Chương 34

I returned to the base as night had started to fall. I was feeling mentally drained; the repeated experimentation with mana and my ability causing serious mental fatigue. The square was now much emptier than before, the crowd having dispersed and leaving just a few people behind. I could see that the burial had been completed, the graves just being covered up now.

I was a bit surprised at the speed with which everything had happened, but then again, most of the people here had taken warrior as their class, and they couldn't be thought of as having the same physical standards as before. I undid concealed presence after going inside the longhouse, and immediately felt a small wave of relief. It had become increasingly hard trying to maintain the skill as I had been returning, and I had a feeling that it had to do with how drained I had been feeling.

I had a quick dinner, feeling a bit better after the meal, and then headed over to where everyone else was standing in a loose circle.

"… to watch for" I heard Sara's voice, who appeared to have just finished speaking.

"Yes, but we still need to build defenses. We have no idea when those goblins will attack" argued Mason. Sara was about to speak when she spotted me approach, quickly beckoning me over. Her gesture caused the group to turn around and make some space for me. Ben, Madelline, and Omar were here, but Marcus was missing, presumably still trying to heal the injured.

"What're you guys discussing?" I asked.

"What to do about all this shit, obviously" spoke up Sara, blunt as ever.

"As I keep saying, we need to slow down. I agree with Mason, we should build up our defenses as much as possible," said Lucas.

"How much can these wooden fences do? You've seen those cows; they'll go through the wood like it isn't even there. And then there are the monsters that Alex described, you think having fences will help against them?" Sara replied exasperatedly, folding her arms.

"Not against them, but there are other dangers in the forest too. How long do you think it will be before something decides we look like a good snack" argued Lucas.

"We need those defenses in place to defend the non-combatants, and we need to start getting the combatants to level up. About half of them are still level 0!" Half? That's more than I thought. Sara and Lucas kept bickering, and I noticed everyone else was just staying out of it. It looked like they were used to this being common and preferred to stay out of it. Huh… I thought these two would get along quite well… guess I was wrong. But... this is interesting... I'll get to the bottom of this.

Not now though, I need to brainstorm a bit. Sara had just finished speaking, and before Lucas could answer, I decided to butt in.

"I have a plan, and I would like everyone's thoughts on it" I spoke. Lucas closed his mouth and turned towards me; his actions being repeated by everyone present. I started explaining what I had thought of. Everyone listened, and then we had a discussion on the plan. A few modifications were made, but all in all a plan was set in place. We all headed towards the longhouse, and I wanted to get to sleep as soon as possible. I was still mentally drained, and I could feel my thoughts slowing down a bit as well.

We said our goodbyes and started moving into our rooms, but I suddenly noticed Lucas was lingering a bit in the hallway. He was looking over his shoulder at something, and I started to crane my neck to see what it was. He sensed what I was doing and immediately came inside, shutting the door of the room behind him. I smell something…

"What's up?" I asked, casually.

"Nothing, what do you mean?" he answered shiftily. To his detriment, I could hear his heartbeat get louder due to my increased perception.

"I'm tired, we should go to sleep. I was thinking of sleeping in another room, you know, wouldn't want the others to get the wrong idea about us… heh heh…" he then said. I knew Lucas very well, and it was obvious that he was lying. I could take a very solid guess at what this was all about.

"Dude, really? You have a crush? Here?" I bluntly asked him. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it He panicked, and moved his eyes rapidly from side to side before replying not at all convincingly, "What're you talking about? Come on, just go to sleep. We are all tired, and I'm going to turn in as well" he then gave a huge, exaggerated yawn that was obviously fake while opening the door and heading out.

Once he was out the door, he turned and said bye, to which I replied "Give my love to Sara. All the best!" and closed the door in his panicked face, snickering. He really knows how to pick them.

The next morning, I found myself in front of about 30 people. They were all looking around, confused, and listening distractedly to what Lucas was saying about the importance of levelling up and getting past stat thresholds. These were the people Lucas and Sara had picked who were the most active and willing to level up. Surprisingly, the girl who was in shock earlier was in the group, and so was the guy who had been accused last night of abandoning his guardian duties.

