[Meditation] is now level 44. You have gained 1 Path point. Increases mana regeneration by 44% while the skill is active.

[Detect Presence] is now level 35. You have gained 1 Path point. Actively sends a pulse of mana to check the user’s surroundings for living beings. Range 105 meters. Uses 7 mana per minute.

“This is your part.” Joah said as he handed me a bag with small cores, apparently there were seventy four inside, the price of medium cores was steadily rising. What worried me though was that Joah himself decided to meet me rather than a contact.

“What’s up?” I asked and cringed a bit internally at the words I used, usually I was a bit more formal. Joah didn’t take long to answer, yet he looked around to make sure we were alone. Not many people were on the roofs of a twenty floors high apartment block though.

“The client is moving to Park City with his family and a large amount of his assets.” Was he running away? “There are a lot of strong hunters in that city and only a small presence of the Army, quite a few people are moving there.” Joah continued. It sounded like Park City was becoming a center of the anti-Army movement, or whomever they will call themselves when, or if the fighting starts.

“What about the couriers?” I asked, I rather liked the job of running between cities with small cargo even if I did so only three times till now.

“There are more clients other than the one that is leaving for Park City, we are transporting a lot of medium cores into the Capital itself.” Makes sense, I wonder if politicians are supplied by the Army or if they are keeping the good stuff for themselves. Large core would be an amazing bribe for a politician.

“We are moving our main base of operation there as well, but it’s not what I wanted to talk about.” I raised an eyebrow as Joah made a dramatic pause. “The council has agreed to make you an official member of the Guild.” Council? Guild? That sounded as if the ‘guild’ was run by nerds with bad naming habits. My face easily explained my thoughts to Joah. “We are still working on the names.” He said a bit ashamed.

“What is the difference compared to an unofficial member?” I asked, not really knowing what to make of the information. It didn’t sound that important.

“We are running things almost like a company, but the guild members own an equal stock of the guild itself with the rest owned by the guild itself. 1% of the guild belongs to you now, there are thirty six different members and over three hundred non official ones.” I whistled, quite a number given that the group stays mostly in shadow.

“You will also be a part of the council as every other official member is.” Joah added, though it’s not something that really mattered to me.

“What is the goal of the ‘Guild’?” Joah shrugged his arms as he responded. “Money? Power? Survival? Thirty six different members and thirty six different ideas.” It seemed that he was alright with giving away more information to me now, usually he beat around the bush when I met him.

“What do you know about the Army movement?” I asked and Joah answered. “The general Roxton has taken over the Army, some that disagreed with him died. We believe that they will try to take control soon enough, that’s why we are moving to Park City.” It didn’t sound good.

“Why was I chosen as the official member?” Joah smiled. “You are one of the strongest members, with quite a lot of experience.” I wouldn’t exactly call myself strong. How weak are other members if they consider me ‘strong’? Then again, the group mostly focused on transporting valuable cargo.

“What do you plan to do when the Army strikes?” Joah shrugged again. “We don’t know who they will target, they might take over the government and just impose some taxes on us. They might also decide that independent groups like ours that try to get stronger using the System are a threat and they will target us as well. All we can do now is to wait and hope that we get information beforehand.”

That was a bit of a letdown, most of the information on the Army that Joah said I already read on a few forums, though he at least proved the speculations to be true. Jake was silent about what the Army was planning, perhaps they were watching him.

“Here.” Joah said as he handed me a phone. “The council matters will be sent to you on this phone, you message back to vote or give an opinion, or even propose something if you want. Try not to lose it and destroy it if you are about to get caught.” Sounded like some spy stuff. I took the phone and hid it in my pocket, perhaps it will be of use.

Joah turned to leave but stopped to speak once more. “Oh, and the limitation of how many medium cores you can transport has been lifted.” He left soon after.

Perhaps I should gain more maximum mana somehow to start using medium cores rather than small cores, thought for the future.

-

Carrying a hundred medium cores in my backpack was a weird feeling. They were worth almost five hundred thousand dollars, enough to buy a good apartment in the Capital, it was weird that the fiat currency hasn’t crashed yet. It made me wary of every person that I walked by on the street, which was even worse because people knew that I had something valuable on me. It was best to head towards Gavensburg quickly.

Twenty minutes later I left the wall surrounding the Park City and started running, as I was about to pass abandoned buildings a few kilometers away from the city I felt six blips from [Detect Presence].

[Detect Presence] is now level 36. You have gained 1 Path point. Actively sends a pulse of mana to check the user’s surroundings for living beings. Range 108 meters. Uses 7 mana per minute.

