My beetle and I led the way through the forest as quickly as we could move which wasn’t that fast since the beetle wasn’t able to move anywhere near as quickly as any of us would like. But I decided to keep riding the beetle for a little bit longer since I had lost quite a lot of blood and I hadn’t quite recovered.

While I was waiting to heal up enough that I was sure that I wasn’t going to fall flat on my face now that my system wasn’t chock full of adrenaline, I recalled that I had felt not one, but two surges of power fill me.

“Say, did either of you manage to notice what Level those Redians were?” I asked curiously.

“They were between Level 42 and 44, why?” Burl asked.

“Because I Levelled Up twice during the fight,” I replied. “Honestly, it still feels like I got short-changed though considering that their Levels were around 20 times my own.”

“Ah, well you sort of did get ‘short-changed’ as you called it if I understand the term,” Burl admitted. “Mostly because you were fighting alongside two people who were much stronger than you. Because of that the System gave you much less Experience than it gave us because there was no way that a normal person at your Level was going to be able to do anything more than annoy something so much stronger than they were. So, you probably ended up getting about 5% of the total Experience.”

“I suppose that does make sense,” I admitted with a sigh. “It doesn’t seem particularly fair though.”

“I’m sure that it doesn’t,” Burl agreed with a chuckle. “And you were definitely more helpful than a normal person at your Level would’ve been. Mostly because of your Minions. So how about this, I promise to train you in magic.”

“Hey, can I get in on this too?” Drem asked suddenly. “If Rick wants to learn melee combat, then I’ll teach him as well.”

“I think that I might take you up on that,” I agreed immediately. “My Stats are pretty well spread out and I’ll use any trick that I can to get stronger.”

“That’s a good idea,” Burl nodded. “I wish that more spellcasters learned melee combat. Because the number of times that entire squads of mages have been wiped out by a single Redian who managed to flank them is way too high.”

“As much as I hate to say it that doesn’t really surprise me,” I sighed. “To be honest I’ve been relying on my Minions to prevent that sort of thing from happening but as we saw in the fight with the Redians that doesn’t always work out.”

“That’s a healthy way of looking at things,” Burl agreed as he glanced uncomfortably at my arm.

I waited a few moments to see if anyone had anything else to say before deciding to check how much my Stats had increased now that I had Levelled Up not just once but twice. Sure, enough all my Stats had undergone pretty significant increases and that was without even considering the 62 Stat Points that I had to assign. It was probably a bad idea for me to be assigning these Points while I was still a bit woozy from losing my arm, but I decided to go right ahead and do it anyway. The first thing that I did was place 4 Points into my Endurance, 8 Points into my Coordination, 12 Points into my Vitality and a single Point in my Charisma to bring them all up to 100. This left me with 37 Points that I still had to assign. After a few moments I decided to put 10 Points into my Willpower so that it could finally become my highest Stat, another 10 Points into my Vitality since I had gotten pretty badly injured and the extra regen would be valuable, 10 Points into my Constitution for a similar reason and after a few more moments if thought I decided to put the final 7 Points into Charisma since that Stat had suddenly become much more important than it used to be.

Status

Level 8

Exp: 47%

HP: 432/752 (-100)

MP: 1752/2037

HP Regen: 71.5 per minute (+1)

MP Regen: 148.9 per minute

SP: 657/657

Essence: 76

SP Regen: 59.8 per minute

Control Points: 158.2 (38.2)

Str: 106 (+15/Lvl)

Agi: 134 (+16/Lvl)

Con: 111 (+11/Lvl)

End: 100 (+10/Lvl)

Tou: 109 (+12/Lvl)

Int: 307 (+45/Lvl)

Coor: 100 (+11/Lvl)

Vit: 110 (+10/Lvl)

Wis: 203 (+30/Lvl)

Will: 307 (+47/Lvl)

Per: 184 (+29/Lvl)

Cha: 107 (+12/Lvl)

Additional Growth Rate: +31 Unassigned Stat Points/Lvl. +40 MP/Lvl. MP regen increased by 1.4/min per Lvl +5 Control Points/Lvl.

