Three month’s flashed by. The camp had churned out over twenty thousand wooden arrow. And five thousand metal tipped arrows.

The mine had seen serious action. Multiple production related methods had seen improvements.

In the early days. With all those new workers and increasing demands, a lot of people had to pick up various new methods.

The continuous work allowed for more practice. This meant that new people quickly picked up methods such as mining, refining.

There was a demand for the forging, but the greatest demand was the woodworking. This was threefold. One was actually gathering enough wood.

Wood was gathered from small trees. Sometimes a branch of the great trees could be broken off. There was no quality control so anything that could be worked into a arrow shaft was used.

Once the wood was gathered they would refine it. This wasn’t a difficult process. But they required a lot of wood.

A byproduct of sorts, a bark of a specific tree was also refined, but in less quantity. This material was used as fletching.

The refined wood was moved to the woodworkers who would carve them into arrows. A lot of material was wasted in this process.

People needed learn. A lot of people needed to learn. And they did. Ninety percent of the camp were learning a skill one way or another.

The three days people had to rest was something they didn’t understand at first. They would just do nothing and relax.

But this wasn’t something everyone could manage. They would eventually be tempted to discover a recipe.

It was an era of war. And war required resources. The materials were not in place. Even the hard crackers saw a use. They had a long expiration date.

Din rewarded the person with a small team of people who would pursue food related recipes. He had to endure a teary eyed man sob.

The man hadn’t felt so emotional because he desired the position. He felt the acknowledgement to be priceless. He had been mocked for the most useless recipe.

They would head north in less than a week. Din had gotten information from the people that came from the other nodes.

‘Five to ten of those beast king at a time.’

He felt it was excessive. If all those people hadn’t arrived he would maybe feel a exasperated. With his thousand some people, he’d shorten the path of progression by a few years.

On the day of the march, Din was sitting in a trance. This was his usual tradition, he’d spend time thinking of the Laq Docte wisdom.

Once he woke from his reverie, he began strolling to the north of camp. People had already gather. Only eight hundred would go on this time around.

Those left behind would be pregnant woman, women that had given birth this year and their children. The rest would maintain the camp.

There were also a select few that were not required to do anything. All of which opted to staying behind.

Traveling with eight hundred people was a challenge. They needed to carry food and supplies. They also had to kill along the way. They cooked what they killed.

They had to travel through two and a half node before getting outside Din’s tier one node.

Once they did, the amount of beasts multiplied. These beasts were stronger. But eight hundred organized people were hard to stop.

It was tempting to lighten the load and use arrows, but they were held in reserve. Until they didn’t need to conserve strength.

If one had to guess. Five thousand or more beasts had to be killed before inciting the rage of beast kings. This was what Din thought.

He wouldn’t be wrong. Unless he directly found a beast king within its territory, a massacre was the only solution.

The experience was nothing short of amazing. Din had reached level thirty eight. Whether this was a fast growth was debatable. There were battle fanatics that were at higher level.

As they progressed further into the territory, time became blurry. They would fight and sleep in rotations. The distance they moved every day was abysmal.

Number of felled beasts became staggering. And even with eight hundred people the experience only got better.

For the uninitiated, this kind of constant killing was traumatizing. Even the experienced ones were being consumed by the environment.

There were thirteen people that persevered through the constant slaughter. First and his people. Then there was Din and Jao.

Din didn’t realize he was unaffected by some sort of battle craze. His zealotry kept his thoughts on his beliefs. What was strange, was Jao.

It would seem her state of mind had undergone a more drastic change than previously assumed. To remain untainted by the killing wasn’t an easy task.

First and his men had a different view on the fighting. This was what they were good at. First had carved his men in his image.

Din had his Zealotry. But Jao couldn’t be explained away. She had to have developed something firm to hold onto.

This wouldn’t be a belief in Din. While she felt admiration for him early on. After spending so much time with him, he lost all mysticism.

On the eleventh day some of First men began feeling the effects of constant slaughter. They held their ground and used the opportunity to temper themselves.

