Tyler woke to moonlight shining through his window and black-and-purple veins creeping through the night sky.

  It was eerily quiet, in contrast to the boisterous partying that he’d fallen asleep to. He thought it was only thanks to his Journeyman senses that he heard the occasional caw of some nocturnal birds, sometimes followed by a wooshing that he assumed was the Stormchaser guards driving said birds away.

  How many hours had he slept? Four? Five?

  Without a clock, it was hard to tell. But given that this little mismatched world seemed to have inherited Earth’s day-night cycles, it was definitely less than he should have needed to sleep to feel so refreshed.

  Perhaps part of it was how he’d woken up closer to dusk than dawn, but even as he’d advanced through Novice he’d noticed he was probably sleeping slightly less than he would have otherwise. It made sense that Journeyman would be a much more drastic difference.

  He slowly clambered out of his bed and did his morning stretches, wincing as the inflammation reminded him that this was what getting out of bed should have been like.

  Of course he’d grown so healthy over the course of the island that even his bed of leaves could leave him feeling barely stiff at all, but now that he had a proper bed to sleep in his body was back to being in a wreck.

  Tyler sighed in annoyance. He would just have to deal with it. He had for years, after all. And at least the strength of a Journeyman was coursing through him despite it all.

  He stepped quietly down the hallways, careful not to disturb the residents sleeping across those poorly-soundproofed doors. Office nameplates had been taken down or defaced entirely with black ink to dictate the rooms’ new owners, and warm magical lights gave the hallways a more organic touch than the now-useless fluorescent lighting hanging from the ceiling.

  The residential quarters of the building weren’t big, all things considered, but the sheer mass of the skyscraper lent it this sense of grandeur that made him feel rather small inside of it. Especially when most of his life for the past few months had been spent inside a cave.

  He followed the signs to the large restroom that had been rigged up at the center of the living quarters, and took advantage of the free bucket of scavenged toiletries to give himself his second shower since the apocalypse had started.

  Well, he supposed the people in the medbay had probably cleaned him up when he’d gotten here, but last night had ended with his first conscious shower in months. It had been an incredible experience — a moment of physical bliss to cap off a hectic night.

  His entire squad had been celebrated the moment they’d gotten back — a drunken, rambunctious thing that picked up right where the previous celebrations had left off and grown to be twice as loud. Tyler hadn’t drunk much himself — he didn’t know if he would ever be able to enjoy alcohol after certain… past experiences — but the taste of the sugary syrup mixed in with his colorful fruity cocktail had been enough to make him weep happy tears.

  He was really back in civilization. In a place close enough to modern conveniences that they were able to either acquire or replicate the taste of grenadine and ginger ale.

  News of his advancement level seemed to have spread, and the title of Journeyman by itself would have probably been more than enough to help the 21st Branch warm up to him. The people who’d directly witnessed his takedown of the Chiropteran Boneweld treated him like a living legend — bowing to him in gratitude and showering him with gifts — and even their friends who hadn’t been there to see him seemed to regard him with a level of deference. The respect made him feel awkward without a level of familiarity to go along with it, though, which was why his favorite fan had to have been Rob’s daughter Tammy — the nine-year-old girl who practiced the Aspect of Weight.

  The overjoyed ‘You saved my daddy!’ that he’d gotten from the kid had been worth more than all the gifts combined. The gifts sure didn’t hurt, though.

  The piles of donations he’d gotten was piled up in a giant mound on the tiny table by his bed, and the presents themselves had ranged from money to hand-knitted blankets to magic rings and daggers that had made Brandon’s eyes go wide when he’d gotten a look at them. It had been a bit awkward for Tyler, especially since he’d had to refuse all of the enchanted items simply because he couldn’t use any of them, but at least he had a fully-stocked wardrobe now.

  Unfortunately, it looked like not everyone could take the pronouncement of his capabilities at face value. He’d gotten more than a couple of rude questions over how he could possibly be the same advancement as Alberta given his lack of aura, and even overheard a handful of comments over how he was a straight-up poser. The latter seemed most concentrated in Rhett’s group of bitter bros, who had not been acknowledged by Alberta in her announcement the same way Tyler and the Frie siblings had.

  It seemed like there was a storm of rumors going around regarding how the new un-Awakened refugee had actually beaten the skeletal bat, ranging from his entire involvement being overblown to his possession of a working magical assault rifle to him being a master martial artist from before the apocalypse who had been afflicted with terminal cancer.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  He’d seen the siblings listening to someone recount that last theory once, only for Brandon to counter with a straight-faced argument that Tyler was actually an alien whose home planet was ten times as massive as Earth, lending him superhuman strength in normal gravity. It was only after the fact that the man told Tyler his sister was making him do it as a punishment — apparently the siblings had a tradition of staking thematically-appropriate embarrassment whenever they argued about anything.