This was the start of the plan we had finalized yesterday. The first step was to increase the number of higher levelled people we had, in a safe and secure manner. Ideally, we should have everyone who had a combat class be present here, but it's a start. We needed a higher number of people who could see the goblins as well, as when we executed the plan, we had to get rid of all the goblin scouts in one fell swoop. The meeting wrapped up and everyone headed off in their parties.

For now, we had told them that there's a possible attack incoming in a few days, and about the thresholds and what reaching level 10 meant. We had also warned them about reaching 10 in perception, and to come to either Lucas or Sara when that happened and they noticed something. Omar, Lucas, Sara, and Ben, all had the free points to increase perception to 10, and had all done so.

I was still reluctant of this, as I thought focusing on their Class strengths for now would be better, but I understood their reasoning as well. They had all confirmed that they could now see the goblin scouts too, and I had warned them not to stare at them directly so as not to give ourselves away. However, we knew we needed to address this issue as soon as possible. The longer we allowed the goblin scouts to remain here, the more they would learn about what we are capable of.

The rest of the day went by in a blur of wolves, crabs, laughter, and a lot of friendly competition. Omar's firepower was now explosive, and his enthusiasm to just blow everything had to be curbed so the others could get exp as well. Sara, who was perhaps the most competitive of us all, ended up getting a Class upgrade that I suspected was due to her rushing headlong at every enemy, sometimes even attacking the monsters before Lucas got the chance to taunt them.

Her new Class was called 'Vanguard', and according to Sara, it was an uncommon class. She had received a new skill called 'Break-Through', which allowed her to charge rapidly in a straight line and deal devastating damage upfront. Testing it against one of the crabs had allowed her strike to make a deep crack against its hard shell, something all of us had thought was unbreakable.

I had found out that although reaching E Grade didn't grant any additional stats; it did affect the effectiveness of those stats somehow. I hadn't noticed it earlier, but I could now move faster and much more smoothly than before. Moreover, my attacks were now hitting noticeably harder, and I could continue fighting for longer. By the end of the day, one after the other, everyone in our party apart from Marcus had reached level 10.

The group's abilities were extremely interesting, and my mind was racing at all the possible things we could now accomplish combined. Lucas had gotten 'Anchor' as his ability. When activated, it expanded a sort of field around him which had a soothing effect on all his allies around him while boosting their defense. I suspected there was more to the ability than just a calming effect, and more testing was definitely needed.

Sara received 'Battle Focus', which allowed her to go into a sort of hyper-aware trance during battle, increasing her reflexes and the speed with which she made decisions. Ben had received a simple sounding but potentially devastating ability called 'Momentum'. It allowed him to keep increasing his momentum, and thus his damage, the longer the fight dragged on. So far, we had only faced small fights against groups of wolves and the crabs, so the limits of his ability still remained untested.

Madelline had received the most interesting ability of them all. Her ability was called 'Threads', and it caused the most discussions amongst us. It allowed her to feel invisible connections between everything around, though with a limited range. The stronger the emotional bond, the more solid the thread appeared to her. Amongst us, the densest thread was between me and Lucas, while other threads were of varying thickness.

I wanted to ask the thickness of the thread between Lucas and Sara, but I stayed silent, for now. Marcus was still at level 7, and I wanted him to reach the threshold before we went forward with our plan. Having a healer with an ability could be crucial for us. Either way, waiting for another day made sense, as more people would be able to reach E Grade, improving our chances of success.

We had also made sure not to activate any of our abilities in front of the goblin scouts, so that they wouldn't be made aware of how we were becoming more powerful. It was tricky, but we had found out that the goblins were more interested in a few of us; namely me and Omar. When we both went away, the goblins chose to follow us instead of staying with the group, so the others were able to test their abilities freely.

We had also discovered that killing anything of F Grade no longer netted much exp, giving just 1 with each kill. The exp bar had also increased dramatically – it had been 110 exp to go from level 9 to level 10, but now it took 300 exp to get to level 11. As a result, we were all stuck at level 10 for the moment, and we had concluded that we needed to start attacking E Grade monsters now. Something that none of us were looking forward to, due to one very important question.

If we received abilities upon reaching E Grade, did monsters get them as well?