Limitless Path

Beth blinked awake the next morning, sitting up and grabbing her phone basically in one smooth motion. She checked the time quick and scanned to see if she had any important updates before hopping out of bed, waking the snoring Blood in the process. She set about getting ready for the day ahead before leading the wolf out and downstairs.

They went through the usual breakfast routine like most of the previous mornings, with Beth retrieving Sabs from outside before they cooked and ate. Once they were finished with the food, they made to get ready and get going like any other day.

This morning was a little different from the others, however, as Zack showed up at the house before the girls left, with Rachel asking the girls to stay a moment before they headed out for the day. It turned out Zack had noticed some changes in the surrounding monsters, and they wanted the girls both to know as well as provide any input they had on the situation. Beth was rather pleased with this, as it felt like people were actually taking her and her knowledge seriously.

It was pretty quickly determined, mainly through input from Beth, that what was occurring was a result of the ambient mana continuing to increase. This was leading to the dungeons continuing to grow, which was mainly being displayed currently as them producing more and higher leveled beasts. The higher leveled beasts stayed closer to the dungeon, while the lower leveled beasts roamed further afield and this, combined with the increased production, meant more beasts trying to enter the neighborhood. It was not yet a drastic problem, thanks in large part to the fighting force that Zack was training, but it could become a larger issue as the mana density in the area continued to grow.

This reinforced the girls' plan to continue to stay mostly in the neighborhood, even though the cheapest of rooms at the CRA Hall provided a much better environment than their houses. They would continue to work on clearing out the dungeons while a few other members of the neighborhood were still training to try to catch up in level. The girls decided to do another sweep of both dungeons this morning, also killing a handful of the outside enemies surrounding the dungeons in the process.

They made their way to the ant dungeon first, only very slightly surprised to find the boss at level ten. The rest of the girls had hit eight in clearing out the dungeon, however, so they still needed very little assistance from Beth and Blood to clear the last room. They spent about fifteen minutes after they had killed the boss running around the area, killing several level four ants. They then moved on from the area, heading to the wolf dungeon.

They cleared the dungeon here a little slower, but they took time to clear more rooms than just the central one. Seeing as these types of low-level dungeons seemed to work by populating the dungeon rooms first before releasing beasts into the area outside, it seemed they would be clearing the wolf dungeon more thoroughly for a while. The girls didn't hit level nine from the clear, showing how a larger group split experience out, as well as the fact that there were two highly over-leveled fighters in the group. It wouldn't be long, in any case, before they did hit nine, the dungeons having enough level eight and up beasts to provide quite a decent bit of experience per clear.

They headed over to the CRA Hall again today, able to get there quite quickly thanks to their strategy of dumping the slowest member, Soph, on the back of the fastest member, Blood. Tazeen was behind the counter today and was, surprisingly, engaged in some kind of argument with a young man. The youth looked like he was either sixteen or seventeen, with a healthy complexion, decently well-built body, plain but even face, and brown hair and eyes.

The group continued into the depths of the Hall, listening with one ear as they passed the argument. It seemed to be centered on the young man getting access to train in the Hall but not having the two golds, and the girls' ability to walk in unhindered set off a whole new level of vociferous noise. At least, it quite excited the youth; Tazeen remained as unfazed as cut marble, his statue impression having already been perfected.

The girls quickly found their mentors in the lounge, as was becoming routine, and split to their currently individual training. Beth followed Baelvyr down to their usual room, with Blood trailing after. He had her set aside her sword today, and instead focus on her fists. He continued the rigorous drilling in footwork, that being the key foundation of all fighting techniques. It seemed small, but how to step, how to move, how to properly throw a punch was so important in creating a solid foundation for a person's fighting capability and style.

It was still truly nascent, but Beth's choice of weapon and experiences in combat so far were already leading her towards developing her own fighting style. That was no reason to shirk the basics, a lesson Baelvyr was drilling into her head, particularly by having low skill training dummies beat her using only simple techniques. It wasn't something that discouraged her, however, but gave her a huge boost. So many fights she had already participated in would have been so much easier or safer if her foundation had been more firmly established in the fighting arts.

Beth worked through a rather intense session for the entire day, only stopping to eat the nutrient bars and have quite a few drinks, as well as run to a restroom just down the hallway. Baelvyr was particular in emphasizing proper punching technique this day, going over all the details in how best to rotate and flex one's body in order to deliver the most power. Having had some training at a boxing gym over the last close to two years, Beth was not unfamiliar with these methodologies, but the way Baelvyr explained them was both more detailed as well as easier for her to understand.

Practicing moving around and punching, as well as getting tossed around by one of the training simulacrums, took up the entire day for her. The depth that could be found in terms of differences in positioning as well as punching technique were endlessly fascinating. She had likely been close to grasping it, but near the end of the day, as she spent some time getting beat by the dummy, she gained another level in her Unarmed skill, making her quite happy.

She met up with the rest of the girls after training was over for the day, everyone else being dead tired, even Soph. Beth was content to let them sit for a while and rest, not very concerned about taking some extra time before returning home. They very intermittently discussed the day’s training, too tired to really keep up a running conversation. Beth and Blood were much better off than the others with their massive END pools, as well as Blood having spent most of the day watching.