I used it every time I was about to pass by everything that acted as a visual barrier, old walls of a building included.

I slowed down and jumped to the left and sped away towards the trees that were five hundred meters away. Dogs didn’t hide in the houses, humans were. Soon after, the sounds of running people started behind me. I made it to the forest first and looked back, the sounds were getting dimmer as I was closing the forest meaning that they were quite slow.

They were really slow, all six of them. Some had knives, one person a spear and another wielded a katana. The last one must have been the biggest idiot of them all, there was 99% probability that the katana was a souvenir worth around twenty dollars and would break on the first bone he hits it with. Who the fuck were they?

I took my new phone and took some photos as they sprinted towards me, the zoom on my new phone was quite good and their faces were somewhat recognizable. I started running towards Gavensburg soon after, there was no chance that they would be capable of catching up to me and fighting them would mean killing them, that is if I even had means of killing them. Their lack of speed was perhaps due to high melee combat proficiency, maybe even evolved speed.

Looking behind me I noticed that some were cursing and a scuffle happened between two of them. I doubted that they had any advanced skills. I slowed down a bit, meaning that I was quite far away from them now. I needed to find some monster dogs to keep [Prey’s Flight] active.

-

Once I gave the cores to our own contact in Gavensburg I got my pay of five medium cores, my cut increased to 5% when I became an official member. I decided to share the news about the ambush.

‘Someone tried to ambush me while I was leaving Park City.’ I uploaded the photos. ‘Does anyone know them? They seemed to know where I would be passing.’ I sent the text message as I arrived at Gavensburg, only a few kilometers or closer from the city one could upload a photo. The 3 and 4g antennas were long destroyed in the wilderness and it was hard to catch a signal sometimes, not to mention catching a good enough connection to upload high quality photos. Joah responded soon after, the official members used mostly a group chat to contact each other and exchange ideas.

‘I will ask around.’ It seemed that Joah was responsible for information gathering, he was a stalker after all.

‘I know one of them, he used to be a dealer in my neighbourhood. I heard he works for Blyaza now.’ Someone called Micah responded. It was not the first time that the name ‘Blyaza’ was used on this chat, he was apparently a ‘drug lord’ before and decided to increase his reach by creating a proper gang.

‘They were slow and looked weak, but I didn’t fight them so I cannot be sure.’ I added, not really important but perhaps something useful for others.

‘Perhaps they focus more on indoor fighting, not a lot of places to maneuver with superior speed. If they are thugs they might be more used to crashing someone’s home than running around the wilderness.’ Alex added, it was the first time I saw the name on the group chat. Perhaps he was only interested in fighting. It will take me weeks to remember everyone's names, I never had a good memory for them. He did have a point though, if someone were to attack me indoors my best option would be to look for a window to jump from. I wonder from how many floors I can survive fall from?

‘Which contact have you used, William?’ It was Joah asking, contacts did not belong to our group, they were either working for sellers or buyers. ‘The Bakery.’ I wrote back, we didn’t get much information about the contacts.

It was off my hands now, dogs or humans that focused on melee were not so different for me when it came to dealing with them. People that focused on fighting skills seemed to lack speed, which meant that running away was the best option.

-

[Meditation] is now level 45. You have gained 1 Path point. Increases mana regeneration by 45% while the skill is active.

[Path of Greater Dexterity 35/50] Dexterity Increased by 1.

I jumped over the three meters tall metal fence and landed next to a large group of people startling almost all of them. “Yo.” I greeted them, most raised their guns at me. Perhaps I should have changed my outfit to look less like a soldier. I was about to run when a voice called out.

“He is with us.” An unfamiliar voice spoke, ah so this must be Alex. A man around my age armed to the teeth with weapons and a really short japanese sword that I believe was called tanto closed in as people in suits lowered their weapons. “Next time don't startle a small army of bodyguards with automatic guns William.” He had a point, my heart was beating quite fast and I was ready to use [Half-step] once I saw people raising guns. I wonder if I would be capable of outrunning bullets just like in the movies, I would rather never find out.

I looked around the convoy that was to transport our backer to the Park City, the one with the codename ‘Rich Snob’. There were around a hundred people in black suits with guns, but only five cars, two of them had mounted machine guns on the roofs. It was not enough to make all people ride, and I worried that it would take days to get to Park City if they were to simply walk.

“How long will it take us to get to the other city?” I asked Alex, which simply responded. “Days.” His eyes showed that he was as annoyed as me. I sighed and walked with Alex to our other ‘Guild’ members. It will be a long trip.

We moved out soon after trying not to waste too much sunlight. Our guild members mostly acted as scouts, just like me.