Bob lifted another Tupperware tote from the stack and then sat down to begin casting the Spatial Expansion ritual.
He'd called Ralph's, and they'd promised to have his order filled in two days. They'd offered to deliver it, although they'd warned that it would cost a bit more, considering that what he'd ordered would take up several pallets. He'd declined, stating he would pick it up himself, which had led to his current project.
With his spellcasting value and his achievement 'The Old Ways,' he was able to increase the volume of the tote by a factor of eight. That was important because the entire crew had decided that they weren't going to endure any sort of deprivation on the next expedition, which had resulted in the group buying more than the ship could actually hold.
Yes, enchanting forty totes with Spatial Expansion, Spatial Reinforcement, and Stasis was both time-consuming and expensive, but he was looking at it as a one-time expense. Once the totes were enchanted, it was just a matter of feeding each of them three mana crystals every three weeks.
It also gave him time to think.
Ritual casting, even without the aid of the System, was an almost meditative activity.
He was considering tiering up.
The rewards for being the first to reach paragon, and then pinnacle, hadn't been insubstantial, setting aside the fact that he'd then been able to shape the path humanity would take as people advanced.
He'd discussed it with his friends, and they'd all told him that he should be the one to tier up first, despite his suggestion that they spread the rewards out.
It was tempting to wait until this Summon Mana-Infused Creature spell was capped, but the truth was that they'd reached the point where it took time to push through the levels. Technically, he had plenty of time. If he just sat down and relaxed, he had two thousand years. But he'd made a promise to the Emperor of Thayland to rush to tier ten, and if he was being honest, he didn't want to see Kellan again without having pushed into tier nine. The original plan had given the group a couple of weeks on Earth before they headed to Thayland, but Bob's invitation to the United Nations meant that he'd be seeing Kellan a lot sooner.
He finished the tote, and stood up, intent on putting this one on the 'done' stack and picking up a fresh one, when he found his path blocked by Jessica, who looked stunning in a simple yellow and pink sundress.
"Working hard, yeah?" She asked.
"Am I?" He replied with a shrug. "Ritual casting comes naturally to me, at least once I know the rituals," he smiled. "I'm not a prodigy like you."
Jessica's smile was brilliant. "You say the sweetest things."
"Just the unvarnished truth," Bob handed her the tote, which she dutifully placed on the 'done' stack before handing him a fresh one, taking one for herself as well.
"So, what's on your mind? You seemed a bit out of it, yeah?" Jessica asked.
"I was thinking about tiering up sooner rather than later, and by sooner, I mean this afternoon," Bob admitted. "When I see Kellan at the United Nations, I don't want him to see me at the same tier and level I was two years ago."
"I don't know him, but from what you've told me about him, I don't think he'd do anything," Jessica said.
"Oh, I doubt he'd hurt me or anything," Bob shook his head. "In a weird dragon-y kind of way, I think Kellan sees me as part of his Hoard?"
"Dragon-y is not a word," Jessica teased.
"Spend some time with one, and you'll change your mind," Bob grumbled. "Dragon-y is definitely a word, and one that is not only versatile but universally understood."
"Still, I don't think tiering up is a bad thing," Jessica continued, her expression more serious but her smile still bright. "We all have enough crystals, and our primary spells or skills are high enough that they'll be more than twice our level." She reached and laid a hand on his forearm. "I know you don't think you deserve, or have the right, or whatever, to make the decisions that will guide our species, but I need you to listen to me."
She slid her hand down into his, reaching up with her other to cup his cheek, and gently turning his head towards her.
"You're a good man," she said with quiet intensity. "I trust you to make the best decisions you can, and I'm not the only one. We all trust you."
Bob closed his eyes, unable to keep his eyes locked on hers. They were too blue, too brilliant, and expressed too much.
He squeezed her hand.
"Thank you," he whispered before moving his hand over to his tote, ending the moment.
"You're welcome," Jessica replied.
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"Good morning, Tim," a voice penetrated the dull fog of boredom that shrouded his days.
He looked up sharply, only to slump when he recognized the President. "Good morning, Madam President," he replied tiredly.
"Long days," she commiserated.
"Yes, Ma'am," he agreed.
It was hard to complain to the President because, well, she was the President, and her days were just as long as his. Hell, she spent just as much time delving as he did, and as for the rest of the time, he thought he'd rather keep casting his ritual over and over again than deal with the bureaucracy.
"This is your last week unless you'd like to renew your contract?" The President asked.
"No, thank you, Madam President," Tim replied. "I'd rather move on. You have enough crystals now, right?"