Once consumed by the fighting it was hard to get out of it. The effects weren’t physical but it could affect their sleep schedule. That would affect them physically.

On the twenty third day they had reached six thousand. No one was counting. Even Din felt they were just mindlessly killing at this point.

Jao had fallen to the effects affects four days ago. But no one noticed. There wasn’t a direct external sign that would give you away.

Din was frowning. There was a lull in the fighting. It would happen occasionally. He was looking at his attributes.

There has to be a point to this.’

He wasn’t satisfied with unsolved riddles. There were too many of them in this place. He didn’t like having to explain things away with magic.

Abilities

Passive

Instincts

Active

Instincts

Any increase in attributes will increase the instinct attribute with a two to one ratio.

For every ten points in instincts you gain a one point in strength and dexterity. It is impossible to allocate points to instinct.

“You specialize in surviving! You have developed unparalleled instincts through a life and death experience!”

Strength: 77

Intelligence: 42

Dexterity: 77

Wisdom: 42

Willpower: 42

Constitution: 42

Stamina: 42

Health: 520

Mana: 310

Health recovery: 52

Mana recovery: 31

Instinct: 356.5

The screaming of battle had started up again but Din was still wondering about things. The more he thought it over the less he felt he understood.

He understood what some of the attributes would do, they were self descriptive. Instinct hower just kept increasing. What was the benefit? These were Din’s thoughts.

Instincts were not only a tool to keep Din alive in a reactionary manner. The further it increased the more it would try to predict what it required.

Every dangerous scenario Din had ever experienced, witnessed or knew of was at its disposal. The more expansive it was, the more it would use.

Like a separate existence, it learned. Every waking and sleeping moment Din experienced, it experienced. It used information Din received in far more efficient way.

It also became more independent. This Independence could potentially steal Din’s mind away. This would be incredibly difficult for it.

It already had this power in short bursts when danger was eminent. This was a loophole that could be exploited.

The army had begun using arrows to conserve energy. This sped up killing and eased the pressure on the troops. Arrows were used rapidly.

On the twenty seventh day a beastly cry could be heard, it echoed through the battlefield. The beasts retreated.

Once the roaring was dying out a second one burst forth followed by a third, fourth, fifth. It was now too hard to notice the amount of beast howling. It was as if the whole forest had come alive.

“Metal tipped arrows!”

First shouted. His shout was drowned out by the beasts. But his warning wasn’t needed. Anyone would recognize the situation.

The first beast king to make an appearance was leaping from tree branch to tree branch. They had seen a beast like this before but never so big.

It was easy to see the strength of the branches, it swung and let its grip go. The momentum carried it to the next branch.

First and his men were staring at the beast when the second came out. It a type of lizard. Although it appeared to just be a snake with legs.

“Fire!”

As soon as the tree traversing beast was within range, there was no hesitation to rain down on it.

They expected it, but they were still surprised to see how effective it was. Eight hundred arrows clashed against each other.

Most of them missed but with hundreds of them, the beast was killed outright. The snake was faster, but they had more arrows.

‘Why would it swing around like that?’

Din didn’t feel anything was off. He expected beast kings to arrive. He had personally fought one before. He had also seen them killed.

What he felt was strange was their approach. It did make sense after he thought about it. The beast kings couldn’t all be in the neighbourhood right? This is what he was thinking.

The lizard was the next target. But these kings weren’t dumb. When the lizard saw its rival and companion killed with such ease it dodged behind a tree.

It was still ferocious and blindly arrogant. It slithered out of sight like like a snake and leapt with its four legs when it had to go from one place to another.

The third beast, then a fourth joined the fray. They hadn't seen the first beast be downed. All they saw was that shitty lizard jump around like a clown.

Weren’t you always flicking your tongue at us? What are you doing? The new arrivals felt the lizard was playing around.

Beast king's would play around with their food and minions all the time. But this wasn’t the place for it. These were invaders. They had killed thousands of their combined minions.

They rushed forward gallantly. They weren’t going to play around. These scrawny little attackers were going to die. These were their thoughts.

To their dismay what met them was eight hundred metal tipped arrows. This wasn’t something they could slap off. They had abilities just like the people did.

