the more intelligent humanoids would be harder for her to kill, she can just trick the centipede to kill it. Actually, that was exactly how she managed to kill the centipede. With petty tricks.

Sloane knew that running in circles wouldn't work for the humanoids, they were too smart for that.

So tactical intelligence didn't factor into the mass? Was it size? Sloane doubted it, as there was a clear difference between shadows and a fully formed organism 2 feet taller than her. And both fed one star each.

By that logic, it also couldn't be mass.

Then that meant that it was some arbitrary thing or energy like mana or a soul or something along those lines. That actually made sense once Sloane put some thought into it.

Whatever the method or reasoning behind it was, killing monsters got her to harvest something from them, which she can then feed to the stars in this dream...

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

That was an easy system to understand, the needed amount of monsters for each corresponding upgrade also had this simplicity.

And going by her knowledge that her current stars can be upgraded 4 times, they would need 1, then 2, 4, and 8 monsters for each stage.

Thankfully, from her current understanding of it, the stars have unique exponents individually- since getting new stars always required 1 monster, - so upgrading mana channel like what she did shouldn't affect the prices of the other two stars she got.

Sloane was about to fact check her theory by checking and comparing prices when she was suddenly woken up-

Sloane groaned, she expected to wake up sooner than this, right after the mass she held ran out in fact. That was what happened the last few times.

What was different this time around?..

She spent a strangely lengthy amount of time in that dream before she was pulled out, how did that work? She was waiting to wake up but that didn't happen, was there some kind of time limit or-

Sloane flinched when she heard a banging sound come from the window, she turned her head and shouted- fumbling backwards until she fell down to the floor back first-

She gasped and just like that, the thing was gone.

She stared at the ceiling dully, the shock was finally leaving her system and it allowed her to think more clearly.

She looked back at the window, why was there an eye staring at her through the gaps in the boards just now?

The eye that met hers was bloodshot and familiar, Sloane could almost see the perpetual grin present on its hidden face, just a few inches beneath the eye itself.

Sloane shakily stood up, why hadn't it attacked her yet? What was it waiting for?

... Did she wake up before it could?

She glared at the window and pointed her box cutter at it, that damn thing comes in here and she would- she would-

The creature was now gone and the creepy feeling Sloane felt from locking gazes with it followed quickly after. So she was safe. Maybe.

She wasn't going to take any chances.

Sloane stood up and went back to her bed.

She sat there, one hand clutching her forehead and another gripping her box cutter so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Why were the humanoid creatures visiting her house now?

She stood up and walked over to her closet, she attached curtains on the gaps between the upper most boards and the wall and covered the entire window.

Now, then, back to her question; why would the creatures visit her?

After taking a handful of pills, she went downstairs. She wasn't going to find answers sitting in her room like that.

As it turns out, the humanoid creepily staring at her from her bedroom window wasn't the only one.

There were more, dozens of them from what Sloane could inaccurately estimate.

All of them walked around the periphery of her house, surrounding it like wolves hunting sheep and peeking through boarded windows and shattered glass to get a glimpse of her.

For some, she actually had to shoot an arrow at in warning because they were trying to take pieces of the wooden planks she used to reinforce the windows.

Every time they did this, Sloane would take that particular plank down before replacing it with a new one.

Sloane continuously did this while wallowing in stress at the thought of running out of materials to keep doing so.

She did eventually find a solution after she got an idea to loot for more wood while sitting in the workbench she made in the kitchen.

Despite this revelation, Sloane's 'I can't take this anymore posture' didn't wane, she still had her hands grabbing her head and her back hunched unnaturally downward.

She realized that she's going to need to deal with these things sooner or later now that they were actively attacking her, and in large groups too.

She couldn't deal with them alone or without proper weapons though...

Sloane stared at the magazines she emptied yesterday and the box of bullets next to them.

Maybe if she could...

Sloane ran upstairs to grab her gun.

Going back down, she placed one bullet inside the revolver's chamber and... it fit.

Sloane slumped in relief.

She was glad that it was a match because she couldn't imagine dealing with all the monsters outside with just a crossbow.

Sloane glared at the window as she placed the now loaded revolver on the work bench, the added weight of the bullets was felt from the way the gun settled onto the wooden surface.

She had a fighting chance.

Actually no, with her gun, she might just win this entire thing. In the past she's never truly aimed for the head of the humanoid that was inside her house, she simply shot it whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Now though? She was curious just how deadly a bullet to the head is for these creatures.

Sloane massaged her temples, but before she could do any of that, she should probably drink something for her fever first. Let it heal.

With her new wound, it had gotten worse.

Sloane gulped down some antibiotics as well as a few tablets for coughing and a runny nose. She should probably drink as much of these as she could now that she had enough medicine to do it.

Getting cured faster in exchange for consuming her supplies was better than letting her fever fester and get worse.

She stood up and began further reinforcing her home.

She already boarded the windows, but Anarchial Recipe also recommended that if she were to make a base of operations where she'll stay in for long periods of time, she needed to set traps, especially at places where she wouldn't be in most of the time but are still considered as entrances.

Following the guide on how to make and set traps in the book, Sloane started with the backdoor of the house.

She placed taut strings from fishing rods for the monsters to trip on and hammered nails into small wooden pieces for them to fall onto.

Sloane doubted these would be effective, but again, it was better than nothing.

After trapping the backdoor, she went ahead and did the same to the windows that didn't lead to her room, that one had the thinnest fishing lines she could find as traps, the monsters would be cut to pieces if they ever enter through there.

Her parent's room was still... a bit hard for her to figure out so Sloane simply laid nails and shattered glass on the hallway outside of it.

If any of the humanoids picks that path to go through, they'd quickly find their feet torn by all the sharp objects she left on the floor.

And lastly, Sloane prevented herself from getting damaged by her own traps- or at least the ones on the floor, - by adding thick padding on the soles of her shoes.

It should prevent the glass pieces or even the nails from reaching her feet and stabbing her soles.

When she was done, Sloane saw that the sky had gone from complete darkness to being tinted in blue.

The sounds coming from outside had stopped at some point, indicating that the monsters didn't like sunlight for some reason.

Sloane stashed that important piece of information.

She also reminded herself to find ways to prevent the creatures from pulling off this stunt in the future, having her house scouted like this was unnerving.

That was for future Sloane though- she yawned.

It was dawn now, and she worked several hours while wounded, stressed out, and sick.

She needed a break and a well deserved sleep so after cleaning herself with a rag she soaked in vodka, Sloane went to bed.