  Tyler had chuckled when he’d realized that even in that high-stakes situation, the two redheads had been so used to bickering with one another that they’d silently established a wager.

  Brandon had then apologized again for doubting Tyler, and he’d opened up a bit about how he hated that the stress of the outbreak was getting to him. To all of them, the man had said. It had everyone constantly on edge, and when confronted with an anomaly like Tyler, some just subconsciously chose not to think and to go with the judgements that had worked for them in the past.

  It was unfair to Tyler, Brandon had sighed. The guy had been trying to do his best to spread the truth, while the Branch had a moment of respite, but even during the celebrations some people just refused to take a moment to listen.

  Because of the skepticism of a good portion of the 21st Branch, Tyler had been a bit worried that the Branch Leader herself would question his claims. Lisa had been excited at the prospect of shooting him with a magical crossbow bolt next time to really show off his durability, but it turned out that hadn’t been necessary. The moment she’d gotten a minute with him face-to-face, she’d bowed and greeted him as a cultivator of equal advancement. He’d wondered if she’d heard from Brandon, but a look through his spiritual sense seemed to give him another answer.

  The woman was positively awash with Resilience. And if her Aspect was close enough to his that he could see its clear effect on her body, he had to assume the same was true the other way around.

  It was nice, not having to prove himself to the leader of this little community, but he’d also been a bit disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to pass as a non-cultivator to everyone. It had only been positive so far, but he did wonder about future situations where he might have preferred the option to keep his advancement a secret.

  He’d only gotten a moment with the Branch Leader before she was dragged off to other business, but she’d promised to arrange a time for them to talk later. It was hard to read her through their brief encounter and the obvious stress lining her face, but if anything he thought maybe she appreciated the presence of another Journeyman.

  But after a long night of memorizing names and pretending to drink more than he actually was, he’d finally found a moment to run away to the showers, where he’d had his aforementioned heavenly experience. And while the second time wasn’t quite as good, he still felt like a new man by the time he was done.

  So after giving himself a thorough steaming, he dressed and set out for a particular destination.

  His fully-gifted wardrobe was even more mismatched than that of the average post-apocalyptic human, but he appreciated that he wouldn’t have to wear the borderline hospital-gown attire anymore — or God forbid those ragged pajamas that he’d worn non-stop in for months. He was honestly glad that he hadn’t seen any trace of the latter since waking up here, because he wasn’t sure any amount of washing would get that accumulated stench of blood and sweat off of them.

  As he navigated the mix of sterile corporate infrastructure and the chaotic, dirty mark of the survivors who had taken residence in this place, he found himself thinking of just how different this was from the old world. And of just how different he was, compared to the Tyler Thorn of last year.

  He’d been through hell and back, and now that he had some bar for comparison, he was strong.

  Journeyman. I’m a Journeyman.

  His understanding of Reaman culture told him that the gap between stages was many times larger than the gaps within a stage, and his Analysis agreed with that sentiment. Journeyman was the threshold that every apprentice strived to meet, as it was the lowest cultivation tier that could stand up to the body-strengthening ritual necessary to become a full-fledged Warrior. On Korshaan, being a Journeyman meant you were powerful enough to fend off any number of the world’s pests.

  The one other Journeyman within the 21st Branch had been automatically designated their leader, and he’d lived through the impact that just one Journeyman could have on a battle — even one as new and injured as himself.

  And what about that thing he’d done with the Boneweld? What had that been?

  He shuddered as he remembered that horrible burning sensation — that red-hot itching on his skin as he’d plunged his hand into the bat’s oversized skull. It had felt like he’d just dunked his arm in acid and wrapped his fingers around a thousand filaments of barbed wire, but when he’d looked at it later, the only physical injuries he could see were the blood on his knuckles and the scrapes on his skin.

  But his soul was sore. Sore in a way that it hadn’t been since those first days training in the cave.

  Something had happened. To the outside world, he supposed it just looked like the monster had fallen apart the moment he’d broken through its skull. But he’d questioned Brandon after the fact, and the man had said that it was intriguing, how the general had died so easily. Apparently, it usually took a complete shattering of the area housing the animating magic before one of those things would go down.

  Tyler couldn’t quite figure out what he’d done, or how he’d done it. But somehow he’d torn at the magic itself. It brought back a rush of hazy emotions, from that massive blur in his memory where he’d been on the brink of death against that bird.

  Was that how he’d escaped that, too?

  He didn’t know.

  But if it was, then he needed to figure it out. He needed to figure out everything that he was capable of, now that his body and soul had been reborn in the forge of advancement. Because he could tell without a doubt that he still wasn’t strong enough to face those birds — much less reach whatever level of power Savadiere had shown him. To get there, he needed to be more.

  So, after a couple of wrong turns and dead-ends, he found himself facing the first training room of the 21st Branch of the Stormchasers.