Once Nathan’s brain no longer throbbed, his unfocused eyes took in a shape looming over him.

The shape said, “That has to be the strangest expression I’ve seen on anyone learning a skill. You were smiling like a deranged monkey.”

“Thanks,” Nathan replied as Maya’s grinning face came into focus. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me today.”

“Morale boosting is kind of my thing,” she smirked. “Okay, cough it up. What did you learn? Alexander got the Monster Harvesting skill, but since it required a Metal 3 affinity, I know you got something else.”

“Monster Harvesting?” he repeated, making sure he heard right. He sat up, glancing around to see the other players had scattered away to do their own thing.

“Yep,” she said. “It’s an activated skill. For 20 EPs and if he’s touching a monster when it dies, it won’t disappear for three minutes. I hope leveling up the skill will increase the duration the body sticks around.”

“That sounds amazing… and dangerous. He has to be touching it when it dies, really? And thank God I’m not a Metal Prime. Having to harvest monster parts regularly would be my worst nightmare. The skill should be called bloody butchering instead.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I’m glad I didn’t pick Metal either. He hasn’t tested the skill yet, but it's possible the skill can be channeled through a weapon like other skills instead of him literally touching it when it dies. Either way, Alexander seemed excited. He already said he’d start farming every monster part he could. So what skill did you get?”

He opened his interface and read his new skill aloud.

[Equipment Fusion I: Requirements - Wood 4 (Prime). (Activated skill - fuse together multiple items in a known recipe to craft an item greater than the sum of its parts – cost: 30 EPs.) (Gain +2 Mental.)]

[Upgrade requirements for level II: 100 NPs, Mental 130, Wood 6 (Prime).]

She listened attentively until he finished reading. “Looks like you and Alexander are going to be best buds. Harvesting monsters and making weapons out of their bits.”

Nathan chuckled. “I may need to leave the bloody harvesting to him. It’s bad enough I have to help with medical procedures. I suppose I can help with monster catching by using my Snare skill, but my EPs are going to be tied up with my new fusion skill. I want to upgrade everyone’s weapons, especially now that we’ll have a stable supply of monster parts coming in. Anyway, let me check out my new interface tab.”

“Please do,” she said. “I don’t exactly understand what it’s supposed to do. You already put together the spear, so why do you need a skill to do the same thing? If you have the recipe, can you duplicate another spear from nothing? That would be useful.”

“Let’s find out,” he said. He had a few hunches, but it was easier to just look for confirmation instead of theorizing.

He selected the Equipment Fusion tab and his interface screen switched to a new three panel UI. At the top of the screen was text, to the bottom left side was a list of known recipes with only the one being listed, and the bottom right displayed a three dimensional image of his beaver horn spear he’d just created. The displayed weapon slowly rotated in a circle.

He read aloud the text at the top, for both his and Maya’s benefit.

[Fusion Modifiers:]

*[Component quality will improve or reduce durability and effects.]

*[Durability and effects increase by 0.5% for every 2 points in the crafting player’s Mental stat.]

*[If the fused item has or gains an elemental affinity, every point in the crafting player’s associated affinity stat improves or reduces effects by 3%.]

*[Crafting player’s other applicable skills may provide additional hidden modifiers.]

He then selected his only recipe and read the expanded text.

[Beaver Horn Spear (no affinity) - 1x pole, 1x sharp beaver horn, 1x binding.]

“Hmm,” he said. “I guess when I use the skill to put items together, the modifiers make it stronger than the vanilla item would’ve been if made in a world without the extra science magic.”

“Did the modifiers apply to the spear you already put together?” she asked.

“I doubt it, I didn’t use my skill to do it. It’s just a vanilla beaver horn spear, instead of a nanite fused beaver horn spear. So a Wood Prime with the Equipment Fusion skill can make a stronger spear than someone else doing the exact same thing with the exact same materials but without the skill effect.”

“So the nanites help you cheat?” she grinned.

“Heck yeah they do. I can take the spear apart later and try again when my EPs reach 30 to see what happens.” He shrugged. “Might give bonuses to the spear then.”

“Yep, do that. Between Alexander’s harvesting skill and your item fusion, we may not need to build the weapons vendor as desperately as before. On the other hand, you currently lack the recipes to equip players who need weapon types other than spears. Plus, we only have one leather strap too, unless we start cutting them off our medical tent, which I’m hesitant to do.”

“I bet my Wilderness Survival skill can help me find some suitable vines for bindings. The recipe just denotes the binding ingredient generically, so I imagine we can substitute other materials. Different types might give different effects, so I should play around with it.”

“Good point. The 30 EP limitation of your skill is a hurdle though. There’s no way you can mass produce upgraded spears before this evening’s boss battle, there’s just not enough time.”

“Yeah, I hate that I never have enough energy points to do everything. I haven’t used my Attack Up skill in hours. Like Harrison and his Buildings skill, I guess I won’t be using my combat skills for the rest of the afternoon too.”

She smirked. “Why don’t you muscle brain boys just raise your Mental stats for more EPs?”

“Muscle brain boys?” he asked with a laugh. “What do you have against smart muscles?”

She rolled her eyes but he caught a hint of a smile as she sat down next to him. She pointed at his spear. “May I see that?” she asked. “I want to test something.”

