PenguinKills

Chapter 30 - Back in School

"Tell me what you know of essence. I guess we should start there." The alien said begrudgingly.

He was met with the same blank stares as before.

"You've got to be kidding me. You're telling me you don't even know what essence is?" Exasperation was clearly getting the better of the thing.

"Is it the experience that levels us up?" Mark said. For a shot in the dark, it wasn't that bad of a guess. I had no idea what the alien was getting at and had no better idea to throw out th...

Chapter 29 - Clueless Apes

The first action I had to do after evolving was to get to work fixing everyone's gear. Now that I was a blacksmith I had to service all the gear and make sure it was up to snuff.

I took the time to walk Vinny through how I got the class and watched over him for a couple of hours until he unlocked it. Now that there were two of us, work would go a lot faster.

Fixing everyone's weapons was a lot harder than anticipated. Some weren't that bad and were barely used, only requiring a gr...

Chapter 28 - Class Evolution

Austin and I made it back to camp before opening our notifications. We didn't know what the class evolution would do and we figured being in the safety of the camp was the best bet. For all we knew it would force us to choose as soon as we opened the screen before knocking us out.

It most likely wouldn't be that extreme but we couldn't help but think of worst-case scenarios and all the ways it could go wrong. We both thought it was a better idea to wait until we got back.

We nearl...

Chapter 27- Level 10

I was so excited that I had finally got the profession that I nearly started shouting in joy. It then dawned on me how late it was and thought better of it. I had already been making enough noise with my hammer, no need to add to it by shouting.

The exhaustion from the day came and hit me in full force and I internalized what time it was. It was the dead of night with the only light being the twinkling of the stars above, no moon to light the way. I didn't know where we were exactly but...

Chapter 26 - Profession Acquired

"Fuck! God damnit, stupid son of a bitch!" I couldn't hold it in anymore, this was the most frustrating thing I had ever done.

I thought about reading through the book again but it wouldn't do any good, I had already been through it multiple times by now, and reading it again wouldn't help.

I had been trying to get the profession for two days and it seemed like it was an exercise in futility. The only thing motivating me by this point was trying to beat Vinny. Vinny, or Vincent, w...

Chapter 25 - To Wait, or Not To Wait

I was bummed that I didn't level after the wave but it made sense, I leveled not too long ago, and asking for another so soon was greedy. I'm still keeping a pace of more than a level a wave, so it wasn't like I was falling behind.

In 6 waves, I leveled 8 times. 7 if you exclude level 1 since that was given to me. Worse than the scout that visited but still better than some of my family. The lowest level among us was Diana at level 5. She hasn't been doing much and none of us feel right...

Chapter 24- Day 16

Foxes. It just had to be foxes.

The wave this morning happened the same as all the rest had and I found myself being serenaded in the cacophony of ungodly yips. I had never seen a fox before in real life but if these were anything to go off of, they were annoying as hell.

As the group traveled toward our walls all you could hear were the yips and yaps of over a hundred of the annoying creatures. I was already planning to kill them but I was going to try ever so harder now. It was ...

Chapter 23 - Decisions, Decisions

I reached level 8 not long after the first kill and Austin soon followed. For my new skill, I picked Penetrating Strike(Common).

Penetrating Strike(Common) – Enhances the next strike with mana, increasing the ability to penetrate thick hide and armor.

I needed something that could get through armor and this skill was perfect. I didn't know the exact difference between this one and Piercing Strike but I figured either...

Chapter 22 - Uncommon

I woke with a start. I shot up out of bed and surveyed my surroundings. Wait, bed? The last thing I remembered was cutting the boar's leg off, how did I end up in my bed?

My armor was gone and all I was wearing were my underclothes that had seen better days. They were sweat-stained and dirty, with holes and tears all over them. I bought a second pair of clothes so I could alternate days while washing them but wear and tear had its way with these.

I didn't want to spe...

Chapter 21 - Idiots

"We have a visitor?" I asked.

What did he mean that we had a visitor? There shouldn't be anyone around for miles and even then they would have to trek through a forest filled with monsters to get here. The only thing that I could think of would be if someone from a pylon nearby sent a scout or something to contact us. The only question then would be why.

"Yes, he showed up not that long ago and he was brought to the cabin so he and Granddad could speak in private. Abigail is in th...

Chapter 20 - What You're Made Of

"We have a visitor?" I asked.

What did he mean that we had a visitor? There shouldn't be anyone around for miles and even then they would have to trek through a forest filled with monsters to get here. The only thing that I could think of would be if someone from a pylon nearby sent a scout or something to contact us. The only question then would be why.

"Yes, he showed up not that long ago and he was brought to the cabin so he and Granddad could speak in private. Abigail is in th...

