Ranga walked over to the young man who had rescued them three days ago, a bowl of soup and a roast of fish in hand.

The park that the goblins had set camp in had also had a small lake, where the fish had grown big and fat in the last week. All the wild-life on Earth seemed to be making a comeback, after a month of dying in droves or mutating and going mad.

“You should eat. You must have a lot on your mind, but you must eat well to live well.” He said.

Ed opened his eyes from his meditation, a translucent rock the size of his fist on his lap.

“Sorry, I was just… Meditating”

Ed had found that the Spirit Crystals, which had appeared from thin air like Noel's axe had in what seemed like an eterntiy ago once Ed had 'claimed' them, strengthened his spirit when he meditated while touching them. They seemed to hold a certain amount of spirit themselves, and crumbled apart eventually if he meditated with them long enough.

Wukong had been right. It was really hard to cultivate the Body, Mind, and Spirit at the same time, but somehow he felt a natural affinity for Spirit, while the Blood Crystals also helped him cultivate his Body. The Spirit Crystals had allowed him to push his Spirit yet another sub-grade.

He stretched out his arms and took the bowl of soup and roasted fish, digging in with relish.

Ranga sat down next to him, his muscles and tattoos dancing as he gently lowered his massive frame to the ground.

“... The people want to know what you plan to do next.”

Ed paused mid-bite into his fish.

“What I plan to do next?”

He chewed and swallowed slowly, and Ranga waited in silence. The white monkey he called Wutang seemingly out of nowhere and jumped up onto Ed’s shoulder, begging for scraps of food.

Ranga had seen him devour three skewers of fish earlier. His daughter loved indulging Wutang, the closest thing she had to one of her stuffed animals since... Ranga would let his daughter feed the monkey all the fish it wanted, even if he had to go hungry himself.

Thankfully he hadn’t needed to and he had felt vitality streaming through his body every day, feeling actually stronger than he had been in his youth.

“Ranga... I don’t feel qualified to lead anyone, much less come up with plans to survive in this apocalypse.”

“But you are strong. Perhaps the strongest out of all of us.”

“Ranga, I told you, you have higher base stats than both me and Noel had. I’m only this ‘strong’ because… Well, I honestly think that you would probably do a better job. The survivors know and trust you.”

“Hm...”

Ranga sat next to him in silence, considering his next words.

Ranga was a strong man. One of the strongest, before the rifts. He had been a lineman for an NFL team in his youth, along with some of his Samoan brethren, and had turned to coaching high school and community college teams. He was no stranger to the battle, though his calm demeanor made him a favorite amongst his athletes if not the other coaches.

He had been very, very glad that he’d kept sports in his life when the goblins had come to his home, two or three at a time at first. But even though he’d bashed in their heads over and over as they came, the goblins that came by gradually increased in number until a dozen of them had overwhelmed him.

They had dragged him and his family through the streets, throwing them into a wooden pen in the middle of this hellish encampment.

Ranga had been broken as his family had been taken from the pen, one by one.

The earth and the sky had shattered when they took his wife.

The darkest hole had replaced his heart when they took his son.

Then the blue boxes came, and Ranga had realized Tangaroa still loved him. He had been torn between resentment that Tangaroa had not blessed him earlier and the gratitude he’d felt at being given a second chance.

But even the blessing of the god of the Sea had not been enough. The ‘Will of the Sea’ had allowed him to eke out another few days, endure the vicious beatings that the goblins reserved for him, for he wouldn’t let them touch a single hair on the last remaining kin he had on this Earth. But he knew that sooner or later, he would perish.

Then, Ed had come into the camp, eyes blazing fiercely as he ended the life of the monstrosity that was the leader of this camp. He had done it with the very dagger that had been its favorite weapon a few days prior.

For the first time since Ranga had lost the most important battle of his life, he had felt hope. He knew he wasn’t the only one. But it was a fragile spark that threatened to blink out at first sign of wind. The survivors were weak, and he was a broken man, Blessed or not.

He could not let Ed walk away.

“I used to think… that I was strong.” he said.

Ed began to reply, but Ranga held up his hand, signalling to Ed to let him finish.

“I was a lineman in the NFL. My job was to hold the line with my brothers. It was a battle that we trained for day in and day out, every breath that we took for the sake of protecting others, standing our ground when the opponents came. And they came. Sometimes they crashed upon us like the waves against rock. Other times we crumbled."

His voice a bit distant, Ranga seemed to reminisce. Then his eyes turned focused.

"But I learned my job well, and also this. The team cannot win, the tribe cannot survive without a leader. Without a heart that pumps the blood, or a mind to direct and unite its limbs, we are alone. And no man can hold back the tide alone."

“I know what I am good at, Ed. And I am not a leader. You are the one to lead us right now. You are strong. You have a good head on your shoulders. You move like you have a plan, and we all see it. And you won’t be alone. You have Noel and Wutang with you. And you’ll have me.”

Ed looked back at him. His eyes weren’t shining with their strange light like they did sometimes, but there was still something unshakable lurking in the depths of his gaze.

----------

Ed finished absorbing the last of the Spirit Crystals after Ranga returned to sit with the other survivors by the large campfire they had built. Wutang had purified the blood stone containing the hobgoblin shaman’s essence for him yesterday, but True Sight had allowed him to see that he would need to strengthen his spirit in preparation for absorbing it, and the Spirit Crystals had been perfect for that.

Ed and Noel had decided to stay in the goblin’s camp. The survivors naturally seemed to follow suit, and they had cleaned up the camp over the last three days.

Altogether, Ed and Noel had rescued fifteen people. They seemed to cling almost desperately to Ed and Noel.