“Sure,” he said, handing it to her.

“I might get some kind of dismantling skill for taking it apart. Even though I don’t have enough Wood affinity, it's still a free 2 NPs to assemble it back for the first time.”

“Ah, I see. Good idea.”

Nathan watched as she studied the complex knot with knit brows. He had the help of alien skill knowledge when he tied it together so it was probably not an easy task to undo. She struggled as she pulled on the strap in various ways, and he realized she was going about it entirely wrong. She’d never be able to remove the strap without breaking it.

“Here, give it to me,” he said, holding out his hand. She frowned and reluctantly handed the spear back.

He began unraveling the knot, separating the weapon back into its three components. He noticed his wristband didn’t glow from the task.

“Looks like no reward for dismantling,” he said disappointedly.

She sighed with a frown as she stared off into the distance.

His initial thought was that she must be disappointed by the lack of a skill reward as well. But then a sudden nagging insight in the back of his mind made him rethink her reaction. He could’ve easily missed it. Even still, he wasn’t sure so decided to ask her for confirmation.

“Hey, did it bother you when I dismantled the spear?”

She looked surprised and then sheepish. “Yeah, kind of, since I’m fairly sure in the twenty seconds I looked at it I had it figured out already.”

“Sorry about that,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. He guessed it was kind of rude of him not to give her a longer opportunity. Every moment of their day tended to be stressful, making it difficult to be easy going even when they had a few moments to do so. “I was worried you might break the binding,” he explained.

She laughed. “I doubt with my lower Physical stat I would have done that. My thinking was that since I’m a Fire Prime, it's very possible destroying things is a Fire related skill while putting them together appears to be a Wood Prime thing. Since you dismantled it, it didn’t actually help my test. It’s okay though, I can still put the spear back together and then take it apart again.”

“Huh, that makes sense. Why didn’t you say anything if it bothered you?”

“Well, my theory was really a long shot,” she admitted. She picked up the components and began assembling them. “And… usually my over-analysis annoys people, so it's a habit to just keep it to myself.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” he replied. In fact, he preferred someone who was willing to figure things out.

“Thanks, you don’t usually bother me either,” she smirked.

He laughed, finding once again that her teasing set him at ease.

While she continued to work on putting together the spear, he reflected back on that earlier nagging feeling which alerted him to Maya’s slight annoyance. His awareness, even though she didn’t let on, surprised him. Identifying the cause of such a subtle shift of mood wasn’t something he’d normally pick up on. It made him consider how much of an impact his recent +2 Mental bump was having on his brain. His stat was up to a respectable 122. Had it made him more perceptive? If so, the implications were staggering.

He knew that the Mental stat was an average of all his Mental capabilities, not just his IQ. Perhaps his social awareness substat was lower than the 114 average he originally started with? The increases to his Mental might be dramatically improving this deficiency more than the extra 8 points in the stat would indicate?

He frowned at the terminology he just used for his mind. He didn’t like thinking about his brain in terms of deficiencies. But it made sense he would have some. Everyone did. There were plenty of dumb people who were nice, and smart people who were jerks. But unfortunately people were too complex to be so easily labelled with only two descriptors.

So if there were areas that his Mental stat was weaker, there had to be areas he excelled. He thought back to their deadly cave run in the prelims. He’d given it his everything when he carried Kean in a full sprint. So maybe his willpower substat was his highest? The challenge had been primarily Physical in nature, but it would be narrow minded of him to discount the Mental aspect of pushing his body. The body couldn’t function without the mind and the two components were more entwined than most realized.

He’d always been exceptional in track races due more to his mental determination than any particular physical talent. He had teammates who were better runners than him as showcased day after day when they were training together and he couldn’t keep up. But come race day, he’d outperform what his training indicated and beat them handily. They would fail to rise to the occasion, running the exact same uninspired pace they did in practice regardless of the additional competition. His desire to win when it truly mattered, even if he had to bleed to do it, was simply greater than theirs.

He looked back at Maya who had finished assembling the spear. Her binding technique was considerably simpler than his own, but judging by the new glow on her wristband, it was enough.

“Nice,” he commented. Since they were speaking openly, he decided to go ahead and confide with her. “I’ve noticed something about my Mental stat changes.” His statement immediately drew Maya’s undivided attention. “The fact I realized you were annoyed was not something I would’ve picked up on before. I think I’ve buffed my perception, at least in some ways.”

She nodded. “That’s good. In the arena, being more aware of even minor things can and will save lives.”

“I hope so. Since my mind is working in different ways now, do you think there is anything else I’ve missed? Things I can improve upon?”

Maya’s eyes went wide at the question. In contrast to her expression, she simply said, “I’m not sure.”

Nathan could see there was more to it. “You can tell me, I won’t get mad,” he promised.

She took a deep breath, obviously preparing herself to say something she didn’t want to. She said, “Alright, since you asked...”

Nathan began to worry what it could possibly be. Half of him already regretted asking, while the other half’s curiosity was overwhelming.

Maya nodded to herself. “Okay, instead of pointing something out, I’ll just give you a hypothetical question to illustrate a point. This is related to how you might perceive others and I’m interested in knowing if you see anything different now.”