But they didn't have a movement ability or a defensive ability. They had attack abilities. They did the only thing they could. They attacked the arrows.

Their combined blow allowed them to knock tens of arrows away. But more followed right after them.

It was rare but one of didn’t die right away after the onslaught. But it was in no state to do anything but lie there immobile. Everyone assumed they were dead.

The lizard took the opportunity to strike at the army’s formation. First and his men confronted it. They didn’t have defensive abilities but they could still block with their weapons and shield.

Jao and Din still hadn’t moved from their position. Jao’s eyes were bloodshot. Far from Din’s zealous eyes.

He was just shocked none of them at died yet. He saw First’s men get knocked backwards. But they didn’t die.

Fifth, sixth and seventh beast king came from the same direction. The lizard had retreated once it saw the battalions turn to it.

The three frowned when they arrived. They were wild beasts. They had ferocious expressions, but they saw three dead beast kings on the ground. All covered in those tiny sticks.

All the tiny people had one of those sticks. It was easy for them to figure out what was going on. They followed the lizard to hide behind trees and shot from cover to cover.

First was breathing heavily. He had taken a blow from the lizard by himself. He stood his ground. But it still felt like a truck had slammed into him.

‘People will die if this continues.’

Din wasn’t worried. He just genuinely felt that people would die now. The beast would inch their way towards them. Once closed enough they’d charge.

First could stop one of them. Din, himself could stop one if he chose to do so. But wasn’t going to. He didn’t want to.

He felt that some people had to die. This wasn’t a sadism for the sake of sadism. This was more philosophical nonsense he inherited from his betters.

Soon they were struck. The lizard had learned. It slithered and scurried around the army. Splitting their attention.

When the beasts attacked. They attack one after the other, barely a second between them. The lizard retreated fast. But it caught a few arrows.

It managed to kill three people.

The other three weren’t as experienced or cunning as it. They struck hard but didn’t retreat. They killed seventeen people in total.

First stopped one. At a price. But the other two killed fourteen between themselves. The snake saw the last of its allies fall and ran.

It couldn’t win this fight. Din watched it vanish. When it turned around and went out of sight, his interface alerted him.

The last beast was still silently dying. When people approached its oversized maw it used the last of its power to take one more life with it.

It had given up and was defeated. But it still chose to go out with a bang.

They skinned the beasts. Even the strips they were useful after being refined.

Din was looking at his map. Ten black nodes had been added to it. Twenty now in total. Outside this were blue dots sprinkled about. These were unrated support nodes.

Outside this was Din’s area of influence. These nodes were marked yellow. Further outside of those were red nodes. The yellow and red nodes had expanded further.

You have taken a tier one node.

Tier one support node grants additional hundred percent experience bonus.

The bonus is additive with previous experience bonus.

Every subsequent tier one node will grant an additional hundred percent increase.

‘That’s seven hundred and sixty percentage.’

The increase in experience looked like it was getting out of hand. But this little increase wasn’t enough. They could rise to forty five quicker. But only by a small margin.

Din was now level forty three. This was a threshold all the high level people were on. Not even first had reached forty four. The experience required was too substantial.

After taken one or two tier one nodes they would maybe bridge the gap. They could also slowly grind it out once back at camp.

It wouldn’t take them longer than a year or two to reach forty five if they just hunted once every few days.

Even with them all reaching the same levels there was a clear difference. By the time Din had reached level forty five, First would have been forty five for months.

Every node support had ten subnodes that could be considered unrated. They granted ten percent experience each.

Once ten unrated nodes came under a person’s control and were physically connected, they would become tier one nodes.

The nodes would retain the ten percent experience increase and each individual tier one node would grant an additional hundred percent.

The first tier one node would grant an additional one hundred percent bonus.

Din now possessed the equivalency of forty six unrated nodes. Giving him four hundred and sixty percent experience.

Twenty of those were considered tier one nodes. That was a two hundred percent bonus and one hundred percent, respectively.

Leaving the grand total seven hundred and sixty percent experience.