Chapter 19 - Unexpected

While we were all gushing about all the new and shiny additions to the store that we could now buy we had yet to notice the price tags that came along with said new things. We were all picking through different pages seeing what was new and checking the price came only later.

"What the HELL!" I heard someone say.

We all looked around to find the reason for alarm but found nothing.

"What's with the shouting, there's nothing around." Granddad said.

"Look how expensive ev...

Chapter 18 - Pylon Upgrade

Totaling the points showed that from this wave alone I earned 642 points. That was more than the total amount of points I had earned in the tutorial so far. It effectively doubled the amount of points I earned and all it took was an hour of fighting.

The whole group made an astounding amount, over 10,000 combined. The distribution wasn't as even and spread out as it usually was during a wave and I made more than double the amount than some people. The people who hid behind the wall and ...

Chapter 17 - Superior Defenses

Waking up, I pulled up the training notification to check the results from yesterday.

Increase from training.

Strength 25->26

Endurance 18->19

Vitality 18->19

Wisdom 9->10

Intelligence 8->9

It was less impressive than yesterday but it was still a huge increase compared to before. I even got my first increase in intelligence...

Chapter 16 - Gains

After the novelty of the new guard tower wore off, all of us continued with the rest of the day. There were endless things to do and not enough time in the day to do them.

The most labor-intensive task was that we had to dig a moat around the wall and fill it with spikes. Is it still called a moat if it doesn't have water? If it's not a moat then it was a ditch around the wall. Or would trench be better?

Ah, it didn't matter. We were digging. I took every ch...

Chapter 15 - Hope

It was difficult to weave my way through the camp without advertising the fact I had just come back from battle, but most people were more concerned with the fact breakfast was ready than they were with scrutinizing me and Austin.

We made it to Abigail's tent without notice and found that she wasn't there. I should have expected that given she would be coordinating the different tasks the family was going to be assigned today.

They usually took a break to eat breakfast so I didn't...

Chapter 14 - Training

I woke up so early in the morning to start my training for the day that it felt like I just fell asleep and only got an hour of rest. It was so early that the birds had just begun their birdcalls and the sun was barely in the air. If my phone still worked it would show it being near the ass crack of dawn.

No one else in the camp was up yet and the lack of sound was disturbing. I was never the first one up so there was usually the sound of conversations or the clinking of pots and pans f...

Chapter 13 - Mourning

It didn't feel real. I had just talked to him last night and now he was dead. His body just lay there, unmoving like a marble statue staring into the distance. The sound of Scott sobbing while holding on to his son's body was the only noise as everyone sat in silence. Diana's cries soon joined in creating a sad melody of a lost child. It was heart-wrenching to watch as the two parents grieved for their son. Derek was their only child and now they had none.

When so many of the family had...

Chapter 12 - To Whom The Bell

Dinner was just as good as the previous day's and went by quickly. We used the hours until sundown to make sure that everything was ready for the wave the coming morning. There would still be a few hours between sunrise and noon that we could use to finalize everything in the morning but it didn't hurt to be thorough.

We had more spikes than last time and added traps up the hill, we also made more javelins for if we needed them, all the while keeping up with the daily training. We usual...

Chapter 11 - Glow Better

Taking care of all the kids didn't turn out to be that bad. All of them were well-behaved and there weren't any that were really young, so no babies or toddlers. The youngest one out of the six kids was Lily's younger brother who was 5 and my nephew Josh was only a little older at 6.

Anna turned out to be the most troublesome and wouldn't stop bugging me all day. I was in charge of watching them so I had to keep them in sight, it also kept me in sight of them. I had been practicing my m...

Chapter 10 - Mending

It was a long day. The constant pain didn't help matters. After the wave finished, around one in the afternoon, the healers were in a state of constant activity. All four of them had experience in the medical field and when their mana ran out, they turned to more mundane treatments for injuries. They sewed up wounds, set broken bones, applied tourniquets where required, and elevated limbs to reduce swelling. The collective experience of all of them was not small.

Most had easy enough in...

Chapter 9 - Third Wave

The wave started the same as the others had, with a wave of beasts coming from one direction. By this point, we had discussed what we were to do and everyone had their assigned roles. I was part of the group that was in charge of moving the spikes into place and anchoring them into the ground to make sure they wouldn't move. Everything was already planned out ahead of time and every direction had markers for where they were to be placed.

We even practiced doing it during training a few ...

Chapter 8 - Preparations

I woke to the glow of the rising sun, birds chirping and the wind making branches sway. Day 5. I could hear others already awake walking around and the clinking of pots and pans. Sitting up I took a minute to take in the view. The sun was already in the sky so I didn't get to see the sunrise, but it was still beautiful nonetheless. Facing the sun in the east with the mountains to the north and the forest to the south made it seem like it was a scene from a movie. Wait, does the s...