The five eventually headed back for the day, finding Tazeen now presiding over an empty lobby in his usual stoic manner. They made rather good time on the way back to the Bell house, managing to avoid any roaming beasts, including boars. Sabs split off from them here, making her way a little further around the neighborhood to her house as the Bells trudged inside.

Beth and Blood made their way up to her room, where Beth took a quick shower and got ready to go to bed. She decided to spend a minute browsing on her phone before going to sleep. While her phone was still fine and would remain so for quite some time thanks to Jaq's quick mod the other day, it was pretty clear there was a lot of breakdown happening of the internet infrastructure.

What was good news, though, was that there were already quite popular posts on popular news sites and forums discussing the need to harden electronics against mana. There was a lot of outcry about this, mainly related to costs, but as people were pointing out, there were more important problems. There was also the fact that new resources, new technologies, new techniques, and the introduction of mana would present whole new opportunities.

Not particularly worried about the rest of the internet infrastructure at this point, Beth put her phone down and rolled over. She could hear Blood already snoring in the middle of the room, but even that rumbling noise wasn't enough to prevent her from dropping off to sleep in under five seconds.

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Beth woke before her alarm by a decent margin the next morning. Checking her phone, she saw it was a quarter after six in the morning on Tuesday. After sitting up and stretching for a second, she hopped up with a sigh and started getting ready for the day. After taking care of the necessities in the bathroom and throwing on clothes, she made her way downstairs along with Blood. The two of them found Wiggles sitting on one of the stools at the island, as if waiting for the rest of the household to show up.

Beth went about getting water for Blood and Wiggles, as well as food for the now rather large cat, before starting the rest of the breakfast routine. She interrupted herself after a minute to go let Sabs in the front door.

"We need to just get you a key at this point," Beth commented as she shut the door behind her girlfriend.

"I think maybe it's a little early for that?" Sabs responded with a slight chuckle, blushing a little as the taller girl then embraced her.

"Maybe, maybe not," Beth replied in a light tone. "I don’t think we can get a key copied easily right now anyway."

The two separated and headed back to the kitchen, continuing the breakfast preparation, Beth noting in the meantime that Blood had disappeared after having a good drink. The two of them continued cooking for close to twenty minutes before the other girls were up and moving, Soph basically riding Blood down the stairs, answering where the wolf had gone. They ate relatively quickly, eager to get on with their day. They did take note that they were now fully out of cereal and bread, none seemingly available to purchase right now.

Beth wasn't too worried, as they had access to both the nutrient packs as well as a full cafeteria at the CRA Hall, but she did make a note to talk with her parents about it at some point soon. If food supplies were becoming spotty, they would have to make some plans of their own, though they had already taken steps in that direction with all the boar meat Beth had acquired for the neighborhood so far.

The team moved to the mudroom, having to go through one or two at a time, as having so much equipment stacked up in the small room was not helping with the small available space. Today was yet another sweep of the dungeons, and the group started heading northward first as soon as they were all geared up and out in the back yard. It was starting to get a little bit chilly some mornings, as it could drop down to the upper fifties at the start of October, but the girls hardly noticed. A combination of high END and multiple layers meant they still usually wound up with the opposite problem after some time, and Blood's thick and luxuriant fur meant she was always quite warm.

The five moved through the woodlot and open field, killing a few lower leveled ants almost casually as they headed to the nest. Beth did note the increasing level of the beasts, as the large ants at the far side of the field were level four now, and the ant at the top of the nest ramp was level five. All the ants within the dungeon had received a boost, with most of the ants on the third floor being level eight now.

This was enough experience that the three low leveled girls hit nine when they killed the boss, a level ten princess supported by two level ten common ants, yet another bump up in the room's strength. Beth had stepped in at one point to help Kim with the boss as the other two girls made fairly short work of the two common ants, grabbing the princess easily and lifting it off the ground before slamming it back down. This stunned the boss and gave it a few more injuries, lightly cracking its thorax, buying some time for Kim to breathe.

The girls moved on from there to the wolf dungeon, not bothering with any ants or wolves today that didn't throw themselves at the group. Once in the wolf dungeon they did a quick clear, still only needing to take out three rooms, including the boss room, to get a successful completion notification. The wolf packs were of the same size in the clearings, but they were all higher leveled, mirroring fairly closely the ant dungeon, with the Great Wolf being level ten as well.

The wolf dungeon was clearly the more dangerous of the two, the high number of aggressive and agile enemies in each room making it quite challenging. Well, it would be challenging for most others to try it currently, but the girls were a combination of a high enough level and skilled enough to make short work of it, even discounting Beth and Blood's large advantages.

The group then quickly proceeded to the CRA Hall, taking a slightly more direct route through the less sparsely populated areas to arrive near the northwest corner of the building. They made their way up and into the lobby, finding the same young man here this morning as was there the previous day. Beth waved the others through to the back as she stepped to the counter to listen to the conversation.

This immediately brought the young man's attention to her, and he turned to her and said, "How come you get to go back there? This guy here says I'm not allowed! How is that fair?" He had a voice that had started to deepen and would likely hit the lower end of tenor once he was done with puberty, which he was still going through. A point made quite obvious by the squeak in his voice as he asked the second question.