Alan had made a mistake. It was one that was easy enough to make, but he was supposed to be better than this. Things had been going so well, and he had handled all of the challenges before him well enough that he had grown comfortable, complacent. And now it was going to cost him.

After sending the Dewhurst delegation on their way, Alan had remained in the village for the rest of that day and the next. He hadn't really needed to, but there were things he wanted to see get started properly. It also gave him an opportunity to make sure Gaf was doing okay, and to be there in case the Difmer family had any surprises in store for him. Neither of those things had ended up being an issue, but he couldn't have known that ahead of time.

Gaf and the Corellians had cleared out a nest of some kind of rats that had taken up residence nearby. That was just going to be a thing from now on, apparently, which was part of why settlements needed adventurers. The ambient mana would sometimes condense to form a monster. If that monster found a natural treasure of some kind that resonated with it, it could then form a nest. Unfortunately, the bounty to handle the nest didn't show up as soon as that happened. Someone had to come back to town and report it, and then Roger would register the sighting in a special tab on the village menu and the Network would create the bounty.

As a village or town, these bounties were subsidized, or in their case completely funded by, the Network. If Elstree ever became an actual City, then they would have to pay for these bounties themselves. That was a long way in the future, however. Right now, the issue was finding these nests before they became too large. The hunters, foresters, and miners that worked the surrounding areas were doing a good job so far, but it would be good to have more classed individuals to help out. If they got enough manpower, they could even simply look for the natural treasures that would appear, and harvest them before they became the basis of a nest.

None of that really mattered at the moment, what did is that Gaf had done a decent job in his first nest clear with the group, and on the second day they had chosen to run the town dungeon again. Gaf was proving to be a solid addition so far, he was a fire and air based mage who also had a healing class. It was only a common version, but it fixed a much needed hole in the party's make up. He still wasn't trusted, not by a long shot, but if he was waiting to betray them, Gaf hadn't screwed up his cover yet.

Most of Alan's time, on the other hand, had been spent farming. The first new field was finished the same day their captured villagers were returned. He had helped them divide up the field and then showed them the proper way to plant the various crops he had brought. Now that he had resources, Alan was able to set up trellises for the fruits that grew on vines. By the end of the day, everything was planted and they had even connected the field to the irrigation trenches.

The second day saw the completion of another field. This time Alan let the villagers plant most of it as they saw fit. He took a small portion for himself and used the last of his quartz powder to make some mana boosting circles. The last time he did this, he had ended up with otherwise normal fruits that were filled with mana. They weren't terribly useful for feeding people, but they were great for animals. If the chickens hatched or he could convince Two Socks to return with him, then they might come in handy. There was also the unhatched egg back in his house to consider. Whatever ended up coming out of that would need something to eat as well.

After the second night in the tavern, Alan had been ready to set out. The village was running well, he'd made the simple additions he could at the moment, Gaf was working well with his new party, and there had been no sign of complications with Dewhurst. The 'immigrants' were being carefully watched by a few select individuals, but they didn't expect to see anything damning for a while. They would no doubt try and embed themselves in the village before they tried something nefarious, but it paid to be watchful. If only he had remembered that advice himself.

These few days of relative relaxation also allowed him to get back into his morning routine. He hadn't been skipping his cultivation, but he hadn't been doing his exercises much, and he could have been doing a better job cultivating. He still had a long way to go before he upgraded his aura to diamond, but his aura was one of his strengths. It wouldn't do to let it fall behind. After completing a rewarding routine of Tai Chi, Alan finally got under way.

That was a little misleading, because he didn't go very far. The plan was to build a road all the way back to his house in tier two, which meant he had to start here. He exited the village at the northeast end. He didn't want to broadcast Elstree's new seeming road building ability, and all of their traffic from the other settlements came in from the southwest.

By 'building a road', Alan actually meant more of a path. There really wasn't anything down in the other tiers worth bringing a cart for, so it didn't need to be that large. He was instead envisioning something to make it easier for people to run or walk on. He settled on a track that was a meter wide. That should be enough space for easy travel while providing a small amount of security from animals ambushing travelers from the grass on the sides. It wasn't really enough, but it was better than nothing and would provide people something to follow as well.

By reducing the width, and with his increased familiarity with the process, Alan was able to create a path about ten meters long in a little under ten minutes. It wasn't as hard packed as something designed for heavy vehicles, but it was better than loose dirt. That meant he could extend the path more than half a kilometer every hour. From the village to the entrance of his tier two zone was about thirty kilometers, a little math told him that this should take a little under three days.

In the end it was more like two and a half. He continued to improve his technique, making it less mana intensive and faster, but he also had a nice boon in the middle of the second day. He had been spamming mana lode almost as fast as he could, and finally he had gotten the notification.

