Jax glanced over his shoulder one last time. The Spiked Dune Lord hadn't followed.
After he caught his breath, he turned to Kaleb, who was leaning against the rock face, looking like a ghost.
"Damn," Jax wheezed, managing a smirk. "And here I thought you had guts of steel. Who knew you’d freeze up so bad you couldn't even walk?"
Kaleb’s face was chalk-white, the terror of the encounter still etched into his features. "I... I wasn't actually that scared," he stammered, his voice thin. "It was just... the way you described it. It freaked me out. The monster itself? It wasn't that big a deal."
Jax couldn't help but laugh. The kid was trying so hard to save face.
"Keep pretending," Jax teased. "When I tried to grab you, you were rooted to the spot. I basically had to drag your ass out of the mud. And you have the nerve to say you weren't scared?"
Despite the banter, Jax didn't blame him. The visibility had been near zero, the storm was raging, and a Tier 2 apex predator had erupted from the earth less than a hundred meters away. Fear wasn't a sign of weakness; it was a survival instinct.
He didn't hold it against Silas and Gareth for running, either. It was a primal reaction. When Jax had first encountered a Spiked Dune Lord, he had nearly wet himself. The only difference was that he had been far away, observing from a distance. Tonight, they had been staring right down its gullet.
At a hundred meters, that thing could have closed the gap in ten seconds. If they hadn't bolted, they would be digesting in its stomach right now.
The atmosphere inside the fortress was heavy.
The team sat in the main hall, dripping wet and silent. Silas and Gareth stared at the floor, their faces burning with shame. Abandoning their leader and teammate was a stain on their honor, and the guilt was eating them alive.
After a long, suffocating silence, Gareth finally spoke up.
"Look... I need to say something," Gareth muttered, not meeting Jax's eyes. "I messed up. I shouldn't have run. I panicked, and I led the retreat. I shouldn't have shouted like that. Boss... Jax... if you want to blame someone, blame me. I accept the Penalty."
Seeing Gareth step up, Silas stood as well. He glanced at Jax, then shot a covert thumbs-up at Kaleb—mistakenly believing the kid had stayed behind out of bravery, not paralysis.
"Boss," Silas said, turning back to Jax. "I'm responsible too. I shouldn't have abandoned the team. Punish me."
Jax looked at the two men. Their remorse was genuine. He nodded, his expression serious but not angry.
"Alright. Since you’re both owning up to it, here is your Penalty," Jax declared. "Tomorrow, before the first wave of monsters hits, I want forty Tier 1 Energy Shards on my desk. If you don't bring them back, don't bother coming back yourselves."
It was a steep demand, but fair. The two men nodded vigorously. "Understood!"
Kaleb shifted uncomfortably. "Uh... I messed up too. Shouldn't I get a Penalty?"
He felt unworthy of the praise Silas had silently given him. Only Jax knew the truth—that he had been scared stiff—but Kaleb’s conscience wouldn't let it slide.
Jax raised an eyebrow. "You want a Penalty? Fine. Tomorrow, your job is to clear every single corpse from the battlefield outside. Clean it up completely."
Kaleb blinked. That was just his usual chore. He was about to thank Jax for the leniency when Jax added, "And after that, fill the firewood stockpile to the brim. If you don't finish, you don't come back either."
Kaleb’s jaw dropped. He swallowed the 'thank you' and nodded weakly. The firewood stockpile was massive; that was a back-breaking amount of labor.
With discipline restored, Jax turned his attention to the fortress.
Having unlocked the upgrade permissions for the Howitzer Turret, he felt a little more secure. But permission wasn't enough; he needed raw materials. Every day the defenses remained stagnant was another day he felt exposed.
He pulled up the interface.
[Tier 2 Howitzer Turret Upgrade Requirements: Refined Iron x100, Stardust Stone x100]
"Another hundred of each," Jax sighed, rubbing his temples. "Everything is so expensive."
It wasn't a question of difficulty—it was pure scarcity. He simply didn't have the stock.
