It’s become second nature now to exist any Dungeons ready for a fight, but there wasn’t anything waiting for me thankfully. Holding the small sphere carefully in my hand I travelled back home.

  I could see people coming and going as I approached.

  Not a whole lot, we didn’t suddenly transform into a market or anything like that, but definitely more than what was typical just a couple weeks ago, hell even a couple days ago. People were either coming for help with certain things or coming back with scouting reports.

  I knew of the plan but it’s still a little weird to see it happen.

  Anyway, I made my way back home, greeting folks as I did so and sought out my father who was thankfully home at the moment. I was only gone for an hour or two, but things are happening quickly around these days.

  Especially since we are all doing everything that we could to get stronger in the short term.

  “Huh, it looks a like a marble. We used to play with those back in the day you know.”

  My dad commented that as she stared at the sphere in his hands. He knew to be careful with it. Especially since I didn’t want to find out what happened if the person who didn’t earn the Great Act were to crush the sphere instead.

  Perhaps nothing, since if I earned it maybe I could do whatever I wanted with it, but there is also a chance if someone else did it, they would be denied service or worse killed.

  That was considering how serious Acolyte Aranda got when I barely hinted at not getting my due for the Great Act. It could of all been an act of course, but it really didn’t feel that way in the moment. He was genuinely pissed off, and maybe if I pushed too hard, I wouldn’t be standing here today.

  I won’t forget my unconscious reaction to his pressure. Not for a while.

  Thinking about it now…I couldn’t help but chuckle as the situation reminded me of that trend on social media a while back where people were visiting places and asking ‘who’s releasing their pressure in Shibuya’ or something stupid like that.

  “What are you laughing about?”

  “Nothing, something stupid.”

  “Nothing or something which one is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  Dad mumbled something akin to ‘kids these days’ under his breath as he continued inspecting the sphere a while longer. Only giving it back to me after he looked over it thoroughly.

  “Well it looks fine to me, and there’s no sense it waiting. Who knows how long it will take to get back to a point where everything is guaranteed safe and sound. Shoot it wasn’t even like that before all of this happened.

  “I say go for it. A stronger you is a stronger us.”

  “And mom?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “She’s not here right now. Went with the old man to go provide some medical attention and food to some kids or something like that. Don’t worry I’ll let them know you’re alright.”

  That was good enough for me.

  He then looked at me expectantly. There wasn’t really a wide grin or stars shining in his eyes or anything like that, but I knew him.

  The man was excited.

  We talked about it a bit already. Exactly what crushing the sphere would do. The obvious answer was that it was transport me somewhere, likely back into the Dungeon where my training would begin.

  Or maybe it would put me to sleep and I would have to endure some type of mental training that would display it effects in some sort of painful ritual after I woke up.

  It was clear we let our thoughts run about it, but who could blame us? We both…well more so him than I, grew up in a place that held my Grandpa and his father in it. As serious as he liked to act, Grandpa was a damn nerd and it obviously corrupted all of us.

  Now dad did express the type of worry a father should regarding crushing this sphere, but the decision was made so to keep worrying about it would just make it worse. A little excitement wouldn’t hurt.

  Especially when the alternative is to think about the more dire things surrounding this family at the moment.

  Anyway…I looked at him, smiled with a bit of excitement of my own, then crushed the sphere.

  At the first nothing happened and our smiles began to turn into the confusion, then my vision swam, faded to black, a mass of colors then entered and flashed all around me before fading to black one more.

  I felt the feeling of gasping of air unconsciously leave my throat and when my vision cleared I found myself with my hands and knees shakingly planted on a dark rocky ground.

  What the fuck was that?

  I coughed dryly as I looked up to take in my surroundings and found that I was in forest of sorts. A dark one, slightly wet, and fairly dense. There was moonlight shining down from the night sky somewhere up above, but that was only an assumption as I didn’t see a moon above me.

  Of course, that didn’t mean it was bright, the area around me was still dark, but there was just enough light for me to observe the trees and plants…they looked…different.

  More curls than straight lines, more colors instead of a rich green, shapes that appeared natural yet twisted.

  I was nowhere near being a botanist, and I barely paid attention in any classes that would’ve been relevant at the moment, not that there were many…but the point is, I don’t think this was any forest on Earth.

  At least not any that I was familiar with.

  The realization of that thought sinks in deeper than I realized it would.

  Off Earth? Just like that? No. That didn’t make any sense. Perhaps this was a secret area of the Dungeon?

  Standing to my feet, I let the thoughts about where I was and the feasibility of something like that being true swirl in my mind for a moment longer before pushing it all aside.

  The hell am I doing? Woke up in a strange forest and instead of checking for enemies I was thinking about things that wouldn’t help me immediately.

  Focus Freddy.

  I quickly knelt down and grabbed my spear which was laying to the side next to me, before taking a proper look around me this time. I was in some sort of clearing. A small circle with me as the center where no trees or bushes grew.

  “Slow.”

  My head snapped to the voice coming from the left where I found a man, one similar in appearance to Acolyte Aranda but he had dark…blue hair kept in a bun.

  Blue hair. I knew instinctively it wasn’t dyed or anything like that.

  Definitely not Earth then.

  Meeting my gaze the man continued.

  “It took you far too long to get your wits about you and to properly assess your situation. This could easily have been a trap and killing you would have been easier taking a rock from a newborn Gorva.”

  I did my best not to think about what the hell a Gorva was, but I understood his point. He was right. I didn’t respond though, instead deciding to watch his movements and keeping my spear at the ready.

  “Better, but unfortunately I am not here to teach you how to fight. Consider my prior words just me pointing out something I noticed.

  “Instead you are here for Integration Training. Which is a fancy way of saying I will be teaching you nothing at all, and you will be forced to fight till you want to rip your own limbs out from exhaustion, reattach them, then do it all over again.

  “Until all of your Traits are integrated properly.”