Billy watched the second-rank plantation from the cover of the jungle.

  No ramparts. No moat. Not even guards.

  The Overseers were so confident in their control that they behaved less like warriors and more like torturers. That was the point.

  Suffering produced Essence.

  Females of childbearing age were treated slightly better than the rest. They kept the dungeon supplied with new victims.

  Billy did not see any male slaves who appeared to be older than 21. Some of the females looked to be in their late 20s or early 30s at most.

  Dirt, filth, and pain permeated every inch of the plantation. He had seen enough. Twenty elite mobs stood beside him in combat formation.

  Behind them waited forty slaves, armed with whatever weapons they could improvise, each with at least one level in a combat role.

  Turandal’s Stronghold was now a symbiotic dungeon, and training inside one would guarantee XP gain, even with a locked system.

  This system had no equivalent to Earth’s Teaching Competency. Roles were unlocked and progressed simply by doing activities compatible with them. Quests must have been added in later Systems.

  Turandal was the equivalent of a level 10 Avatar, but with that whole crowd behind, empowering his Hero of the People ability, his stats were like those of the thirtieth level.

  He stood up, raised his spear, and let out a ringing war cry, then charged, followed by his troops. The Overseers at first merely stared dumbly at the horde of Turalian slaves attacking them, as if they could not believe what their single eye was showing them. Then an expertly thrown sling bullet hit the nearest Overseer in the head, breaking his skull and throwing him to the ground; the Overseer’s body twitched a few times and then lay still.

  The rest of the slavers reacted as one when they saw their companion fall, wielding whips and clubs, but these were no real warriors— they were torturers, and they had never faced victims who could fight back.

  Billy—Turandal now—cut through them like a red-hot knife. His stats were so high that he only needed one single blow to take down one of the monsters.

  Whoever survived the first clash with Billy was quickly mowed down by his elite band of mobs. The slave-turned warriors ended the few surviving wounded Overseers promptly and efficiently. Billy had forbidden them from torturing their torturers.

  They would win without becoming what they hated.

  Half the enemy force fell within two minutes. The remaining half clustered around the surviving bosses, a brute with fourteen ranks in Tank, wielding two maces, and a Core shaman with ten ranks each in the Nuker and Debuffer roles.

  As his people pelted the surviving guards with their slings, Billy feinted an attack towards the Tank. He noticed the shaman preparing a spell as a sphere of black energy formed between his palms.

  Billy pivoted and threw his spear.

  It pierced the sphere, shattered the spell, and punched through the shaman’s single eye before burying itself in a tree.

  All his troops had doubled their stats, thanks to Billy’s Inspire Courage powers, and many of the slaves from the plantation were grabbing weapons and joining the fight, as they finally found the strength to fight their oppressors.

  The Overseers began to fall like flies before their combined attacks. The remaining leader threw his maces to the ground and tried to broker a surrender: “We give up. Do not slay me, I have information that…” He could not finish, as Billy had hit his neck with the razor-sharp edge of his shield and beheaded him.

  The dungeon started to implode around him.

  Conqueror and Liberator: Any dungeon you destroy will be rebuilt as a copy of the dungeon that spawned you.

  Suddenly, it was not a plantation anymore, but another Boot Camp, with more Warrior Mobs and two Turalian Bosses that joined the fight. The few surviving Overseers were dead in less than thirty seconds.

  Both the Bosses came to present their respects. One of them was a hunter armed with throwing knives and a sling, with seven ranks in the Scrapper Role and another seven in Stealther.

  The Core was a beautiful female shaman with fifteen Ranks in the Healer Role and five in the Support one.

  “I am Booma, my people are yours to command, Liberator,” she said as she kneeled before him. Billy made her stand up. “I won’t have you kneeling before anyone, Booma. I will not have any Turalian bend the knee again.”

  His troops cheered his words. All the Experientials and Essentials from both camps hugged each other like brothers.

  Billy stood up on top of a trunk and addressed them.

  “Today we begin a war of liberation. But we will fight it by the rules of magic, not war. I can only reclaim dungeons if I give the killing blow to the last boss. All who came with me must return to the plantation they came from. There, they will train their Experiential brothers, make them gain ranks in their roles, and generate enough Essence to rank up the dungeon.”

  “Those we have freed today will help me take the next dungeon. We shall repeat the same strategy. Before the week is over, at least one third of the thirty-two dungeons surrounding Talan’s Stronghold will be ours. That is when they will try to strike back, and we will be prepared for them.”

  The troops that had come with him were not happy to be sent away, but they could see the logic in Billy’s plan. The most critical resource in this war would be Essence. They had to get as many dungeons as possible and use them to train Experientials within them, so that both the ex-slaves and the dungeons themselves would rank up.

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  They could take more dungeons in a mass attack, but that would mean losing those in which Billy himself did not lead the attack.

  “This is round one,” Billy assured them. “We will change tactics when our position is stronger.”

  Billy repeated the maneuver several times during the day. Most of the dungeons were distributed along concentric circles, with Talan’s Stronghold at the center. They took eleven more dungeons in the outer circle in two days. When the last dungeon fell, Billy felt a jolt of energy go through him as he gained 10 new ranks. His dungeon had been upgraded to second rank. He remembered that a portion of all the essence he gained by conquering new dungeons was diverted to his original one, thanks to his Tithe power.

  By then, it was evident that the Overseers had sensed something was afoot. They began sending patrols to find out why the influx of slaves had suddenly stopped. None of the patrols made it back.

