Chương 37: Chapter 35: Grinding the Night Watch

Once my boots hit the concrete sidewalk outside, I turned back toward our fence to test out my new magic. I extended my left hand toward the asphalt and focused my intent on the [Spike Growth] spell. The immediate physical sensation was completely bizarre. Unlike casting Minor Heal or reaching out to tame an animal—both of which only felt like a light breeze brushing across my internal energy—channeling this spell felt like my palm was physically gripping heavily thickened, pressurized air.

It required a steady, conscious effort to hold the energy stable. I held my stance for the full ten-second casting window, watching my mana bar steadily drain, and then pushed my hand forward to drop the designated center point right at the intersection of our driveway and side gate. With a soft, earthy rustle, dozens of eight-inch, jagged barbed spikes sprouted cleanly out of the terrain, forming a dense twenty-three-foot-wide circle.

I'd picked that specific location because it was the most obvious entry point for an outside intruder; the driveway led straight to our garage, which currently housed our two operational vehicles and the heavy stash of tactical firearms we'd harvested from the precinct. I leaned down to inspect the manifestation, pulling up my [Dark Vision] to check the camouflage.

Even with the ambient color-shift of my night vision, the organic barbs did a phenomenal job of blending seamlessly into the gray texture of the concrete driveway. Over on the edge of the yard, the spikes that had sprouted through the lawn had actively adapted their pigment, perfectly matching the green blades of grass. I estimated there was roughly one razor-sharp spike anchoring every single square foot of the zone.

Because the spell carried a strict ten-minute duration balanced against a heavy one-hour cooldown, I resolved to drop a fresh patch every single hour during my patrol rotations tonight. With any luck, the repetitive casting would grind out a couple of easy proficiency levels before dawn. Joe shrugged, adjusting the sling on his rifle.

"We don't really run a rigid grid pattern, Derrick. We've just been walking the perimeter blocks keeping our eyes peeled for anything out of place." The immediate neighborhood spanned roughly four-square-blocks, with Chad's house anchoring the southern boundary and Joe's place securing the north. The original city developers had constructed these little pockets as isolated, semi-gated communities.

To transition from this neighborhood to an adjacent subdivision, you were forced to navigate out of your loop, travel down a central road, and then make a turn into the next residential sector. To be completely honest, I'd always thought the convoluted layout was a massive pain in the ass to navigate back when I was driving a patrol cruiser, but tonight, the isolation worked entirely in our favor.

"Works for me," I nodded.

"Dog and I will lock down the southern two blocks. You two take the north. If anything looks sketchy or goes sideways, we hit the radios instantly."

"Sounds like a solid plan to me," Pete agreed, grabbing his weapon. Securing the heavy duffel bag over my shoulder, Dog and I cleared the gate and cut back down the street toward Chad's house. I dropped the gear off on his porch, and Chad immediately offered to take possession, promising to sort the BDU sizes, load the. 40 caliber pistol magazines, and strip down the newly acquired Glocks for a thorough cleaning.

"Not much else to keep me occupied tonight anyway," Chad grumbled with a dry chuckle, pointing a thumb toward the dark living room.

"We ain't exactly got cable TV anymore." I slipped back out the front door and immediately toggled my [Sneak] skill, melting directly into the deep shadows of the tree line. My initial goal was to grind my stealth proficiency by staying completely invisible for the entire duration of the night watch, but a quick mental calculation of my character sheet instantly killed that idea. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

My active [Sneak] skill carried a continuous drain of 10 Stamina points per minute. Meanwhile, my passive Stamina regeneration rate was sitting at 7. 5 points per minute. That meant every sixty seconds I spent moving in stealth resulted in a net loss of 2. 5 Stamina points from my pool. With my current maximum capacity sitting at 205 Stamina, I could only maintain unbroken stealth for roughly eighty-two minutes before my tank completely bottomed out.

Remembering how incredibly exhausted and physically heavy my limbs had felt when my Stamina bar ran dry during my street duel with Joe, I had absolutely zero desire to experience what a total zero-point depletion felt like under the System's rules. In some tabletop role-playing games or fantasy novels, running out of stamina was just a mild inconvenience, but in others, it was completely debilitating. I wasn't about to risk testing that mechanic out on a dark street corner.

I adjusted my strategy, deciding to run my [Sneak] skill in solid one-hour blocks, then dropping out of stealth to let my physical pool recover back to full before toggling the ability back on. Every hour on the dot, my patrol loop would carry me back past Chad's driveway, where I would pause to drop a fresh patch of [Spike Growth] right outside the garage doors. The repetitive casting was a massive help; I could feel myself getting increasingly comfortable with the mental manipulation required to channel the mana.

Even if the skill didn't register a massive level jump by sunrise, I was incredibly glad I was taking the time to practice the mechanics now. Attempting to cast a high-mana battlefield control spell for the very first time in the chaotic heat of a real firefight could easily throw my focus off for a critical split second—and under the System's lethality, that split second was the exact margin between life and death. I genuinely enjoyed being alive, and I had every intention of keeping it that way.

I was entirely certain Denise preferred that outcome too. Only once during the long, quiet watch did we actually encounter a breach of our perimeter. Dog noticed the intruder well before I did. The beast suddenly froze in the middle of the road, letting out an incredibly low, vibrating growl from the back of his throat—a sound far too deep for an ordinary human ear to catch, but standing right next to his flank, I felt the warning loud and clear.

I immediately dropped into a low crouch, keeping my stealth active, and tracked his line of sight toward a neighboring yard. Sure enough, a dark silhouette was awkwardly attempting to shuffle between a row of overgrown decorative bushes. Not exactly a master class in stealth, I thought to myself, watching the figure stumble over a low landscape brick.

Sticking to the absolute darkest sections of the property lines, Dog and I trailed the trespasser from a safe distance, watching him scan the houses until he finally picked what he clearly believed was a soft, unoccupied target. I slipped around to the far brick corner of the targeted residence, giving myself a clear, unobstructed line of sight as the prowler stepped up onto the front porch. In the faint moonlight, I could see his profile clearly—he couldn't have been older than sixteen or seventeen years old.

The kid looked skinny, ragged, and terrified; he was likely just a desperate neighborhood teenager trying to scavenge some leftover canned goods or supplies to feed his family. Still, regardless of his motives, I couldn't simply sit back and allow him to smash his way into my neighbor's home and strip away their security. Just as the kid raised a heavy tool to shatter the long glass window pane bordering the front door, I stepped half a foot out of the shadows and let my voice ring out across the porch.

"Hey, kid! Get your ass away from that door right now." Right on cue, Dog unleashed a massive, roaring guttural growl that echoed down the block. The teenager let out a piercing, high-pitched shriek, completely losing his balance and nearly tumbling backward over the concrete steps of the porch. He hit the lawn hard, scrambled wildly to get his feet back under his weight, and sprinted down the center of the street as fast as his teenage legs could humanly carry him.

I stood by the corner of the house and laughed out loud, the sound booming into the quiet night for a solid minute. Once I finally caught my breath, I looked down at the massive dog standing at my heel.

"Are you entirely sure that was a guy, buddy?" I chuckled, patting his heavy shoulder.

"Because that sounded an awful lot like a little girl's scream to me." For a split second, I could swear Dog tilted his massive head up at me, giving me a classic, bewildered Scooby-Doo expression that perfectly communicated,'I ron't row, ' But as I wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes, I figured it was probably just the midnight shadows playing tricks on my perspective.