Despite tharn's fervor and determination the next hunt turned up nothing but small game and frustration. The days that followed went much the same. Although while the hunts turned up little, the village was steadily coming alive.

  The time went by faster than I expected. Our small settlement felt different already, not bigger by size alone, but louder with purpose. People were working, not waiting. Fear had stepped back a little, replaced with curiosity and hope.

  Tharn’s presence became a spectacle at first. Kids followed him around like he was a walking carnival ride. Some gave him wide eyed stares and hid behind their parents. Others tried to climb him like a tree and touch his horns.

  To his credit, Tharn handled it with surprising patience. He never raised his voice, and he never turned anyone away. When a group of children offered him a stick and asked him to lift it like a weight, he solemnly picked it up with two fingers and pretended to struggle. They collapsed in laughter. Even the parents smiled after a while, shaking their heads.

  Later, I caught him helping a few guardsmen correct their footing while practicing with their various weapons. He never boasted. He never barked orders. He just observed, pointed with a quiet grunt, and the guards swung better for it.

  On the second morning, I stopped by Willard’s patch of soil. It had transformed overnight. What had been bare dirt now held tidy rows of thick sprouts. Some were already past my knee, their leaves glimmering faintly like dew made of mana.

  Willard beamed with his braces and foggy glasses. “Told you they'd grow fast,” he said, voice full of pride and a little bit of that nerdy I told you so. “Give it another week and we might actually eat something that didn't once try to kill us.”

  I patted his shoulder with a smirk. “That'll be a first. Keep it up, farm simulator.” He blushed slightly at that but just went back to tending the fields.

  The other villagers hadn't been sitting idle either. Several had made some real headway into their professions. There was an old lady who had a sewing class. She discovered she could form thread by channeling and condensing her mana. Each time she used up all of her mana she only made about 25 meters of thread, but she'd been making it nonstop since she discovered the ability. Before long she had a small mountain of the stuff . She told me she instinctively knew that once she had a loom she'd be able to make all kinds of clothes that would give attribute points and various buffs.

  Another villager, formerly a contractor, had a mana mason class. He could modify and reinforce existing structures using nothing but his mana. He believed that with enough growth, he might eventually shape entire buildings without the pillar’s aid.

  There was even a lady who used to be big into home remedies that gained an alchemist class. She'd been spending alot of time with Willard, describing different erbs and various plants to see if he could grow them.

  The settlement had been expanding as well. We built two more longhouses on the western side and started planning for a second profession building. The pillar’s mana costs were steep, but with every structure raised everyone's comfort improved.

  On the third morning after Tharn’s arrival we finally made some progress on the beast den quest.

  While searching our territory we found an area of gouged stone near the edge of a cliff face that overlooked a ravine. The ground looked as though something had clawed its way through solid rock, scattering sharp shards of stone in its wake.

  As we followed the trail of broken stone, faint tremors began to ripple beneath our feet. Each step forward made them stronger, vibrating up through my shoes. I didn’t like it. I reached out with my staff and cast Cabin Pressurization over the group, translucent barriers snapping into place around guardsman one after another as we walked. Then, without warning, the tremors stopped entirely.

  We stoped walking and I looked around wearily before gesturing to Tharn. "What do you think big guy? What the hell happened?"

  Tharn had his axe drawn and was scanning his surroundings. "My guess is It sensed our presence. Be ready for..."

  He didn't get to finish his sentence before there was an explosion of rock and soil from the center of our group. Guardsman went flying as my spells soaked up most of the damage before busting into scatered shards of mana when they slammed back down on the ground. Even from the edge of the group the blast knocked me off my feet. Now looking up from my spot on the ground, I got my first look at the creature.

  Surrounded by chaos and half hidden inside a cloud of dust, It stood 4 meters tall and 20 meters long. It resembled a giant gecko but instead of scales its body was made of what looked like dark brown granite. The sclera of its eyes glowed a deep scarlet, the iris a searing hot white. Its mouth opened wide in a roar, revealing rows of razor sharp granite teeth, each one the size of my forearm. I used identify.

  It's eyes darted between the guardsman seamingly picking one at random before charging. Unfortunately for the bus sized rock lizard, it chose Sierra who had just finished forming her rock armor and had been putting every spare stat point into her strength stat.

  As it rushed towards her, she lowered her stance and braced. The Cabin Pressurization spell responded to her intent, shrinking back and hardening around her torso while leaving her arms free. The beast crashed into her with its maw opened wide. Sierra caught the gecko mid charge, one granite jaw in each hand, stopping it dead. The ground cracked around her feet and left a shallow crater surrounding her like something out a dragon ball anime. Watching her stop a creature that big felt unreal, like the world itself had paused to see if she could actually pull it off.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  As she stood there locked in place with the gecko, the other guardsman took the opertunity to unleash their own attacks. Spells and weapons slammed into it from every angle. My arcane squadron left only shallow pits. Reyna’s chains scored faint lines. Akira’s shadow bolts bounced away like pebbles. It seemed most of the attacks were direct hits doing little damage. That is, all except for Tharn.

  As soon as the beast had charged at Sierra tharn was already in motion. Not a moment after our spells landed tharn came bolting in, his weapon raised high. The axe cleaved down deep into the beasts side, carving a furrow through granite and rocking the creature’s entire body as it bellowed.

