“You are a good man, Dan.” He raised an eyebrow at Tamara shortening his name. “Oh, do you prefer Daniel?”

“Nah, my family always calls me Dan. I am thinking after this, we will take the three of them hunting,” he said to Tamara.

“I am not sure.”

“You heard Trudy. She wants them to get stronger.”

“If we can do it safely.”

“Hey kids, tell me about your skills?”

Janice and Gabby looked at each other, encouraging the other one to talk.

“They suck,” Zach blurted out.

“They are designed to keep kids safe,” Trudy said, coming in from the other room. Of course she was listening when a strange man and woman were talking to her kids. “Gabby?” Trudy said pointedly.

“What mum said,” Gabby stuttered. “All three of us have the same primary abilities. There is a teleport to a safe spot and a defensive magic shield, then we get a kids’ class.”

She hesitated at this point, her eyes imploring Janice to take over. It was clear she was the shyer of the two of them.

“There are five classes available,” Janice said, taking pity on her friend. “Survivalist”—she pointed at herself—“Crafter”—Gabby—“and scout.” Zach. “The final two are intellectual and protected. But the classes are not locked,” Janice emphasised quickly. “We can switch anytime with a temporary penalty.”

“What does that mean?”

“We are all level eight on the kid level. If I change class, I go back to level one, then the next day I advance to two and then in eight days’ time, I am where I started with the new class.”

“Long term, you end up the same?”

“Yes.”

“And experience?” Daniel asked.

Janice looked over to Trudy at this question. The mum shrugged. “We don’t know,” Trudy finally said. “It looks complicated. It will increase the kid’s level and a chunk will transfer when they get their final class, but it is unclear how much.”

“And none of you were interested in intellectual or protected?”

“Protected just makes your magic shield stronger,” Janice answered with a shrug. “It seems pretty pointless. The standard ability could absorb four or five zombie blows, the strengthened one eight. I don’t see too many circumstances where a zombie gets to hit me eight times but does not get a ninth swing in.” Her point was actually pretty solid, from Daniel’s perspective. Static defences only delayed things unless you had an offensive ability to strike back. “And intellectual gives you absolutely nothing.”

“It passively helps them absorb stuff from books,” Trudy interrupted. “If we get somewhere safe, they are shifting to that class.”

“Mum!”

“Dad won’t make me,” Janice said fiercely.

“I can’t think of a better class,” Daniel told them honestly and got a grateful look from Trudy. “Information is power.” Zach was looking intently at him and clearly wondering whether Daniel’s statement was an elaborate prank. “Trust me. When we are safer, you want to spend as much time as an intellectual as possible. Janice, what does a survivalist give you?” he asked to change the subject.

“There is an additional escape skill, a camouflage ability, and a low-level identification spell that I can use on plants and food to see if they are edible.”

Daniel nodded at the information. It was much better than he expected. He was expecting the set of skills to be limited, especially in the context of the single ability supplied by the two rejected classes. That list that Janice had given was definitely tailored to survival, but it was also not anything to turn your nose up at.

“Gabby?”

“Um,” she stuttered. “When I am crafting stuff, there is a chance of magic helping it work.”

“What does that mean?”

“In simple terms . . .” Trudy spoke up to spare her daughter the discomfort of talking. “If she is tying a knot, her attempt possesses a large probability of getting magic that will make it less likely to unravel by itself and easier to undo if she needs to untie it.”

“Really.”

“Yes, and it can work on anything. Leatherworking, building, cooking, you name it, but it is random. It makes otherwise poor-quality kid stuff useful.”

“And the spy class?” he addressed this to Trudy.

“Camouflage and at higher levels, improved sight and hearing.”

“Good to know. Let’s go create your weapons,” Daniel told the kids, to excited sounds from Zach.

Ivey came stomping in just as he turned to leave. She had a surprising amount of blood on her. Processing corpses was not a clean business. She held a backpack, and Jayden followed with a full suitcase.

“Cores,” she said, thrusting the backpack into his hands. “And stuff for your weapons,” she said, waving at the suitcase.

He opened the bag in his hand and looked at the fourteen stones in there.

“Why aren’t there sixteen?”

“We think the Professor ate some of the minor ones,” Jayden told him.

The elite stones were obvious, as they were slightly larger. “Hulk?” he asked, pointing towards the biggest. Ivey immediately pointed to all of them, saying their name as she did so. His guesses on Professor and Ice were off, but apart from that, it all made sense based on colour and size.