Nathan nodded in acknowledgement, wanting her to get on with it.

She continued, “If I was Asahi, would you have taken the spear from me so quickly?”

“What?” he said. The question caught him completely off-guard. What did that have to do with anything?

“It’s just a question to get you thinking,” she added hurriedly. “Not accusing you of anything.”

He nodded. Then he actually considered it. Would he have taken the spear from Asahi? He thought through the hypothetical situation. To his own surprise, the answer was no. He’d have sat there and watched the man work, trusting the soldier was competent enough to figure it out. The revelation immediately made him cringe at himself. Had Maya thought he was treating her differently?

“Wow,” he said, newly formed sweat dripping down his body. “I probably would’ve let him try on his own. But not for the reasons you’re thinking.”

She quirked an eyebrow.

“I think because he’s a lot older than me, with actual training as a military officer. The rest of us are civilians, normal people unprepared for any of this. I guess I look up to him as a role model.”

She appeared relieved. “Good. To be honest, I was slightly worried it was because I’m a woman. You saw Harrison try to intimidate me earlier? It put me on edge.”

Truth be told, it had put him on edge too. He nodded, “Yeah, I did. I don’t like that guy. Though I did see him bullying Angelo too so I don’t think it’s necessarily gender discrimination.” He gave her a wry smile, “Maybe just the other kinds of normal discriminations? Is that better or worse?”

“Maybe both?” Maya gave a weak laugh. “Though I could do without the harassment too.”

Yeah, that was an issue. “Want me to say something to him?” Nathan had just been in an argument with Johanna so he really wasn’t looking forward to starting another one so soon.

“God, no,” she said confidently. “Anyway, considering our group is made up of semi-randomly selected people from around the world from widely varying cultures, there will be plenty of differing ideas and expectations. So it is what it is.”

That wasn’t exactly a great thing, but he nodded. Nathan considered how her self-appointed role as leader wasn’t an easy task. While Nathan kept himself busy during downtime, that wasn’t true for everyone. Players who had an idle moment to dwell on the horrors of the arena would become depressed, upset, or even angry. Maya would combat that by giving them jobs to keep busy, like collecting firewood or trying to earn NP rewards from various activities. She was a lot more active engaging with everyone than he was. He pretty much only talked with his two teammates and Asahi.

“I just wish I could be more like Kalpana Chawla,” she said wistfully.

“Who’s that?” he asked, feeling like he should know but honestly having no idea.

“An astronaut. She died when the space shuttle Columbia burned up in the atmosphere.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. He still didn’t recognize the name, but he at least knew who she was talking about now. He’d been in middle school when the disaster happened. “I went through a phase of loving everything space around that time.”

“Same here. She was all the news talked about for weeks… ‘the first Indian woman in space.’ She was my hero. She even inspired me to beg my parents to let me go to college for aerospace engineering. During my first year taking the prerequisite mechanical engineering courses, I was one of three women in a class of a hundred. And there wasn’t a single day I wasn’t treated as if I shouldn’t be there by my teachers or peers. It was irritating, and I didn’t have the confidence to see it through like Chawla.”

“Oh, wow,” he said. He honestly didn’t know much about Maya’s background and was curious. “I imagine life in India was quite a bit different than England. What made you leave home?”

“Basically to escape my parent’s attempts to marry me off. Every time I turned around they would have some new man for me to meet. Thankfully, as soon as I passed out of college I was recruited by an IT company because of my language skills. I had switched studies to software engineering after my first year since it was seen as more appropriate for me. One good thing is it made gaining a job easy.”

Nathan thought about her experiences and how they differed from his own. He said, “I had to work several different jobs, some even unpaid, before I had enough ‘experience’ to land my current career as a data entry clerk, which is a monotonous job to say the least. I’m nowhere close to where I want to be. In comparison, it sounds like you’ve accomplished a lot, especially considering your circumstances. Were your parents okay with you moving to another country?”

“Surprisingly yes, they are quite proud of my accomplishments. I was the first person in my family to go to college, boy or girl. Even though I fought with my parents about arranged marriage, with most other things they were supportive and encouraged me. This is not always the case so I’m really happy with my parents in general. My grandma is worried I have lowered my marriage potential though.”

“Lowered your marriage potential?” Nathan asked, bewildered by how being successful would be considered a bad thing. “How’s that? You are probably one of the most eligible bachelorettes I’ve ever met.”

Maya’s smile grew pleasantly. “Why, thank you. Well, many grooms in my home country don’t want to marry someone with the same or higher education than themselves. Plus, at twenty-eight, I’m too old to be a suitable match for most.”

“Huh, weird.” Nathan knew the basics of European culture from television, and Japanese life from manga comics and anime, but his ignorance of Indian family dynamics was glaring. Maya being close to his own age actually made him feel more comfortable around her than he was with the other younger players.

“Not weird, just different. This is changing some as India is developing into a first world country, but it takes time for cultural values to change, and it's arguable if they even should. Most of our culture is actually really awesome; there were just a few things that didn’t mesh with who I am. I will tell you more some other time, but I need to check on everyone else before our building meeting.”

