Mathew woke up the next day starving. It had been almost an entire day since he last ate. After a quick request from a nurse, he was soon eating a steaming hot bowl of soup. He noticed it tasted wonderful, much more so than he expected.

“Who made this soup? It’s way better than I expected from hospital food.”

“Someone with a cooking profession and a class related to monster hunting. Apparently his cooking skills are all Beginner rank, and not only make things taste better, but improve recovery rates for people who eat them.”

Mathew nodded and continued eating. It didn’t take long before his first guest appeared, though not someone who he expected.

“Holly, good to see you. How are Samuel and Lucas?” Mathew asked.

“They are both fine. We have all been in a fight before and lost people. This time it just hurt differently for some reason.” She crossed her arms and looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry for leaving you behind. If I knew you were still alive... I would have just done something better.”

Mathew swallowed another spoonful of soup. “So what could you have done? Come back and die as well? I only lived because I was lucky with my landing. It wasn’t a perfect one, but I was thrown up on a ledge. No clue how I survived getting stabbed in the chest however.”

“You can thank Samuel for that. She used the last of her mana to hopefully save you from dying.”

“She didn’t try that on Tank or Washington?” He asked curiously.

“I didn’t ask, I would assume so. Tank was already gone before she could have even tried. Washington went down at the same time as you. It was too hectic.” She shook her head pushing away the fight from her head. “In the end, I’m glad you got out okay. How are your hands? I heard they were two mangled stubs of flesh.”

Mathew wiggled his fingers. He looked and noted they were heavily scared. Two nubs stood out, on each hand. On his left, he was missing his middle finger. On his right, he was missing his entire pinkie finger. “I have at least eight fingers, luckily. I was chewing down those healing items like crazy, probably the only thing that saved my life.”

“Doctors were worried about that. Apparently too many in a short time is bad for you, so I wouldn’t eat anymore for a long time. Similar to modern medicine, overdosing is possible.”

Mathew hadn’t considered that, and nodded in thanks. “Noted. I appreciate you coming to visit me Holly. It means a lot, I mean it. Have you talked to General Payne yet?”

Holly paused for a moment. “Yes I did. He will be talking to you once you are discharged from here. You can expect that easy happy life you want now. I doubt you will ever have to fight again. He was furious when I talked to him.”

Mathew smiled. “Good, I’m glad I don’t have to fight anymore. I don’t know what I would do if I lost more fingers.” He lied.

“I better get going, tomorrow we are meeting up with a special team from another base to prepare to take out that Dungeon. No clue what I can expect, but hopefully no more wolves.”

Mathew watched her leave, and frowned. “Damn it. I wanted to get into that Dungeon. Fucking wolves had to go and ruin everything.”

He leaned back into his bed and closed his eyes in thought. “How do I move forward now?” Mathew’s mind went back to his achievements from last night. Primarily his title, Soloist.

“The System seems to value those who are strong. Everything we’ve done since day one is fighting to survive. What says I can’t be at the top?” Mathew knew he could have the easy life of being someones’ lackey. Enjoying safety and comfort for the rest of his days writing out contracts and laws for others.

But what if he was the one in charge of making those laws? Once he claims a Hearth Crystal, he can control this safe zone. Build up a proper fellowship of workers, and be in control of everything in his life. Fight monsters, grow stronger, and live a good life without looking over his shoulder for someone stronger that wants to kill him for whatever random reason they have.

“Can’t fear the strongest when you are the strongest.” Mathew muttered to himself with a smile.

He finished his soup in silence. Thinking of how to handle the rest of his agendas. He needed to go to the Hearth Crystal and visit Di. He had a few skills to rank up, as well as talk to Zack about a couple questions he had.

“Maybe I can visit the nerd squad properly. Give them a few bones of information and have them try to impress me with their vast knowledge.” He chuckled at the idea.

Half an hour later, Mathew’s next guests were Leo, Zack, and Captain Henderson. All three of them were glad to see him alive. He was asked a dozen questions about how he survived, and answered them to the best he could.

“In the end, I pulled through. If not for me overloading the staff, plus being able to bait the wolf, I would either be stuck there till help arrived, or dead.”

Zack wanted to know more about how he used the staff as a spell focus as he called it. Mathew promised to visit later to figure it out more, since he wanted to ask questions of his own.

Henderson sat mostly silent, deep in thought. Leo was the one asking the most questions. “So now what? Do the Doctors say how well you should recover?”

“From what I can tell, I will make a full recovery, just a slow one. My hands are scarred, but that’s probably the worst of it. Those pills are crazy. I plan on getting more from Di later. The rewards for killing the wolves were crazy.”

Zack perked up. “That’s right, you finished the Area Quest!”

Mathew raised an eyebrow, “How do you know about that?”

“Everyone received an alert right when you guys went into the den.” Henderson explained. “Literally the entire base was in a panic. Apparently General Payne has an ability to talk to everyone across the base at once. It was creepy hearing his voice while I was in the bathroom. It wasn’t until the quests popped up as completed that people started to calm down.”

“I didn’t realize that many people knew about it.” Mathew said, a twinge of worry on his mind.

