Eian hardly slept nowadays, wake, train newbies, kill monsters, repeat, that was his daily routine which included a few meals of preserved foods, though they were dwindling.

AS a daily reminder, Russel assured him he was always an invite to the elite meetings, which spanned a variation of topics, everything from food, equipment, skill knowledge and their overall progress.

While attending, Eian still felt leery a pair who were advocating for demon summoning, thankfully most people shared his reservations which caused a bit of a divide.

"So the vote is still no?" Russel looked around the room for confirmation, counting hands quickly he reaffirmed the situation.

"But it WILL solve all our problems! Demons are versatile and the nearby monsters are not close to being a threat to them!" Carl growled, his Scandinavian eyes piercing, his significant other, Misha, an Asian woman nodded along with him.

"Perhaps, but the votes shine clear as gold. We don't care what you two or the others practice outside, but please don't summon any-demons nearby." Russel calmly explained the situation.

Visibly, Carl's face grew crimson, but he restrained himself with a tug from the Asian woman along with a few words so low even Eian couldn't hear it, they both sat down while Carl visibly waved his hands in exasperation.

"On to daily progress then." Russel was the spokesman, likely because no one else wanted the dumb job, Eian would hate to talk so much all day.

"Things seem to be on schedule, we figured out how to solve all the little hiccups so far. Thankfully, today we will definitely make significant headway." Two men caked in dirt stood side by side, the older of the two spoke.

"Yes, again good job. Please remember we have more to do though, focus on what I told you." Russel thanked them.

Eian had contributed his two trainee's to help with the digging, a few others also joined.

"Don't worry, we'll save them soon," Russel whispered at him low, Eian nodded politely.

On the matter of the rescue, Eian was feeling things had grown stagnant, he knew it would be stupid to barge in and attack head-on, but these days seem a test of patience.

So far, three days of hard labor from these Earth Elementalists, the tunnel was about ten percent complete.

At first, that may seem slow, but progress would speed up once more diggers started, most of them were still training up their powers during most of the day, so the progress was good for what little they had.

Eian couldn't help but feel the time spent was wasted, the twins could already be dead, and that thought weighed on his actions.

Like everything else in the world, things always seem better when you imagine it in your head than when you carry it out in person.

The digging duo had also face a bit of a delay in deciding the location of the tunnel, as well as the gritty details of everything from width, height, and structural integrity.

There were other things delaying the digging team, which only consisted of those two men so far, such as making sure they were digging in the right direction, underground it could be tricky.

The tunnel itself was small, barely about to accommodate two large men, squeezing together, this was to ensure the tunnel would not simply collapse atop them.

It had been started in the basement of a supermarket, it was as close to the targeted compound as they would risk.

That said the finished tunnel would be close to a minimum of a hundred and twenty yards, perhaps up to a hundred and fifty.

"Excellent and the forge, Amanda?" Russel turned to a cloaked figure, Eian had only seen the person in passing.

"I need more time, more metal and more people too. It's easy to soften the metal, but I need proper tools to hammer it and I am neither a black-smith nor a metallurgist. Maybe a digger can shape it." The cloaked woman shrugged helplessly, she was wearing a stuffy jacket which should by all rights be boiling her alive.

'Amanda' briefly turned her hood to look at Eian and the duo excavators who each had high earth-spirits, her hood covered her face entirely and the rest of her attire covered any curvature he would associate with women.

An interesting concept, Eian had not tried to shape molten rock, and iron had been beyond him before, he wondered if that was still the case.

"Tomorrow will be busy for everyone, but maybe one of the new Earth-savants can do something," Russ answered, tapping his chin gazing off into the distance.

"Shaping metal is supposed to be near the human limit," Eian added, remembering what Ul once told him.

"And the diggers are too busy, but maybe you can do a few tests later tonight with Amanda?" Russ asked looking at Eian.

"Sure." Eian agreed armor would help him not waste energy reinforcing his body from mundane attacks.