“Sure,” he replied. He admired Maya’s willingness to go against the flow in her culture. It couldn’t have been easy to move to another country by herself where she didn’t know anyone. Nathan had never done anything quite that life changing, as long as he didn’t count yesterday morning when he got on the elevator. Ironically, her independent attitude that let her accomplish whatever she wanted, along with her brilliant mind, were what got her selected for this nightmare game in the first place.

Maya finished dismantling the spear and opened her interface to read her messages. She said, “No new skills. Only a 2 NP reward... well, 3.5 NPs given my NP bonus. Anyway, it was worth a try. Do you mind if I pass around these components to the other players so they can get the rewards too? Once you use your fusion skill, the changes to the spear will likely be irrevocable.”

“Sure. I won’t have the EPs to fuse it for a while anyway.”

She left his spear beside him, but took the leather strap and horn to use with her own spear. As she walked down the hill towards the fire pit, he looked around at the other players around him. The trail in front of the tent was more of a public area than he would’ve liked. Half a dozen players were within easy hearing range but they all seemed to be doing their own thing and not paying attention. The only exception were his two teammates, Iliana and Lilly, who were standing to the side and meeting his gaze. Iliana had a silly grin on her face.

He stood up, stretching his legs while nodding to them.

Iliana laughed and said, “Had a nice heart to heart chat with the young lady?”

“Somewhat,” he said, chuckling along with her. He’d now come to expect Iliana would try to poke fun at him by saying shocking things or making him blush.

“So I guess the two of us weren’t enough for you?” She gestured between herself and Lilly suggestively, grinning all the while.

“Don’t include me,” Lilly said, folding her arms while staring at the other woman. Her annoyance appeared more for show since she smiled immediately afterward.

He also smiled despite himself. Even though he was the object of her jokes, he was glad Iliana was acting herself again. It was nice to see her recovering her spirits after being burned so badly. Especially this quickly. He had to wonder how much her Mental stat improvements were playing into it.

“Aw, but look how funny he gets when I do it,” Iliana said, pointing at Nathan.

“So did you get your weapon skill finally?” he asked her.

“Yes, I did! Blade Weapons. And thank God too. I won’t have to hear you badgering me about getting a weapon skill over and over again anymore.” She laughed once again.

He grinned at her teasing but thought he should still explain himself. “Without a weapon skill, I was afraid you might die.”

“Aw, that’s sweet when you put it that way. Usually when someone tells me something over and over, it’s because I’m useless and dumb.” Her smile disappeared halfway through her comment. Her downcast gaze at the end made him think she actually believed her self deprecating comments. He was shocked by how quickly her mood plummeted.

“You are not useless or dumb,” Lilly said firmly. “I don’t know who has put these ideas in your mind, but it’s simply not true.”

Nathan nodded, “You’re our best damage dealer. You’re funny and keep our spirits up. You bring a lot to the team.”

Iliana shook her head. “I suck at these games. I forget to bash instead of stab because I’m scared. But...” She trailed off, not finishing her thought.

“But?” he prompted.

“Oh, nevermind. It doesn’t matter.”

He sighed. He’d just gone through talking through an issue with Maya and it had been a mostly positive outcome. Trust between teammates could mean the difference in their collective survival or not. Iliana’s lack of confidence made him worry. It might get her killed. “Go ahead, we’re listening.”

“I… I drag the team down. You and Lilly are amazing. I’m just so terrified. I feel stupid when you both keep telling me over and over again to get a weapon skill. I know I should’ve sooner. It's just hard.”

He nodded. “It’s understandable, the circumstances here are insane. You are doing really well though considering. Your monster kill count is quite high, especially for someone who didn’t even have a skill helping them use their weapon until now. Believe me, you wouldn’t have passed the prelims and still be alive if you weren’t exceptional. We are in the top 10% of the human population, and more than half of us are already dead. You standing here alive is proof that you belong on our team.”

She looked at him and gave him a sad smile. “Thanks, although I don’t feel like I’m in the 10%. When you keep mentioning our Mental stats changing things, I think that’s been happening to me too. Ever since I got the Hardened Mind skill, I’ve begun to realize how crazy my life was before. I guess I always knew it was crazy, but now I know, if you know what I mean?”

“I think so,” he said, still trying to parse her vague wording.

Iliana looked at Lilly and then back to Nathan. “I haven’t told anyone this before, and since I’ll likely never see him again, I don’t think it matters anymore. But my boyfriend used to put out his cigarette butts on the skin of my back if I came home too late from work. I never once tried to leave him. Never even thought about it. My mind, the way I remember these things, I hate who I was.”

“Iliana, I’m so sorry,” Lilly said.

“That guy is terrible,” Nathan said. Anger flared up in him just thinking about the scum. His hand subconsciously formed into a fist. “You should hate him, not yourself.”

“It’s okay. In some ways, I’m happy I was selected for the arena. At least until I lost my hair.” She touched her shirt that was now serving as her head covering.

An uncomfortable silence followed as no one knew what to say next. The fact Iliana’s previous situation was so bad she thought she was better off in the arena was troubling to him on many levels. But her finally opening up about her past was an encouraging sign for her growth.

He decided to suggest a constructive activity to get their minds off the dark thoughts.

“Lilly, do you want to go ahead and build that shelter so you can get your Buildings skill? I’ll help.”

