“We are getting quite close to Level 3. We’re less than 150 citizens away. I know I was the biggest proponent of buying the add-on to the Energy Enhanced Evolution Chamber—we need a shorter name, by the way—but now I am very worried that prices will increase again once we hit Level 3,” Adam said in the council meeting.

  “Are you talking about buildings?” Ben asked. It was the day after the new [Pillar of the Protectorate] had risen from the ground; Michael had not yet returned from wherever he was and whatever he had done. Ben had informed the council about the background to the new feature, but had asked them to keep it to themselves. He did not want people to chase after hidden missions that he knew nothing about.

  “Not only buildings—though it would be good for our economy if we had even more workshops and such. I am equally worried about necessities that we exclusively procure from the System Store. Things like toothpaste, or diapers, or spices. I am sure we can find ways to produce them somehow—but I am not sure it is the best use of our resources right now.”

  Allison nodded. “I agree. Are you suggesting we buy stuff to put it in storage?”

  “Yes. At least the things we consume regularly in high quantities.”

  “How much do you want to spend and how much do we have?” Barry asked.

  “We currently have about 50k Credits thanks to the high productivity of our dear dungeon teams. I would suggest spending twenty thousand on necessities, convert twenty thousand to SCs and buy a few more apartments and workshops, and retain ten thousand as a reserve. That puts us pretty far behind on the add-on, but it would be incredibly painful to hit Level 3 and see that everything doubles in cost.”

  Ben looked at the others who nodded and then agreed. “I think it is a good suggestion. We have bought everything that was discounted on this level, right?”

  “Yes, we have. I am never going to make that mistake again. I will manage the purchases and try to find space to store everything. Unless you have something else, I won’t keep you from going on a few more dungeon runs today,” Adam said with a wink.

  Ben laughed. “You are a greedy fellow. We will get you your money, don’t worry.”

  ***

  Ben stood at the gate, waiting for Michael and the SEALs to make their way over from the clearing’s edge, where they had been sighted.

  He shook everybody’s hand as they entered the settlement.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Joe gave him a sloppy salute and walked away with his two fellow sailors, leaving Michael to explain the situation.

  “We went hunting.”

  “That’s what Jamal told me, but something must have happened along the way. You are now a [Pillar of the Protectorate]. What was the hidden mission that you completed? I can’t believe that hunting some Dire Wolves gets you a title like that…”

  “We didn’t hunt wolves. We hunted your enemies. The Church.”

  “What?”

  That had not been on Ben’s radar at all. But maybe it should have been. The signs had been there. Michael did not care about hunting wildlife, but he did take any attack on the Protectorate—or, to be honest, on him—very personally. Ever since the accident, Michael had been incredibly protective in his own ways, and Arrival Day had only accelerated that development.

  “Took out Church leadership. If they ever become a threat again, it will take time.”

  “You took them out? Just like that?”

  “They confessed to sending assassins. Gave them the option of an oath. They declined.”

  Ben scratched his head. He reflected on how they had gotten to this point. His first instinct was to be frustrated by Michael’s unilateral action. But… first of all, he was not in a position to criticize others for taking action and… the Warriors. He had let that fester too long. With a more proactive approach, some pain could have been prevented. And he was absolutely certain that Michael had acted with his best interests in mind.

  He held out a hand to Michael for a fist bump.

  “Thank you! I think we should all work on communicating our intentions better and collaborating to get things done, but I really do appreciate it.”

  Michael bumped his fist and then pulled out a small bag. “For you. Later.”

  With that, the taciturn man walked towards the HQ, probably to take a shower.

  Ben opened the bag and found lots of cores… and among them a dungeon core.

  “What?!?”

  It was not a day for eloquence it seemed.

  ***

  The fifteen thousand Credits that Michael had brought back from the city in the form of cores were a nice windfall, which Adam had used to get their apartment capacity to a thousand.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Now Ben stood on the plaza after adding the latest dungeon to their infrastructure. The Protectorate Pillar now stood proudly six meters tall after it had grown from the added levels to the rat dungeon and now from their new acquisition.

  As every time so far, he had retained the dungeon theme when putting it on the plinth to accept the core. The one difference from the usual was that he had received a message informing him that the dungeon difficulty had been raised due to being out of use for an extended period of time.

  He sighed. It was always exciting to go into a new dungeon, and the other Protector teams had genuinely stepped up to take over more runs, but it still felt like there was never enough time in a day to do all the things he felt he needed to do.

  It would have been nice if Hercules could join them in the dungeons, but for some reason the bird had a strong dislike for the portals and did not come close on his own. Ben could maybe force it, but that was not how he wanted their relationship to go.

  He touched the portal to pull up the dungeon information again.

  You are about to enter a dungeon.

  Theme: Rings of Return

  Tier: 1

  Min / Max party size: 5

  Instances: 5

  Levels: 5

  Average days to break: 4

  Since their very first dungeon which only allowed for a party of one, this was the first one that had a similar restriction. The team needed to be five exactly.