  On the fifth day, a larger force emerged from Talan’s stronghold, with a platoon of twelve 21-level Overseers led by Asmograth the Tamer, a 49-level boss with many ranks in the Pet Controller Role, and a reputation as a hunter.

  Billy had to admire the Overseer’s stupidity; it was a hunting party, not a war party. They thought some powerful beast from the forest was eating the slaves and the patrols. Their brains simply could not grasp the possibility of a slave rebellion.

  By then, Billy’s dungeon had upgraded twice more, making him a 40-level boss. He had with him an elite force made up of the bosses from the dungeons he had liberated, comprised of six level-14 bosses and three level-28 ones from his own dungeon.

  These Overseers were much tougher than the ones they had met before.

  He intended to use only Essentials during the fight, knowing that they would be reborn if they fell when their dungeons eventually upgraded. Because of this, he had not allowed any other Core to take part in the fight. They would be needed to upgrade their dungeons.

  The hunting party posed a significant risk to their plans. Billy’s troops needed more time to level up, and these hunters had a significant level advantage over them. Even so, they had to destroy the party before they could begin phase two.

  As the Core of a rank four dungeon, he now had twenty levels in the Tank Role and twenty in the Leader one.

  He had gained new feats, including a war cry that doubled the physical stats of any ally for one minute, but never above Turandal’s own, and a powerful taunt effect he could use for thirty seconds out of each three minutes, which also negated 90% of the damage he received, but that would end as soon as he made an attack.

  Asmograth hunted with two powerful pets that looked like a cross between a tiger and a snake, moving with reptilian grace.

  Billy knew this would be one of the most challenging fights: they were facing troops from a rank-seven dungeon, while his warriors had been recruited among much lower-ranked ones.

  Fortunately, the Overseers were not expecting an army, but a beast. They could use that.

  They painted the inside of one nearby cave with the blood of the fallen Overseers and distributed their remains in front of it, mutilated as to seem a beast had devoured them.

  For all his prowess as a hunter, Asmograth took the bait and sent his two pets inside the cave.

  Pherela, a nuker boss in his party, triggered a hidden rune in the mouth of a cave, causing a rockslide that sealed both beasts inside.

  Then he charged the hunting party.

  The fight was heavily against them, even without Asmograth’s pets; the level advantage was clearly on the side of the Overseers.

  Billy had his elite troops hide within the trees and faced the hunting party alone.

  “Face me if you dare!”

  His taunting power flared. The shield in his hand glowed like incandescent metal.

  Blows rained down.

  Most came from Asmograth, whip and mace striking in relentless rhythm. The other Overseers shoved and stumbled over each other trying to reach him.

  Billy stumbled backwards, his magic negating most, but not all, of the damage. Now and then, he made a feeble attack with his spear, never really trying to hit, so as not to dispel his taunting magic, while he gave ground and made it look like a tactical retreat. It was a trap.

  Once the hunting party had pursued him deep into the forest, Billy gave his rallying cry.

  Power surged through his allies.

  His elite troops burst from the trees and fell on the Overseers.

  Billy threw himself at Asmograth with everything he had.

  Even the weakest of his bosses was a match for the advanced Overseers, while thus enhanced, and the three bosses coming from his dungeon became nearly as strong as Asmograth, but the magic only lasted for one minute.

  They had to make the most of it, so Billy had ordered them to concentrate on the Overseers, while he kept Asmograth occupied.

  He exchanged blows with the Turalian Cyclops, who was as fearsome an opponent as Billy had ever faced. His whip was never at rest, always managing to strike around Billy’s shield and draw blood, while his mace hit with the strength of a hammer.

  “I can feel your magic weakening, king of slaves,” he mocked him in his growling voice, using a heavily accented version of the Turalian language. “Soon your people will no longer be empowered by it, and my Overseers will make short work of them.”

  “Which Overseers?” asked Billy. Asmograth managed one glance behind and found out that in less than thirty seconds, Billy’s bosses had butchered every last one of his guards

  “It does not matter! I do not need them to kill filth like you. All I have to do is strike you down, and your toadies will whimper back to their homes!” Asmograth growled.

  Billy had to admit he was brave.

  Turandal released another war cry, this time not a magical one, and all the hidden slaves rushed out of their cover, brandishing their weapons and hollering war chants.

  “These are like flies to me!” laughed Asmograth. “Do you think they change anything?”

  “Oh, yes, they do,” answered Billy as his Hero of the People power suddenly tripled his stats.

  Billy attacked with the speed and force of a typhoon.

  Asmograth was driven back immediately, forced onto the defensive. He had been built to inflict pain, not endure it.

  Ten seconds later, Billy’s spear found the flaw in his guard.

  It punched through his chest.

  He could hear Asmograth’s pets howl in fury, trapped inside the cave.

  “Now we finish what we started,” he screamed, as his troops cheered. And they attacked the rest of the Overseer dungeons, not as one mindless mob, but in a methodical and well-rehearsed manner, two or three of his dungeons concentrating on each enemy one and then going on to the next.

  This time, their mission was not to claim the enemy dungeons, but to destroy them as fast as possible.

  Before the night was over, all the Overseer dungeons were flaming pyres, their slaves liberated and distributed among Billy’s own.

  A massive cloud of Essence hung in the air. Talan’s Stronghold was the last remaining Overseer dungeon standing. It was at the seventh rank; it could no longer absorb Essence to upgrade itself. Billy’s dungeons could.

  The Black Calendar had taught him harsh lessons.

  Tonight, they paid off.