There was no one waiting for them when they arrived at the bridge, not that they had really expected anyone to be there just yet.

  The Richlow Group had been walking while Nate had been on a dirtbike. It went without saying that he would have made much better time than them. He was also assuming that they hadn’t spent more than a few minutes down in the ravine before climbing back up. That might not be true, but it was what he was assuming they had done.

  While they were waiting, they hopped over the broken section of the bridge, and he brought out their Overlander.

  “Let’s reinstall the door while we’re waiting for them to arrive,” Nate said, running his finger through one of the many scratches that the large vehicle had accumulated during their journey. “Afterward, we can make sure that Rudy and whoever he had with him didn’t touch or take anything we need.”

  Angie pulled out the door while Aura leaped into the RV and began sniffing around inside.

  “The dwarves did a pretty good job,” Lindsay said while Angie pointed out everything they had done. “But as you know, they really only had hammers to work with.”

  She was right; they had done a good job, though it was somewhat rough. There were clear hammer marks and resulting micro-dents, but they had taken the original fist dent out and reshaped the door. Unfortunately, the window had cracked at some point and would need to be replaced.

  It would fit and seal in the doorway. They might need to add some extra foam in a few places to cut down on wind noise and general leakage. However, that was something they could live with.

  “Well, it’s not the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, but as long as it fits, and keeps things and people out, then I’m happy. We’ll need to get the window replaced in Philadelphia though.” Nate said, holding the heavy door in place as the two young women quickly bolted it back in place.

  While they waited, each of them took turns cultivating or working on the dungeons. The dungeons with level two Dungeon Cores were mostly self-sustaining. However, they still needed a lot of help when it came to performing research and other improvements.

  Aura groaned and opened her eyes. “I’m getting close to the next realm in my cultivation, and it will force me into the next stage when it happens.”

  Nate hurried over to her and knelt next to her. “Is it going to happen right now, or do we have time? Is there something we can do to help?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll be fine, for now. This was just the first sign that I am approaching the correct state of qi compression. Within the next week is when it will likely happen. At that point, while we’re in the dungeon, I’ll need your help to gather up enough rainbow cores to securely enter the ‘Domain Body’ realm. Only then will I cross over into the beginning of the Third Stage and gain my fifth tail.”

  Lindsay’s eyes lit up at the thought of Aura having yet another fluffy tail. Mika seemed to sense something in her contractor’s gaze and nipped lightly at her chin. It wasn’t hard enough to draw blood, but it did shock Lindsay back to herself.

  “Sorry,” She muttered. “But Aura’s tails are so fluffy and numerous.”

  Mika’s tail moved in response, tickling her nose.

  Angie rolled her eyes and palmed her face. The friend she had grown up with had truly begun to relax over the last year. Then again, so had she. The carefully maintained image the two of them had kept up while at school and around other people had slowly disintegrated once Nathan came into their lives.

  Nate scratched Aura behind the ear. He would be there for her, no matter what. “How long do you think we should wait for everyone before risking it on our own?”

  Angie, who was standing closest to the bridge, walked over to it and looked down into the ravine. Above them, the sun was getting ever closer to the horizon.

  “It’s starting to get a little late and I would rather not be traveling at night.” She bit her lower lip. “Without any guards, the rest of the journey to Philadelphia will be a lot more dangerous.”

  “Same,” Lindsay agreed with her. “However, I do think that we should continue to wait for everyone. From our position on this side of the bridge, we should be able to stop anyone from crossing it if needed.”

  “That’s assuming they aren’t able to simply fly across or something,” Nate said.

  “If they could do that, then they wouldn’t need to act as bandits in this area,” Lindsay remarked with a shake of her head. “They’d be able to become warlords in some weaker area or simply make their own money.”

  She didn’t say it out loud, but she had been half-expecting Shane to be able to fly. At the beginning of the fourth stage, the ‘Internal Refining’ realm was when a cultivator could begin to fly. All of their parents were still in the third stage at various realms. The last realm where Angie and Lindsay’s parents were, was considered one of the major bottlenecks and could sometimes take a cultivator years to pass it.

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  As it was, instead, he was in between her and Nate’s parents in strength.

  Lindsay stopped stroking Mika’s tail, her head tilting to the side as a new thought came to her. “The bandits were able to fight Shane and the rest of the professional hunters on even terms when they were using energy skills. That means that they are at least as strong as him and the others in strength.” She said, quickly explaining the process her thoughts had just gone down. “Is it possible that the bandits are using these fights as a way to temper themselves and overcome the bottleneck?”

  “Is that even a thing?” Nate wondered aloud. “Wouldn’t it be easier for them to go to the dungeons instead?”

  “If they knew about them, sure. But while the news is spreading, they are still relatively new.” Angie said, somewhat thoughtfully. “As for using fights to overcome the bottleneck… Eh, people talk a lot, and all sorts of theories are bandied about. Strictly speaking, only more qi is supposed to be needed, but-”

  “No, they’re right,” Aura interrupted her. “Qi is the essential part, but fighting is what stimulates that gathered qi once you are at the bottleneck.”