  At least the days to break were higher than their last ones, with four, which could only mean that it was going to be nasty. That was made even clearer by it having five levels, even more than the Rat World, which had pushed them to the brink on their first run.

  Ben went to the inn to grab some food before they would do their final run of the day—Lizard Evolution. They would tackle the new dungeon after a good night’s rest the next day.

  ***

  They transitioned to a sphere-like room made entirely of glass.

  The ground was flat, but the walls and ceiling curved smoothly overhead. Two large openings led to hallways of the same transparent material. The hallways curved outward and seemed to connect on the far side of a large ring, in a room that mirrored their starting point—except instead of a dungeon portal, it contained a large metallic-looking humanoid pacing back and forth, apparently unable to leave. Around this big ring, with a circumference of about two hundred meters, stretched white nothingness.

  The hallways, which were about ten meters wide, were separated from the starting room by the familiar shimmering barrier that warned them that they would be leaving the safe zone if they moved beyond it.

  After ensuring everyone was ready to go, Ben touched the barrier and stepped forward carefully.

  The moment the barrier vanished, all around the ring, creatures came into being in the hallways. It looked like every five meters a thin humanoid, about two meters tall with a clock-like apparatus as its chest and long, razor-sharp claws, appeared.

  Clockwork Helper. Energy-Born. Tier 1. Uncommon Challenge.

  All the creatures on their side of the hallway turned towards them and attacked.

  Jamal roared a taunt and they moved forward with the same methodical approach that they had employed hundreds of times by now and continued to improve, especially with the help of the new insights from the SEALs.

  Ben used the opening created by the taunt to slice into one of the helpers and managed to destroy it easily. It crashed to the ground and disappeared. In its place, a transparent clock appeared, rapidly counting down from ten with a soft ticking sound.

  Ben yelled for everybody to step back, thinking that it might be a bomb timer. They retreated almost all the way to the starting room while fighting defensively against the remaining Clockwork Helpers.

  As the countdown reached zero, another Clockwork Helper appeared in its place.

  “Speed! This dungeon seems to be about speed and enemies returning after we kill them,” Ben yelled. “Let’s go on the offensive.”

  With that they moved forward again. This time Anne and Ben were at Jamal’s side, dishing out hit after hit, while Allison’s roots crashed into several of the relatively slow and fragile enemies.

  They quickly managed to get through the twenty constructs on their side of the ring, but the first ones were already reforming as they neared the room on the opposite side of the ring.

  The boss construct was more than three meters tall and had claws not just on its hands but also on its elbows, knees, and feet. In addition to the clockwork in its chest, it also had small pocket watches where other humanoids would have eyes.

  Temporal Worker. Energy-Born. Tier 1. Rare Challenge.

  The moment they entered the room, the Clockwork Helpers behind them reappeared independently of the countdown they had left on their clocks, and the Temporal Worker attacked.

  It was slightly faster than the helpers had been, and it attacked with all limbs once it got close.

  Fortunately, it seemed like the Clockwork Helpers could not enter the boss room, which meant that there was no more time pressure and they could take the fight methodically.

  Ben was not worried, given that they had fought many rare creatures by now, which barely posed a challenge anymore. He tried to block a relatively slow hit of the creature’s left arm when one of the pocket watch-eyes blinked white, and the next thing he knew, the creature’s claws were trying to slice into his armor.

  He was fortunate that the combination of armor and Constitution limited the damage of the attack, but he did start to bleed, and he warned his team with a shout. “The eyes. Careful when they blink.”

  “You froze!” Allison shouted.

  It seemed that it wasn’t that the creature had moved much faster, but rather that time had stopped for the briefest of moments for Ben.

  The one eye that had blinked had dulled compared to the beginning of the fight, and Ben took that as a hopeful sign that it couldn’t do the same trick too many times.

  Even so, he didn’t want to risk the creature pulling the same trick on one of his less sturdy teammates, and he went on the offensive. He ducked under one arm and sliced into the left leg, bringing the creature to its knee, where Anne could smash its head with a couple of well-placed kicks and punches.

  The moment the creature died—for lack of a better term—it vanished and, just like with the Clockwork Helpers, a clock appeared in its place, counting down from ninety with a loud tick-tock.

  “Damn. This could get bothersome fast. Let’s punch through the minions at high speed.”

  The others confirmed and they managed to get to the starting room in a little more than thirty seconds.

  As they entered the room, the creatures in the hallways and the remaining countdowns vanished. Instead, a new hallway entrance appeared leading to a similar, if slightly larger room and another ring that formed around the circle they had just cleared.

  An Energy core materialized in the middle of the room, which Ben pocketed. They had the choice of leaving through the portal or continuing on to the next ring, and likely the next level.

  There was no debate that they would continue, but everybody agreed that this could turn into a challenging dungeon.

  After they had rested for just thirty seconds, a countdown appeared above the hallway to the next ring and they quickly stepped forward towards the next challenge.