Earlier Eian suggested Russel the need for armor and weapons, Russel had informed him they had already visited the topic, which resulted in creating a forge nearby, Eian had not seen it yet, but it was not realistic to think anything would be achievable in a day.

The forge was led by their strongest Fire-mage who would create armor, the armor would obviously not stand a sniper bullet nor a cannon, but properly done perhaps normal ammunition.

Though some people may lack the ability to move in full plate Eian, Russel, Bruce, and a few others had no such restrictions, unfortunately, they had not gotten to the point of arming people yet as it was all still a bit experimental.

For now, the forge would focus sorely on armor, regular tools could be repurposed, thus double as weaponry, speed and efficiency were vital for now.

The meeting ended shortly thereafter, people were exhausted, Eian, Russ and Amanda, however, had more to do.

They stayed while everyone left and Eian wondered if the heavy jacket was due to paranoia from Amanda to not burn herself in the forge.

Amanda for her part was neither breathing heavily nor moving uncomfortably, all things he himself would feel under all that, even her feet were covered in thick boots more suited to the outdoors than in.

Earlier if not for her voice and Russel calling her by gender, Eian would not have known the person under all the clothing was female, a blunder thankfully evaded, that would have been awkward.

******

Amanda led them to the forge, in all it was a crude thing, looking like a fire-hearth more than one would expect of a forge.

On the floor and sprinkled on the wall were bits of cooled metal which had clearly fallen in a molten state, the room was filled with various pots, pans, and miscellaneous metal items.

Clearly, someone had been busy experimenting, as more than one forge was unlit or half-made, the room appeared ransacked, upturned chairs, tables full of metal junk and the half-eaten remains of food.

"I'm still trying to make a tough enough crucible, I have a few ready to be tested, but I'm not sure if making it from steel is decent for iron. They are the same thing aren't they?" Amanda asked looking at Russel.

"Steel has a certain percentage of Carbon which creates a superior bond. Depending on the percentages you can have several types of steel also, as well as adding trace amounts of other elements. I haven't the slightest idea of how to go about making those though." Russel admitted.

"God. A book on this would help. Any chance of that you think?" Amanda shook her entire hood in dismay as Russel shook his head in denial.

Looking at the metal around Eian wondered how powerful her spirit was, likely close to the human-limit if she could melt steel.

Not that Eian was an expert on elemental fire, either way, Sarah had been, and the details she shared had been brief, supposedly she could resist the same temperature of her flames.

In retrospect Eian supposed your spirit adapted to you to your chosen element, Eian's body was more resilient, which meant his body had gotten tougher, like rock, Sarah became immune to her own flames, and for the life of him, Eian had no idea what Alex or Jessica had gotten.

Then a crazy idea struck him, Sarah was resistant to an absurd amount of fire, and so should Amanda.

"How much heat resistance do you have?" Eian asked.

"Uh what?... Oh, I haven't tested it really. Risking my face to verify would be a retard's way to die, but everyone says it's hot outside while everything feels cool to me." Amanda admitted shrugging helplessly.

Russel eyed him carefully, smiling slightly.

"What are you thinking?" Russel asked, turning his full attention to Eian.

"Well if she IS immune to fire, or at least to high enough temperatures, can't she just mold the metal like clay? She wouldn't even need tools." Eian answered, hoping it was that easy.

Both of them stared at him like he had sprouted a new head, Russel was curious while Eian could not tell what expression Amanda had under all that.

"That's... I would like to say brilliant, but we can't be sure if she would not simply lose the hand." Russel smiled and looked at Amanda.

"You want me to risk losing a hand?" Amanda turned her head at Russel, expression hidden but her voice sounded shrill.

"No no no. We can do simple tests. Start small and work our way up. Surely you will feel discomfort long before an injury." Russel explained.

"Or maybe she could just put her hand near it and see if it feels hot from the air?" Eian explained.

"And then what? Stick my hand in?" Amanda put both hands on the area her hips should be, the body language clearly said she was glaring at him.

