As he got onto the circumnavigating train, Hector found a familiar face. It was at the same height as his own even though he was standing while the other's body was sitting. "Good to see you again, Xian. Is your woman friend well?"

"She returned to Maya to grieve. Thank you for everything you did that day."

The Titan who had guided him to the medical center and then stood guard while Zelda had her mental breakdown nodded. "I saw your explosion. It was a brave thing. Saved me from trying a brave thing of my own."

He wanted to ask the obvious question but it was a cliche that every movie lampooned. Fortunately, he didn't have to. The Titan obviously knew the public fascination.

"Yes, I'm from Aes. No dreamer will get this big even after a hundred years."

The mention of dreamers caused him a twinge. No more would ever be made after the loss of the Dream Engine. "I'm Hector, by the way."

"And I'm Ugur. Are we going to kill monsters together?"

Hector had other plans, but changed them on the spot. "I'd be honored, Ugur."

"Good. We're going to my favorite hunting spot."

"Sure. Where would that be?"

"The spear ridge."

He'd never heard of it. "What's our strategy?"

"Climb the saddle between two hills, put our backs together, and kill things.

"And when it's time to leave?"

Ugur shrugged. "The monsters in our way die."

That barely qualified as a plan to Hector. He resisted the urge to say something, though. He owed this man. So they entered the dungeon through a tunnel Hector wasn't familiar with. As usual these days, Hector attracted a small crowd eager to delve with the Stalwart Xian.

They peeled off not far into the delve when some among them realized where the Titan and Xian were going to make their stand. Ugur laughed once they were alone. "They can't take a hit like we can, Hector. I've often wondered if your kind or mine had the stronger bodies. I still think it's my kind, but I know I could never survive immersion in monster guts like you did."

Suddenly their destination made sense to Hector. The Titan chose a ridge so that the miasma would flow away from the site of the battle. If, as he suspected, Ugur intended to fight monsters hand-to-hand, that would be an important consideration. Hector began to have serious doubts about his impulsive agreement.

"What level are you at, Ugur?"

"Six. Though my statistics are all in the low fives still."

The Titan was over a full level above Hector in every statistic. This was worrying.

Then the first monster appeared, a rabbit the size of a man. It hopped right at them. Hector crouched, preparing his cables. Ugur lumbered forward at the same time, his right fist growing a layer of silver metal that morphed forward into a single point. Hector hesitated, as much because he wanted to see what was about to happen as out of concern he might strike his ally.

The rabbit lunged forward with its massive teeth.

And contrary to every bit of fight intelligence Hector possessed, Ugur jumped into the mouth. Hector saw the spike punch upward, enlarging and sharpening as it went. Then Ugur leaped free of the maw, doing a front roll to get some distance as the rabbit collapsed. The spike vanished as if it never was and Ugur stood, unharmed and not even wearing a speck of blood from the mortal wound he'd inflicted on the beast.

"Ugur? I think I'm outclassed by you."

The Titan laughed. "That's a real compliment coming from the Stalwart Titan."

"I'm only level five. My statistics are mostly below four."

Ugur tilted his huge head to one side like a confused dog. "That doesn't seem possible."

"It is. Can't you tell?"

He shrugged. "Titans don't sense souls like you other types. Except our own, of course. Otherwise only matter exists to me. You can run off if you're scared, Hector. I'm not so fragile that I need a partner."

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Hector seriously considered it. In the end, he felt that he'd promised something. He remembered failing Rodrick. Ugur wasn't anything more than an acquaintance he felt he owed, but Hector didn't want to fail another fellow human in the dungeon. So he didn't give any answer, only continued following the Titan.

They arrived at the ridge, which emerged like a series of sharp-tipped mounds from a plain of soft sand. The saddles between each ridge were smoothed and only ten meters above the sand line, while the mounts of spear ridge rose to twice that height. Ugur chose one of the saddles and climbed to plant himself at its center.

"This is where I do my killing, Hector. It's a perfect spot. They come harder from the direction I face, so I'll handle that. You guard the path we came in. Good killing."

"Good killing to you, too." Hector turned to face the sea of sand they'd walked across. The flickering of lights on his illumination harness caused him to frown. It was only a few months old, purchased to replace the one he lost during the surge. He didn't mind paying to replace equipment. What he did mind was having something so critical to his survival not be reliable. Not just for his own good – many people weaker than him depended on poorly engineered equipment to survive while serving their entire civilization.