The survivors seemed to flock around Ranga Tupuola. A former football player of Pacific Islander heritage, he had attracted the attention of Tangaroa, the Samoan god of the sea. Emaciated as he was, Ranga was still an imposing man standing at six foot four and quickly gaining back the weight he had lost.

Ranga Tupuola - (Blessed by Tangaroa) Class - (No Class) Body: F (D-) Spirit : D- Mind: F (D-) Will of the Sea

It really did seem like Ed wasn’t too strong compared to other Blesseds. But with consuming two blood crystals, five spirit crystals, and hunting many of the goblin scouts and finally the hobgoblin itself, he was a different being from a week ago. Wukong had told him that it would get more and more difficult to raise the rank of his body, mind, and spirit the higher they got, but he hadn’t experienced any slow downs yet.

Ed brought up his stats window and examined it again, though it hadn’t changed.

Ed Kim - (Blessed by Wukong) Class - (No Classes) Body: D Spirit: D Mind: D- Dao of True Sight, Light Feet

Ed watched Ranga walk around from campfire to campfire, soothing the survivors with a deep voice that seemed to invoke calm.

The albino monkey, whom Ed had named Wutang, curled in his lap, content with a full belly and preening as Ed ran his hands through his soft fur.

Wutang - (True Clone) Class - (No Classes) Body: F Spirit: D- Mind: F Purify (Skill)

True Clone

A ‘true clone’ of the Monkey King, this monkey has a natural affinity for the Dao of Shape-shifting.

Purify

The clone was born for the primary purpose of purifying manna. Can consume otherwise toxic elements and purify manna.

The first time Ed had used True Sight on the monkey, the monkey had yelped and slapped him across the face, its own face blushing. It had left Ed more speechless than angry. He resigned himself to the insanity of both the Monkey King and apparently his clone. Like father like clone, he supposed.

Still, Wutang had snuggled with the Blood Crystal made from the blood essence of the goblin scouts overnight once Ed had asked if he would purify it for him. Ed had thought he’d still been dreaming when an exact clone of him shook him awake in the morning to hand him back the red orb.

But then Noel had walked in, and he’d quickly realized that this was not a dream. He’d also had to quickly explain to her what was going on and that she could lower her axe. Ed had been in the middle of blustering out an explanation when he trailed off, a plan beginning to form in his head...

The hobgoblin was a shaman...

Wukong had said Hekamuth would be sending visions to his shamans...

Meaning, that the hobgoblin might have seen visions of him, and would know that Ed was in possession of the dagger...

He’d gained a ‘Trait’ from the second Blood Crystal that night. It seemed that having a ‘purer Blood Crystal’ increased his chances of gaining Traits.

Lightfeet

A natural predator steps so very softly, silently hunting his prey with patience.

An instinctive trait and affinity for moving about silently and quickly.

Showing Noel how quietly and quickly he could move now had finally convinced Noel to go along with the plan.

It had still been very risky. Noel or Wutang might have gotten caught by the horde before they’d made it to the trap, Ed could have been detected as he’d snuck into the camp, or the hobgoblin might not have died from his initial ambush.

But Noel and Wutang had made it. And he had successfully infiltrated the camp undetected, and had killed the hobgoblin before he could even utter a word.

Ed had made a plan, and executed it perfectly. He thought about Ranga's words, but he already knew the answer.

The memory of his father's dying smile and his last words echoed in his heart and mind, filling him with a bitter-sweet feeling, and Ed smiled.

------

Wukong had said the native life on Earth would begin adapting to the higher levels of manna and begin to proliferate like never before. He had been right.

In Ed’s hand was a sprout. He’d found it and its numerous cousins all sprouting in the rubble after the day it had rained. Life was coming back to Earth. Ed relished the texture of the sprout, running his fingers over the delicate veins of the leaves and enjoying its vivid green color. It had been a long time since he’d seen anything so… young and full of life.

Standing up, Ed walked over to the central campfires where all of the survivors sat huddled.

“Hey everyone.”

The survivors looked up, a mixture of emotions flashing across their face. Some fear, some hope, and for others… a simple blank look.

“I know that things have been hard. That you all have probably been through unspeakable things and hold a lot of pain now. But let me tell you something.”

Ed looked around slowly, meeting each survivor’s gaze.

“There was a reason I began a plan to save you. A reason why I stopped scrounging about alone. I wanted to do more than survive by myself. I want a bit of my old life back. Peace. Quiet. To laugh. To cry and not have it be about someone I’ve lost to the demons.”

Ranga sat next to a small girl about twelve years old, holding her hand delicately. Their gazes were both riveted to Ed’s face.

“I want to set up camp here. There are many, many demons stronger than goblins out there, and we have to be ready for the new world. To be honest, I think some goblins might be especially after me.

But in this park there is food, water, and shelter. And we'll have each other. We’ll grow stronger, hunting demons and wild-life. Those of you who can’t fight can help in other ways, like building things or even farming. Animals and plants have started to adapt to the life force called ‘manna’ that we used to call miasma, and we’ll have plenty of game to hunt, I think.

We.. I know it’s hard to imagine right now, but my dad always said ‘life goes on, Ed. Go with it.’ when he was dying. I had to build my life from the bottom after he passed, but I did it. And I can do it again. And if I could do it, so can you. And we will, if you’ll stay here and build back a life with me.”

People stirred, and though no one spoke out, Ed thought he saw them sit a little straighter, shoulders relax, and even a smile from Ranga. Noel also smiled, though a bit sarcastically, standing in the back of the crowd.

He would take that as a yes.

New Quest!

You have decided to claim the encampment, and its people accept you as their leader.

Grow stronger, strong enough to protect your camp and gather 50 people to your banner!

Reward: 15 Spirit Crystals each, Village Designation, Spirit Tower (Low-Grade)

Yes. Even the System agreed with him.