The white light broke apart like fog in the wind.
Logan opened his eyes and saw trees. Tall ones, packed close together, with leaves so thick they blocked most of the sky.
The air smelled like wet bark and old leaves.
He was standing in the middle of a forest.
A soft chime rang inside his head, not from the air around him but from somewhere deeper.
```
[ MAIN QUEST RECEIVED ]
>Build Walls Around Your Territory
```
Another panel opened right after it.
```
[ Player Territory ]
>Level: 1 (Tower Points for level up: 1000)
>Size: 20 meters radius
>Facilities: Summoning Circle, Territory Core Healing Area.
>Tower Minions: 3
```
Logan read it twice. A territory. His territory. Twenty meters around him, even though he couldn’t see any marks on the ground yet.
Three Tower Minions stood a few steps away, waiting for him. They looked human-shaped but were made of something like packed gray clay, square face, with one eye on each side.
He didn’t waste time thinking about it. Every second he stood around was a second some other player used to pull ahead of him.
"Cut the trees," Logan said. "All three of you. Bring the wood back here."
The Minions moved at once. One arm on each of them twisted and reshaped itself, the clay stretching and hardening into the curved edge of an axe.
It happened fast. Faster than Logan expected.
Wood chips flew, and trees came down one after another. The Minions dragged the trunks back and stacked them near his feet.
Logan watched a small pile of wood grow into a bigger one.
A new window blinked open in front of him.
```
[ Building Interface Unlocked ]
> Wooden Wall/Door.
```
It was that simple. He looked at the wood, then at the tree line around him, and pictured a wall running from one point to the next.
The pile of wood shrank. A wall rose in its place, solid and pale, exactly where he had imagined it. He could also see the border of his territory in building mode.
Logan blinked.
He walked the edge of his territory and willed the walls into place, one section after another. Each time, the wood pile shrank a little more.
It didn’t feel like building. It felt like wishing, and the world simply agreed with him.
He left one gap open, facing what looked like a clearing. A door went there instead, plain and wooden, with hinges he hadn’t asked for but got anyway.
By the time the ring closed, his Minions had slowed down. Their swings looked heavier, and one of them nearly dropped its axe-arm on the last strike.
Logan frowned. He hadn’t thought about them getting tired. He didn’t even know if things made of clay could feel tired at all.
He had one skill that might help. Restore.
He’d assumed it was only for healing wounds in a fight. But he had nothing better to try, so he pointed it at the nearest Minion and used it anyway.
```
[ Restore used on Tower Minion ]
-100 MP
```
The Minion’s slumped shoulders straightened. Its axe-arm swung again, faster than before, as if it had never stopped at all.
"It works on stamina too," Logan muttered.
He used it twice more, once on each of the other two Minions. Every cast cost the same hundred MP.
By the end, his own reserve had dropped much lower than he liked.
```
MP: 70/370
```
His MP only came back at half a point every second. Getting that three hundred back would take ten minutes he probably didn’t have.
Still, three fully rested Minions felt worth it. He could wait.
While they went back to chopping and hauling, Logan turned to something he’d been avoiding. He had no weapon and no way to fight, and that wasn’t a small problem in a place full of monsters.
He had a hundred Tower Points saved up, the same amount every player started with. He could spend it now or save it for later.
But a Territory Core with no defense wasn’t going to survive long either way.
He opened the Summoning Circle and selected the Combat Unit tab.
```
[ Summon: Combat Unit ]
Cost: 100 Tower Points
```
Light gathered above the circle and folded down into a shape. When it cleared, a young man stood there.
He looked about twenty, with a thin scar cutting across one cheek. A sling hung loose around his neck, and a pouch of smooth stones sat at his hip.
```
[ Sling Shooter (Tier-1/Normal) Summoned ]
Level: 1 | TIer-1
Rank: Normal
—Stats—
HP: 500/500
MP: 500/500
Attack: 5
Speed: 5
Constitution: 5
Arcane: 5
[Active Skills]
> Piercing Shot
> Quick Load
```
"Name’s whatever you want to call me," the Sling Shooter said, rolling his shoulders. "Point me at something, and I’ll put a hole in it."