Now that din had expanded the influence of his tier one nodes. He might interfere with other unrated support nodes.

These new affected areas would never be able to cross tier one beast nodes. They had three options.

One was to take the chance they wouldn’t be invaded. This could leave them safe for a long time. But they wouldn’t know this.

Second was to run. If they were strong enough, they could ignore majority of beasts and just travel for a few days. Maybe stumble on a neutral node or even an occupied one.

The third and last option was to directly gift away their node. This would alert Din. They would also come under his control.

They would benefit from the incredible experience bonus. Then they would have to hope Din came to rescue them.

This would be their best bet. Not because it was safe to join tier one node communities. But because Din valued the manpower.

Even if there was only five of them. He’d march over. There was a chance for a new crafter. Maybe he’d find a genius. It didn’t matter what kind.

There was also the chance of a unique ability he could make use of. Whatever it was, Din was very honest in his ambition.

Once Din and his army returned to camp they were allowed a week’s leave. This endeavour left them tiered. It was longer than anyone expected.

There were still a few hundred people working to maintain things.

They were informed of the loss of life. Not everyone felt like talking about it. But with eight hundred man army. A few wouldn’t mind sharing.

First was unsatisfied. He was strong and trained hard. But if he had to be honest with himself, he’d been too relaxed.

He had indulged in training the camp members. He could be considered the strongest man in camp, so he fell into complacency.

This was a rude awakening. He spoke to Din. Din agreed with his proposal. They were going to allocated more time to training.

A week went by and people rejoined their rotations, the schedules had to be changed. Arrow production had never stopped. But now it returned to its former productivity.

Din started his gear making hobby again. He was experimenting further to create a valve. This was something that he felt was holding him back.

Without a working valve a lot of things were impossible. Din wanted a water tank. When they went south he realized the land was on an incline.

It wasn’t much but a few hundred meters away you could see a rise of four to five meters. If he could pipe it down, the descent would do most of the work.

They would need a lot of valves. A pipe was one thing. With time they could manage it. But a valve had small parts and they had no means to create them.

It wasn’t too important but it was a meaningful goal. It made the whittling a little more bearable. Din would talk to other woodworkers and metalworkers about the issue.

They weren’t directly ordered to work on this project but the implication was there. If they succeeded in this, Din would award them.

The people who already had stable position didn’t really care, but there were plenty of opportunistic camp members that wanted benefits.

Even with many people working on it there was little progress. They had to possess certain finesse to manually carve the pieces.

The tools they had were lackluster. Most tools, they made themselves. Tools weren’t everything but they were in such poor quality that they actively sabotaged.

If they got better at working the metals, the quality would go up by a grade. Maybe they’d reach quality beyond unrated.

Din wanted to upgrade the Forge but they needed at least one tier one recipe. And without a tier one metal refining method, it would be impossible.

Resource points were accumulating. There were very few things that required buying from the support node store. But that was only in Din’s opinion.

There were hundreds of things people would buy in a heartbeat. Especially when it came to their hobby production.

Everyday life had resumed. People would tend to farmland. They’d harvest every two to three weeks.

Despite continuous arrow production, it was the culinary methods that advanced. The arrow production had met a threshold in material.

As with every produce, a certain level of material was required to reach higher tiers. This was something the agricultural building facilitated.

If the camp kept improving farming conditions incrementally, they would begin producing higher grade materials.

Once higher grade materials began showing up and people still had to eat, they would eventually achieve a tier one food related recipe.

Difference was that the agricultural building wouldn’t be upgradeable like the forge. Not with just a tier one node.

What it would do was unlock a variety of unrated recipes that could be bought and studied. This would increase the chance of more tier one recipes.

This is the process for all production activities. Realizing this will go a long way. But there is no indirect way to discover this. They have to put the pieces together themselves.

An outsider or an experienced craftsman would think this was obvious. But they had no way of knowing. Even if the knew, they wouldn’t know if the material was superior or subpar.

The people here weren’t raised craftsmen. It rare for them to be from poor backgrounds, even more so to have a background in a craft.

