It took what Levi considered an unreasonable amount of time to get to Oregon, though purely due to his own stamina dragging standards. Or perhaps because it was a very crowded, very uncomfortable trip.

Minions and recruits crammed in like sardines, squished against the walls, sitting on top of one another…

Half those they’d rescued, even who had stayed this far, chose to depart midway, preferring to brave the changed world on their own now they had some physical distance from the kidnappers.

That left them with an increasingly diminished core group, but one who’d proven their dedication several times over. Amy and Mark stayed, as did two of the other tamers, and a handful of the other classes. Riana stayed, Jason stayed. Those most invested.

It took two days of limping along with far too many stops before they arrived at Gold Beach, but arrive they did.

There were several tasks to be completed locally before they moved on, little lingering problems on the mental checklist. This would be their last time visiting the area, if Levi had anything to do with it. A few stops in local dungeons to finish off obligations, then they’d be moving to a training loop and running the same twenty dungeons for the next two months.

He’d charted out a good one, with dungeons of every element they still needed for the Dungeon Seed. Hopefully they’d get an essence drop for the remaining types before 10/24. He wanted to get his dungeon set up before then. Either way, it’d be good practice for their squad and a chance to level steadily.

Levi's personal group, himself and his family, were the core around which the rest had been built, but there were sub groups with perfectly competent leaders of their own emerging as well.

Mark with his team of kalvex, which he was going all in on. He'd already started putting points from his recent levels into their species-wide options.

He'd offered to take Fang and lend him to them as part of their working arrangement, in order to give full benefits of his bonuses, but Levi advised against it and Peter wasn't eager to give up control of any of his pets.

Sure, it might be an advantage for now while they were all in close proximity, but Levi couldn't help but feel it would be a mistake to get used to someone else having the control, as well as Mark getting used to the increased power. If they were going to use a minion as a core part of their fighting force, they needed to be able to rely on its abilities predictably. Having its power suddenly drop between one fight and the next because its owner went out of tether range and they had to retame it would be worse than fighting with someone at lower power all along.

Knowing what you had and how to use it could be more important than just pure increased power.

Having the whole team alive and together again meant Levi had some long overdue upgrades to take care of.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Jackson?" Terry said. He was wearing his most officious looking expression and during his very best to project I’m a government agent who knows what I'm doing. The fact that he wasn’t and never had been affiliated with the government didn't stop him.

"Excuse yourself, and maybe introduce yourself before you go banging on people’s doors.”

"Terry Saunders, ma’am. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to come with me."

"And why's that?"

"You have been discovered to be in possession of restricted materials. I'm going to need to confiscate them and remove you to a secure location for your own safety. There are those who would kill for these materials."

“Restricted materials? Me? Hah. Be off with you young man.”

“There is an organization hunting down anyone spreading information about the dungeon apocalypse and upcoming demon invasion to silence them. You’re very fortunate not to be in their hands already. I found your information from hacking their databases, so I guarantee if you don’t come with me to somewhere safe you’ll be dealing with them soon.”

Gayle's eyes were unreasonably wide and her mouth open in sheer disbelief.

“I assure you, ma’am, this is extremely serious. You can thank your lucky stars I got to you first."

Gayle shook her head. "First videogame nonsense and now I'm in some kind of spy movie? I must be going senile early. "

“I can assure you this is very serious. I’m going to ask you to collect any material you wouldn't want to fall into the wrong hands, and come with me."

Recovered somewhat, Gayle put her hands on her hips and glared up at him. "I am not doing any such thing. Bad enough to have my own daughters going off about this nonsense, but if you think some stranger is going to–"

Terry held up a hand to stop her. "I appreciate your concerns. Questions will have to wait until later. I promise you, you're in very real danger if you don’t come with me."

He was starting to see why Cassandra and Irene had insisted he be the one to do this, as well as the amount of covert giggling they’d done when they thought he wasn’t looking.

Why did he agree to do this again? Was he really that desperate to prove himself?

No. Redemption wasn’t about proving anything. It was about doing the right thing.

Saving an old woman from herself counted. Even if that discussion was the most frustrating two hours of his life.

Levi dropped the Dungeon Seed into the Beast essence, watching as the brown-glowing substance was absorbed into the elongated ellipsoid.

Unbound Dungeon Seed (Unique)

The soul of an unborn dungeon

Saturation: 10,000/25,000

Please provide mana to saturate your Dungeon Seed

Alignment: Control, Destruction, Beast

Progress to deployment: 1/2

The mana requirement had increased by a lot more than he expected, but he wasn't concerned. They had dozens of people now. If they passed it around and everyone charged it a few times a day, they'd have plenty of mana.

He added it to the Ice essence, which was absorbed just as readily as the previous.

Unbound Dungeon Seed (Unique)

The soul of an unborn dungeon

Saturation: 10,000/25,000

Please provide mana to saturate your Dungeon Seed

Alignment: Control, Destruction, Ice

Progress to deployment: 1/2

However... “Huh? Where’d the Beast essence go?”

He tipped the Dungeon Seed out into his hand and peered at it closely. Within its iridescent depths he found clear traces of the Ice teal, as well as the oranges and yellows of the previously-present Destruction and Control. No brown, though it had been there a moment ago.

“Is it limited to three? That seems an odd arbitrary limit.”

His eyes flicked back to the mana saturation percentage as a different theory came to mind. “Or it needs to be fully saturated before adding additional elements.”

This was the first time he’d tried adding multiple elements at once. He’d assumed the cost would be additive, and the additional elements would only make the Dungeon Seed harder to fill. Apparently that wasn’t how it worked.

“Of course there’d be no warning notice,” he grumbled to the system. Having an essence overwrite the other felt like a tragedy.

Lesson learned. One element at a time.

Levi pushed in his remaining mana, then started passing the Dungeon Seed around to the rest of the group.