Noel woke up, limbs tangled in the sheets from the trashing and clothes soaked through with sweat. She sat there in the dark, panting by herself.

She’d had the same dream again.

Cain had warned her, hadn’t he?

And she had still let the bloody bastard stab her in the stomach.

To be fair, he had been about two steps away one second, then plunging the sword into her stomach the next. It was like she had blacked out for a moment.

****Hidden Quest Complete - Berserker****

Take a near mortal wound on the battlefield.

Reward: Skill Berserker’s Trance upgraded to Berserker Soul

If it hadn’t been for the hidden class Quest, she’d probably be dead.

The thought chilled her to the bone, giving her nightmares for two weeks after it had happened.

The new Dao had set about moving her manna in a way that it’d never moved before. It’d cost her nearly all of her manna, and left her feeling physically weak as well, but her wound had healed.

Afterwards, however, it’d been as if she’d been trapped in her own mind, watching helplessly as an enraged beast took over her body, swinging ineffectually at the man who had stabbed her in the stomach.

It didn’t matter that Cain had yet again pulled some kind of miracle out of his ass.

She could have died. Even worse, she’d been a liability.

Noel shook her head and grabbed The Axe of Enyo propped against her bed, walking outside of her cabin.

The night sky was beautiful. Before the rifts had opened and all electrical devices had gone dead, she hadn’t known that there were so many bright stars, all packed so closely to each other it looked like a river.

Taking a deep breath, she walked over to the training grounds.

She wasn’t like Cain. She could only swing harder and faster, and to do that, she’d need to train her Body.

Cain had said it was the easiest to train out of all three stats.

'The Body is like a container for manna, which can be utilized by the Mind.

Essence is what produces the manna, and is contained in the soul, or The Soul.' He'd summarized, after weeks of lecturing her and the rest of the Tribe.

She brought up her status and checked it.

[Status: Noel Velaquez]

Class: None

Level: 16

Body: F (69%)

Mind: F (53%)

Soul: F (57%)

Active Skill: Unerring Aim

Passive Skill: Berserker Soul

Traits: Eagle Eyes

[Berserker Soul]

You have had to learn when to fight and when to run the hard way. No more.

Ignite a Berserker’s rage and consume your own manna and vitality.

You will not fall but to the most dire of wounds, and recover a minimum of your vitality when the fight is done.

Unsurprisingly, her Body was the strongest trait.

Sometimes, she had a hard time believing how much stronger she was now than she'd been six months ago.

She figured she could bench around  1000 lbs, easy. 

If an F grade Body was about the average adult human male's strength, the D grade Body was about the upper limits of human capability. A C grade Body, however, began to outstrip what a physical body should be capable of.

What had Cain said?

'An F grade Body is barely capable of using manna. A D grade Body uses manna to bring out all of its potential. At C grade, the manna begins to infuse itself into the very fibers of the physical Body and even improve its potential.'

Right. Different races had different specialties, even with the same grade, it seemed.

Even if a human, an orc, and a hobgoblin all had a C grade Body, their strengths would lie in different aspects of the Body. An orc would be the strongest, hobgoblin the fastest, and a human... would be variable. Someone like Ralph, for example, would probably be a lot stronger than her if their Body stats were the same. What could she do then?

Gods knew her ability to sense manna and essence was shit. Oh, she could feel something roiling around in her body whenever she activated her Skill, but she was very far from sensing it clearly, much less guiding its movements the way she wanted.

She gritted her teeth and activated Unerring Aim. Her axe swings were fast and strong, but wildly inaccurate. She'd noticed that while Unerring Aim skill failed to make her even halfway decent at archery, it still allowed her to better control of her wild swings.

The heavy axe swung through the air, over and over, getting faster and faster.

Burying her thoughts and feelings deep inside like a homeless schizophrenic person had once told her, Noel fell into a trance as she swung the axe over and over again. She did not notice even when her hands were raw and bleeding, or when her Axe began to let out a strange keening sound. 

