One day after my last Trait was Integrated, no more monsters came out, and I woke up that morning with the Acolyte standing not far from me. Maybe I would’ve jumped or been frightened if I wasn’t so used to all manner of things jumping out at me out of nowhere since I’ve been here, but this was nothing.

  Especially not when I was expecting it at some point.

  “Your training is now complete. You will return from the same place you entered from. May Regivas be with you.”

  That was it.

  No long speech or congratulations for completing the training. Just hey your finished now and goodbye. It felt a little anticlimactic but I appreciated the directness of it all. It was time to go back home and spending a second longer just to talk about nothing wasn’t really something I was looking forward to.

  My mind was on much more important things.

  My family was aware of the fact that this would be a lengthy training since I was previously warned about that, but we had no idea just how lengthy that was going to be. Was it a few days? Perhaps a few years?

  No one knew for sure…but the fact remained that even one day missed could be detrimental to the family and Lagia as a whole. Yes Grandpa was there now and he was some kick ass super old man now, but if thousands of those lava bastards showed up he wouldn’t be able to defend the family by himself.

  During the training I did my best to keep thoughts like that from leaving the deep and dark parts of my mind since it would only be a detriment for me, but that it was over, it was all I could think about.

  Something that only got heightened when the Acolyte said I’d be returning back to where I came from which is on the family compound in what was left of Grandpas house. Would it still be there? Or would the rest of it have gotten destroyed too?

  What about my family? I lost two Uncles the last time I was gone for a long time, would it be all of them this time or perhaps my aunts and cousins too?

  Sigh

  It didn’t do me any good to have thoughts like this training or not, but that’s unfortunately how my mind worked sometimes.

  Once it latched on to something it was hard to let it go, and I was always one second away from coming up with a random scenarios to fit whatever thought crossed my mind. Sometimes it was to my benefit, and it was that sort of thinking that helped me navigate certain situations or to drive critical thinking.

  But when it happened during an important moment like fighting with my life on the line for example, that wasn’t very helpful.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Anyway…after the Acolyte left it took roughly 2 minutes exactly for my view of the forest to shift completely and I was again found myself on my hands on knees and my spear at the side.

  Not making the same mistake as last time, I grabbed my spear and sprang to my feet to assess for any potential threats.

  “Freddy where the hell did you come from?”

  The only threat here was Rakeon eating a sandwich.

  Ah.

  It’s good to be back.

  …

  It only took about an hour to get me caught up with everything that was going on.

  First of all I was gone for nearly three weeks.

  It felt much longer than that at times, but it wasn’t like there was a calendar for me to look at and keep track of the passing days, but that was still a significant amount of time to be away from the family.

  Thankfully and honestly very weirdly…nothing of serious note happened.

  The lava people had not been back to Lagia since we removed them, and the people here have not faced a single attack. It was odd…very odd, but it was something I was thankful for. Instead, we’ve been focusing on getting stronger and making sure Lagia was safe.

  The family has helped to coordinate many resource and missing person trip all over Lagia and has even took it upon themselves to help bring people through the Snakebite Dungeon, along with warning those wishing to progress through the Gauntlet about the Battle number 50.

  I made sure before I left that all of knew not to attempt until they were confident they could fight in the ocean and all of them listened. Even Grandpa, who was the closest person here with a real chance did not attempt it.

  Honestly…I didn’t think he’d be able to do it.

  He was extremely powerful now, but that didn’t necessarily mean all the power he was able to bring forth on land would translate well in the ocean with a damn leviathan on his ass. He would not be getting the same empowerment and rejuvenation that I felt in the water.

  Perhaps it would be better to attempt it with better gear or even actually breaking through to the E Grade…

  But that was it.

  No big news at all…once again a little anticlimactic but who said drama was ever a good thing?

  So obviously after learning nothing was on fire and all my family members were still alive…I immediately locked myself away into a room to focus on fusing my Traits into a gene.

  There was no reason to wait any longer and who knows if tomorrow would be the day things popped off again. So I told folks to leave me be and prepared myself for fusing. Which of course included going over the book again, and making sure I committed every single part to memory.

  I had three Traits. One would serve as the base, another the bridge and then the final one as the binder. Figuring out which should be which needs to be done now, there wouldn’t be any time for that during the process.

  The base is the core, the bridge determines how the base and the binder interacts and influences each other, and the binder locks it all into place and into existence.

  I had two Unbound Traits and one rooted, which I think means one of the Unbound ones should be the base and after looking at my Traits, that was a pretty easy decision. Heart of Currents is too important for it not to be the Base.

  Then…hmm…the Soaked Pulse Membrane will be the Bridge and Crushing Depth Frame will bind it all together. Alright locked in and I’m not changing it.

  Form there I will need to pull on all three anchor points, then bring them together in the correct order while keeping it all steady and then if successful my new Gene will form.

  Alright…easy peezy lemon squeezy, nothing to it all.

  Is what I wanted to say, but this was far too important for that, so I spent the next few hours, going over it again and again to ensure I had it all down.

  Once I felt like I reached a good point in memorizing everything so much that I could damn near teach it and my confidence in succeeding was as high as it was ever going to be, I took some time to clear my mind.

  Alright.

  Let’s begin.