Logan almost smiled. At least he wasn’t alone anymore.
But a fighter who could only attack from far away still needed someone up close to protect him. Logan needed to be the wall standing between the Sling Shooter and anything that got too close.
He called one of the Minions over and pointed at a fallen branch, thick and mostly straight. "Cut this down into something I can swing. Like a sword."
The Minion’s arm reshaped again, this time into something closer to a blade. It went to work shaving the branch down.
What came out wasn’t very sharp. But it had weight and a point, and that would have to be enough for now. For a real sword, he would need a real blacksmith.
He set the second Minion on cutting flat wood into the shape of a shield, round and thick enough to block a hit.
It wasn’t armor. It wasn’t a real sword. But it was something, and something was better than walking into the forest with his bare hands.
His MP also recovered.
When both were ready, Logan strapped the shield to his left arm and picked up the branch-sword in his right.
"Stay near the door," he told the Minions. "Keep gathering. We’ll be back."
He looked at the Sling Shooter. "Let’s go find something to kill."
The Sling Shooter grinned like that was the best idea he’d heard all day.
They stepped through the door and out into the trees.
The forest outside the walls looked no different from the forest inside them, except for the sound. Somewhere out there, something moved through the bushes.
It was fast, and it stayed low to the ground.
Logan’s grip tightened on the branch-sword.
A shape burst out of the bushes before he could react. It was about the size of bull dog.
Red-orange fur covered its body, and a single black horn curled up from its forehead. Flames flickered faintly along the horn’s edge.
```
[ Flame-Horned Rabbit (Tier-1 / Normal) ]
```
It didn’t hesitate. It charged straight at him, faster than anything that size should move.
Logan barely got the shield up in time.
The horn slammed into the wood dead center, and the shield didn’t slow it down at all. It shattered like it was made of dry crackers.
The horn kept going, straight through Logan’s palm.
Pain exploded up his arm.
He had never felt anything like it. Not the time he’d fallen off the garage roof and broken his wrist, not any bruise from five years of training alone at night.
This was worse. It was sharp and burning at once, like the horn had carried a piece of fire straight into his bones.
His vision blurred white at the edges.
He didn’t scream. He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached, and he forced his eyes to stay open.
The rabbit was still there, its horn buried in his hand. He was close enough to smell the smoke coming off its fur.
Logan didn’t pull away. Instead, he swung the branch-sword with everything he had left, putting his whole body into the strike.
The wooden blade cracked against the rabbit’s side and sent it flying.
It hit the ground hard and rolled. But it scrambled back up almost immediately, barely hurt at all. A dull wooden sword wasn’t much of a weapon against something built to take a hit.
It didn’t get the chance to charge again.
A stone whistled past Logan’s ear and punched clean through the rabbit’s skull. The Flame-Horned Rabbit dropped where it stood and didn’t move again.
The Sling Shooter lowered his sling, already reaching for another stone. "Piercing Shot," he said, almost bored. "Told you I’d put a hole in something."
```
[ Level 2 Flame-Horned Rabbit (Tier-1/Normal) killed. +75 Tower Points ]
[+100 Exp. You have reached level 2. You can distribute 5 stat points.]
```
Logan looked down at his hand. It was still bleeding where the horn had gone through, and he let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.
’Restore.’
"That’s pretty handy, boss." Sling Shooter grinned as he saw the wound healing.
"Yeah." Logan smiled, relieved and slightly excited at his first kill.
’Five stat points for level up. That’d make me significantly stronger!’
Without further ado, he distributed the stat points.
[ Status ]
Name: Logan Wolf
Class: Caretaker (Normal)
Talent: ???
Level: 2 | Tier: 1
—stats—
HP: 500/500
MP: 420/420
Attack: 4
Speed: 5
Constitution: 5
Arcane: 4.2
He distributed the five stat points in a way he felt was best for the next battle.
"Let’s hunt one more. I need more Tower Points for my second summon."
"Alrighty, boss."