As the number of dungeons increased, so too did the speed and amount of resources that were being gathered every day. It was a good thing that Angie and Lindsay were now involved; otherwise, Nate and Aura would have been long since overwhelmed.

  Each new dungeon and its associated Core were increasingly expensive. However, for the moment, they were at a sort of parity. Though it was somewhat funny to watch the numbers bounce down, and then immediately begin to climb back up again as the dungeons continued to funnel part of their earnings into the shared fund.

  At the moment, Nate was picking through the skill section of a bookstore, while Angie did her business at the Merchant Guild. Lindsay had dropped her off and then gone to sell some of the beasts they had in storage. They had already sold some at the facility outside the city walls before entering, but there was only so much they could offload from their ‘storage bracelets’ without appearing suspicious.

  He still hadn’t taken the time to learn the two skills he had bought in Richmond. The analysis skill would be useful due to it being a domain version. However, that also meant that it was dozens of times more complicated and longer than the skills he had gotten from the school.

  The crossbow attack skill was one that he had been planning on learning since he first got it. Then things had happened to push it from his mind. It was an oversight that he would need to correct as soon as possible.

  This particular bookstore was larger than the one in Richmond. However, the variety of skills he was finding was less impressive than the ones they had been shown there in one regard. Everything on display was fairly basic in nature, perfect for the cultivator to upgrade on their own. On the other hand, their stock of advanced or already modified skills was rather pitiful.

  Many of them were perfect for the school back home. Depending on how many he could buy, it could increase their total number of skills by nearly half, possibly more.

  Before he could go too deep into his search for new skills for the city, he headed to the front desk.

  This would have been better left to Angie, but she wasn’t there at the moment. While he could have waited, as there was no pressing timeline, he at least wanted to try his hand at negotiating with the seller.

  Of course, the actual number he could buy at the moment entirely depended on the cost. Skills weren’t cheap, and while he had money, they had also spent a lot of what they had in Philadelphia. The number of beasts they had sold outside the walls hadn’t even been enough to recover a portion of that, due to how careful they needed to act with their ‘storage bracelets’.

  Most of their money would be coming from the herbs Angie would be selling after she finished dealing with the Merchant Guild.

  Still, they had other expenses that needed to be considered as well. So, not all the profit she made could be funneled toward the purchase of skills.

  “I’m interested in placing a large order for my old school back home,” Nate told the woman at the counter. “What sort of deals do you have available for when selling them in bulk?”

  That might not have been the best question he could have asked, or simply being so up front about it either. Really, it probably would have been better to just leave this to Angie. As long as he didn’t make any deals now though, the damage should be minimal.

  “How many skills are you thinking about buying and from which categories?” The woman asked, already typing away at her computer.

  “That depends on how good of a deal you can give me,” He told her with a smirk. “As for the categories…” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I think about sixty to sixty-five percent should be support skills. The remaining amount would obviously be weapon skills, preferably with a focus on weapons the school didn’t already have or had fewer options for.”

  He thought he could still remember most of what the school had, maybe not exactly, but well enough that they shouldn’t end up with too many duplicates. Angie and Lindsay would be able to help remove any doubles as well.

  The woman behind the counter nodded. “Can you give me an example of which weapons you are interested in?” She twisted the computer monitor so he could see the options on the screen.

  “There is actually an attack skill for the arbalest?” He exclaimed in surprise. “Definitely that one. The guards on the wall need that… Assuming they don’t already have it.” He supposed it might be one that just the guards in the city were given access to.

  There were weapons he had never seen anywhere else before, including several attack skills for the sling, which Angie used. He marked those as well, including a few for a regular slingshot.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The breadth of the weapons he was seeing was beyond what he had expected.

  Nate tapped the counter while he thought, before taking a step back with a shake of his head. Just seeing the number of weapons they had available was making him hesitate; that didn’t even include the possible amount of skills available for each. He hadn’t even gotten to the support skills, and he was feeling incredibly out of his depth.

  “There are too many options, far more than I realized when I was looking at your shelves,” He admitted. “I can’t make up my mind. One of my partners is at the Merchant Guild right now, setting up a new supply line for her family and our city back home. Would you be willing to speak with her?”

  “For something like that, I would need to bring in the owner of the store,” She told him, reaching under the counter for a business card. She wrote a time on it and slid it across the counter to him. “She should be in later today between these times. However, if not, she can be reached at that number after eight o’clock tonight.”

  He nodded and accepted the card. “I appreciate it. I’ll bring them back here then, and hopefully we can put something together.”

  They talked a little more, and then he left with Aura by his side. That hadn’t gone quite according to plan, but this was probably better anyway.