“I’ll help too,” Iliana said, latching onto the idea with enthusiasm.

“Thanks,” Lilly said. “But Iliana, you already got the NP reward for doing it last night though.”

“I don’t mind, I’ll show you how to do it.”

“Cool,” Nathan said. “We can probably take apart one of the shelters already made and put it back together, instead of gathering new materials and starting from scratch. Maya just did something similar with the spear assembly and it worked. Shouldn’t take long that way.”

He glanced over as Emma walked out of the medical tent and approached him. “Nathan,” she said. “I have 41 EPs now so I no longer need the gloves to use Advanced Healing. Here, take them back. Merci.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. Now that he needed to upgrade their group’s weaponry with his fusion skill, the extra 5 EPs and their improvement to his energy regen rate would be useful.

She waited for her bracelet to revert to liquid and flow back under her left glove, then pulled both gloves off. He accepted them and put them on, reveling in the momentary sensation of a new energy source snapping into place. He noticed the equipped effect didn’t happen until both gloves were on, so there was no way they could wear just one glove each and both get the extra EPs. With his equipment returned, he now had 44 maximum EPs. Considering his ambitious plans, he was going to need them.

He joined his teammates by one of the existing shelters and they began taking it apart so they could rebuild it again.

Iliana explained while they worked what the Blade Weapons skill entailed. The description sounded exactly like his Pole Weapons skill, instead requiring Metal 2 affinity and providing knowledge on how to use various swords, daggers, battleaxes, and other bladed weaponry. Alexander, their only other Metal Prime, had learned the skill during the battle too.

Nathan wondered how hybrid weapons like halberds would work with the weapon skills. It was both a spear and a battleaxe combined. Would having only Pole Weapons or Blade Weapons be enough to know how to use it, or would having both weapon skills make a player even more proficient with the weapon than having only one skill? He was fairly sure the weapon skills carried over somewhat into other fighting styles. Even with his negative Metal affinity, he could likely use a sword halfway competently with just the help of Pole Weapons.

Lilly mentioned that Johanna had finally learned Blunt Weapons in the fight too. She also gained an activated Earth skill called Defensive Strike which reduced 50% of received damage while striking for a relatively cheap cost of 12 EPs. The skill was confusing to Nathan since it created so many questions. What constitutes a strike and what didn’t? After landing the blow, would the damage reduction buff go away? What if the strike never landed? What if she struck so slow that she could benefit from the damage reduction for a longer period of time while she tanked several enemy blows?

The fact that every single skill required trial and error to figure out was so annoying. It was almost as if Tygerion made the skill descriptions as vague as possible in hopes that someone would figure out how to game the broken mechanics.

They finished rebuilding the shelter after only five minutes, about the same time Maya called out for everyone to group back up. Both Nathan and Lilly’s wristbands were glowing.

“Since I probably got a skill, I’ll check mine after the meeting,” Lilly said, a grimace on her face. “It’s a Mental skill too, those are the worst pain for me. Last time, I’m certain I could feel the nanites rearranging my brain.”

“I know what you mean,” he said, the thought of nanites tinkering inside him causing a momentary flutter of anxiety before he pushed it away. “Should be safe for me to check mine since my zero Earth affinity means only NPs for me.” He opened his messages to confirm he had indeed gained 2 NPs for constructing his first shelter, putting him at 23.5.

The players gathered in front of the medical tent, and once everyone was present, Maya began the meeting without preamble.

“The +1 Prime affinity achievement for being the first players in the zone to purchase a building has changed everything. The fact we haven’t gotten this achievement for doing other tasks like building a fire, healing players, or harvesting a monster suggests that other players have already done these things before us. Hopefully, they were accomplished by other human players and they received appropriate rewards, but statistically it’s more likely they were given to players from other species. Either way, what this means is that we now have a clear path for advancement to move ahead of the competition. Since we were the first to purchase a building, it's almost assured that if we put our efforts towards it right now, we would be the first to create a settlement too. There’s no guarantee there will be a first reward for it, but the potential of one makes it worth trying.”

Harrison said, “Ya, I want another one of those affinity gains. I’ll need Earth 6 to upgrade Buildings to level two. My combat skills need higher affinity levels too.”

Asahi said, “I agree with Maya-san as well. Attaining Fire 5 from our first building reward has opened doors to my progression. To waste the opportunity for our entire group to increase our advantage over our rivals would be foolish.”

Nathan agreed and nodded along, but decided to let the others do the speaking for the moment since he had nothing to add.

“But what about my skills?” Angelo asked, his voice grating on Nathan’s nerves with its whiny tone. By always phrasing his ideas as complaints, the man had a way of undermining his otherwise fairly reasonable contributions to their discussions. “I can upgrade two of my skills right now. If I spend everything on buildings, I won’t become stronger before the boss attack.”

“That’s a valid point,” Maya conceded. “By trying to go for the settlement bonus, we will be delaying our personal skill developments. The settlement supposedly confers some kind of benefit, but we don’t know exactly what it is yet to know if it will offset that fact. It’s really the reward for being first that would be the main prize, plus having two extra buildings would have their own perks in and of themselves.”

“How many NPs do we have?” Alexander asked.