"E, you ARE not helping." Russel shot Eian a dirty look.

Eian phased out from the rest of the conversation, he had said his piece and wanted to sleep, especially since Susan would be a hassle tomorrow.

It was late and electricity had been gone now for some time, it was weird as though someone spitefully cut off all current from the vicinity, everywhere Eian went had no current.

******

Today was the first-day Eian's two earth trainees were joining the digging team, they were some of the first to reach seven in spirit respectively, they both passed their first bottleneck, making it unproductive to keep training them.

Unfortunately, he was still stuck with Susan, at least she was not being a bitch to him anymore, in fact, it was weird how little she complained now, though she still reminded Eian uncomfortably of Jessica.

Russel wanted her to train up her body and form a core, since a durable healer would be a godsend, a difficult task considering she would have to pass her second bottleneck to achieve it.

There was no shortage of enemies to kill Eian had noticed, but they were so weak they barely yielded any power to him, even Susan weak as she was would take long in gaining strength here.

Thought everyone who went out agreed that a select few monsters who were a league or leagues stronger than others, these were considered elites, rare and despite that still a non-threat factor.

Having reached his third bottleneck Eian found the ability to kill most these monsters easy, most were weaker than the little goblins in the dream, apart from the elites, and not to boast but he did kill far-more-than-half of all the monsters his group encountered.

The earth element was almost useless in combat without a strong body to handle the strain of an Empower, thus both his trainees were almost as useless as in the beginning, Susan could only kill subjugated monsters due to being the healer with a weak Body and Mind.

In three days Eian had only reached a total of twenty-two, Nine in Body, while choosing to remain Four in Mind, and Nine in Spirit, slow progress though perhaps amazing since he had finally breached his third bottleneck.

While Eian had wanted to better protect himself from Psychic attacks, more so now especially due to Ezrael, he put it aside for the twins, Mind would not help him much against bullets.

Today, was a good day, Russel wanted him to focus on training ONLY Susan, which meant half his burden was gone.

He did not remotely like her, but at least now he could make some serious progress, hopefully, the other teams were making as much progress, he even hoped for more.

Others teams were working on different elements, but everyone unanimously decided to stick a healer to each team along with one expert, they had been told to go in different directions.

Eian had heard of a few losses, whether accidents, overconfidence or plain bad luck, very few, perhaps six at most.

Not all strong people could leave and train, however, some stayed to protect the base, others to scavenge, and some like Russel guarded Ezrael and made sure people did not riot while carefully planning their next move.

At the start, only four training teams were sent out, only the strongest were put in charge since they would be the most familiar with their powers, the rest of the teams were formed mostly of regular people who were with Ed's group.

There were a grand total of eighteen people who were considered well prepared, Russel and Eian among them, most of these came from a group Russel created, he was gathering up people at his university before bringing them all here, including Bruce and Aaron.

Being at a high-end school, Eian's friend, Russ, found many capable people there, Eian was surprised most of them even stuck around and did not bolt to go save or visit their families.

"So...today it's just us." Susan pointed out mildly.

"Yeah, easier for me. Same routine, I'm going to try to weaken them and you grab the finishing blows." Eian advised Susan nodded gripping a fire-ax they had managed to find.

Susan got into a vehicle parked away from their base, their people had finally hijacked a few vehicles around town.

Although gasoline was limited it was the reason they were able to move about quicker, Eian had little experience with cars as he used solely his motorcycle before.

Susan parked the car not too far in a residential area, small family homes littered here along with garbage and refuse.

Exiting Eian immediately got to work on finding prey, he wanted to finish training Susan to focus fully on improving himself.

"So...why are you here?" Susan asked idly as Eian tried to find big prey or large quantities of small ones.

"Same as you, I want to save those people," Eian answered, still searching the area.

"I get it, but I mean is there someone, in particular, you want to save?" Susan persisted, which begun to annoy him.