“Thank you.”

“Listen, we agreed on the loot split,” Ivey told him. “But strengthening the team is more important than just one individual.”

Daniel was not sure what to say. He did not want to start a fight with Ivey, but he really wanted the twins, Club’s, and Professor’s stones. The other two elites he was less fussed with, but he also needed to see if he could create any further weapons.

“Maybe Dave can use the ice core, and three of the Brothers,” he said finally. “Kickstart the upgrade process and make sure it works.”

“You are a good man.” She went on tiptoes and gave him a peck the lips. “I will give you five minutes. Create those weapons you promised and then we should collect the other humans.”

Daniel flinched at that reminder. They would be waiting in their rooms and terrified.

“Maybe we should go tell the humans first?” he suggested tentatively. Ivey rolled her eyes in annoyance at him.

“I need five minutes,” Ivey said, not specifying why, but it was pretty clear.

“All right, we will go in five.”

He took the kids downstairs to find some doors. It took him five minutes to finish them. Daniel looked over the weapons he had constructed for the kids. They were pretty simple. Two spears and a sword and shield. The Hulk core was going to end up in one of them. While his base instinct was to upgrade the sword and shield, Zach was like what, eight? While the girls were eleven and twelve. The core needed to go to one girl, and then he would put minor cores in the other three items.

Flipping open the suitcase, he was amused to see the massive spread of teeth and claws that had been extracted for him and even some bones.

“Tamara?”

“Yes?”

“Do you know why there are bones in here?”

“I suspect,” Tamara answered carefully, “that Aisha identified them as having extra power in them.”

She waved her hand, and he could sense that she cast some sort of magic.

“They are magical bones?”

“Basically.” She smiled. “Okay, yes,” she clarified before he could ask for more details.

After hearing that, he tried to extend his growth skill over the various objects in the bag. They all resonated with his power, telling him they were magic. After a moment, half rejected him, and a rare few seemed to sing out to him, with the rest reluctantly accepting his power.

Two objects, a tooth and a long claw, particularly reverberated with his magic. Without hesitation, he fed those two into his club along with a couple of standard claws. Now that he knew the club was alive, he could feel its excitement at the gifts, and as they sank into the club, they borrowed his growth magic to let it incorporate the new materials.

There was a promise in the acceptance of that gift. Next time he needed a long spike, it would be four inches instead of three. If he ripped flesh open, he would do it with seven cuts rather than four. Efficiency and improvement in everything. The club was happy. It wanted to go kill something. Between himself, the club, and the mouse, it stunned him that he was less bloodthirsty than a herbivore and an inanimate object.

The kids stared in awestruck silence as the tooth and claw sank into the club. It deformed once, twice, and then a third time, using his power to do so. He consciously tracked the process, and there was a method for the weapon’s actions. Alternative forms and pathways were ingrained into the wood, woody muscles that could more easily bring the new weapon to bear on their collective enemies. When it settled, it was in its standard configuration: an irregular-shaped club with a nasty spike on one end. A feature whose centrepiece was that new tooth.

His mind turned to the other weapons. The Hulk core went into Janice’s spear. To fit it, he needed to thicken the bottom. He also included several thick thigh bones with the ends lobbed off and a tooth that looked like it had been designed to be the tip of a spear. The wood flowed over the central bone and was a lot less responsive than his club, but it still flowed like liquid and when it was done, the spear was smooth once more and was light for its length, and its point was that sharp tooth he had included.

The sword got a serrated edge courtesy of a lot of teeth. The shield, Daniel reinforced with bone, using all the knowledge that Anthony had shared to make sure it was both light and useable. Gabby’s spear had its point formed with four claws. Each one got a zombie core and it would be interesting to see if any of them ended up developing into a seed weapon, but after they were used in anger, he planned on continuing to develop them. Adding further cores and zombie parts.

That just left the seven cores for him to swallow, but four of them were elites. He swallowed them all, knowing that it was going to be agonising when his body processed them fully. The Professor and the twins were bound to create a new ability type. He was looking forward to telekinesis and that armour skill. The second for survivability and the first being important because if his strategy relied on traps, having the ability to remotely adjust a trap, something like pointing it in a new direction would definitely help.

“We need to introduce ourselves to the people downstairs. You go back to your mum, and when we get back, we can go hunting.”

Animal Sense.

Daniel spread out and checked the floor; the route back was safe.

Ivey was waiting in the corridor. This was the moment of truth. It was time to meet who was going to be joining their little group.