Rare didn’t mean it was impossible. A person with experience in working with their hands would have an advantage in Din’s camp. But they wouldn’t know how to extract metal and refine it.

Din wanted a person experienced in a craft. Any craft. But to his amazement every person here was a person above the middle class.

When he began realizing this, he began taking note of their attractiveness. Women were a bit worse off compared to the men. These were Din’s thoughts.

He felt it was strange. After ruminating on it for a while he decided it was just another mystery. It wasn’t impossible to guess, but even if he did it wasn’t of much value.

It became hard to sustain the arrow production, without traveling further and further from camp. The solution was to take out a tree.

Even to this day they hadn’t gone so far as to chop down one of those behemoth trees. And it would be hard to say when they would.

What they would do was chop down the large branches. This required multiple edged metal tools. They had enough of those.

The durability was awful, so they used quantity to battle it. They replaced the tool once they broke or dulled enough.

In this way, like insects they stripped branches as thick as trees. Arrows were small so one branch was enough for tens of thousands of arrows.

They were to complacent and hurried in their refining. It wasn’t something they sought to improve upon. But with the amount they used it was hard not improve.

With time more women got pregnant and people would sometimes talk about the strange birth rate.

Even with a blurred sense of time, they knew the women were given birth too fast. The children were growing up fast and strong. It was yet another mystery.

Din was very happy with this trend. There were some women that were expecting a second child.

He was so happy with this he began planning a housing area allocated to families with children. This would be an experimental neighbourhood.

Here he wanted to set up flowing water. The pipes were being produced. These pipes were not well insulated and were prone to leaking.

It would remain that way until they had a reliable way to smelt them together. The water flow might suffer, but this wasn’t an issue.

People felt it was strange at first. Pipes were being placed near the riverway. Next to the pipes a different group of people were setting up a rough road.

The road used the leftovers soil from the mine. It had been piling without end. Now it went away faster than it came.

Din hadn’t informed people of what he was doing but the pipes made it obvious. It would have been better to use a water pump.

A water pump wasn’t something they knew how to make. They could pour metals into molds. And that’s exactly how they made the pipes.

This whole process took a few months. The arrows were finished and they were ready for another attack.

But Din wanted to see the piping through. Most of his time was spent on creating valves for the family houses. He was going to make sure they had running water on demand.

He would begin with a communal shower area. A public fountain and then the houses would be added into the system.

They had set up a single pipe linked with a shoddy shower head. If all went right, water should flow through in a few moments.

There was a huge gathering when the promised moment arrived. People who had worked on the road and pipes were excited.

It was rare for the camp to collectively enjoy something. These were the fruits of their labour.

When the water spurted out. It was brown. A minute in it had cleared out. This was a momentous occasion.

The next day they took eight hundred people and headed northeast. Din was still riding his high after meditating on Laq Docte doctrine.

They could have taken more people but Din felt that even five hundred was enough. They only took eight hundred on Din’s whim.

This invasion took a similar amount of time. People rapidly reached level forty to forty three.

People like First, Din and even Jao were all at forty three. First was most anxious about the lack in levels.

They took out the beast kings with similar ease. Losing not one person. Din had decided to try and fight all of the beast kings at once.

At first it looked like he would be able to. But before long his instincts took over and he retreated. The army took it as a sign to unleash a barrage.

This barrage was not only unexpected but from a close range. There was no room for survival. Even if the first barrage didn’t kill them the second did.

First was again baffled by Din’s battle techniques. He was sure Din never trained. He went on hunts. But it looked like a stroll to him. Casual hunting for experience.

Din would go around trying to eat things every chance he got. Even when he ate something poisonous he’d purge like no one had seen before.

This was Din’s instincts at work. He could buy information about local vegetation but sometimes he’d come across unknown plants. Without hesitation he’d try to eat it.

This was something of a headache for Jao. While the plant wouldn’t kill Din, they did cause less than desirable effects. Something only she had to deal with.

While the success in the most recent expansion was satisfactory, they returned to camp right after. They still had a bad taste in their mouth. Not even First had reached forty four.