"Yes, now let me focus," Eian answered curtly, he wondered if she was bored or something.

Thankfully Susan quieted with a sigh, he wasn't dense, but he wasn't sure if she was actually interested, curious, or looking for something to use against him later, besides he certainly had no interest.

There were a million things more important than girls at the moment, especially since his stress levels were piling up, days without much rest wore away at him.

The more he thought about it, Eian found it strange how neither he, Sarah nor Alex had ever demonstrated simple signs of humanity with the dream, people get tired and winded from doing the same thing over and over.

In the dream, Eian had been a machine, no sleep, no stress, no long-term fatigue, he never fell into depression, though that last one may have just been him.

He found a nest of cockroaches, each the size of a coffee mug, Susan gagged and Eian wrinkled his nose at the sight.

"I would wish for anything ANYTHING but this." Susan shook her head weakly, voicing her distaste.

"It is a free powerup." Eian pointed out, not liking the idea any more than she.

"Ugh, they're disgusting. You'll owe me for this." Susan answered shuddering.

"Whatever, let's hurry. I want this over also." Eian answered curtly, he did not like it but he was not about to complain about it.

The monsters scattered in all directions as Eian and Susan killed indiscriminately, smashing them to a disgusting paste.

These insects were the first Eian noticed had not swarmed them in an attack, instead, they fled as they both crunched them, whittling down their numbers like a farmer harvesting wheat.

Perhaps it was because they had no way of harming them, or perhaps another reason, whatever be the case they fled and they were left with little to kill a few short minutes into the massacre.

Rotten food and eggs the size of golf-balls remained deep inside, Susan crushed the eggs, each time with a shudder, Eian did not envy her, the shattered eggs were a disgusting mess, not to mention the smell.

Susan got a single increase, she chose Body, her healing was at eight, enough for most things, and they wanted her to not die to a stiff breeze.

They continued searching for monsters, finding nothing more than empty buildings, Eian could feel lone-monsters, small in stature, which turned and fled too quickly to catch.

It was weird driving through a town which had been teeming with people a few days prior, although he had no idea what he would do with them Eian kept a lookout for people, finding none.

The left the residential area and headed for a plaza, hoping that there they may find something there, a collection of small stores bunched together near small drive-through-fast-food joints.

"Found one," Eian warned her as he headed for the nearest store, a drug store.

A single large monster taking ponderous steps which easily alerted him to its movement inside the pharmacy, this particular monster was larger than most by Eian's estimate, something he had begun to notice becoming increasingly more common.

This beast would be at least a hundred pounds over his weight, a good thing rock armor would tilt the scales on his favor.

After opening the door and entering, for the umpteenth time Eian was thankful they had been driving this time, walking or running that distance would be annoying as hell.

Eventually, local gas would be impossible to grab, but he figured that was a way yet, hopefully, they could find a solution.

As Eian scanned in the monster's direction he noticed scrunching noises behind shelves, he got the impression of it tearing at something on the floor.

Susan came to a stop right behind him, using him as a shield, he was the vanguard so she was following his instructions, in the dark store Eian was grateful for his keen senses as the noises stopped.

It had noticed the intruders to its 'den', standing fully it barely towered the shelves and bellowed a spine-chilling roar, so much so Eian felt Susan back away towards the exit slightly.

Shelves and products went scattering in all directions as the Beast bull-dozed it's way through towards them, Eian saw a greyish blur barreling powerfully towards him.

"Get further back," Eian ordered, surprised Susan had not run out on him, not that she had before, but they had not encountered a monster this large yet.

Eian encased himself in armor, drawing lightly into his core, strengthening his durability and enhancing his mind, even so, the monsters speed was such its charge was only slightly less of a blur.

Eian dug his feet into the earth, his armor cracking the tiles sinking in slightly to grant him more leverage, the monster slammed into him with a thunderous crack, it's assault threw him unto his backsliding as his armor carved a path of broken tile.