Unassigned Stat Points: 0

“Just remember to be careful,” Burl mentioned as he noticed what I was doing. “You jumped two Levels and your Stats increased by a significant amount. You will need some time to acclimatize to your sudden increase in power.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” I nodded. “Do you think I should hold off on checking my Skill increases then?”

“That would probably be a good idea,” Burl agreed. “You won’t need too long but even an hour or so is better than nothing.”

“Alright, I guess that I’ll wait until I’m about to go to bed then,” I sighed.

“By the way have you managed to contact your friend yet?” Drem asked.

“No, actually,” I replied with a sigh. “The last time that I came out this far Tane was barely able to do anything more than give me a vague impression. Come to think of it, I should actually try to contact them since they have gotten quite a bit stronger since then.”

Knowing that it was probably going to be difficult for me to contact Tane over this distance even if Tane ended up doing most of the heavy lifting during the actual conversation I closed my eyes and concentrated as well as I could while travelling through a jungle on the back of a giant beetle.

It took a couple of minutes but eventually my mind brushed up against Tane’s and I felt the tree lock onto my mind with an almost painful amount of force.

‘Rick, are you okay?’ Tane asked worriedly. ‘Your mind is full of pain.’

‘I got pretty badly hurt, but I’ll heal,’ I told my friend gently. ‘More importantly we need to talk about the people who are heading your way. I’d advise that you absorb your avatar back into your main body and keep quiet until I get back. The lady leading the group is a little hostile.’

‘Alright, I can do that,’ Tane agreed. ‘They’ll be arriving in a few minutes. How far away are you?’

‘About three quarters of an hour at my best guess,’ I replied. ‘Anything new on your end that I should know about?’

‘No, things have been pretty boring without you here to be honest,’ the tree replied. ‘But from what you have told me I won’t have to worry about being bored ever again.’

‘Probably not,’ I agreed as I snorted in amusement drawing confused looks from my companions. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

“I take it you managed to contact your friend?” Burl asked. “What did they have to tell you?”

“Tane agreed to stay quiet until I was there to explain the situation,” I replied. “So, all they’ll know is that Tane is a really, really big tree that I decided to build the beginnings of a village around.”

“Alright, that works,” Burl nodded. “But I have to ask. Why did you choose to set your camp next to Tane in the first place?”

“Well, that’s a long story,” I sighed. “In fact, it would probably just be easier to tell you the story of what I’ve been doing since I arrived in this world.”

“Well, I don’t mind listening to your story,” Drem said. “Do you think that you have time to tell it?”

‘Yeah, it’ll take us about three quarters of an hour to get home,” I replied. “I should be able to give you the abridged version.”

“Alright, why don’t you tell us,” Burl agreed. “I’m going to have to record this part of our history at some point so you might as well give me an outline now.”

“Okay then,” I nodded as I tried to decide how I was going to start my story. “You see, when I was first brought here after dying in an accident in my world the Admin, who I believe you refer to as Sibao formed this new body in a glade next to a freshwater spring. This glade had a magical barrier surrounding it that protected me from anything that might want to attack me. However, the first thing that I killed, was something that I named a Crawler. I didn’t know this at the time, but Crawlers live in colonies with hundreds of individuals and not long after the death of the first Crawler more and more Crawlers that were far stronger than the original started showing up until they surrounded the barrier that Sibao had created for me.”

I paused as I realized how closely Drem, and Burl were listening to what I had to say. It was honestly a little embarrassing, but I also felt grateful for their interest.