  “Is there a reason they couldn’t just fight the monsters in the area to accomplish the same thing?” Nate asked, still caught up on the idea. “Why turn to banditry?”

  “Who knows? Maybe they decided that if they needed to fight constantly, then it was better to also get things for their effort.” Lindsay said. “Some people are like that.”

  Standing next to the ravine, Nate looked down below and shook his head. “I don’t see anyone down there. I really think they climbed back up.”

  “Why aren’t they here yet, then?” Angie demanded, looking hard at the area across the bridge. “Do you hear anything, Aura?”

  The kitsune was silent as her ears twitched, attempting to isolate certain sounds. “It’s hard to say for sure. There is so much sound in the area from the forest and everything else. I can ignore everything close to us, but the amount of noise farther out is distracting.” The fur on her sleek muzzle scrunched up as she concentrated even harder. “Wait, no… I do hear people walking on the road. Their feet are dragging occasionally, and they aren’t talking at the moment.”

  With that announcement, they all got ready for a fight, just in case. All they knew was that people were coming towards them, not who they were.

  Nate scurried over to a nearby pillar on the bridge and hid behind it with his crossbow held out in front of him. Angie ran over to another steel pillar, a ball bearing already in her sling and beginning to spin through the air. Farther back, Lindsay, as the group’s up-close fighter, remained out of the way. This wasn’t a situation she could contribute to, as even her throwing darts required the target to be fairly close. Her cultivation realm wasn’t high enough for her strength to cause them to be dangerous at a distance.

  That would change in the future.

  Aura leaped onto the upper rails of the bridge and ducked down, using her illusion skills to blend into the surroundings. It wasn’t a tactic that she tended to use a lot around Nate and the others, as they were too loud. Whenever she was hunting by herself though, stealth tactics like this though were a basic part of her repertoire.

  With the group now in position, all they needed to do was wait… and wait some more. It was the first time they had gotten a glimpse of how sensitive Aura’s ears actually were. When the kitsune had said she heard people walking on the road, they had assumed they were a couple of hundred yards away. Now they were guessing it had been more on the level of half a mile or so.

  Finally, after nearly ten minutes, the Richlow Group tiredly walked into view. They were covered in wounds and dripping blood, but they were all alive.

  Nate held up a cautious hand, warning the others against moving early. He didn’t think that Jane and the others would betray them, but with how tired the group was, and the obvious trail of blood they were leaving, they might not even know something else was out there. He took a brief moment to type out his thoughts and send them as a message to the other three.

  Nate had never been entirely clear about how the dungeon functions worked when it came to Aura, only that it did.

  The approaching people were beyond weary, but they weren’t showing any signs of caution toward their rear. Whatever had attacked them wasn’t something they were still worried about.

  “I don’t sense or hear anyone else in the area,” Aura sent to them once the group was only a hundred feet away. “I do, however, smell the blood of a monster on them. I don’t believe they were attacked by humans, but a monster.”

  Nate lifted his hand again, warning everyone to stay hidden. He believed what Aura’s nose was telling her; yet all the expeditions with his parents had drilled in the need to be careful.

  Stepping into view, he kept his crossbow at the ready, just in case. “Jane, Lester?” He called out. “What happened? Do we need to be worried about someone following you?”

  It took everything Jane had to look up at him; one eye was swollen shut and she had a nasty gash running the length of her cheek right below it. “Hey Nathan,” She slurred, a thick stream of bloody saliva rolling from her lower lip, onto her chin and then slowly oozing down to the ground. “Just a couple of kobolds is all. We won, but they really messed us up. Not sure we’re going to be making it to the auction at this rate.”

  Nate pulled out a bunch of healing pills. “Come on, let’s put that matter to the side for the moment and get you all patched up first.”

  As soon as each of them saw the healing pills in his hand, all the strength vanished from their legs, and they collapsed in the middle of the road in a heap. The small-town merchant group started crying in relief as he ran over to them and shoved a pill into each of their mouths.

  “Thank you,” Lester muttered before passing out from exhaustion. “I really thought we were all done this time around. Not sure we’ll be leaving our normal stomping grounds again after this,” He finished in a barely audible mumble.

  Jane was already out cold, and Nate had to physically open her mouth and put the healing pill inside it. Swallowing the pill obviously gave you the quickest benefits. Thankfully, this exact issue had been thought of in the past. Whatever method was used to make them included a hard, almost candy-like coating that would easily dissolve in the mouth. After around a minute of sitting in a person’s saliva, the coating would dissolve, and the healing properties of the pill would begin to flow through their body like normal.

  Behind him, Angie and Lindsay ran toward the group, and together they quickly ferried them over the bridge and into their RV. Meanwhile, Aura stayed hidden and kept watch for any threats that might appear. A precaution that proved unnecessary this time.

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