"Only one person can enter?" Nathan grunted. "That's stupid."

The team of six examined the tall stone walls of the maze, a Dungeon which allowed only one to enter. Their mission was to complete the Dungeon and kill any monsters they came across, when possible. It was labeled as Maze Trial 1, which had surprised the team – nothing else they had come across or heard of involved numbering the Dungeons.

"It's probably meant to be an individual thing," Keith said. "We may just be here to reduce the population of monsters inside it again. If they continue to build up and grow stronger, then eventually, it would become an extremely tough Dungeon to perform which could be disproportionate to others in this region. The Overseers likely want it to be kept reduced regularly in order to avoid needing to risk powerful people's lives in order to deal with it."

"I know," Nathan grunts. "I get the feeling, based on the Tower of Magic and that, that this region is one that becomes available for Dungeons anytime its monster population or power starts to rise high enough for that reason."

"Yeah," Keith nodded. "We probably aren't the first to come through here and do Dungeons. This theory will hold true if Dungeons further from the towers have higher actual difficulty levels than those closer – most people would likely go from tower to tower and only go to other Dungeons if they were within a reasonable reach."

"And if this is the first one everyone shows up at," Nathan said. "The furthest from here will likely be the most difficult tower."

"We probably shouldn't worry about that," Samantha said. "With how easy the one we did was, it would need to be an insane difficulty spike to actually pose a problem to us."

"Yeah," Nathan said, then looked at Keith. "You're going to do the maze, right?"

"Why would we send in Keith?" Michael asked. "You seem to think that's the natural choice."

"Because it is," William said. "Keith is a psychic. He can use his powers to see the actual path through it."

"Could someone just fly over it and-"

"No," Keith answered. "If this was meant to be a trial of some sort for the people in this region, then the maze likely has enchantments designed to prevent aerial actions. A glamour would likely obscure vision from above while a barrier would no doubt shield it from air entry."

"Don't worry," Nathan put a hand on Michael's shoulder. "One day, you will find your brain."

He removed his hand from Michael's shoulder and looked at the group.

"Let's set up camp while Keith is doing the Dungeon," he said. "Michael, William, you two set up the tents. Samantha, Katie, you two take care of the other stuff. I'm going to go do something away from all of you."

Nathan pulled out the equipment they needed, then left, leaving everyone behind looking confused, then Keith shook his head.

"I'm heading into the maze," he told the group. "There's nothing nearby which can pose a threat to you, and no, I don't know what Nathan's doing."

Keith entered the maze and the others got to work constructing their camp. As they did that, Nathan finished shooting the wolf he had spotted entering the woods. The wolf had a white pelt he thought was quite beautiful, so he made sure every shot hit its head, doing minimal damage to the pelt in the process.

"There!" He said once the beast fell. "Now it's dead."

Feeling satisfied with himself that he managed to fight a wolf without taking damage, Nathan accessed his orb and pulled out the guide on how to skin and tan a hide, something Keith had insisted he put in it.

By the time Keith tracked him down, long-since having finished the Dungeon, Nathan was still attempting to treat the hide. The psychic took over, using his sight to know how to fix what Nathan had done and how to finish preparing it.

As soon as he finished, a message appeared in Nathan's vision.

Would you like to complete the treatment process now for Points? It will not affect the quality of the product. Leather: 5,000 Points Pelt: 7,500 Points No: Free

"The Overseers have been watching too many commercials," Nathan muttered.

"What?" Keith asked.

"Do you have a screen-reader?"

Keith pulled a card out and touched it to Nathan's cheek, one of the only spots on the demigod not coated in blood. He pushed magic into it, and a screen identical to Nathan's appeared above it. The psychic pulled it back and read it, then snorted.

"Yeah, they have," he said. "What did you want to do with it?"

"I want to make a vest."

"A vest?" Keith asked in confusion.

"Yes," Nathan answered. "A vest. Maybe some boots. I figured if we were going to be here for months, I might as well have some fun while here."

"Making a vest and boots is fun?" Keith asked.

"No," Nathan answered. "But I like to think that if I became an exiled prince who ends up conquering the world, that while I'm in exile, I start making boots and vests from the hides of wolves. That's all I wear. Oh, and pants."

Keith snorted at the addition.

"You'd probably wear gloves, coats, jackets, and whatever else was needed," he told Nathan. "What are you going to do?"

"No fur."

A moment later, the hide began to glow, then was wrapped in a black box similar to what surrounded food in the cafeteria during the Tutorial, whenever it ran out. A full minute passed as Nathan contemplated how he was going to clean up, then the box faded, leaving behind a hide of white leather.

"I'll put that in my orb," Keith told Nathan. "There's a stream over there," he indicated a direction slightly to the northwest of them in the woods. "Meet us back at camp when you finish."

Nathan nodded, then Keith placed the leather in his orb before returning to camp.

"What was Nathan doing?" Samantha asked.

"Venting against a wolf," Keith answered. "Though it seems the System actually gives some assistance when it comes to tanning leather. Once the hide was being treated properly, the System offered to finish it in exchange for some Points."