-------

Ralph got to work early in the morning. He had had to, in the last two weeks, in order to build new houses for all the people that had come back with Cain and Noel from the battle.

Prisoners of war, Noel had said, only half joking.

She'd then recounted the battle to him in sobering words.

Mustafa’s sudden betrayal, and her near death. Cain’s immediate reaction, and the being which had taken over Mustafa.

When Noel and Harundal had awoken, Juan was already gone and nowhere to be found. He had likely awoken just a fraction earlier, and fled the battlefield as the others had begun to come to. 

The others had woken up slowly, one by one. Alexander and his Squires had retreated almost immediately, carrying the still unconscious Mikhail, with only a short word of thanks and a promise to visit the Tribe later.

Then the men and women of the Pit and The Den had awoken, some of whom tried to fight the second they were awake. The presence of Noel and Harundal shut them down immediately.

At this point, Cain had still been flickering in and out of consciousness, and offered them two options. Exile from the city, or… to join the Tribe.

Noel had recoiled at the idea, but Harundal had simply nodded. The word of a Warbringer was law in orcish culture or something, probably. 

Either way, what mattered to Ralph now was that he had nearly a hundred additional people to house and feed.

With Mustafa slain and  Juan missing, The Den and The Pit had lost their Village Designation. Its people had lost their classes and suffered losses to their stats as well. Toothless dogs, really, but dogs that they still had to feed. 

Some of the Hunters had passed away during the battle, and many of them had sported near fatal injuries.

Still, most had recovered quickly as all Awakened humans did and were now running themselves to the ground, trekking further and further out in order to hunt more and more dangerous prey...

Ralph shook his head. 

“Let’s get to it!” He shouted. He could only do what he was good at.

Ralph heaved as he lifted up two logs, one under each arm, carrying them to the site of the construction he was supervising at the moment. As he began sweating under the morning sun, Ralph's thoughts turned towards the two other Chosens members of the Tribe. 

He couldn’t fight on the battlefield like them. Just the thought of his daughter growing up without him in this new world was enough to make his heart clench in pain. He shivered. He couldn’t, wouldn't, take that chance.

More often than not, he regretted having to leave so much up to the young man and woman who risked their lives on the battlefield. 

He’d have to contribute with the things that he could do. Each Hunter squad leader now sported the same tattoo that Harundal had on his right forearm: the mark of the warrior. Harundal had said that the mark had helped in the beginning of the battle.

He wanted to do more than that though. He had been meditating and training his Body in the mornings like Cain had taught them all, but there had to be another way, right? 

He paused briefly in his work, stretching his back as he took a long swig from his water pouch. Wiping his mouth and letting out a satisfied sigh, he brought up his status to examine his progress. 

[Status: Ralph Tupuola]

Class: Crafter

Level: 6

Body: F (63%)

Mind: F (57%)

Soul: F (61%)

Active Skill: Strength Spurt

Passive Skill: Will of the Sea

Traits: Endurance

His stats hadn't changed much, but he'd been noticing something pulse in his heart when he worked on his craft.

Whether it was building houses, carving statues, or tattooing the tribe members, sometimes he fell into a trance-like state of concentration, time seeming to flow right by him. Something in his heart pulsed, sending waves of strangely familiar energy through his body that ebbed and flowed like the waves of the ocean.

Most of his statues were still 'failures' but the houses he had recently built looked distinctly more pleasing to the eye. The smooth and simple aesthetic was beautiful because it was functional.

'What does it mean to be a Crafter?' Ralph pondered, as he heaved and lifted up a piece of polished wooden beam into the slot that the others had dug into the ground. 

---

Harundal dodged as a paw the size of his arm swiped through the air just above his head. The claws attached to the paw were the length of a small dagger, and cut through wisps of his silver hair as they swished through the air.

Roaring in challenge, Harundal charged towards the gigantic cat-beast and slammed it against a tree, which creaked dangerously in response.

The cat’s eyes nearly popped out as it choked in surprise, and he heard the crack of bone as he quickly embraced the beast in his arms, crushing its spine to dust.