“Exactly, so how were those rewards?” Zack asked greedily “You had to get something extra for killing the boss yourself right? Some secret boss loot?”

Mathew didn’t skip a beat. “I got a little bit extra, yes. Mainly an item. I will show it to you later, after I have Di analyze it for me.”

“Why go to Di? We have a slew of people who can do it instead.” Leo said.

“What do you mean?” Mathew asked.

“The Workshop. Some people have the [Analyze] skill. They work like appraisals, but instead of worth, they tell you what it does, or its intended purpose.” Zack said. “I go there all the time. I’ve been helping out with a couple of people who are working as smiths. I want to make my own armor eventually.”

Mathew didn’t peg Zack as the crafting sorts, but it made sense in the end. He didn’t want people to look at his items since he wanted to keep their properties a secret. However he expected to have better items in the future, so showing what he had off now wouldn’t hurt.

“Sure, I can do that. Might save some money that way in the end. I need to go back to the den to get those wolf corpses. I can sell them to make even more money than I did from the rewards.”

“Already taken care of.” Henderson spoke for the first time. “Sadly you won't get any of the money. It all went to Payne as a ‘punishment’ for not leaving when it was obvious you should have left.”

At the mention of Payne, Mathew remembered he has access to his entire menu. He could see his stats, spells, skills and everything else. Including his titles. “The bastard saw my UC and wanted to take some extra money from me. Plus he knows about my new power spike. I gained the equivalent of twenty levels of stats, maybe even more from a single title.”

“Mathew are you okay?” Zack asked, seeing Mathew in thought.

Mathew waved a hand, “It’s fine, just thought of something unimportant right now. What about you three? Any big plans?”

“Just more scouting.” Henderson scoffed. “Payne wants us nowhere near that dungeon. We are the primary scouting team now. Which means we are in charge of finding new and dangerous things once the Dungeons unlock, including new Dungeons if they exist.”

“I see.” Mathew said. “Well, at least it’s a safer choice for you all.”

“As if. I have to catch up to you now. What level are you now? 12? 13?” Leo asked.

Mathew thought about it before answering truthfully. “15 actually.”

All three of them stared at him. “Shit, what’s your stats like at this point? Your Intelligence has to be in the sixties at least.” Zack asked, on the urge of demanding to know.

Mathew did some quick math. “More like seventies” He lied. “I need to visit the Hearth Crystal for something related to my Profession. After I rest up, I’ll swing by there.”

Henderson shook her head. “Leave it to you to somehow remain on top no matter how much everyone else works. I thought for sure I had beat you with my Level 13.”

“Well defeating that many wolves boosted me up a good chunk.” Mathew pointed out.

“At least you will be stuck inside while we work to catch up. I have a bad feeling about that Dungeon.” Leo said. “Every time I think about it, I get goosebumps. You know I always got goosebumps when someone creepy entered our office.”

“Well since the Dungeon is not a person, nor entering our office, Leo, I think it will be fine.” Mathew said with a hint of a smile on his face.

“We will leave you to rest, I expect Payne to visit you soon, if not him then Mr. Melton.” Captain Henderson said.

Mathew smiled. “Thanks, I’m still sore and a little tired. Might take a nap and rest up some more before then.”

Once they were all gone, Mathew opened up his menus. “Might as well look at the two upgrades I have for my skills.”

Skill Upgrade - Knives

Backstab: Attacks to enemies who are unaware of them inflict additional damage.

Knife Mastery: Learn how to better fight with knives.

Numa’s Style: Learn the fighting style of those who follow Numa, The Goddess of Shadows.

Serrated Edge: Your attacks with knives cause increased bleeding.

Skill Upgrade - Staves

Elemental Adept: Increased damage with an elemental type of your choice. (Once you select this option, you will pick an element afterwards)

Enhanced Blasts: All attacks with a staff are improved.

Enhanced Focus: You have discovered how to use a staff as a focus to channel your mana and spells beyond what is the norm. This upgrade will further improve the connection you have with staves and not only improve your use of them, but the spells cast through them.

Staff Mastery: Learn how to better fight with staves both as a weapon and a spell focus.

Mathew looked at his options, noting he had four choices for both, versus the three he had for his wisp spell. Instantly the one thing that struck out at him was that name, Numa. He remembered it from when he chose his class. Apparently she approved of his class choice, and now he had the option to learn how to fight in the style of her followers.

He then noted he had an option to learn how to better fight as an option for both skills. Apparently it must be a set option for all weapon skills. Would he get a similar choice for other skills? How to be a better Negotiator? What about a better ritual person...ritualist?

Mathew knew for sure he wanted Enhanced Focus for his [Staves] skill. It felt like it was something unique, or he learned how to do it before others. He sacrificed how to properly use staves, but it went over how to use it in a melee as well. Something he didn’t need if he learned how to use a knife.

That left him with two choices for his [Knives] skill. To learn a specialized fighting style, or to learn a simple way to use a knife. He remembered the class description mentioning fighting dirty and from the shadows. It did also mention teleportation and summoning spells. Two things he very much liked the idea of.

It wouldn’t hurt to learn a fighting style that was similar to his class. Plus General Payne would have no clue who Numa was, or at least not the class she was related to hopefully. Mathew made his selection.