“As soon as I realized what was going on, I started to form a plan to escape,” I continued after taking a couple of seconds to gather my thoughts. “In between digging pitfall traps with the help of my first Minion which was called a Giant Amoeba I performed hit and run attacks to force them to gather in specific places and when I was ready, I sent my Minion to scout out the path that I wanted to take. The following day I launched one final attack on the Crawlers which forced them to respond with an assault that actually seemed like it might break through the barrier. Of course, I didn’t stick around long enough to find out and followed the path that my Amoeba had taken until I caught up with it not far from the grasslands where the portal was. In the hopes of finding a good place to hide from the Crawlers I made my way to the top of a small hill where I spotted a truly massive tree that towered over the rest of the forest. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was at this moment that Tane first contacted me, reaching out telepathically in the hopes that I would sense it and be drawn in. You see, Tane has lived for thousands of years and was bored so when I appeared it was the most interesting thing to have happened in hundreds of years. Hell, I didn’t even realize what was happening at the time and just felt a weird sensation that seemed to be drawing me towards the massive tree that I had seen. When I finally reached Tane’s trunk I was amazed to discover that the tree that I had been heading towards was intelligent and capable of communicating with me, even if its method of doing so is a bit different to what I’m used to. We talk for a while and eventually managed to come to an agreement where I would provide aid to Tane to help them deal with things that they couldn’t while they used their abilities to keep predatory creatures away. After that I spent the rest of the time before you arrived slowly getting stronger and preparing for your arrival.”

“Well, that was definitely shorter than I was expecting,” Burl chuckled. “But I guess that it did explain the situation.”

“Yeah, even though you obviously left a lot out it sounds like you had a pretty rough time,” Drem agreed. “It sounds like you owe Tane a lot.”

“I did and I do,” I nodded. “I hope that you get along with Tane, I really do. They’ve been really helpful and generous towards me and they’ve already offered to continue to help us out.”

“It sounds like you made a good friend,” Burl chuckled. “I’m sure that we’ll be able to work something out with them.”

We fell silent for a few moments and it was at this point that I realized that I should probably take the tourniquet off my arm and that I had the perfect thing to replace it with. I grimaced as the vine fell away from my arm but thankfully blood didn’t just start spurting from my arm immediately. Chitin formed over the very end of the stump of my arm which was actually much more comfortable even though I could feel it pulling on my Stamina.

“That’s another interesting ability that you have,” Burl noted. “What is that material?”

“It’s basically the same stuff that the Scorpion’s shell is made out of,” I replied. “It’s called Chitin.”

“Is it actually any good as a material?” Drem asked curiously. “How strong is it?”

“Well, it’s pretty light and relatively tough,” I replied. “It really depends on the creature. I know of some creatures that have really tough exoskeletons, so in theory you could use it to make medium armor but it’s nowhere as tough as something like metal.”

“Well, we don’t use metal,” Drem pointed out. “So how useful would it be for us?”

“That’s a good point,” I nodded. “And there are creatures in this world that seem to use a similar substance for their own exoskeletons so getting our hands on a supply shouldn’t be too hard. However, I’m not really sure how good it would be compared to other materials. It would be worth testing out at some point though.”

“That sounds like an interesting idea to me,” Drem agreed. “To be honest I actually prefer making things to fighting. It was actually my job to create the weapons and armor that our soldiers used before things got so bad that I was basically forced to go into battle myself.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” Burl nodded. “It’s been so long I almost forgot that you were one of the best craftsmen of your generation. I didn’t have to fight up until things got really desperate since I am a Keeper, but things have been pretty difficult for you, haven’t they?”

“I honestly can’t imagine what any of you have gone through,” I replied as I shook my head sadly. “My people are pretty warlike, but I grew up in one of the most peaceful countries on the planet where we were taught that people who would do what the Redians have done are beyond saving and should be put down. I’ve spent my whole life seeing the results of war in the news, but I’ve never actually been involved like I am right now.”

“I’m not quite sure that I understand what you’re saying,” Burl admitted.

“Well then let me make it very clear to you,” I growled as I let out the anger that I had been holding back ever since I had learned what was happening to the Yajashians. I want you to help me train so that if the Redians ever do manage to find out how to follow you here we can push them back through the portal and make it so that they never even think about trying to find us ever again!”

My voice rose to a near shout at the end and I felt something like a wave of energy come off of me. I blinked in surprise as I heard both Drem and Burl gasp and looked around to see that they had both stumbled and fallen to their knees.

