"And, that makes it ten," Eleanor said even as she absorbed another crystal, her smile widening. She was referring to the number of crystals she had absorbed, and I had absorbed an equal amount, each consumption increasing our vision even more.

With her tactic of cutting the limbs of the gargantuan beast — something she could achieve without any risk thanks to her absurd Dexterity — keeping my hydroponic garden mostly intact, I was able to expand it more, which drew more gargantuan beasts to us. Combined with the speed at which we dealt with them, killing twenty of them didn't even take half a day.

It was good to finally cooperate.

"Maybe we should aim for twenty, each?" she suggested.

"No, you said Maria might return early. We should be ready, just in case they target her."

That made Eleanor snort. "Yeah, targeting her directly. That's funny," she said. "You have never seen her fight, right?"

"I have seen it when she helped me level up."

It made Eleanor actually laugh, though, with the filter on, she sounded quite weird. "Oh, yeah, that. Believe me, that's nothing."

I shrugged. While it was hard to treat Maria as truly dangerous since the performance she revealed to me was something I could match if I forced myself, I couldn't ignore the fact that I had no true baseline on how strong she was. But, considering how our enemies had never created any trouble while she was in the camp, I was willing to take Eleanor's words at face value.

"Still, we can take a break and see if she has arrived. Not to mention, we better open the dungeon before people start getting too antsy. The sudden disappearance of multiple guilds will be difficult enough to explain," I said, then gestured. "Unless you want to spend even more time on the fifth floor."

"You're right. A break will be useful. Even with the filter, it smells disgusting," she said. With that, we passed through the dungeon gate, stepping onto the fourth floor. "Finally," she said, removing the filter. "So, what do we do now?"

"Nothing, we just go back to the first floor."

"We can practice skill-switching. I want to get a hang of it."

"Sounds good. Multitasking is never a bad idea," I said. "But, just to be on the safe side, don't practice that when I'm not around, alright?"

"Why?"

"Because I almost killed myself while experimenting with Meditation," I explained.

"Really?"

"Yeah," I said, shivering as I gave her a quick breakdown of just how close I got to death due to my own mistake. That was what I got acting like a sixteenth-century alchemist, recklessly experimenting on myself without any proper procedures. Desperation was a dangerous drug.

"Alright, I'll be careful," she promised, which I appreciated.

"Good. The System is still a mystery with some really weird restrictions, but it's clear that at least some of the restrictions from the skills are here to protect us. Unraveling them requires a much more careful methodology."

"Don't tell me that you're going to abandon us for one of the research institutes you're talking about," she said.

"I had such thoughts before, but my recent success gave me a better direction."

"Do you think you can do a better job?" she said.

I paused, thinking how to present it. I thought about hiding my opinions, but I changed my mind. Maybe a secondary perspective would help. "Not that. The opposite, actually. I'm a lone Blacksmith, yet all I needed was to monopolize the dungeon for a few weeks to transform the whole town. Why wasn't it copied anywhere else?"

"But, you're the one that said gaining a mana skill was a lucky break."

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"True, but even without it, I could have scaled up easily. And, that was with me alone. Cooperating with other people …" I added, then my voice faded.

"You suspect something," Eleanor said.

"I suspect many things, but talking about them has no point until I get some evidence to support them," I replied. "Maybe all of them are wrong, and I'm a once-in-a-generation genius who solved the System, and people will adapt my discoveries happily, and we'll defeat the monsters that are challenging us."

"You don't believe it," Eleanor said, though she didn't exactly sound shocked.

"Of course not. How many high-ranking guild masters, family heads, or city lords that you know would be happy that their new position suddenly got less powerful."

"It would?" she asked. "Wouldn't people getting stronger increase their power?"

"It's a bit complicated, but not necessarily," I said.

"Why?"