Each player called out their NP totals while Maya kept a tally. Once finished, she said, “Okay, looks like 241 NPs, plus whatever Matias and Zhang happen to have. There are still a few players who can eke out a few more points from various tasks like shelter or fire pit building, monster harvesting, and weapon assembly. Due to Harrison’s 30 EP skill cost, we can’t actually build both buildings immediately, so we will have to do one as soon as he regenerates enough and then the other after another forty-five minute wait.”

Lilly said, “I think I’ve got the Buildings skill waiting for me on my wristband. So I can build one of them anytime.”

Maya nodded. “Good work.”

Nathan was thinking about the building options again. The simple tents and the fence both specifically had a label saying they weren’t considered buildings. This meant they wouldn’t count towards the three buildings they needed to establish a settlement. He chose that moment to finally speak up.

“This will sound really strange, but at 75 NPs each, we should consider building two outhouses for only 150 NPs.”

“One for boys and one for girls?” Maya smirked. “Seriously though, I think I know where you are going with that and I agree it’s one of our better options. Two outhouses is the cheapest combination of buildings we can choose. If we get the first achievement and it's as good as last time, it would be well worth the price. Of course, while I’m sure having some extra privacy would be nice, the outhouse is also the least useful building on the list.”

Nathan nodded. “Agreed, I was only suggesting them for their function of getting us to a settlement reward quicker. Unlike other options like the fence which has some actual strategic value.”

“Ya, about that,” Harrison said. “I’ll just build a fence myself. Logs, rocks, whatever. I don’t need a skill to tell me how to use common sense. I’ll pile them up across the trail and we can defend behind it.”

“Brilliant,” Maya said, nodding to the man.

Nathan nodded too. He’d never even considered building a barricade manually. The Buildings skill was flashy, but that didn’t mean they were helpless without it. Nathan studied Harrison in a new light. The Aussie player had gained +2 Mental that morning too. Nathan hadn’t had many pleasant conversations with the man, including today, but he had to wonder if the man was marginally more reasonable than yesterday. Were their collective Mental stat gains making it easier for their clashing personalities to get along? Highly intelligent people could be as unbearable as anyone else, so again he figured the Mental stats had to also be buffing their other mental attributes rather than only their raw smarts.

Iliana spoke, “What about the food vendor? I’m so hungry and we haven’t gotten back to foraging in forever. You guys said the battles get harder as the day goes on, right? Foraging is going to be that much harder this afternoon.” She glanced at Nathan and he nodded to her. He thought she sounded more confident. Perhaps their candid talk had improved her confidence?

Maya said, “That’s true, foraging will be harder. That actually brings me to another point. Foraging teams should be a minimum of four from now on.”

Mutters of agreement went around. Even though no one spoke it right then, everyone was terrified of the rising intensity of the attacks as the day progressed.

“We need to wrap this up,” Maya said, checking her EP counter for the time. “We have three viable options as I see it. Maybe a few more but these are the ones that stand out. Option one, we build two outhouses for a relatively cheap 150 NPs and get our settlement bonuses and potentially overpowered affinity reward for being the first to do it. We should still have some NPs left over for skills.

“Option two, we do the same thing but instead build one vendor and one outhouse for 275 NPs. We are a bit short on points, but can make up the shortfall within an hour at our current rate. This option would have the same result as the first, but more long term value in supplies. The disadvantage would be we won’t have any room for more skill upgrades at this time.

“And finally option three. We build nothing and use all our NPs on skills. This would be the best short term option for improving our combat capability, which considering the boss fight we're expecting, might be prudent. But this path will ignore the potential rewards for being the first settlement, which we predict might have great long term value since affinity levels cap how high we can upgrade our skills. Alright, we’ll take another vote, any objections?”

When no one spoke, she said, “Votes for two outhouses?”

Nathan, Maya, Gabriel, Ava, and Asahi raised their hands.

“Okay, that’s five. The one vendor and one outhouse option?”

Emma, Iliana, Lilly, Alexander, Johanna, and Jackson voted.

“That’s six votes and since there are only three voters left... looks like the vendor and outhouse option wins.” There were a few exclamations of excitement along with a few mutters of disappointment. She ignored the responses and continued, “Since we’re building a vendor, we need to take another vote. Pick between the weapons, armor, food, or gear vendors. We’ve already discussed them each so let’s just vote so we can get ready for the next attack.”

Nathan’s idea for the double outhouse lost, but it was fine. They’d need to build a vendor at some point too. He was on the fence about which one though. He wanted weapons for the exponential fighting potential they could offer but his new fusion skill would eventually outfit most of the players with upgraded spears anyway. He couldn’t do anything about other weapon types though, at least not yet. Since his discovery that skills could combo with thrown weapons, the need for ranged weaponry had drastically increased. Nathan had no idea how to make bow and arrows, crossbows, or any other sophisticated weaponry with his current knowledge skills.

He also wanted more food because his hunger was a constant annoyance and the food vendor’s offerings had to be better than crawfish soup. But he decided he could survive being miserable another day so eliminated it from his choices.

The gear vendor was also a good choice with tools, bags, and who knew what else that might be useful. They could craft their own wooden armor with the right tools too.

The armor vendor would have better quality armor and possibly clothes, the latter needed even more than the former. But compared to weapons and gear, he thought it was a lower priority.