Luck, however, was on his side. That evening, a combination of system rewards and Bounty Protocol payouts came through, dumping exactly enough Refined Iron and Stardust Stone into his inventory to cover the cost.
"Finally," Jax muttered, feeling the tension in his shoulders ease. "Let's burn some resources."
He walked out to the platform and placed his hand on the cold metal of the Howitzer Turret. The data stream flooded his mind.
[Tier 1 Howitzer Turret: Durability 100% - Upgrade Available] [Cost: Refined Iron x100, Stardust Stone x100. Time: 10 minutes.]
Jax confirmed the selection.
The resources vanished from his spatial storage, and the turret began to glow with a soft, transformative light. Jax watched with anticipation. He had seen the Sentry Tower's stats double upon upgrade; he hoped for a similar power spike here.
Ten minutes later, the light faded. The turret looked sleeker, the barrel slightly longer and reinforced with glowing runes. Jax touched it again to check the new specs.
[Tier 2 Howitzer Turret] [Attack Power: 80] [Range: 220] [Attack Speed: 0.4] [Special Effect: Splash Damage]
Jax frowned. "Huh. That's... underwhelming."
He did the mental math. The Tier 1 version had 50 Attack Power; it had only gone up by 30, nowhere near double. The Range had only increased from 200 to 220.
"A bit stingy on the raw damage," Jax grumbled. "But the Attack Speed... that doubled."
An Attack Speed of 0.4 was significantly faster than the previous tier. While the individual hits weren't twice as hard, the rate of fire meant the overall DPS (Damage Per Second) had skyrocketed. Coupled with the Splash Damage, it was still a beast against swarms.
Jax reminded himself of the tactical roles. The Howitzer wasn't for dueling bosses; it was for crowd control. For single-target elimination, the Sentry Tower was still king. The key was synergy.
"I need more towers," he muttered. "Mixing AOE and single-target DPS is the only way this works. Right now, I'm just brute-forcing it because the enemy waves are simple."
Sunday was approaching.
Tomorrow, the logistics convoy from Outpost 15 would arrive to collect the mountain of biological resources Jax's team had accumulated.
They did a quick inventory. In just over two weeks, they had slaughtered nearly three thousand Sandworms and close to two thousand Rodent-Maw Creepers. The numbers were staggering.
Feeling a surge of accomplishment, Jax opened his personal status panel.
[User: Jax] [Age: 21] [Bio-Score: 87 (Excellent)] [Exclusive Skill: Decoy Clone] [EXP: 920/1000] [Class: Novice Architect] [Defense Towers: Tier 2 Sentry Tower (x2), Tier 2 Howitzer Turret (x1)] [Current Task: None]
"Eighty-seven," Jax mused. His body was reaching peak human condition.
But his eyes narrowed when he looked at the experience bar.
"System," he queried internally. "I've killed thousands of enemies. Why is my EXP stuck at 920? It should have capped out ages ago."
[System Message: User is currently a Novice Architect. Hunting Tier 0/Tier 1 entities (Sandworms) no longer yields Experience. Only hunting higher-tier Insectoids will provide Experience.]
"Okay, but I've killed two thousand Rodent-Maw Creepers," Jax argued. "Those aren't weak."
[System Message: At the current Architect Level, hunting a Tier 2 entity yields 0.5 EXP.]
"0.5?!"
Jax stared at the screen, dumbfounded. He looked at the carpet of corpses outside the wall.
"You're kidding me. All those missions, all that grinding... basically zero XP?" He sighed, shaking his head. "Well, at least I'm rich."
He had over three thousand Cores sitting in his inventory. Since he couldn't level up off the small fry, he would have to rely on their monetary value.
"I need to liquidate these Cores into currency as soon as possible," Jax muttered, his mind switching to economics. "Holding this much stock is dangerous. If the market value for Tier 1 Cores crashes, I'm going to lose my shirt. I need to sell before the supply gluts the market."