He smashed through a few shelves fully encased, though his armor had severe cracks, drawing them shut Eian rolled and stood, the monster gigantic maw roared, demonstrating rows of teeth and a pair of tusks.

The monster drew itself back, retreating at a distance, through the slit in his armor for sight and the low lights, Eian couldn't catch many details, but it certainly trotted with greater care now.

Eian caught sight of a cracked grey carapace, as the monster moved.

'Damn thing's tough.' Eian tched, realizing anything slamming itself against him in such a way and walking off was supernaturally durable.

Lifting himself to his feet, Eian caught movement and rolled right, crashing into upturned shelves and products.

Scrambling he got his arms between himself and the beast as it almost hurled him unto his ass again, instead, the collision was evenly matched as Eian strained his armor to push back.

Grabbing the monsters arms, Eian got a glimpse of its boney horns as they gouged small chunks from his helmet, repositioning himself Eian let the monster's weight throw it off balance.

Seizing the chance Eian threw his armor's entire weight atop it, the monster buckled as Eian gripped a horn tightly, he punched it's face with his free hand before kneeing it and using his entire weight to plant the monster's face on the tiles.

The floor cracked, and the monsters clawed arms raked his armor and its head shook viciously attempting to get free, his armor had a hard time gripping the texture of the monster's hide.

Eian grappled with the monster, all attempts to mount it failing as it thrashed and roared while bashing its head on the floor only to feel the floor give way.

Finally, the horn snapped eliciting a furious growl, enraged the monster tackled Eian backward having no leverage as its maw came close to his face.

Its jaws clamped unto Eian's well-protected head slowly crunching stone, Eian got his armored hands between its jaw holding them at bay, each with one hand.

Eian's heart raced, the monster's jaws had stopped, but his spirit was not without limit, as soon as he ran out of power his skull would be crushed.

Eian strained as the monster's clawed forelimbs tore chunks from both sides, eventually, it would grind down his armor and kill him.

He heard screaming or a woman's voice shouting, but he ignored it, trying to pry the jaws of the monster apart, Eian felt the empower slack, resummoning another and another, draining his reserves in a vain attempt to get free.

Desperate Eian pulled more Qi, it swam through his veins as cold lightning, never leaving his body, it was useless within the armor, dampening only the blows he suffered from the tackles.

He considered abandoning the armor, if he was quick enough he may have enough time to get out of the monster's jaws, what would follow would be a near-impossible to fight, however.

He tried to push Qi towards his armor to no avail.

Thinking furiously he tried something else, his spirit channeled energy to pass from his body to the outside, even now he could feel that energy flow from his spirit located by his heart to the outside.

Instead of pushing Qi through his body then to the outside, he pulled his spiritual energy inwards towards his core.

He felt his core strained, a weight he never knew pulsed unto his body, his body felt like lead and his bones of steel.

Reacting almost chemically and immediately his core expelled an excess energy near double outwards, it nearly slipped his control, but Eian guided it to his armor, which had almost completely been bitten through, once more the armor rebuild itself.

His armor moved, the reformation pushing the monster's jaws apart, Eian's grip tightened and he heaved, a tearing sounded and a guttural scream near deafened him.

Gripping both Jaws Eian pried them wide apart further, then he grabbed the monster's entire head, wrapped its neck in a vice grip against its feeble struggles and twisted, sounding of rocks grinding against each other.

It's thrashing continued and Eian twisted it's neck again, even to Eian's impaired hearing the grating, crunching and snapping of the vertebrae were felt and Eian saw the beast spasm and twitch.

Eian's armor lost it's enhanced strength a few seconds thereafter, leaving him sweating and confused as to how he strengthened it.

"Eian?" Susan's voice made him turn to look at her.

"Yeah," Eian said dumbly, feeling a little out of breathing.

"Is it dead?" She looked from him to the monster.

"Yeah." Eian stared blankly forward.

"Let's take it back. I think the other's will want to see this thing." Susan said, fear creeping into her voice.

