Today, we would most probably start building the Storehouse.
A structure meant to keep our crops safe.
It had to be solid enough to endure a hit or two from Kaira, which meant the fine stone deposits she had found were exactly the material we required.
But before any of that, I had to check out this new ability — Shared Instinct — that I had obtained, yet somehow hadn't practically tested.
So it was a must to check it out before we plunged into any serious threat.
I chose a quiet, peaceful moment. Between breakfast and work, when the team hadn't fully assembled and Napoleon was somewhere doing Napoleon things.
A quiet environment would give better results than any fighting scenario.
[Shared Instinct, Accessing: Napoleon's Rallying Cry]
[Stamina cost: 18% per use]
I opened my mouth.
"COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOOO!!"
And unexpectedly, Napoleon's war-horn crow erupted from my own throat with full, catastrophic volume.
[Physical stats increased temporarily]
[Fear Resistance +25%]
The sound was so loud that birds dwelling along the tree line scattered instantly. From inside the cave, I heard Pride shift with the grinding displeasure of something that had been asleep and didn't want to wake up yet. Timber, who had been meditating at the well, jolted upright with vines snapping outward in every direction.
A brief, ringing silence followed.
"Dang! It has half the effect, but the crow is freaking loud!" I couldn't help but mutter.
Then, from across the territory line, Napoleon slowly turned his head toward me.
The expression on his face, communicated through Complete Comprehension with absolute clarity, was one thing and one thing only.
...Who was that. Who just did that.
I met his eyes and grinned.
"How did you like that, huh?"
Almost instantly, he shot toward me like a feathered missile and launched himself directly at my head, pecking with the concentrated grievance of someone whose signature move had just been plagiarized in front of them.
"What the hell?! You don't like it when I use it to test it, but it's perfectly alright for you to do this and jolt us awake every morning?! Not fair at all, Napoleon! NOT FAIR!!"
Through Complete Comprehension, every single peck came with a message attached.
Mine. That. Is only MINE.
How possessive could a rooster be?
[Stamina: 82%]
He disengaged eventually with dignity and strutted away as if the entire incident had been a scheduled inspection.
I stood there smoothing my hair back down while Timber watched from the well with those hollow green eyes carrying a single silent question.
"Don't ask," I said.
"Timber not... ask... Master," Timber replied.
But his expression oozed that he was absolutely going to ask something later.
After that, I went per the usual routine and
With that successfully concluded, I gathered the team.
"We will be starting the construction of the Storehouse. Today."
Kaira looked at the flat section beside the Chief's House and then again at the Chief's House itself, clearly calculating something.
"We're constructing one just like that one, right? Too easy!"
"Naah! We are going to make something advanced!" I chuckled and laid down a modern construction blueprint on the table that I got from Zero.
Kaira and Aldric stared at the blueprint with varying degrees of comprehension.
Kaira's was immediate. Her eyes moved across the lines and measurements with the focused attention of someone who had grown up watching warehouses being built and had absorbed more than she realized.
Aldric studied it with the careful patience of a man who understood structural logic even when the specific application was new.
Timber simply pressed a vine to the paper, felt the lines, and nodded.
"Timber understands."
That was good enough for me.
The fine deposit stones went in first as foundation courses, wide and low, raised just enough off the cleared earth to allow airflow beneath the floor.
They stacked almost without effort, their flat faces sitting flush against each other with minimal gap filling required. Kaira tested the first completed course with a deliberate strike.
It didn't budge even a little.
"Acceptable," she muttered softly.
The elevated platform followed — Timber's densest harvested logs, each support beam chosen by his hands before it was cut, lashed with vine rope at every joint with a tension he had quietly refined since the Chief's House.
The walls rose in clean courses across three days.
I used Gravity Sense each afternoon to check load distribution, flagging weak points before they became problems. Aldric reinforced them without needing to be asked twice. Kaira's rows were straight enough that even Napoleon, rotating between vantage points overhead, found nothing to crow about.
The roof took the better part of day ten — wider than the Chief's House, pitched, layered, and sealed with Timber's resin along every external seam.
By evening, it was done.
[Construction Complete: Storehouse]
Kaira hit the wall once more, just to confirm.
It still didn't budge, which was a great relief.
"Solid," she hummed, with the satisfaction of someone who had been hoping to break it and was genuinely impressed that she couldn't.
We took a full ten days to build the Storehouse, and it definitely paid off.
Across those ten days of construction, the forest sent us its regards in the form of Juvenile-ranked beasts at irregular intervals.
As if it had taken personal offense to our productivity.
However, this time I had made a decision beforehand.
"Aldric, Kaira, you stay out of it," I had said back then.
After some whining from Kaira and the calm acceptance of Aldric, the fighting was left to us.
So it was just me, Napoleon, Timber, and Pride.
Wave after wave.
Juvenile Marsh Crawlers. Spine Boars. A pair of Scaled Raptors that moved faster than anything that size should have allowed. Something with too many legs that I chose not to examine closely after Pride's flame breath resolved the situation in approximately three seconds.
The rhythm became familiar quickly.
Napoleon's Rallying Cry first.
Then Timber containing, redirecting, pulling threats away from the crops and the buildings.
Pride from above, precise and devastating when directed correctly.
And me threading gravity through every gap between them, compressing and releasing, learning through repetition what theory alone couldn't teach.
We became a perfect quadrant of strategy... a perfect team.
Amidst every battle, I used Rallying Cry as well, so the buff was visibly helping us.
And more importantly, amidst this escalation, Timber reached 100% loyalty as well.
And just like with Napoleon, I could now use one of Timber's active skills.
But the problem was that Timber's active skill was Vine Manipulation.
And the vines were literally part of his body.
So how was I supposed to use that?
The problem disappeared the moment I tried to process it.
The vines simply formed from nature energy, and I could use them without any strain or adjustment needed.
"Quite the powerful abilities, Shared Instinct and Complete Comprehension," I muttered once again.
And finally, on day ten...
[Congratulations Host! You have ascended to Adept ★★]
[Congratulations Host! You have ascended to Adept ★★★]
[Congratulations Host, Napoleon has ascended: Initiate ★★★★★ -> Initiate ★★★★★★★]
[Congratulations Host! Timber has ascended: Initiate ★★★★★★ -> Initiate ★★★★★★★]
[Congratulations Host! Pride has ascended: Juvenile ★★★★★ -> Juvenile ★★★★★★]
I watched the floating notifications with quiet satisfaction.
Our hard work had paid off.
A few more steps and two of my beasts would naturally evolve.
I couldn't wait to see the result of that.
[Ding! Expansion available!!]
A wide chuckle surfaced on my face.
"Now you're talking, baby!"
I had been waiting for this for days.
Now I'd finally be able to see the next location for expansion.
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