Earth Countdown: 387 days, 10 hours, 12 minutes.

  Time on Darje Mission: 27 days, 6 hours, 45 minutes.

  I stood in the gore of a shattered undead Darje drone. The black substance which passed for its blood soaked into the skin of my bare feet and climbed up my legs. It was a workaround for the Blood Bather talent. I was secretly quite proud of my ingenuity. It allowed coverage for a significant portion of my skin, while maintaining a modicum of defense. Through trial and error, blood soaked up to my knees was good enough.

  Cutting the legs off of one of my pairs of pants, probably made me look stupid. It definitely made the team laugh at me when I fought in those same shorts, but Samvek was pushing us too hard and for the past six hours, we only got a respite for as long as it took for him to bring the next drone. He’d insisted I needed to use my Blood Bather talent at all times, and this was how I went about it.

  Sometimes we fought one at a time. Those were my favorite pulls, but most of the time it was two or three and sometimes even four at the same time. I was allowed to cast my buffs and debuffs, but no direct damage spells, which included not using my Mage Missiles ability. Samvek insisted that practicing too many things at once would dilute the efficiency of the training.

  Most of the time I was forced to fight with my staff, although at one point, Samvek produced a long sword that he made me use. It resulted in gaining the skill of Long Blades. He insisted it would be important later on, so after the first few hours, he made switched things up. Now I alternated with the sword half the time.

  I panted and caught my breath while glancing at my status sheet. Two, almost three more levels gained and the Darje evolution was up to forty-two percent. Samvek forbade me and urged the team not to assign any free stat points we got. He stressed that we could only keep making rapid gains if we didn’t become too much stronger than the monsters we were fighting.

  It was hard to argue with him. The results definitely showed. I’d hit a base skill of fifty in blunt weapons, not including the boon, and gained 2 points of Strength and Durability. It wasn’t a huge gain, but it was points outside of my levels. Come to think of it, that was when Samvek had started making me use the sword more.

  That wasn’t the only new skill that I’d gained. I also had learned Shield Mastery and Tandem Fighting. Not that I really cared at the moment, as my arms were hanging numbly at my side.

  Samvek suddenly appeared, and I braced myself for incoming but he held up his hand. “At ease. It seems you all have cleared out this plot of the cemetery. Good job. It only took you a little over six hours.”

  Nevin flopped to the ground. As he was pretty much only a mage, his Endurance was the lowest of anyone in the group. “Only six hours he said. I’ve got a throbbing mana drain headache. There’s only so many times I can empty my mana pool and keep going without collapsing.”

  Samvek started setting up a fire. “Does that mean you’re too tired to set up camp here?”

  Nevin groaned but rolled over and then up to his knees. “You mean we get to rest?”

  When Samvek nodded, Nevin glanced over at me and said, “I don’t know where you found this guy, but your mentor is gonna kill me.”

  Crag said, “You sure weren’t complaining about all that meditating we had to do earlier? Do you know how boring that is?”

  Nevin didn’t bother to respond but simply went to work on clearing space for the blankets that I was pulling out of my spatial storage. We’d been setting up camp each night when we were outside the dungeon and then tearing it down each morning. This was no different, and the practice had made us handle it smoothly without any hangups. I absently thought about how broken it would be if my gear upgraded inside spatial storage based on the time dilation I was in rather than based on Earth time. Staying in a place like this for a few months could cause me to end up with a bunch of rare gear.

  Once we were settled and started to cook some food, I allowed myself to sit down. Endurance was my third lowest stat, but it was still more than three times peak human. I had originally thought that would let me go without sleep for days. And truthfully, I could, but there was always a price to pay.

  It turned out that having other stats which were super meant that I could push my body in ways that no normal human could have survived, which in turn, tested my endurance. It didn’t seem fair, but then again I’d just fought non-stop for six hours. A couple hours of sleep would get me by. Four hours would be better, or even a couple hours of sleep and a few hours of reclining.