Din came to the decision that they could depend entirely on arrows. It would require slightly longer wait between attacks but their duration would shorten.

The next few months were uneventful. The water system was expanded. It wasn’t much but the family neighbourhood was established.

It was meant as an encouragement. He wanted people to have more children. He was still a few million people short of his goal.

He and Jao were standing outside the slightly isolated neighbourhood. Din was looking on with approval.

Jao felt pressured. From her perspective, Din wanted a child. And he did but he wasn’t as worried about it as she thought.

The only requirement to enter this neighbourhood was pregnancy. This area was quieter, the sheds were larger and every inch of the floor was covered in soft pelts.

This was a kind of luxury. Not enough to cause envy, but it was something.

Outside of this new water system everything was running its normal course. Arrows were being produced. People experimented. There were improvements in all fields. Slow but steady.

A lot of people felt things were going well. They didn’t see why they had to take over nodes. Even at the cost of lives.

They didn’t have choice however. If they revolted, took up their bows and swarmed Din. They could kill him. But they wouldn’t.

There wasn’t much discord in the camp. But these people had their own minds and stories.

There were people that felt oppressed, they felt forced to labour. There were rules they didn’t agree with.

On the other end of the spectrum there were people that were exceptionally happy with the situation in comparison.

If there was an attempted revolt. It would be a small one. They’d have to assassinate Din. then assert their power.

But even with Din’s death. They wouldn’t gain his nodes. Only one unrated one. They could quickly take over neutral nodes. But so could anyone.

If they were organized, they could deal with the aftermath. Organized, united and convinced twenty to thirty percent to join them.

This was the usual pattern revolts followed. Gathering hundred to two hundred people would be impossible in Din’s camp.

This was because the situation was too stable. Food was guaranteed, water was easily accessible. They had things to occupy their time. They had routines to follow.

Every two to three months Din would go out with his army. They’d take over a territory. Din would decline to join in. This resulted in some casualties.

There were people that felt he was doing this intentionally and earned their malice. These people would rather admire First and his team. They put their lives on the lines for them.

He would just stand beside Jao. Watching them fight. It felt cold to them. They knew Din was strong. Why wouldn’t he fight?

If they thought this way, what were Din’s thoughts? He felt like a farmer watching his crops grow.

Just like a farmer wouldn’t plant himself in the ground. He wouldn’t fight unless he felt a purpose to it.

His goal was never to get strong. He cared too little about personal power. In his mind what was important was the people. Not in the sense of each individual but as a collective.

He wanted enough people so he could create a threefold society. One where in the shadows, Laq Docte would rule. Outside this would be a layer of government, including the army.

The third layer would be the majority. People without valuable abilities or production skills. These would be labourers.

The real challenge to this society of his would arrive once they people began reaching level sixty.

When people had the power to overwhelm each other temporarily, the real contest for power would arrive.

Disorientation would have little effect on Din. But physically immobilizing him might be enough to breach whatever defences he had.

With enough loyal people he could overcome this challenge. With how experience was shared, they’d have thousands of people reaching level sixty not long after them.

After taking two additional support nodes the experienced reached one thousand two hundred and fifty experience bonus.

Over two hundred people had now reached forty four. First had leveled midway through the fourth tier one node.

Din, Jao and the rest of the higher level troops began leveling up in the hundreds in during the hunt for the fifth node.

One of his unrated nodes merged into his tier one node. Din wasn’t sure how to feel about it. It felt like he lost something instead of gaining it.

What did happen that confused him was the suddenly received four more support nodes. His camp numbers reached one thousand five hundred sixty one.

‘They can just give me their node?’

He deliberated on it for a while. Took count of their arrow supply and made a decision. They had to go get these people. Bring them back.

Most of the army was confused. They had done four takeovers now. Every time they would head back right after.

Now they heard they were heading to some unknown direction. Din eventually informed a few people. The information was then proliferated to others.

There were two new dots on the map. They were only one node apart. There were a few nodes this so close to each other, but it wasn’t uncommon.

What Din couldn’t know was that these two neighbouring nodes were in a stalemate of sorts. If they hadn’t been holding each other back, they might have expanded to four or five nodes.