Class Ability Upgrade: Mana Lode → Mana Load I

It both reduced the cooldown, slightly, and recovered mana somewhat faster as well. It wasn't quite as much of an upgrade as he was hoping for, but it was adding twenty-five percent more mana every second compared to previously. That wasn't nothing. After having come in sight of the entrance to tier two, Alan had decided to take a break. He had been so focused on forming his path that it had been a long time since he'd slept, or even just sat for more than five minutes at a time.

He actually took the time to make a slightly larger clearing in the grass, about five meters on a side, so that people would have a convenient campsite. There was even a spring next to a rock nearby to provide fresh, cool water. Alan wasn't planning on stopping long enough to make it worthwhile to set up a fireplace, but he did eat some of his precooked food that was stored in his ring. After finishing his meal, Alan's eyes grew heavy and he let himself fall asleep right there on the ground.

If he had been awake, he never would have been in his current predicament. The Network had decided to throw a curveball in for this iteration of the tutorial, and when it unlocked the previous zones, it also left a boss to guard the entrance. It wasn't anything as simple as the water spitting hedgehog either. If he had been awake, he would have seen it long before it got close enough to attack, and he could have formulated a plan.

As it was, he got about ten seconds of warning. The creature must have seen or felt his mana expenditure, smelled his food, or just lucked onto his location, because it was charging toward Alan when his eyes opened. Fortunately, either his sixth sense or his sensitive aura somehow alerted him and he was able to at least briefly prepare for its arrival. He had been caught napping in an unsecured location and it was only the reflexes that he had drilled into him while in the Army that gave him a chance. Of the ten seconds he had been afforded, it only took two for him to be on his feet and another one to have his spewn out.

Finding his enemy took another two, and just like that he had lost half of his opportunity to react. Taking in the sight before him, he saw what could only be an owlbear. They are a rather distinctive fantasy creature whose name pretty much says it all. It was well over two meters tall with thick arms and even thicker legs. It had an owl's face and clawed hands, with its body covered in mottled brown feathers. A proper identify would take too long, so he based his response on what he knew of them from playing games.

He didn't yet realize that the Network had specifically placed the beast here, but he knew it was no simple creature. It was also traditionally highly aggressive, which was supported by its mad sprint to reach Alan. Seeing its prey was now aware of its presence, the animal let out a mighty cry as it closed. It was somewhere between a screech and a roar, and having only been awake for six seconds, the power behind it may have caused Alan to pee himself a little.

It was pretty safe to assume that the creature was over level ten, and by its size it should be very strong. It was also clearly fast, but he wasn't sure how agile it was yet, so he decided to go with his pugio for his offhand, rather than his shield. If it was as brawny as he thought, he didn't want to take any blows, even on his shield. Duck and weave were going to be his favorite words.

Less than three seconds were left until it was close enough to tear his head off, but he was now armed, and fortunately he had already been wearing his armor. There wasn't enough time to cast his stone wall, and definitely not enough for his new wall of brambles. He could have tried to slow it down with a gust of air, but it was so big it probably wouldn't add more than a fraction of a second. Those small amounts of time could be useful, but it wasn't worth it here to give away the knowledge that he could cast for so little gain.

Instead, Alan went for two of his favorites. He started with a ball of fire, not his biggest as it would take precious time to build, but not a small one either. That came out the end of his spewn which gave him a bonus to its power, and with his other hand he sent a prismatic orb at its face. As soon as he got off the combination of spells, Alan was diving to the side, and continuing in a forward roll to get a little more distance.

It would have been great if the owlbear's feathers caught fire and it was burnt to a crisp, but it wasn't likely, and it wasn't what he was counting on. Alan was hoping that the fire would distract its focus enough that the colorful orb would be able to at least momentarily dazzle it. Alan needed more time to properly come up with a strategy and this could get him some precious seconds.

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The owlbear didn't even flinch from the fire bolt and it impacted it in the chest. He avoided the head because he didn't want anything to interfere with the prismatic orb. The results of his first spell were about as expected. The impact singed a small patch of feathers and set a few more on fire, but they quickly petered out, smothered by its strong aura.

The second spell did actually work. He had seen other foes who were minimally affected by even multiple castings at a time, but the owlbear lost sight of him for over a second. In that time he managed to put a bit of separation between them, he was aided by the fact that his enemy didn't stop charging when it lost its vision, it kept running in what just so happened to be the wrong direction now. When it regained its senses, the owlbear froze in place and its head spun around wildly. It was strange to watch as it rotated in place rather than turning its whole body.

It finally found Alan, almost directly behind it, and moved to attack again. This all took long enough that he had a chance to place a blackberry on the ground, and even now his magic was working on it. Bramble wall wasn't as strong as his stone walls, but it had more give. With the intense power locked in the bear's frame, it could probably just crash through a brick wall yelling 'oh yeah!' The more flexible brambles would force it to rip the vines apart to get through.