“Wha- sorry, I didn’t mean to do that!” I exclaimed as they started at me with shocked looks on their faces. “Actually, I don’t even know what I just did.”

“Well, I’m not quite sure myself,” Burl replied as he got to his feet. “But I can tell you that it was some sort of Aura.”

“Well, it wasn’t an Aura that I knew that I had,’ I told him as apologetically as I could. “I really wasn’t expecting that to happen.”

“It’s fine Rick,” Drem chuckled. “Things like that are unusual but it’s not like it’s never happened before. Especially when someone has a lot of stress that they keep bottled up like you obviously were. Besides I’m more interested in what the Skill that you unlocked is called. I’ve never felt anything quite like it.”

“Let me take a look then,” I agreed as I brought up the information on my new Skill.

Overwhelming Presence (Rare) has been Unlocked!

Your mere presence is enough to demoralize weaker enemies and decrease their combat effectiveness.

Cost: 250 MP/min

Growth Rate increased by 2 Willpower and 1 Charisma.

As soon as I finished reading, I told the others what my new Skill was and frowned when I saw them both roll their eyes.

“What is it?” I asked irritably.

“Well, it’s just that that’s quite a well-known Skill,” Burl sighed. “People who learn Overwhelming Presence often become quite powerful people. In fact, I knew one of them personally, an old friend who became a General in our army.”

“That person wouldn’t have happened to have been called Tarko would it?” I asked curiously.

“Yes, actually,” Burl agreed with a surprised look on his face. “How do you even know that name?”

“Sibao showed me a vision of his death,” I replied sadly.

“May I ask how he died?” Burl asked quietly.

“Of course,” I nodded before taking a deep breath and telling him everything that I could remember about the vision that Sibao had shown me in my dream a fortnight ago. Once again both Burl and Drem were holding onto every word that I was saying, even more so than they had when I had been telling my own story and to be honest, I couldn’t blame them for that. Especially since Burl had apparently known Tarko.

“Thank you for telling me about my friend’s last moments,” Burl said once I had finished. “It means a lot that Sibao decided to give you that vision. Thanks to you I will be able to honor my friend with the place in our history that a hero like him deserves.”

“I may have already started doing that myself,” I admitted. “I made a sculpture of him back home. I feel a little guilty that I decided to do that instead of making more places for people to sleep but I just couldn’t help but want to show my respect for his bravery.”

“Really?” Drem asked. “Well, that might go some ways to endearing you to Xan.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, Tarko was her father you see, that’s why she’s in a worse mood than normal right now,” Drem explained.

“I see,” I sighed sadly. “That does explain a lot.”

“Oh, she probably still wouldn’t have liked you very much,” Burl chuckled. “She isn’t really a people person, and she dislikes anyone who isn’t a Yajashian even more.”

“I can understand her disliking Redians but why I am included in that?” I asked curiously.

“Did you think that Redians and Yajashians were the only other people in our universe?” Burl asked with a laugh. “There are hundreds of other beings with our level of intellect, and we traded with them for hundreds of years before the Redians attacked us. Xan hates anyone who isn’t a Yajashian because none of our supposed allies came to help us when we needed it. In fact, there was a lot of evidence to suggest that some of our allies had helped them create the technologies that they used to defeat us.”

“I see,” I sighed sadly. “I suppose that it shouldn’t surprise me that there are other intelligent species out there, but it is disappointing to hear that they’re no better than some of the humans back home.”

“You know talking like that is making me worried about the other refugees,” Drem admitted. “You don’t seem to have a very high opinion of other members of your species.”

“Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of good humans as well,” I replied quickly. “Actually, to be honest they probably outnumber the bad ones or at least they do as far as humans think of it. I guess that I was just more likely to hear about the horrible things that other people do instead of the good things.”

“It sounds like things were pretty strange on your world,” Drem sighed.

We fell silent for a few moments before I realized that we were really close to home now. I smile crossed my face as the canopy opened up above our heads causing Drem and Burl to come to a halt as they looked up at Tane’s massive trunk in awe.

“Welcome home,” I told them. “Why don’t we go and see how the others are settling in?”