He didn’t even notice that the cat’s dying clawing had cut open numerous lacerations across his back until a portion of the cat’s essence began flowing into him, healing the wound.

It was only a miniscule amount, about half being used up to simply heal the scratches. This cat beast was not strong enough to give him a drink of power like he truly desired.

The reptilian human he was hunting for would give him a true challenge like the one he craved, but…

He had been searching the vicinity of the battle and The Pit for two weeks to no avail. This ‘Juan’ had fled like a coward, it seemed, and perhaps had even left the city.

Perhaps it was time to give up the hunt and wait…

----

Cain gradually came to and was greeted by the sight of the roof of his tent.

‘Oh.' He thought.

'I’m home.’

He tried to move, and found that he could barely support himself in a sitting position.

He could sense that his Body, Mind, and Soul had been heavily damaged by his sacrifice of most of his blood essence, and trying to control the simply gargantuan amount of blood manna, it seemed.

It would take weeks of recuperating for him to restore his health.

No one was in the tent with him, not even Wutang, but there was a pouch of water next to his bedding, and Cain managed to reach out and uncork it, drinking greedily.

The movement exhausted him, and his arms trembled as he held the pouch up to his face.

Immediate thirst quenched, Cain relaxed, letting tension drain out of his body. 

‘What happened, exactly?’ He thought as he struggled to remember the last moments of the battlefield. 

His thoughts immediately sobered when he did. 

Mustafa… had been the first man he had killed. It needed to be done, no doubt. It wasn't like he hadn't been killing other living things for the last few months, either.

But remembering the look in Mustafa’s eyes when he’d… beheaded him, was... tough.

Mustafa had still been in there, when Cain had swung the blade. 

It wouldn’t be the last time he’d have to kill, Cain noted somberly.

Not only for his ‘people’, but also for himself.

Cain wasn't a saint, he knew that much about himself. He remembered his father, who in his own strange and goofy way, had been one of the most selfish people Cain had known. That's what it meant to live in unbridled freedom in a way, right? 

Ah.

He also remembered that before he passed out, he’d absorbed and condensed in his body the remnants of the blood manna from close to a thousand goblins and a hundred humans into his body. He’d had nearly no blood essence at the time, but he’d still felt something solidify next to his heart…

He turned his attention inwards and felt an unusual mass about the size of a quarter somewhere in the center of his chest.

***Congratulations!****

Congratulations! You are one of the first few humans to form a Core!

Excessive manna without essence or Body to contain and maintain it is harmful. You, however, have demonstrated exceptional affinity to the manna of blood and have condensed it into a Blood Core, a physical manifestation of blood manna and essence.

Some say Cores are inferior versions of Crystals, which hold pure and naturally occuring essence, but Cores are unique in that they have the potential to grow along with their hosts. 

Fatigued to the bones but intrigued, Cain tried to activate his Dao of True Sight to examine the Core, but winced at the wave of pain that came crashing into his skull like a tsunami, and bit back a swear word. 

He wouldn't even be able to look at his status, as using the System placed a slight strain on the Soul. Even the notification about the Core had sent dangerous ripples throughout his soul. 

Recuperate. Right. He’d have to heal first.

The sounds of activity carried through the flaps of his tent, and it made him smile tentatively.

That was why he’d… killed Mustafa, right? He would never kill eagerly,  nor would he be overly hesitant about it when he needed to. But the innocent people of his Tribe, who looked to him for... safety? assurance? 

He had to be strong for them, as well as himself. 

Cain sighed and relaxed back into his bed sheet when the flap to his tent opened.

A face poked in, and its eyes widened fractionally when it saw that Cain was staring back. It was Noel, with Wutang sitting upon her shoulder and chittering excitedly.

“Cain! You’re awake!”

The monkey jumped down from Noel's shoulder and began clambering all over Cain's body, despite Noel's protests. 

"Yeah." Cain said, chuckling weakly. He must've been out of it for a while, judging by their excitement and his weakness.

"I'm back."