With all the excitement of the attack, they chose to split the group once more. This time, Uswah and Eric made their way back to town, to warn the rest of the Clan about the attacks, verify that everything was well as well as attempting to acquire further information on the Ghee Hin and their intentions.
The rest of the team had another objective which was to continue acquiring monster cores. Above everything, growing in strength was a necessity, though the team made one minor change.
"I can take one shift at least, every few days," Arthur protested. "I can work on my techniques while on watch."
"No. If you have the energy to be awake, you should be refining," Leia said, firmly. Mel, quiet this time and allowing his senior to take control of the conversation was just nodding along.
"But..."
"No buts. You nearly died." She shook her head, eyes drifting to the deep stain in his armour that what little washing they had done had yet to remove. "We can't lose you."
"I know that-"
"Then stop taking risks!" Leia snapped.
"It wasn't that much of one..." Arthur trailed off, and then added. "It had to be done. We weren't even sure someone was going to attack us. And I have the best armor as it stands. How were we to know they were going to ignore everyone else?"
"That's the point. You did something that put you in danger, and we had to all scramble to try to keep you alive," Leia said. "If you want to keep doing that, you need to be stronger."
"Unfair. I saved others too!" Arthur muttered.
Leia opened her mouth to continue the scolding, only for Mel to put a hand on her arm and pull her back. She stepped ahead of the visibly fuming woman, fixing Arthur with her brown eyes and speaking firmly. "Leia - your Senior - is just worried about you. As we are all. That... was close. And she's not wrong. You need to get stronger." Softer. "We all do."
"Fine..." Arthur sighed. He hated the fact that he was the weakest in the team, at least in terms of amount of attribute points invested. Most of the others were closer to second transformation than him, though they all trailed behind Lam and Casey for obvious, lack of resource, reasons. Pushing ahead like they had, without having enough time to actually cultivate had hampered their overall strength.
Funnily enough, old timers like Noor and Li Sun were stronger, but not as much as you'd expect for people who had lived here for years. Part of that, of course, was the constant drain that existence had on the power pools. In addition, growing too much stronger beyond second transformation actually forced one to ascend because otherwise, they'd be spending too much time cultivating rather than enjoying their existence.
"We got a specific number?" Arthur asked, curiously as they continued to trudge through the plains. One nice advantage of it was that, given how flat everything was, they could orient themselves via the presence of the town. The constant smoke trails that rose from various fires - whether for crafting or warmth or the occassional meal - was an easy telltale.
It was also the method agreed upon by the group to signal any potential issues. Setting fire to a bunch of items to create purple smoke was not particularly environmentally friendly, but it worked.
"Five or six more groups," Casey said. "Give or take a thirty stones more for each of us should do it."
By that math, Arthur figured she was looking at three to four more points before breaking through to third transformation. At which point she could have a few more points added to balance herself out and then she'd be at the theoretical maximum for the level. Or, at least if you didn't want to spend most of your time hunting and fighting and didn't have a whole organisation feeding you. Removing those concerns, she probably could add another ten points easily.
Of course, doing that would slow down her ascent, and he'd watched her keep a small notebook, counting the days off every time the sun changed. While it might be off a little, it was close enough. It did leave a question though.
"How long?" he asked, curiously.
"Another four months before I'm out of time," Casey said.
"Including the last few levels?" Arthur checked.
"Yes."
Considering the next two levels were expansive and the last level just a fight, it left very little time for her to continue progressing. He figured he'd give her a week, maybe two, before she left to give her enough time in case of potential issues on the ninth floor. That was the trickiest one after all since actually ascending required the tracking and capture of the boss monster which fled through the ruins of the overgrown jungle city. Overall, a pain and a half to do.
"A month?" Arthur asked quietly.
"At most. Less if I can do it," she said.
He grimaced, remembering their earlier conversation. It didn't give him much time to use her to negotiate. Which left him at the mercy of Auntie Wen, if things went bad.
Resolved, he waved the group forward, speeding up a little. The faster they caught their next group of beasts, the faster they could get and find out what the Ghee Hin were thinking.
***
"The other gangs didn't know. The Ghee Hin didn't tell them," Uswah said, days later. She had found them, half a day's walk away from entering the city. They'd considered coming in at night or early morning but chose not to, not with the potential of not-so-friendly fire and the easy excuse that they were sneaking in. Add in fatigue from walking in all day and it just made little sense.
"Will they help us? Do they know why?" Arthur asked.
"The UN want concessions." At the look he gave her, Uswah shrugged. "They wouldn't discuss it with me too much, but rooms were mentioned. Maybe some cultivation techniques." She chuckled. "Our healing technique is getting a lot of buzz."
"Not surprised," Arthur muttered. "The basic healing technique available in the Tower is really... basic. Barely useful beyond a tactic-al level."
"Did you try to rhyme that?" Uswah said, looking disapproving.
Arthur shrugged, and she snorted. "Anyway, the UN are in. The 66 are more hesitant."
"Really?" Now he was surprised.
"They want you to talk it out with the Ghee Hin first. Something about starting a war if they got involved," Uswah said. "I don't think they want to commit, not to us yet."
"Not even for rooms?"
A shake of the head and he sighed. The Tower rooms were a powerful draw, but they were only useful if he survived. The 66 might be doing the math on whether he'd ever manage to make it into another Tower if he went out, already engaged in a fight with a group like the Ghee Hin.
The triad had a lot more people out of the Tower than they did in here, especially considering how many rotated through. Even those that didn't get chosen to come in could be deadly to Beginner Tower drivers. You only needed to pump in enough bullets - or drive a car over someone - enough times to finish a Climber.
It wasn't easy, mind you, but it wasn't impossible.
"Celaka." Arthur cursed. "So what, we have to go hat-in-hand and hope the Ghee Hin will stop attacking us?"
Uswah shrugged and he rubbed his face, trying to decide what to do. He hated the idea that he might have to go in, weaker than he'd like. But without the backing of the Chin's or the 66 as well, he was not certain going in strong was the way to go. Which left him with not a lot of options.
"I guess that makes it simple, doesn't it?"
At the look the group gave him, he shrugged.
"Got to have a word with a woman about a horse."
Somehow, he wasn't surprised no one got it.