“All in favor of the weapons vendor,” Maya said.

Maya raised her hand and looked around to count hands. Nathan followed his gut and raised his hand too.

“Let’s see,” Maya said as she finished counting. “Harrison, Nathan, Alexander, Asahi, Gabriel, and myself. That makes six for weapons.”

“Armor?” When no one raised their hands, she moved on. “Gear vendor?”

Emma, Lilly, Johanna, and Jackson voted.

“So four for the gear vendor. Food vendor?”

Iliana, Angelo, and Ava were the only three.

“Looks like the weapons vendor wins,” Maya said as she rubbed her hands together gleefully. “We’ll have to wait for Harrison to gain 30 EPs or Lilly to finish learning her skill, but at least we have a plan we can implement immediately after the next battle.” She glanced at her wristband again. “We have eight minutes left. Meet back here in five.”

The players drifted off to finish any last minute preparations. Nathan’s stomach was cramping, possibly as an aftereffect of being poisoned earlier. He’d been healed, but that didn’t mean his stomach didn’t need to get rid of whatever was in there. A bathroom break wouldn’t take him twenty minutes like Harrison so he figured he had plenty of time.

He strolled about thirty yards up the North trail, and then veered into the underbrush. He knew he was supposed to have a partner to keep watch, but the sensation had happened so quickly he didn’t want to wait to ask someone.

As he was taking care of his business, he could hear a conversation coming from the trail.

“...she is fit, but her new hairdo looks terrible,” an Australian accented man said.

“Does it matter? As long as she’s good in all the other places,” a New York accented voice said.

Nathan frowned. Were Harrison and Angelo seriously locker room gossiping about Iliana? Had they nothing better to do?

“Matters to me,” Harrison said. “I don’t like how muscular she’s getting either. Now Emma, she’s just right. Going only for Mental stats should be required for all the ladies.”

Nathan’s jaw set. Nathan hurried to finish, using a large leaf he’d picked earlier specifically for this purpose. He truly felt bad for Iliana, he’d just learned about her abusive background and knew how vulnerable she must be. This creep was totally taking advantage of her.

“Anyway,” Harrison said. “We only made out last night. Just hasn’t been time to do more. I need to try out the other flavors here too. ”

That bastard! Nathan’s gloved fists balled into white knuckled fury as he burst out of the underbrush. He knew he had to say something to the man. This kind of demeaning talk could break down trust between the group which could lead to someone getting killed out here.

“Jesus, Nathan,” Harrison said as he glanced over at him. “About gave me a heart attack.”

Harrison and Angelo were both side by side on the trail urinating into the underbrush. Nathan stalked towards the taller man. Harrison finished up and turned to face him. The grin on the smug man’s face enraged him even more. “What’s the matter, mate?”

Nathan stopped right in front of the man. “Do you even hear the garbage you’re saying?” His volume was much more intense than he meant it to be.

Harrison’s face showed surprise before his expression turned dark. “Eavesdropping? Didn’t take ya for the type. We’re just having some harmless fun talking.”

Nathan tried to keep his tone as calm as he could, but it still came out strained with his barely controlled anger. “It’s not my fault you’re talking loud enough for everyone to hear. What if Iliana heard? It wouldn’t be so harmless then.”

Harrison’s eyes lit up maliciously. “Fancy that. Ya want Iliana? Well, ya can only have her after I’m done. For now why don’t ya just hook up with Maya? With that stick up her butt, she is just your type.”

With each of the man’s words, Nathan’s rage grew, especially given Maya’s earlier admission that the man’s harassment was bothering her. Before Nathan realized what he was doing, he grabbed the front of Harrison’s shirt and pulled the man towards him. He screamed in his face, “You jerkwad.”

Harrison reacted to the escalation in kind. “Get your bloody hand off me!” He knocked the arm holding his shirt away and seized Nathan’s throat. Then he squeezed.

Nathan registered a moment of shock before he moved by pure reflex, honed from two days worth of constant danger and violence. He swung his fist at Harrison’s big fat mouth, catching the man squarely in the teeth. The man let go of him.

“What the hell…” Harrison said, touching his newly split lip. His face turned beet red as an angry vein on his forehead popped out.

Nathan was outraged. Harrison had tried to choke him. There was no way to know how far the man had been willing to go with the dangerous move and he wasn’t in a mood to take that lightly. As Harrison tensed to act again, Nathan threw a second punch, channeling his anger that had been building into the blow. Harrison lunged forward past Nathan’s wide swing, slamming his forehead directly into Nathan’s face. Nathan reeled back in pain, stunned at the turn of events. Before he knew what was happening he was being lifted off the ground in a bear hug. Harrison did have four inches in height and about seventy-five pounds of muscle over him.

A moment later, he was body slammed to the ground, driving the wind out of him. Then blows began to rain down. Nathan instinctively held up his hands to shield his face, but it was only partially successful. His armored gloves and bracers managed to catch some of the punches, but just as many impacted his face. Nathan hadn’t imagined he’d ever need the armor pieces in a situation like this when he’d selected them as rewards.

With the shift in the momentum of the fight, Nathan’s blinding anger dispersed. His rational mind that had been screaming at him the entire time was only now getting through to him. It was saying that this was neither the time nor place.