They were the most battle hardened groups so far. They had their own rules so even if there were casualties, they were few and far between.

They had been in a middle of a routine skirmish when they had been alerted of Din’s recent expansion. They quickly convened a meeting.

There was some differing of opinions, but this was two old communities. They had been here for over three years. They already had some kids.

Those without children still thought it would be better to hold the camp or move away. They had pride that was hard to put into words.

But in the end, they needed to think about the children. They couldn’t imagine fighting five or more beast kings simultaneously.

The best choice was to give away the nodes. They would wait a month, if nothing changed they´d run out of the territory.

Once they came to this decision they suddenly felt their fighting was pointless. They couldn’t become friends overnight but they all knew each other intimately.

To their great fortune, Din was already on his way. It was six nodes away and would take time. The army was overbearing and easily slaughtered their way through.

They had begun conserving their arrows. Only the most prolific archers were allowed to shoot. This didn’t mean they slowed down.

The army’s formation became tight. They wanted to bypass as many beasts as they could.

First was happy about the situation. He wanted to fight more. He was becoming increasingly obsessed with personal strength. Him and a few others.

This obsessive behaviour was common. It was hard to find a person that wouldn’t lose themselves in one way or another.

It was a matter of interest. There were people that would spend their free time mining. This was manual labour with recreational intentions.

There was a surprising number of people that took interested in archery. Interested didn’t mean much without the talent for it. But there were a handful that were far above the others.

These people took on the responsibility to kill as fast as they could run. When they were resting they doubled the amount of people with arrows.

It took five days to travel the distance. It was an impressive time. But the price was fatigue.

It was a shock to the node’s members felt when they saw the bloodshot eyes of Din’s army. They weren’t really expecting anyone this soon. If at all.

Din looked at the gathered people. He was very happy at the moment. He was tired. They had spent most of their time walking and fighting.

His eyes were shining. The unusually bright blue eyes shone. He was smiling wider than usual. It was a warm gaze.

‘They look experienced.’

This was the main reason he was happy. Out of all the people he had encountered out here, only First and the men First recruited had this look about them.

A whole camp of Firsts. This was an exciting moment. They even had children with them. They would slow them down but this was also good.

He let his men rest for the night before they head over to the neighbouring node. This node was so well traveled that the ground was stamped into a road.

They travelled by the edges. Unwilling to anger the beast king. This beast king was something they had encountered a few times as well.

Every time the camps engaged him, they stopped each other. Until the three parties backed up.

This beast king was also battle hardened veteran at this point. It had been wedged between two battlemaniacs for over three years.

Just like the people could learn and become stronger, so could it.

It had happily abandoned this node as soon as it got the chance. It had grown immensely but it was terrified of these insane scrawny beastlings.

It was levels above its peers and would assert its dominance over this new tier one beastnode. It could savour the feeling of a king once again.

Din was happy to see the other node. These people were battle hardened. The only issue was the children.

It took them twelve days to return home. People on both sides were shocked. Din went out with eight hundred and came back with over twelve hundred.

There was some shock after they arrived. The large infusion had to be accommodated. They began building sheds.

There was some confusion with the scheduled rotations they were expected to do. But it wasn’t difficult work. It was labour, battle training and experimenting with a hobby of some sorts.

Labour was miscellaneous but it was mainly gathering materials and refining them. Beyond that there were farming duties.

Sometimes Din would arrange people to work on his pet projects. This could range from fetching better soil in this expanding garden, to digging for tree roots.

Then there was production in general. From cooking to making arrows. It was a lot to take in, but it was managed properly. They were not expected to know how to do things.

Din made sure that people with families were allocated houses. The men who lived there didn’t really care. But the women were becoming increasingly smug.

This was the type of smugness Jao had early on. Before it developed into a blaring superiority complex.

Of course Din didn’t know about this development. If he knew the effect he’d nod in approval before looking down on them and praising the superiority of the Laq Docte.

There weren’t too many people who would have the bearings of a superior. But this outbreak of family women was something hard to accept.