"Yeah." Eian let his armor crumble to nothing, trying to focus his thoughts.

Eian turned to get a proper look at the monster, eye's widening as it's carapace crumbled to reveal the monster beneath, much like his rock-armor.

******

The first thing Eian did when he got back was a bath, Susan went off the woman's section without another word.

She dismissed questions from onlookers, though Eian told Russel they would talk in a while, he wanted to be clean before they spoke.

Emerging Eian felt his old self, it had been a while since he had come close to death, and it felt vastly different from within the dream.

For once, Eian was glad all the training he had undergone there, without it he would be very dead today, if not before.

"So?" Russel asked, waiting near outside the bathing area.

"Can you not fucking wait until I have a shirt on? And That shit almost bit my god-damn head off." Eian muttered annoyed, at least he was wearing pants.

"Okay...so?" Russel asked, ignoring Eian's annoyance.

"So? Check the damn thing out. See what's so special about it." Eian grumbled.

"Kidding dude, haha. No worries, I checked it out already. Bones are like steel and the skin's tougher than gator-hide. I'll see if we can eat it, maybe the hide will make good armor." Russel said shrugging.

"What type of monster is it?" Eian asked, annoyed at the timing of Russel's antics.

"Looks like a buffalo had a love child with a boar and then replaced its front limbs with clawed arms. It also has a few bones protrusions at the elbows." Russel described.

"I know what it fucking looks like, I mean I put it on the back of the damned car. IS it something natural now? Where did it come from? I've seen a few monsters that are different from normal now. This is what my guide meant by mutation?" Eian asked, annoyed to have to spell out his question.

Russel and Eian were making their way to the monster corpse as Eian crawled into a shirt.

"If I had to guess. Yes and yes. As to where it came from? Who knows. Maybe a local boar or buffalo evolved, mutated or whatever wild magic does to animals nowadays." Russel shrugged.

"This is the strongest one I've seen yet. Russ, I'm not so sure many people can kill these things. It protected itself with something like my rock-armor." Eian said lowly, keeping an eye out to ensure no one overheard.

"Really? That is... not unexpected, but worrying. If monsters are using elements already, things will get messy fast." Russel turned to look at the corpse.

"Everyone needs to man up, or they'll die. There is no way we can protect people who aren't contributing. Everyone needs to do SOMETHING." Eian said quietly, speaking only the last word a bit louder.

"I know bro. Calm down, I never said things will stay this way. I'm just focusing on saving the girls first. We are making significant progress on that front." Russel's lips strained, the hard glint in his eyes said he was annoyed.

"I'm just letting you know straight up. I'm leaving if people here aren't pulling their weight. I'm not dying for idiots who don't want to protect themselves." Eian finished.

Russel watched him closely, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

"Neither am I. E, I would not be here if I had not heard you were in danger, remember? Let's focus on the immediate problem THEN worry about Ed's crowd of 'friends'." Russel did make his fingers do a quick quote on quote gesture.

"...Look, I'm sorry. I'm stressed 's all." Eian rubbed his forehead feeling guilty.

"I get it. We all are. Look if you don't feel like going out, maybe help the digging crew today? They're doing a lot better since we have more diggers today." Russel suggested.

"Nah I'll go out again. I just wanted to show you how bad things are getting out there. I'll need to be stronger if we are charging in soon." Eian gathered himself and breathed out.

"Good. I am keeping an eye on the kid by the way. GUYS! Take it upstairs!" Russel said before turning and heading upstairs.

Eian watched as a few men dragged the gigantic carcass upstairs, it's weight was over the top, Eian went through a bit of trouble stuffing it at the back of the car.

As soon as Susan came, newly refreshed and clothed, they silently boarded the car and drove out, fearing for the first time that perhaps the outside was growing faster than he could keep up.

The few days he spent babysitting the other two might have set him back more than he had thought, though the same might be true for most people around the globe.

Most people would want to protect their families, and most people had more than one close relative, in some ways it was for the best that it was just he and his mother.