  One thing that I hadn’t factored, mostly because people who hadn’t experienced it, couldn’t fully appreciate it—was the strain of combat. It was as much mental and emotional, as it was physical. My heightened Mind stat was not the stress reliever—cure-all I assumed it would be. Will might allow me to push through it for a couple days, but once again, the bill always came due.

  Samvek came up to the pot where we were cooking some stew. The stench of the grave was so strong that I wasn’t sure that I would be able to keep it down, but my stomach definitely wanted food. “I won’t be keeping watch any longer. Clearing this dungeon is your test. Depending on how well you perform, I have rewards for you. I will intervene if any threat appears which is beyond your capability, but it will count against you. Unless there are any abnormal monsters, you should be able to handle them even if the end boss is a level forty uncommon. Especially since you should be at or near level forty by the time we get there.”

  The past month had taught me there was no point in arguing with Samvek when he made pronouncements like this. It wasn’t a negotiation. It wasn’t even really an order. He was simply stating the way that things would be. So I turned to the rest of my team and said, “I call first watch.”

  Dora asked, ‘How’s the progress on your mission?”

  I was surprised that it hadn’t occurred to me to check that. Such an oversight was unlikely, for the gamer in me, but this was testing me in ways that no game ever could.

  I pulled up the mission tab in my status.

  Slaughter Mission: Cleanse the Darje Graveyard before outbreak can occur. This mission is recommended for a full party of split between common and uncommon grades. (1500 world points)

  Outer plots cleared: 1/24

  Inner plots cleared: 0/6

  Core plot cleared: 0/1

  Optional Secondary Objective: ???

  I was less than enthused once I saw the quest update. There was a lot more dungeon for us to clear out. At our current level, I didn’t think we could do much more than one plot per day. We needed down time. As I’d been learning, meditation was a good way to not only gain attunements or enhance my mana regeneration. It was also useful for consolidating my gains.

  When applied for that purpose, I’d replay the fights from the day and work out the various mistakes I’d made as well as when I’d executed properly. Both taught me things. Both could help me improve my skill. I’d truly been sold on the idea of post battle meditation when I got a skill up while meditating.

  After I gave them the bad news on how far we still had to go on our mission, they all sighed as much as I did. It wasn’t that this wasn’t good training it was. But fighting the same foe day after day got boring. So I asked Samvek, “Are there any other guidelines we need to know about before we set our watch schedule?”

  He smiled. I knew what that meant. “As far as I can tell, all of the outer plots have drones as the primary monster. You can’t assume there won’t be anything tougher, but these should be what you’ll be facing for the most part. Since you won’t have me pulling the monsters for you, I’ll give you eight hours each day to clear an outer plot.

  “Then after you clear the plot for the day, we’ll do four hours of skill training, followed by two hours of mediation and then two hours of spell or ability training. Then we’ll debrief for the day and the rest of the time will be yours, although I suggest you don’t just sleep it all away.”

  I nodded. It was better than I’d feared. “Shouldn’t you at least teach Dora how to do the pulls?”

  She objected, “I know how to pull monsters.”

  “I wasn’t implying that you didn’t. I just meant that it would benefit us if he showed you the basics on these particular monsters.”

  He shook his head. “I could, but then she wouldn’t gain the experience of learning it the hard way and you all wouldn’t have to deal with the threat of a train. If I’m going to trust one of my clansmen to these adventurers, then I want to know that you’re in good hands.”

  My team shared a look with me, but it was what it was. We divided up the rest of the schedule for tonight, allowing each of us to get six hours of downtime. I only slept for four and spent the last two hours while Nevin was on watch talking to him about magic and class schemes. There was so much for me to learn that I really didn’t know where to begin some days.