That was just what happened. Barely in time to block his opponent, the thorny vines coalesced and it found itself ensnared. It only took a matter of seconds for the owlbear's violent thrashing to tear its way though, but that not only gave Alan more time, it also left quite a few shallow scratches on its body. Normally such minor wounds wouldn't even slow the beast down, but the vines' vampiric nature meant that some of the bear's energy had been depleted.

Alan had finally found a strategy. He would kite the thing along, casting bramble walls in front of it and slowly draining its vitality until he could finally end it. That was his strategy until the owlbear simply jumped over the second wall. It was an impressive accomplishment, and it underscored just how powerful it was. While it was in the air, Alan took the chance to finally identify it.

Beast: Owlbear (Boss) level 18, threat: deadly. An owlbear is the not-at-all-cute combination of an owl and a bear. Its beak is as sharp as an owl's, capable of tearing you apart, and its hugs are backed by the strength of a bear. They are territorial and incredibly aggressive, best to avoid them if you can.

That description wasn't worthless, but it also wasn't that helpful. The biggest take away was that this opponent was rated deadly, the highest danger he had encountered. The level was also the highest he had seen if you didn't count the fallen angel. She had only been level ten, but was at the red grade, which meant it was more like a level forty or something. Time for his big boy pants.

The owlbear landed about five meters away and closed that distance in a flash. Alan was ready for it, and when the big feathery arms reached down to crush him, he spun to the side, striking out with his spewn as he did. He landed a slash on its right arm, but it was nothing serious. This was going to be a long battle of attrition unless he came up with something soon.

When it turned to face him, it bent down and roared in his face. It was too good an opportunity to pass up and he sent a fireball screaming for its beak. Unfortunately it used its owl adorableness to bob its head out of the way. The thing was terrifying, but some part of his brain couldn't help squealing 'sooooo cute!' Fortunately it was a small part, and the rest was still focused on the fight.

Even as it dodged his fire bolt, Alan was taking the initiative and moving in to attack. It really did seem to favor grasping and crushing attacks, and it once more reached out to squeeze him to death. He went for its hands this time while dodging, hoping to cause a debilitating injury, but his spewn ended up clanging off of its large claws. That was impressive, few things had been able to so easily ward off his dwarven blade.

At the same time he was slashing at the hand he had also punched out with his pugio, and ended up burying it in the owlbears left forearm. It shook its limb in pain and Alan was forced to let go of his dagger before he could pull it out. He took his seax out of his storage to rearm himself. He had a moment, because the beast paused to use its beak to pull the blade out and spit it on the ground. Blood was flowing from the wound, but with the size of this thing, it had plenty to spare.

Alan debated using his new exploding missile spell, but he wasn't sure it would penetrate its feathers and skin, much less be able to overcome its impressive aura to be able to remote detonate. He decided to hold off for the moment, and instead used the opportunity to cast minor regeneration on himself. He had used a decent chunk of his mana already so he also activated mana lode.

When they came back together this time, Alan held off on trying to land an attack with his blades and instead shot it with a light bolt, shadow bolt, and then hit it with a stone spear to the leg as well. None of them were particularly impressive spells, but he wanted to test it to see if it was weak to anything. The stone spear at least left a small gash, but the others did little noticeable damage. It didn't seem to be immune, the spells were just not that powerful compared to its tough body.

It also was fiercely intelligent as it was learning to anticipate Alan's moves. When he tried to spin away from its next attack, it adjusted its stance and managed to hip check him on his way past. Alan had managed to use his ability, twin slash, to slice its bicep, but then he paid for it as the massive form of the beast knocked him to the side.

Alan ended up on the ground and the owlbear speedily dove on top of him. He rolled out from underneath it before it could bring its full weight down to crush him, and the beast rolled with him, like a couple of burritos. As it spun, the owlbear whirled one of its arms around to pound him in the chest. The air exploded from his lungs and he heard more than one rib crack before his regeneration kicked in. This thing wasn't playing around.

Getting the wind knocked out of you is similar to the first time you get punched in the face. There's not much you can do to prevent your body and mind from getting locked up. Fortunately, while his body was spasming and desperately trying to draw a breath, his thoughts were still functioning, unlike the first time he took a shot to the head in boot camp. There his brain got stuck in a loop and he soon after ended up flat on his ass. Now, he used his mind to find a patch of earth nearby and then with raw earth mana he softened the top several centimeters of soil.

