Monroe

Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty-Five. Four long months later.

"Any chance we can steal her?" Elania asked, lifting her eyes from the folder.

"I'm afraid Ms. Gupta is being drowned in accolades by her own country," Taylor replied dryly. "If she had been poor, we might have had a chance, but the truth of the matter is that India is a wonderful country in which to be wealthy, which her family was. I'm somewhat surprised that they were willing to share this with us so freely."

"I have a feeling that there are thousands of electricians around the world either saying 'I told you so,' or smacking their own foreheads," Elania shook her head.

"It turns out that we had dozens of requests to authorize similar experiments," Taylor agreed. "We just didn't have the crystals, and to be honest, we didn't need to. As badly damaged as our lines were, our plants didn't suffer nearly as badly as India's. Direct generation of a steady current from mana crystals is going to be incredibly important for them."

"Well, we can write that off as a net benefit for humanity as a whole and India in particular," Elania closed the folder and moved it to the side before opening the next one.

She quickly scanned the document within, then read it again, more slowly.

"Of course," she sighed.

"While she can't be certain, she's made a solid argument," Taylor agreed.

"Summoning, Dimension, and Shadowmancy," Elania leaned back. "It certainly fits with those Ancestral Blessings the System offers."

"The nice thing about those System notifications is that you can always call them back up," Taylor said. "Previously I might have hesitated, citing her advanced age and possibly failing memory, but with reincarnation having restored her youth, I think we have to accept this."

Elania looked down at the folder again.

You have chosen to evolve.

Your species has been shaped and molded by a single individual as it progressed into Paragon and reached Pinnacle. Benefits for these stages included increased mana sensitivity and mana manipulation, as well as increased creativity, empathy, and curiosity.

This individual, as the first of your species to evolve, has guided you to what you were, and contributed to what you could be. In the interest of homogeny, the System recommends continuing to follow this course of evolution.

Wayfarer.

The natural evolutionary path of the Human species (sub-species Earth), Wayfarers are as compact as possible, standing between eight and a half and eleven feet tall, and retain all of their sub-species traits.

Members of your species who chose to evolve past the pinnacle will now receive a natural affinity for the Arcane Schools of Dimension and Summoning, as well as the Divine School of Shadowmancy.

Would you like to evolve as a Wayfarer, or would you like to see the other species available?

"I could be wrong," Elania said thoughtfully, "but as written, that rather strongly suggests that someone who shall remain unrecorded at this time has been rewiring humanity."

"That's what the Queen wrote," Taylor agreed. "Also, everyone is going to know it was Bob."

"Some people are going to want to become dragon men or whatever," Elania shook her head, "but the majority of us are a little too attached to our humanity to want to stray too far away from it. Which is probably why that certain someone did what they did. It would have been nice if they'd consulted with someone before making decisions that would impact our entire species."

"Could have done a lot worse, though," Taylor said.

"Creativity, empathy, and curiosity? Yes, it could have been worse."

Bob smiled as his pack of UtahRaptors finished off the Gwarli that had been attacking Jake's flank.

Quest Complete!

You have dispersed 16,777,216 manifestations!

You have proven your ability to disperse manifestations more powerful than yourself. The ability to select the tier and level of the manifestations you will face in a Dungeon has been fully unlocked.

It had taken four months to finish that quest.

The true frustration had been facing the reality of just how terrifyingly large the numbers he was dealing with had grown.

Summon Mana-Infused Creature. Spell level 89. Progress to next level 1,276,880 out of 5,242,880.

Bob wasn't normally a terribly emotional man, but when he'd seen the cost to increase his spell go up to over five million experience per level, he'd felt an irrational wave of anger wash over him.

He'd done the math a long time ago, and he knew it was coming, but damn.

Thankfully, the past one hundred and twenty-one days of receiving a meager seven experience per monster were over.

More importantly, it was time to take a vacation.

He had paused at level forty. While he could have technically kept going, he was in a good place. The fifth personal threshold meant that his Eternal Servant skill could be barraged to produce eight monsters, each one at level forty-four. His Summon Mana-Infused Object spell was level eighty, which meant that including the three thresholds for the School of Summoning itself, he had twenty-four thresholds in the Summoning school, which meant a twenty-four percent increase to damage dealt by his summoned monsters, and the same value as a decrease to the damage taken.

Of equal importance was that through constant use, his Portal spell had reached level sixty-two. When considering that his spellcasting value had more than doubled from when he had been capped at tier seven, he knew that he wouldn't have any trouble jumping the Freedom from one universe to another.

He looked over his status as he continued the slaughter of the Gwarli.