  The next few weeks became a grind. I gained level thirty-seven the first day we were on our own. It ended up taking us a little longer than eight and a half hours to clear the plot, but we didn’t run into anything bigger than a drone. Skills continued to go up, but just like XP they were slowing down. Even more for Dora and Crag, who hadn’t said their exact levels, but it was pretty clear they were a good bit ahead of me.

  After that, I gained a level a day for two days and on the fourth day it dropped down to less than a level per day. So, after two more weeks of clearing plots, I was only at level forty-two. The drones were still good targets in some ways. They helped me work on weapon skills against non-humanoid monsters. They were fairly durable and if I didn’t go all out strength wise, I could still gain at least a couple of skill points a day in blunt weapons.

  Sparring afterwards would help me with staff fighting and a couple of my spells were nearly ready for an evolution. On the fifteenth day, Dora was the first one to have a skill hit 100. Small blades was her primary skill, and she practically erupted with excitement. Not only did she gain some stat points, but she also gained a choice between three different stylistic modifications to the skill. She chose Precision Striking. It gave her a significant boost to her chance to land a critical strike, in exchange, there was a small reduction in base damage.

  It was cool to see her in action after that because she didn’t even seem to notice it, but there were some small yet noticeable changes to her style after that. That excited me, as it meant that these system modifications to a skill had real value. None of my skills were past seventy-five if I didn’t count the effects of my boon. So, I knew I still likely had a few months to work on them before reaching that point.

  The next big jump happened on day eighteen when Crag hit 100 in his blunt weapons skill. From the various options he was presented with, he choose Penetrating Force, which enabled a greater amount of the force of his strikes to bypass the armor of his target. The results were immediately noticeable when he struck the portions of Darje drone legs that still had flesh on them. Bones seemed to break easier and the inner workings of joints were disrupted more often even if a bone wasn’t broken.

  We finally reached the last outer plot on day 23. We’d managed to clear the previous plot in four hours, so we decided to push through into the final plot. I still hadn’t reached level 43 as the XP gains were almost nothing now. The entire team was stuck here. The drones were simply too low of a level.

  I smiled as Dora ran into the last plot. She was regularly pulling four at a time now and each of us would just solo one of the mobs. The only thing we worried about would be if we somehow pulled twenty or more of the drones down on ourselves. Even then, we would have been okay, it just would have taken more time and frankly would have hurt more.

  My smile faded though, when Dora came running back after only a few seconds. “There are only six mobs in this plot, but two of them are something different from drones. I need you to come Identify them.”

  I nodded. My excitement was returning. By this point, I was ready to fight anything other than drones. The new monsters might still be undead, but hopefully they offered a bit of a challenge. I knew it wasn’t very smart of me to feel that way, but I couldn’t help it. The sense of danger had started to fade and with it gone, boredom set in. A part of me screamed that it was foolish, but I couldn’t help how I felt.

  Chapter 12- Variants

  Sneaking through the graveyard made me miss my rogue class. It had granted a certain level of intuitive ability in sneaking that I simply didn’t have on my own. With my recent level ups, I had increased my Strength to the point that it nearly caught up with my Agility by function of my automatically assigned stat points. I definitely felt it in the way I moved. There was more raw power in every motion, but now I was missing that almost ethereal grace I’d felt before.

  For all that I complained about the lack of growth in Agility, I was loving the boost that I got to my feeling of health when Vitality hit 100 naturally. With gear it had been over 100 for a while, but gaining the 10% effectiveness bonus was refreshing. It made me excited to see what happened when Will broke 200 since it was now my highest stat gaining 6 points automatically with every level.

  I had to stop next to a ruined sepulcher while Dora scouted ahead and I took a second to look at the new bonus. It reminded me just how invasive the system had been when it forced its way into my world. Really, into the life of all humans, even if they didn’t know it yet. When it chose a title like this for the benchmark, it just felt like I was being taunted.

  Your Vitality Stat has surpassed the first threshold. You now possess a Vitality stat 10 times greater than the average human. You are the 8th human to reach this threshold.