His righteous indignation didn't last long. Beasts began to arrive to occupy his attention. Scorpions shook free of the sand to charge at him. They were larger than life, as with most monsters, but thankfully they were not in the same ballpark as the massive beast that appeared during Earth's invasion. Just horse size.

Their carapaces made them hard to hurt, too. They skittered forward with venomous stingers raised high, flinching at the abuse of his force cables but not slowing one bit. He thought back to his most recent survey results, compared the measly two point nine of his aura to the respectable four of his body. Considered the way Ugur took his fight with the rabbit physical. Remembered surviving an explosion that killed an anteater the size of a skyscraper.

"Guess this is one of those 'hold my beer' moments," he muttered.

The first stinger smacked him to the ground when it struck like lightning. His aura held strong. Then the stinger began dripping concentrated miasma that sizzled on his defensive barrier. His energy utilization spiked precipitously.

Hector swung a fist into the side of the stinger with all his strength.

Nothing. The angle was wrong.

Fortunately, Ugur jumped forward and slammed his spiky fist between the beast's eyes. Then he plowed through the remaining scorpions, killing each in turn. Hector resumed his feet and faced the direction originally claimed by the Titan. A troop of apes were knuckle walking towards them.

Hector tried cracking his cable a few times, but other than a minor injury, that didn't do any good. After one of them lost an eye, they started using their arms to block. So Hector tried something new. Taking a form bound them to some extent. They acquired weaknesses as well as strengths. Time to see how much those could be exploited.

He wrapped a cable around the neck of the lead beast and tightened. The ape seized the force cable, which by all rights should have been immaterial, and attempted to pull it off of itself. The pulling action only made the cable tighter. The ape struggled mightily before swaying on its feet and collapsing. He'd successfully used strangulation on a monster.

As he worked his new trick on a different ape, the original one jerked awake. Crap. He needed to hold the strangle for longer to achieve brain death. Just putting one of them to sleep wasn't a death sentence. He spun up a total of four cables and snaked his cables around exposed necks.

Four apes went down. That was less than half the troop.

Two reached him at the same time. Hector punched with everything he had and saw a skull crumple inwards. The other one latched onto his shoulder with huge fangs. The attack didn't pierce his aura, but he felt its crushing force transmitted into his shoulder. He jammed a thumb into an exposed eye hard enough that he felt it deform and pop. His assailant didn't care.

A blow from above crushed its head and the beast dropped. Then Ugur took out the rest of the troop. He released his hold on the four he'd been strangling and moved back to his original side. There was a massive worm crawling towards their position.

Hector hit it with his cables and it carved like a hot knife through butter. He took off its face entirely and the thing continued forward. He cut it apart into ten separate segments and the pieces stopped moving to instead out-gas miasmic steam.

Things went on like that for half an hour. Hector killed a couple of monsters, but mostly found himself delaying until Ugur could save the day. It drove home just how much he needed to improve. This Titan fought with the unstoppable might that Hector aspired to.

Finally, Ugur slapped Hector on the back.

"We need to head out of here now. The sands are stained with guts. It will be a full day before the air is safe again." So they left the dungeon. Hector checked his energy reserves on the walk out. Thirty-three percent. He'd used far more than he liked.

So he returned home and began cultivating like mad. For the next several weeks he skipped his normal training entirely. He did nothing that would cost him energy, only stockpiled it until he sat at seventy percent.

Fortunately, Riley was finally showing progress. She'd raised her mind statistic to one point five, which was surprising progress. Apparently one of the Arahant perverts who liked to beat up Xian women tried his persuasion trick on her and she resisted. That one success inspired her more than any words from Hector ever had. She emptied her soul reserves strengthening her mind, then begged Hector for more of the blood boiling elixirs he bought at the health bar of his hotel.

He happily made the purchases, eager for his student to display some actual progress. Who knew if she would ever manage to get anywhere with her body enhancement, but having a mind that didn't turn to mush in the hands of an Arahant was a worthy goal. Hector certainly liked having his mind statistic at the level it currently was.

Once he finally reached seventy percent energy reserves, he did the ravine run every morning for two weeks. That put him above three hundred thousand credits in total. Once more he had set a record for the amount of credits to his name. Which meant it was time to spend it all. Hector sighed. His every instinct told him he needed a massive emergency fund and should be looking at investment opportunities to invest his credits into.

That was ridiculous, of course. He was the investment vehicle. Pouring credits into resources let him move forward with his body enhancement. That increased his lifespan and made him harder to harm. It was the best place for his money right now. And it wasn't like he couldn't earn more whenever he needed it.

So he set off to the Xian store to make a few purchases from Master Sirius.

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