  Outside the store, he pulled out his phone and quickly sent off a message to each of the girls before calling his parents. You could only get proper cellphone signal inside the cities, or within a mile or two of the walls that surrounded them. Everywhere else, you were left using the radios and repeater antennas, which also had their limits and depended heavily on the antennas of other hunters.

  “Where are you at now?” His mother asked when she answered the phone. “Have you reached New York City yet?”

  Nate leaned against the side of the building and reached down to scratch Aura. “We actually decided to skip New York. We’re on our way back home now, through a different route than the one we came out on though. So, I have no idea how long it will take to get back.”

  Nina was silent for a moment. “What happened? Why did the three of you decide not to finish pursuing him?”

  “There was no point,” He replied. “The idiot didn’t change when he got out here and was arrested. He’s due to have his core destroyed soon. Nothing we could do to him would be worse than that.”

  They continued to talk, and he learned that his parents had gone to the community and retrieved the supplies.

  He was still talking to his mom when Lindsay parked the Overlander in front of him, Angie in the passenger seat.

  “I’ve got to go mom, Angie and Lindsay just arrived. We have to finish our shopping here.” The two said their goodbyes, and he hung up.

  “Hey, you’re here,” He called out, waving to the girls.

  “What’s going on?” Lindsay asked, hopping out behind Angie. “I thought you were going to look at the skill books and then head to the grocery store.”

  “I was, and then I saw how large their inventory of basic skills was. I thought we might help to outfit the school back home,” He shrugged. “I talked to the woman at the counter, and well, let’s just say that what they have on the shelves still isn’t everything.”

  Angie listened as he continued to explain his idea to her. It was an interesting proposition; she had to admit. However, there were a few things she apparently had to educate Nathan on; foremost among those was that you never used your own money on these sorts of projects. If they could get away with it, then the government wouldn’t repay a single copper. Her parents had taught her that repeatedly, hammered it into her really.

  It didn’t matter which city they belonged to or the state they were in, as they were all the same. If they believed they could get away with paying a smaller amount, or not at all, then they would. You never put your own money into a project you were doing for the government.

  If Nate had gone ahead with his original plan, she would have had to smack him. His intentions were good, but there was a difference between buying a hundred or more energy skill books and what they had done before. The supplies they had gotten before had been received cheaply for one, but it was also something that she had known her parents could handle the logistics of. The supplies were more important to the city, and she, as a merchant, was more willing to take a small hit in the wallet for something like that. Energy skills, while important, didn’t quite hold the same level of importance as the arbalests and other supplies they had sent back.

  Pulling out her phone, she sent her parents a message, and then with an almost predatory grin, stalked into the shop.

  “Is it just me, or did she look excited about what she was about to do?” Nate asked Lindsay and Aura. Mika was lounging around Lindsay’s shoulders, but was asleep.

  Aura nodded.

  Lindsay grinned. “She’s enjoying being able to put what her parents have been training her for into action. This is something that they started preparing her for when we were like ten. I remember that she resented it at the time, because it took away from the time we could play together. Then, that gradually began to change.”

  “How so?”

  She tilted her head and looked inside the store at her friend. “Someone we knew lost their parents. They were traveling between cities, and their group just disappeared. I believe it was beasts, but it could have been bandits, it’s been years now. Anyway, she, well, both of us, began to look at spending time with our families differently. She still didn’t enjoy it, but she started to try more. By the time we were thirteen, she had actually started to become interested in her parents' business.”

  “And now that she has free rein to put everything that she was taught all that time,” Aura began. “She is discovering the parts that she truly enjoys, versus just believing she might.”

  Lindsay nodded. “From what she has told me so far, she doesn’t seem to enjoy the administrator side too much. However, the negotiating, haggling, and making deals is what she tends to really enjoy.”

  “Huh,” He leaned against the glass and glanced at Lindsay. “You know, we’ve been friends for almost a year now, and there is still a lot I don’t know about you two. Take this, for instance. I knew her parents had trained her to become a merchant, but I had no idea how extensive it might have been. I still don’t, I guess, but I never stopped to consider whether it was something she wanted to do, or if she even enjoyed it.” He clicked his tongue. “How about you? Your parents did the same thing with you, right? Do you enjoy it? Is it something you want to do?”

  Lindsay looked like she wanted to say something specific before shaking her head and answering his question instead.

  Thank you to all the people who have taken the time to rate the story and to my latest Patrons! I have other stories up on my Patreon, including my current WIPs. Which are now Created G.H.O.S.T. System(My Cyberpunk story), WetWorks2, plus The Restaurateur and His Daughter and DungeonFall. :)

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