  Title Gained (based upon local nomenclature): Living La Vida Loca. Vitality +10% effectiveness. This is the uncommon version of the title.

  Then Dora was back and pulled me out of my own head. She held up her finger to her mouth and then gave me some simple instructions. Working this long together had led to the creation of a set of hand gestures which could convey simple commands. I knew such a thing had existed for the military on Earth, but I just adapted to the ones used by the Galenians.

  As Dora signaled, I shifted into a cautious stance, every muscle tensed and ready. Moving with a deliberate slowness that belied my increased strength, I followed her lead. Each step was a calculated placement, avoiding loose stones and brittle bones scattered haphazardly on the ground. The graveyard was a labyrinth of the dead, its pathways defined by crumbling tombstones and decaying monuments.

  The gravestones loomed like silent sentinels, their surfaces etched with the marks of time and neglect. Moss and lichen clung to them, blurring the names and dates that might have told tales of those resting beneath. Shadows clung to the edges of each stone, deep and impenetrable, as if hiding secrets or, perhaps, dangers unknown.

  Our journey through this necropolis was a dance with death itself, a stealthy traverse among remnants of lives long passed. The air was thick with the musty scent of decay, an omnipresent reminder of the impermanence of life. It mingled with the faint aroma of damp earth, creating an atmosphere heavy with melancholy. The sorrow and grief that filled this place was almost overwhelming at times. I didn’t want to consider what would happen to mom and Cece if Earth got turned into a place like this. How much suffering had occurred to create something like this?

  The gravestone we approached was a monolith in this sea of sorrow. It stood defiant against the ravages of time, its imposing size marking it as the resting place of someone of significant stature or renown, or maybe I was just making assumptions based upon Earth.

  Intricate carvings adorned its surface—being similar to the statues of angels on Earth with solemn faces, weeping willows, and symbols whose meanings were lost upon me. I had to accept that I wouldn’t understand everything here, but I liked to think that we were doing some good by freeing these undead f a tormented existence. As I reached out my hand to touch it, the stone was cold and unyielding under my touch, a stark contrast to the ephemeral nature of the beings it commemorated.

  At its base, the earth was slightly raised, suggesting a tomb of considerable depth beneath. The greatest difference, and one that surprised me, was the sight of grass. It was overgrown, but there were tendrils of green weaving through the cracks in the stone. Those vines reminded me of Urg. Despite having summoned him, he stayed behind since this was a stealth mission, but I saw the power in the way even stone gave way to growth over time and it made me wonder how powerful he would become.

  We paused in the shadow of this giant marker, our breaths shallow and our bodies tense for any sign of danger. This was a place of power and memory, a monument to a past that whispered through the very stones under our feet. The aura was different here. More concentrated than any of the other plots we’d cleared.

  Then it hit me. This wasn’t about some sacred cemetery. What I was feeling was the increased power of a different type of monster. If it were safe, I would probably have tried to meditate to understand the differences I was feeling, but no matter what my Vitality had increased to, if I let those monsters sneak up on me I’d be dead.

  Instead, I peered around the gravestone and focused Identify on one of the smaller creatures who was standing about fifty feet away. This was apparently as close as Dora felt that I could get without alerting them to our presence. They were both much like the drones we’d fought, but there were runes worked into a layer of armor which they wore.

  Each of them carried a weapon in their front hands while their four legs were also armored. The armor was old and worn, but the weapons looked sharp. One had a halberd and the other a sword. Then Identify went off. It seemed to be getting smoother the more I focused on using it.

  Undead Darje Drone (Uncommon) Level: 41

  Threat: Moderate

  Status: Insane, Linked Guardian

  Hmm… nine levels higher than the other drones. The two also were more attentive; they turned their heads periodically and looked out into the graveyard in front of them. Sentries for sure, I just didn’t know what the status Linked Guardian meant. It replaced frenzied compared to all previous drones.