“Stop!” shouted a firm voice. When Harrison didn’t let up, he was forcibly pulled off of Nathan a moment later. Asahi kicked the backside of Harrison’s knee while pulling him off-balance, driving him to the ground. The soldier painfully twisted the taller man’s arm behind his back and pinned him in place. “Have you both no shame!”

“He started it,” Harrison said from under the soldier.

Nathan sat up, his vision slightly blurry. He grimaced as he reached up and touched the start of swelling all over his face.

“It does not matter!” Asahi rebuked. “We are in a live combat situation. In my grandfather’s time, he would have had both of you executed on the spot for this lack of discipline. I am inclined to agree with his methods after witnessing this disgraceful display.”

A crowd of players soon ran up the trail to see what was happening. They likely thought it was the monster attack. Maya soon pushed her way to the front.

“What’s going on here?” Maya demanded. “We have an attack in two minutes and you’re both rolling around on the ground? Do we not have enough enemies trying to kill us that you both feel the need to kill each other?”

“He punched me,” Harrison said as Asahi released him.

“Only after he tried to throttle me,” Nathan managed to explain through the receding fog in his mind.

“I barely even hurt him. Was only shutting him up. He was yelling in my face like a madman while grabbing my shirt!”

Nathan shook his head. They both sounded like children which didn’t make either of them look good. What was he doing? This wasn’t him. He’d been provoked many times in his life and never possessed the need to let his fists do the talking. Was fighting for their lives every half hour predisposing him to use violence to solve every problem? Sure, Harrison was a jerk with a punchable face. But fighting right before a battle? The timing couldn’t have been much worse.

While it was easy to want to blame Harrison for everything, Nathan knew they were both guilty of jeopardizing the safety of the entire group. He had an opportunity to communicate to Harrison what he was doing wrong. But instead of doing it reasonably, he allowed his own anger to get the better of him which caused things to get out of hand.

Maya glanced over as Lilly climbed out of the underbrush on the other side of the trail. Nathan supposed his teammate had also been getting ready for the coming battle in a similar way as him.

Lilly said, “I heard everything. It’s Harrison’s fault. He intentionally provoked Nathan by saying nasty things about the women players. When he started talking about you, Nathan defended you.”

Despite her good intentions, he winced at Lilly’s choice of words and the simplistic way she presented Nathan’s motives. She made him sound like some kind of wannabe white knight. In reality, he’d just been pissed off by the arrogant man and the constant struggle to survive had allowed violence to come easy.

“Defended me?” Maya repeated, her eyes wide in disbelief. Then she glared daggers at Nathan. “You think I need or want someone defending my honor for me? Is this what you took from our talk earlier?” Her jaw was set as she turned to the rest of the gawking players. “We don’t have time for this rubbish. Everyone, get in position for the attack.”

Before Nathan had a chance to deny the allegations, Maya stalked back towards the medical tent, the majority of the players following. While it rubbed him wrong to leave the discussion at such a low point, he agreed that hashing it out later was the only realistic course of action given the imminent monster attack.

Lilly held her hand out to Nathan. He took it and she hauled him to his feet. He didn’t need the help, but appreciated the support nonetheless.

“Sorry,” she said. “I honestly thought I was doing you a favor by explaining.”

“Don’t worry, thanks anyway,” Nathan said, finding his voice nasally sounding. “While some women might be impressed by being fought over, I already figured Maya wasn’t one of them. Although that’s not what I was doing anyway. I just wanted Harrison to know he couldn’t talk about his allies that way. I hadn’t even intended to fight, just address his behavior. But it seems I made a mess of it.”

She nodded. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you stood up to him. Harrison makes my skin crawl. Come on, we need to get into position.”

She took off in a jog down the trail and Nathan scooped up his spear where he’d left it and followed. He gingerly touched his swollen face. He was fairly sure his nose was broken too. He was worse off than the Australian man, who only had a busted lip to show for it.

When Harrison had grabbed his throat, Nathan’s instincts against the potentially fatal attack had taken over his actions. Judging by the fact his opponent seemed satisfied to only throw punches for the remainder of the fight instead of going for lethal moves, it revealed the man had some level of restraint, at least more than Nathan had initially given him credit. But when his throat was being squeezed, he didn’t have enough trust to make those kinds of benevolent assumptions. The arena was a cruel place; unforgiving of hesitation in combat which was unfortunately teaching them to commit savage acts accordingly.

For his own part, Nathan was certain he could’ve won the fight if he used his Snare skill, but thankfully they both had enough sense not to escalate things further than they already had. Using a skill was only a step below drawing a weapon and they were both enhanced monster killers now. It wouldn’t have ended well.

He sighed at the subpar outcome of the encounter but was relieved it hadn’t gone worse. It was ironic the situation happened only minutes after he’d just been patting himself on the back for the increases to his Mental stat, thinking himself wiser. Contrary to his earlier fears about the stat gains excising his humanity and turning him into a monster, he was apparently still just a human full of unwieldy emotions with all the messiness that entailed.

So for now, his current Mental stat wouldn’t prevent him from making a mistake, it only gave him the awareness to realize when he did. How he made use of his evolving body and mind was still up to him. He just hoped he could do better.