"Why would it do that?" Katie asked.

"Probably," Keith said. "Because in an extended Dungeon like this, where we might be here for months, they want to help players, and know that some players would prefer to make some clothes from things they found here. Sometimes, it might be more beneficial to make it from the hide of a beast in the area than with something you brought. With the wolf's leather, Nathan can make a vest that might have a high resistance to damage. With some creatures, their hides might offer increased resistances to certain things, such as acid or heat."

"That makes sense," Katie said.

"Yeah," Keith nodded. "It also seems the one who's offered the choice to finish it that way is the one who killed the beast."

"But wouldn't," Michael said. "The item stay behind once we left?"

"Maybe," Samantha said. "Since it's from here, and you know the rules about that. But if you're going to be somewhere for months, you can still enjoy its benefits for that time. Who's to say it'll last through all of that?"

"Right," Michael said. "Where's Nathan?"

"Washing the blood off," Keith answered. "He seems to have already stored the rest of the wolf in his orb, since it wasn't present when I showed up, but he was rather bloody."

Keith sat down and began enchanting, and Nathan returned a few minutes later, wearing a fresh outfit. He pulled out meat from the wolf and began cooking it, along with several herbs and vegetables he found during his trip back.

"Are those eggs?" Katie asked at one point, and everyone looked over to find Nathan cracking eggs into a pile of flour.

"Yes."

He began kneading the flour and eggs into dough, and everyone just stared.

"Nathan, where did the eggs come from?" Samantha asked. "I know you haven't had those since we arrived."

"I stole them from a bird."

"Of course you did," everyone else muttered, then cracked up laughing.

Nathan resumed cooking, and after they finished eating, Nathan asked Keith how the maze went.

"Fairly easy," Keith answered. "There were some large rats, a few slimes, a few birds, and a fair few traps. With my magic sight active, I could spot the traps easily, even without my sight. When I reached the center of the maze, a path opened up allowing me to just walk straight out. It was rather boring, actually, but I can see a normal person struggling with it."

"Interesting," Nathan muttered.

"You don't find it interesting at all," Keith said.

"Correct," Nathan confirmed. "It sounds boring. Now shut up and let's get some work done."

They began working on enchantments once more, and everyone else relaxed. For the next four days, their routine remained the same as they traveled to the town halfway between the maze and the temple. The majority of each day was spent traveling, with their only stops being to relieve themselves or to eat during the day, and in time to set up camp before bed.

When they finally arrived, the group stayed for only one day to rest from their training, using the well in the town's square to draw up fresh water to drink, rather than the bottled water Nathan and Keith kept in their orbs or stream water when they passed one. While there, Nathan also worked on his leather-working skills with Keith's assistance, in order to make the vest he wanted.

After their day of rest, the group began traveling again, arriving at the temple after another four days of traveling.

When the temple came into sight, the group looked at it in admiration. More than one hundred feet in height and built of stone, it impressed all six of them with its form. The pair of enchanters were further impressed by the enchantments, including the ones which kept the fires within the braziers and sconces blazing.

Statues which resembled a cross between wolves and bears were positioned at the first of the ten pairs of pillars leading up to the temple on the path. Another pair of statues rested at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the great wooden doors of the temple, with another pair guarding the doors, seated to their sides. Behind the pair at the doors stood statues representing the demons, wings included, though tucked against their backs.

"Every statue of the actual demons we've seen," Katie said. "Has been male."

"Most renaissance and other medieval statues were male," Samantha said. "While I'm sure there were female ones, all I can think of for that were in paintings, not statues."

"There's also the fact," Keith said. "That all of the demons we faced in the Tutorial and find in the Tower Dungeon are male. Are there even any female demons? Or are they all male? If so, how did they reproduce?"

"They'd fuck the women of other species," Nathan said absent-mindedly, and the others looked at him, noticing that as he spoke, Nathan seemed to be in a semi-trance state. "And the resulting offspring would be more demons. There were a few female demons, what we'd call queens, who could also procreate. They were the mothers of the winged ones, who were also the only ones allowed to sire winged ones and the only ones who had the ability to sire queens. In most cases, there was only one queen per world, and if she sired a child with any but a winged, they would be ordinary.

"Because they could reproduce by fucking the females of other species, they would send a party of maybe ten to twenty males to a world with other humanoid species, and the group would rape nearly every woman they could.

"Even if the natives," he continued, oblivious to the stares set upon him. "Killed the children as they were born, the demons were often too powerful, and not enough would be killed. In addition, giving birth to the demons killed the women. It took only two or three generations for them to be the majority species on the world, and by that point, the native species would have been enslaved, remaining that way until they died out.

"On a few worlds," Nathan continued, still in his light trance. "The demons would even created breeding farms where they would force the humanoids to fuck against their wills in order to create more of them – more mothers for the demons. Those worlds often lasted many generations until the breeding farms died out."

Nathan blinked a few times, then looked at the others.

"I have no idea how I know that."