I paused, thinking how to explain it without it turning into a lecture. Not that I didn't like teaching, but the middle of the dungeon was not a good place to explain the history of governments and how it related to individual power… especially since it was a loaded topic with many distinct opinions in academia, with significantly different views, from general principles like social contracts and constructs, ideas of enlightenment, labor theory, economic collectivist theories, class struggle, impact of technology.

It was closer to a complete undergrad degree than a lecture.

"I'm going to oversimplify it wildly, but we can summarize the current power struggle as a game. Currently, the ones holding power have four major advantages. Do you want to guess what those are?"

"Individual strength is the most obvious one," she said. I nodded. "And, I'm guessing having the elite military following their orders is another one."

"Partially," I said. "It's not just having the most elite forces. Back in the day, Roman Emperors had the elite Praetorian Guard, but those guards were responsible for more deaths and deposition than any enemy forces."

"They have the charisma to ensure their loyalty," she said.

"Exactly. I don't know how it works, but I'm guessing it's easier to use it to raise a small but elite guard utterly loyal to their leader than controlling the whole city."

"True," she said, confirming it. "Economy is probably the other one? What about the fourth?"

"Knowledge," I said. She seemed to scoff at the idea. I wasn't surprised by her attitude, as most people shared that dismissiveness. Mostly because, it was easier to underestimate the value of the knowledge they already possessed. It was why I was able to learn a lot from them without them realizing I was interrogating them. But, I needed to correct it. "Oh, so you think the knowledge on how to improve your new Rare skill was completely useless?"

"Well, no," she said.

"Then, how about the working principles of the dungeon? How, how to upgrade the class? What about —"

"Alright, professor," she said, cutting me off. "I got it. Knowledge is important. Still, I don't see why the city lord would react badly to having better weapons."

"Because they can't control the source," I said. "The System Shops might be expensive, and their wares might be limited, but they are under their direct control. They don't suddenly come out and demand civil rights, better living conditions, or a say in the ruling matters."

"I can't believe it," she said. "That means they are letting all those people die just because they want to keep their power. Did System really corrupt us that much?"

I couldn't help but chuckle. "Believe me, if you study history, you'll learn that we didn't need the System to not care about the deaths of millions of people. History is filled with kings and emperors sending their men to die just to invade territory that they would never step into. Or, if you're looking for a more recent example, look at the billionaires letting people work in conditions that were similar to slavery just to buy another yacht that they could show off to their other billionaire friends."

"It still feels unbelievable."

I shrugged again. "Frankly, it's just a hypothesis, one that I wasn't able to start exploring mathematically."

"How does math relate to all of it?" she said.

"Well, that's what I was working on before the Cataclysm struck. Mathematical sociology. Everything I just explained to you can be represented in a mathematical model. And, assuming the existence of enough granular data and a sufficiently strong computer, it's possible to predict how things might work."

"Does it work?" she said.

"Somewhat. At least, it helps to evolve sociology into a proper science. It's better than just writing books that were only read by other academicians —" I started, only to realize Eleanor was not exactly the correct target for that rant.

Old habits die hard.

"Yes. At least I believe that it can be used to understand some of the core principles of the situation, allowing us to look in the right direction. It should be helpful. But, first, I need to do some experiments."

"Experiments?" she asked, looking tense. She wasn't hard to read. I had no doubt she was thinking about the … things that we had fought, transforming into monsters halfway.

"Letting people fill some surveys, after a day in the dungeon, or after leveling up. Maybe some interviews after teaching them a new skill, and understanding how their perspective changed. A proper, scientific observation. Nothing crazy."

"Good," she said. "Because if those…"

"Believe me, I share your concerns," I said. "Ethics are an important part of science, and ignoring them for quick progress is not a good direction to go."

"Alright, that's enough talking. Teach me how to switch between skills faster," Eleanor declared. "Regardless of the potential danger, it's better to have a brave warrior to protect your big brain."

I chuckled, happy with her declaration. Her words might be flippant, but I had learned enough about her to know that the intent behind it wasn't as flippant.

Though, I doubted she understood the potential enormity of her commitment.