  The sudden roar made Sierra flinch. Her grip slipped. The jaw snapped shut, shattering my spell and carving a massive gouge down the front of her armor. Without the shield that hit likely would have crushed her. She swept her arm across her body slapping its muzzle to the side, then jumped back creating distance as her armor reformed.

  "Is that all you got?!" She yelled, charging back in as her armor sealed shut.

  Seeing how little my arcane squadron did, I shifted focus, pouring my mana into keeping everyone’s Cabin Pressurization shields up. Tharn and Sierra were the hardest to keep protected. They were constantly in the creature’s reach, shields bursting into showers of mana shards only to be replaced by my hurried casting moments later.

  The other guardsmen were mostly unharmed, raining spells and attacks from every side. For a brief moment, I thought we had it handled as long as I could keep Tharn and Sierra shielded. Then the beast changed tactics.

  The gecko leapt straight up nearly two meters before slamming back down. The impact sent jagged stone spikes erupting from the ground in a five meter radius. Tharn and Sierra’s shields shattered on contact, flinging them a dozen meters before they crashed hard into the ground.

  Then the gecko’s eyes began to glow. Baseball sized chunks of stone tore free from the ground, rising slowly before forming a halo of spinning rocks above its head. Its eyes flashed, and the stones launched outward like mortar fire, tearing through the air in every direction.

  Guardsmen tried to dodge, but few were fast enough. Shields popped left and right, many shattering after taking only a single hit. I re-cast Cabin Pressurization on a handful of them before my mana bottomed out.

  My regeneration was at 3.4 mana every three seconds, while each shield cost 4 mana to cast. That meant I could barely protect one guard every three seconds, which in battle felt like an eternity.

  While my mana crawled back, I scanned the battlefield. Mike had sketched a brick wall into existence and several guards dove behind it just in time, but most were still heavily injured. Mark lay staggered nearby, bleeding from multiple wounds. Jeffrey wasn’t much better, but he kept throwing fireballs anyway even though they barely scratched the beast. Watching them fall and feeling my mana trickle back too slowly, I realized I couldn’t protect everyone.

  I decided to focus on Tharn and Sierra, who were already forcing themselves back to their feet and charging the behemoth. I re-cast Cabin Pressurization on both of them, the mana snapping into place just as another volley of stone shards slammed into their barriers. The shields flared and cracked but held if just barley.

  The gecko reared back, its granite body grinding as it twisted toward them. Shards of granite peeled off its flanks where Tharn had injured it, regrowing almost instantly as fresh rock flowed into place. It let out another roar and lunged forward, jaws snapping.

  Sierra met it head on dodging its maw and slamming her shoulder into the beasts. Stone armor met stone hide. The impact sent a shockwave rippling through the air and the creature skidded sideways with the force, claws gouging deep furrows in the earth.

  Sierra didn't let up. She grabbed its forelimb and heaved, ripping it sideways with a grunt of effort that cracked her armor along the chest.

  Tharn was already moving. He came in low, axe flashing as he hacked into the exposed joint Sierra presented him.

  His blade bit deep, cleaving through layers of living stone. The gecko shrieked, thrashing wildly. Its tail elongated and swept out in a brutal arch that sent several other guards flying, before whipping back around and smashing Tharn against its own side in a sickening crunch.

  I tried to cast my shield on Tharn again but before the shield could fully form, the beast slammed its three remaining claws into the ground while Sierra kept a death grip on the last.

  Stone erupted, blasting Sierra and Tharn upward. Tharn who hadn't even finished extricating himself from the ground shot off, flipping end over end. Sierra was struck hard and sent flying, however she never let go of the limb. The force of the beasts own spell finished severing the weakened joint and tore it free as she was blasted away.

  Inside the joint hanging from the geckos mutilated shoulder was what looked like a root jutting out, except it glowed an amber red. Like hot metal fresh off the forge.

  The others who had been casting spells ineffectually until this point, took the opportunity to target a week spot. For the first time, everyone stopped firing blindly and a dozen spells all converged on the joint in a mater of a couple heart beats. They landed true leaving the root a mangled and cracked mess.

  The beast fell collapsing to its belly as It howled in agony. It seamed to be momentarily stunned and unable to move.

  I turned to see Tharn come racing forward from where he had been flung. His axe glowing as he leaped into the air screaming a war cry that sent goosebumps down my spine.

  His blade fell like an unstoppable force upon the beasts neck slicing clean through and carving a three meter gouge in the ground below. The massive head rolled free of the body as we all received a system notification.

  I could feel I gained another level but held off acknowledging it for a moment. I watched tharn as he slung his axe back across his back, his eyes scanning the remains of the behemoth. I slowly approached not wanting to interrupt whatever it was he was doing. Eventually he found whatever he was looking for. He walked over to a seamingly random spot along the creatures side and placed his palm against the corpse.

  For a moment nothing happened. Then clear rippling waves appeared along the silhouette of the creature. They reminded me of heat waves above a camp fire but held no warmth that I could tell. They grew in intensity untill they held an almost white hue. Then Tharn stepped back holding out his hand, palm up, when they reached a crescendo.

  The now almost fire-like energy started gathering together, coalescing into a single point above Tharns open hand. The shining orb above his hand stretched and reshaped, hardening into the form of a key. As the glow faded, it revealed an ornate brass key with a large crystal set into its spine. The air around it felt heavier, like pressure before a storm. I used Identify and was shocked at what I seen.

  My eyes grew as wide as saucers. "There's Loot?!"