This was the opposite of what he had done to make his roads, but all of that practice made working with the dirt a relatively simple task. As his roll took him over the loosened area, he jammed the handle of his seax down into the soft spot and left the blade sticking up. As the owlbear rolled to follow him, it ended up landing on it and burying it up to the hilt, putting about forty centimeters of iron into its chest. That wasn't the end, however. As soon as he had placed the dagger and freed up his hand, Alan had taken out another blackberry and began to form another bramble wall.

This one didn't have time to fully form, but even the small barrier that appeared was enough to catch on the beast and halt its momentum. It was aided by the fact that the owlbear had already started to slow after landing on the blade. Alan continued his own roll for another couple of meters to give him a little space before ending up on his hands and knees, coughing and desperately trying to get his lungs functioning again. His regeneration spell had already fixed the cracks in his ribs, so once he could breathe again he would be ready to continue.

The only issue was that the owlbear recovered faster. It didn't even bother to pull his seax out of its chest, instead it tore the burgeoning brambles to pieces and rose to its feet. Taking three large steps it reached down, grabbed Alan around his torso and threw him into the air. It probably would have been better off holding him down and crushing him, or attacking him with its beak, but it was furious, and decided to vent its anger with a round of toss the human.

As he soared through the air, he did manage to draw air in, restoring his body to full function. Now that Alan was better able to process his surroundings, he was astonished by how high in the air he was, at least fifteen meters off the ground. He ended up coming down more than fifty meters away and smashed into the land. It was lucky that it was simple grasslands and that he hadn't come down on something harder, like a rock.

He still felt something break in his leg when he landed. It was his right leg this time, and the energy of his spell started to work on it, but it quickly ran out. The spell was still on cool down, so if he wanted to fix the bone, he would have to use minor healing. The issue was that it took a lot of energy with that spell, and it was fairly painful for the bone to be put back in position before it healed. He also wasn't sure how well it would work if he was trying to use the leg while it healed.

A quick glance showed the owlbear now bearing down on him once again. He probably had a couple of seconds before it got to him, but that wasn't enough to get his leg fixed up. A quick look with his aura senses showed that the bone was indeed broken clean through and the two pieces were not currently lined up. Gritting his teeth, he pushed with his hands and managed to get the bones in place. He cast minor healing to begin the process of repairing the break, but he needed to buy more time.

He had managed to hold onto his spewn when he hit, but he set it down now to get a pebble out of his pouch. He hadn't wanted to try his missile spell before, figuring it didn't have the power to get through its hide. However, the creature barreling down on him had a large wound on its upper chest at the moment. The seax had penetrated its torso and then been violently shoved around as the beast continued to move. After ripping it out, there was a mangled crater left behind that provided a big enough target that he felt confident of hitting it with his pebble.

Casting exploding missile, he shot the pebble out and was rewarded by seeing it enter almost dead center of the bloody cavity. At the same time that he was directing the healing to his leg, he also sent a pulse down the magical strand to the pebble. Whether it was because its aura was disrupted by the wound, or he was getting better at his control, the stone detonated and blew off a cantaloupe sized chuck of flesh.

The tough bastard couldn't quite shrug off an injury that large, and blood was pouring down its feathers. While it kept coming, it did slow it down long enough for Alan to finish healing up his leg. Well, finish was a strong word, it was still fractured and cracked, but the two sides had at least partially connected, allowing him to put weight on it. The experience wasn't what one would call pleasant, but pain could be managed.

Scrambling up, he started to back away from the rampaging owlbear, trying to keep some distance between them. It was definitely slowing down, but Alan wasn't moving at full speed either. Taking another pebble out of his pouch he sent it into the even larger wound and detonated it again. Another fountain of blood and gore erupted from the feathered beast, and this time it couldn't power through. It collapsed to the ground, and Alan thought it was over.

Experience had taught him not to assume, however, so he stood back and watched. As feathers softly floated down in contrast to the violent way they had been extracted, he looked on in admiration as it struggled up onto all fours. Then it slowly got back to its feet and turned to face Alan again. Another pebble appeared in his hand. He felt bad doing it, but this thing still had a feral look in its eyes, despite its fatal injuries. It knew it was going to die and it wanted to return the favor when it did. Alan wasn't okay with that plan.

Another exploding missile tore off the other side of its chest and it collapsed again. This time it never stirred as blood rapidly pooled around it. Alan sat on the ground and cast another healing spell to finish repairing his leg bone. It only took about a minute to fully fix himself, but he spent a few more minutes gathering his thoughts.

"Wow Alan, nice job there. That was one hell of a fight."

He sighed, Alan hadn't had much attention to spare for Tamee while he had been channeling mana to create his dirt path, but now that he was resting it seemed like she was ready to do a debriefing. It was a good thing to do, but this fight had left him drained in a way no other had before. He hadn't even felt this worn out when he woke without a hand. Well, nothing to do but dive into it.

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