Name Bob Level 40 Tier 8 Size 9 Armor Hardness 124 Weapon hardness 136 Str 16 Achievements : Extradimensional Traveler Armor Style 1.01 Weapon type 1.1 Cord 16 Pinacle Durable Dodge 16 Spell casting 1.1 End (Affinity Crystal Applied) 176 Pedagogue Extradimensional Ferryman Level Thresholds Int (Affinity Crystal Applied) 384 Academic Fragmented Level 8 Threshold Bonus Attribute Bonus - 32 points to both Intelligence and Wisdom Level 56 Threshold bonus: Locked Wis (Enduring Affinity Applied) 384 Stamina (Maximum): 96 Stamina Reserved : 0 Savior Reconstituted Level 16 Threshold bonus: Attribute Bonus - 8 points to both Intelligence and Wisdom Level 64 Threshold Bonus: Locked Stamina Regen (maximum) 19.2 Stamina Regen Reserved: 8 Progenitor Paragon Level 24 Threshold bonus: Attribute Bonus - 8 points to both Intelligence and Wisdom Locked Health 7112 Mana (Maximum) : 384 Mana Reserved: 299 The Old Ways Level 32 Threshold bonus: Attribute Bonus - 8 points to both Intelligence and Wisdom Locked Armor 375 Mana Regen (Maximum) 76.8 Mana Regen: Reserved 18 Extradimensional Explorer Level 40 Threshold bonus: Attribute Bonus - 8 points to both Intelligence and Wisdom Locked Damage 519 Spell Casting 616 Venerated Level 48 Threshold bonus: Locked Locked

Attribute Affinities were overpowered. He'd been concerned about the amount of mana his skills would reserve, but in no small part thanks to the narrow focus required to get the most out of his path, he was absolutely fine. He would have been fine without the Attribute Affinities, but they also provided a huge mana pool, which was important when you were barraging persistent effects.

Ultimately, he felt powerful enough to defend himself from anyone on Earth that was likely to attack him. Thayland was still a bit of a toss up, but he didn't think he'd annoyed the Dragon, or the Empire, so he was probably safe.

Another seven hundred or so Gwarli, and he'd call it quits for a week.

"I can't believe we're higher level than Bob," Eddi shook his head.

"Not only was his quest more expensive, but he had to do an entire exponent beyond ours," Harv said. "That last one was something like seventeen million monsters."

"I'm just super keen to be going back to Earth, yeah?" Jessica added cheerfully.

"I do kind of want to see what's been going on," Dave agreed.

"We all agreed to wait," Amanda reminded him.

Dave's portal spell had lagged behind a bit. Before they ever reincarnated down and evolved to tier eight, they'd agreed that they would cap their skills until they'd reached level eight, at which point the rule would be double their own level. This was to prevent Bailli from refusing to level until her Lightning Blast was capped each level, something that had become problematic when she'd had a double affinity at tier seven and a maximum level of one hundred and fifty.

Amanda had realized that with a triple affinity and a maximum spell level of one hundred and ninety-two, Bailli would hold them all back.

The upshot of the agreement was Bailli didn't complain when they spent a little extra time leveling up secondary skills.

Dave had kept his Portal equal to his level, and at level forty-two, he was pretty sure he could get them back to Earth, but the group had agreed to wait for Bob.

"I know," Dave squeezed her hand.

"I hope they've got the infrastructure repaired," Jack grumbled. "I'd like to pick up a few things."

"I'm just glad that they'll be using mana crystals," Bailli said. "Honestly, I don't know Earth managed with all those different currencies."

"Well, I'm hoping to see how they've adapted their martial art schools now that they're dealing with monsters," Eli said. "I learned quite a bit just from those two in Los Angeles."

"Honestly, I just want to go surfing again," Wayna admitted with a smile.

Bob stepped into the Tavern at Glacier Valley, and immediately spotted his friends.

They occupied almost a quarter of the space, dwarfing the tier five people in the room.

Amanda spotted him first and waved him over.

He made his way carefully across the room, for the first time wondering if maybe Harbordeep had been on to something when they'd had a dining room for the higher tiers. Not the obvious difference in quality, just the difference in space.

He took the only open seat, which was situated between Amanda and Jessica, giving the group a smile. "Good morning," he said.

"Not just a good morning, a great morning," Jessica beamed as she leaned over and hugged him.

"I'll second that," Bailli smiled, "it's nice to see you and know it won't just be for a quick meal," she said to Bob.

"We could all use a little R&R," Mike grunted as he tapped away at his armband for a moment, then shook his head. "Jack, you've got to get more satellites up, I just got a text that was written an hour ago," he complained.

