The sanctuary went into preparation mode. Jola’s company posted a course for those who wanted to learn how to make weapons. Up until this point it was only people who worked for him that knew how to make weapons, but with the amount of orders that the settlements had made it was impossible for Jola’s company alone to handle them.

The course details were:

[Monster Technology – Fee: 5,000 en-codes per lesson – Prerequisite: must have bought the necessary crafting equipment.

This course teaches those who want to learn how to make Monster weapons. Many settlements in Lagos want to buy our weapons and anyone who is interested in being a Monster weapon engineer can earn a lot from this opportunity.

Course administrator: Demola Rank 6]

An announcement was made about the coming attack and many people began to worry. They had eliminated all the Rank 6 and below hordes around them, the only thing waiting for them was the Rank 7 horde.

The news about the state of the other settlements, the amount of rankers they had etc, and the on goings of the meeting, the deal with the High Nomads and the power of Lara, was also spread.

Jola held a public speech to reassure the public; he said “If we are unable to defeat the Rank 7 monster horde I will ask Lara for her help. She promised us that we would have the chance to get a favor from her once for attending the meeting. She is a Rank 12 she can easily defeat the horde.

But that is only in the worst case scenario, we will probably have the highest amount of loss when they attack than any other raid or campaign and I will not call her unless we are truly hopeless.

This is because if she defeats the Rank 7 for us we would have lost the chance of getting a Rank 7 High Human and also when the Rank 7 and 8 monsters are defeated and Lagos is reclaimed every settlement that doesn’t have a Rank 7 or 8 individual will probably not have a say and will be pushed around on the whims of the stronger settlements.

It is important that we defeat our Rank 7 monster and if possibly a Rank 8. We are stronger than all the other sanctuaries. If they can do it and we can’t, what would all our progress have been for?

We have to do the best that we can to come out at the top because even after the Rank 7 and 8 monsters there are still other challenges we must face. This is just the beginning, this is just the dawn”

Mira on the other hand was preparing to leave. She had bought some weapons both old and outdated ones and new weapons, she got the various articles that the Karma company wrote and packed them in a gym bag she bought. As of now everything apart from buildings were made of monster and undead material in the sanctuary.

On her way out Jola and Deji came with a book in each of their hands, Funmi, Osaz, Mistura and Samad, the overcomers that didn't work for Jola, also came with their own books in hand. Funmi said “I don’t know what they’re here for” gesturing at the other people “But I’m willing to sell my magic spells for a set of armor and weapons… and more depending on what your master is willing to offer”. The other Rank 6s expressed that they had the same motives.

Mira said “That’s fine but I’m not the one who will decide if he will accept the deal, for all I know he may have already discovered everything we have here but I’m sure he will do a fair trade”. She took the books they brought over and left after saying goodbye.

Mira went out of the sanctuary into the no-man’s land between the sanctuary’s territory and the Rank 7 horde. This no-man’s land used to be an undead horde’s territory when she just arrived; she reminisced about the old times.

Behind her a group of 15 Rank 5s were following her. They all had the High Mind skill and were extremely cautious as they knew they were on a very important mission, to discover the identity of Mira's master. They followed silently while Mira ran to the location where she was to meet Jade.

…

A month before the Lagos settlement meeting, Jade was sitting on a tall building and looking toward FCT. For 6 months after Samira left he had focused on creating new weapons that worked well with True dream, training his True dream soul ability as well as his energy control ability and improving his stats.

To that end he had been hunting the hordes in Abuja and around it. He never approached FCT, the capital area, for that period; he didn’t want to encounter a monster that was too much for him.

He has made large strides in his weapon creation as he got used to the fact that he wasn’t human anymore. The various limits he had as a human had limited his imagination of the things he could make and utilize.

After 6 months of preparation and grinding he was ready to attack the hordes at FCT. He would teleport to their territories to scout first before doing anything; he didn’t want to repeat the mistake he made with the Aura Ape.

For 3 month he had steadily taken out the Rank 7 hordes and gradually progressing deeper into Abuja toward FCT. He learnt that at Rank 7 monsters that were long range focused could use attacks that could keep up with his teleportation.

The maximum distance he could travel with the first version of his spatial folding ring was 10 kilometers per teleport and these monsters could easily attack from such distances with long range attacks…

Luckily for him he was at the 6th version by the end of his 6 month preparation; he could still avoid them. The Rank 7 monsters weren’t just aura monsters some monster had weird powers that seemed to break all logic and that didn’t consume energy.

Jade learned after killing them that some monsters had more than 7 stats and their 8th stat, Biomass, was what powered such abilities. The more Jade hunted Rank 7 monster hordes the more his horizons expanded; hunting Rank 7 monster hordes had boosted his en-code amount by a lot which increased his stats rapidly, it also allowed for him to create more powerful weapons with his higher intelligence.

Jade’s technology kept improving; he could now make reality of the theories that were theorized about matter and energy and in some cases break the laws of physics.

Now Jade didn’t make new weapons and armor after killing a new monster species, he just broke the monster up and used various parts to supplement and improve the weapons and devices he had already created.

After clearing out the Rank 7 hordes Jade started with something he had never seen before; a Rank 8 undead horde. Jade only moved on to the Rank 8 horde after training with all the en-code he got from the Rank 7 hordes for one month.