"That's on the agenda," Jack promised.

"Also, I don't like that we're using bluetooth to connect our phones to our armbands," Mike continued. "It's a vulnerability."

"I don't think anyone is going to try and compromise our armbands over bluetooth," Jack shook his head.

"I wonder what Earth has come up with while we've been gone," Bob mused. "I bet DARPA has some awesome new toys."

"Your president will let us see what they've come up with, yeah?" Jessica asked.

"I don't know," Bob admitted. "Now that the integration is over, I don't think I'm going to be considered important enough to talk directly to president. She has an entire country to run."

Dave shook his head. "I think you're underestimating your own value," he said. "If nothing else, she's probably going to want to talk to you about those blessings."

"I wonder if she venerates you or Monroe?" Eddi asked.

"Or both," Wayna added.

"We'll need to jump in well away from the planet," Mike said. "There is no way that there aren't a ton of spacecraft up there now, not with how easy it is to build them."

"The Freedom was not easy to build," Bob muttered.

"The Freedom was an incredibly ambitious project more in line with a colony ship meant to explore the multiverse, as opposed to a solar run-about," Amanda said.

"So I guess the big question is, can we afford the trip?" Erick asked.

"You need to stop giving all your crystals away," Bailli scolded him gently, softening her words with a gentle kiss.

"I'm the richest man in the world," Erick replied. "I have you. What else is there?"

"Oh, that's a good one," Dave muttered. "I'm definitely borrowing it."

"Yes, it is, and you should," Amanda agreed. "I think everyone except for Erick has half a million crystals banked."

"Something like that," Jack agreed.

"I wonder how much things cost on Earth," Harv mused. "I learned a little bit about economics when I was trying to distribute the cure for cancer, and it shocked me how much things cost beyond what was needed to create them. Our crystals might not go as far as we think."

"We won't know until we get there," Bob shrugged.

"Any reason not to get going?" Dave asked.

"I should let the King know," Bob said. "Also, we might want to see if anyone else wants to come with us? I don't have anyone besides you guys, but you have families and friends and stuff, so maybe see if they want to join us? It doesn't cost anymore to jump the Freedom when it's packed full of people as opposed to mostly empty."

"Your Majesty," Bob bowed.

"Bob," Kellan rumbled.

If Bob didn't know better, he would have thought the King of Greenwold sounded almost... happy.

"I completed the quest that unlocked my ability to delve above my tier, so I'm going on vacation with my friends to celebrate," Bob shook his head. "They completed it months and months ago."

"It was a bit of an annoyance," Kellan agreed with a chuckle.

Bob hesitated for a second, then shrugged. It probably wouldn't hurt to ask. "How the hell did you finish it before I did?" He asked.

"How long does it take you to clear a Dungeon?" Kellan answered his question with one of his own.

"Two hours, give or take, depending on the Dungeon," Bob replied.

"It takes me about ten minutes," Kellan said, his tone carrying the smugness that only a dragon could convey.

"Ok," Bob shook his head, "you know what, I don't need to know, you're a Dragon, that's what Dragon's do."

"Indeed," Kellan smiled toothily.

"So, I'm going back to Earth for a week, then I'll start delving again," Bob said.

"Excellent," Kellan said as he waved his hand, "I had hoped you'd be returning to Earth soon."

Ericka, the King's draconian seneschal, strode into the room, handing Kellan a sheaf of papers before smiling at Bob, who still found her smile rather unnerving. It was far too broad, and her teeth were far too sharp and pointy.

"As you may be aware, the Empire has uprooted itself and moved to Earth," Kellan began. "This has given my primacy over the entire planet of Thayland. Despite the seventy million people from Earth who have chosen to shelter under my wings, I'm faced with the reality of needing more people to keep the Dungeons cleared."

Kellan flipped through the sheaf of paper quickly, nodded his head and handed it back to Ericka, who in turn handed it to Bob.

"That is a tentative agreement between myself and some of the leaders of Earth with whom I've had an agreeable relationship with in the past. The broad scope is that I'm willing to provide transport from Earth to Thayland for individuals who wish to delve my Dungeons. They will agree to delve for eight hours a day, five days a week. Half of the crystals they collect will be reserved for my hoard, while the nations may negotiate their own tax, although it may not exceed twenty-five percent," Kellan finished.

"I don't mean to disparage your generosity," Bob said slowly. "But weren't we paying a ten percent tax and a ten percent lease?"

"That was when your people were in deadly peril," Kellan replied. "I used those crystals to build up the defenses of the cities of Greenwold, and once that had been done, to fuel the stasis project. This," he gestured toward the papers Bob held, "is, as you would say, just business."