"We do," The President assured him with a warm smile. "You'll go down in history for your efforts."
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Tim shook his head. He wasn't interested in going down in history.
"I just wanted to stop by and see if you needed anything," The President continued. "I can only imagine how boring all of this has been for you, and I don't think we can thank you enough."
"I'm fine, thank you for asking," Tim said. "Honestly, I'm just counting the days until I'm done."
"Six more," The President smiled. "I'll leave you to it, then."
Tim nodded as he watched the President walk away.
He'd come to terms with the fact that he frequently checked out the President of the United States ass. She hadn't reincarnated, but with her Endurance attribute, she looked about thirty, as opposed to her actual sixty years.
Tim was willing to admit he'd always had a thing for older women, although not that much older.
The fact of the matter was that he'd been stuck in this building, which had been constructed around the entrance to a Dungeon, for the past year and a half ever since he'd tiered up to six and gotten that goddamn ritual as part of his path.
Special Skill - 'Fluid Affinity' granted. This skill grants the user a ritual spell that will transmute any two Affinity Crystals into one Affinity Crystal of the user's choice. Any bonuses reducing the cost of the user's transmutation spells apply.
He had no idea how or why the System had given it to him. Sure, he was a transmutation specialist; it had seemed like the best path forward for him, a sort of natural progression of his material engineering studies. Maybe it was because he'd also picked up the Alchemy skill as well? He didn't know, and the President had told him that they hadn't been able to replicate it.
Initially, he'd been ecstatic when his approach to the government had generated what had appeared to be an incredibly lucrative contract.
In retrospect, he should have had a lawyer look it over before he'd signed it.
The deal he'd been offered had been extremely enticing. He would be carried through a Dungeon for eight hours a day, five days a week. All the Mana Crystals he gathered would be untaxed, although any Affinity Crystals would be used in conjunction with his new skill to convert them to whatever kind of Affinity Crystals the government needed. He would be responsible for converting a percentage of the nation's Affinity Crystal supply, and once he had reached that number, his contract would be considered fulfilled, although it included a clause allowing him to renew it if both parties were satisfied with the arrangement.
Tim was not satisfied.
He should have asked more questions, but the lure of being able to delve daily was too much.
As a result, he'd been stuck here. Granted, he had a very nice suite, and he shared a personal chef with half a dozen other people who were also housed in the middle of nowhere North Dakota, but no matter how nice the amenities were, it still felt like a prison.
He hadn't realized just how valuable his skill was. There wasn't a lot of call for Order, Discord, Netherworld, or Sanctum Affinity Crystals. Hell, his own speciality, Transmutation, wasn't exactly at the top of most peoples' lists either.
What was valuable, at least as far as the United States of America was concerned, were Dimension Affinity Crystals.
The President had spent quite a few hours chatting with him, and she'd explained the situation. Portals, Spatially Expanded containers, and even Inventory Spaces were absolutely crucial to the country's well-being. It wasn't so much that they wanted to find habitable planets to colonize, so much as they needed to. She'd outlined the difficulties, and one of the main issues they faced was that there wasn't a whole lot of incentive when it came to being a Dimensionalist. You were basically signing up for a career as either a glorified taxi service or making various containers bigger on the inside. When you added in the fact that Dimension was one of the least useful schools of magic when it came to delving, it became relegated to a niche subclass for spellcasters who could afford to spend a few points in it for the utility.
According to the President, they would need over a hundred thousand dimensionalists to support the colonization of another planet. They could get away with Dimension being their secondary skillset as long as they had an Affinity Crystal for it.
Assuming nothing unusual happened over the course of the next six days, he'd complete his assignment, which had been to use his skill to provide one hundred and twenty thousand Dimension Affinity Crystals.
Three hours a day before his delve, and three hours a day after, except for the weekends, when he only did three hours in the morning, for ninety-six weeks.
Tim was beyond ready for the contract to be over. He'd been sitting at the tier six cap for a year, and he'd even managed to cap his Transmutation spell at level one hundred and three.
He hadn't been allowed to advance. The President had explained that they couldn't risk him losing the ritual when his path evolved.
The first thing he was going to do when he got out was push himself to tier seven.
He'd done his part.
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"Poor kid," Elania muttered as she sank down into her chair.
"Tim?" Her Chief of Staff asked.
"He's definitely not interested in signing up for another contract," Elania shook her head.
"Kind of hard to blame him," Taylor said as she placed a folder on the desk. "We've kept him locked up there for almost two years."
"It's not like it was a bad deal," Elania protested. "He was able to hit the tier six cap, and he should have a hundred and fifty thousand mana crystals stashed away. I also explained why we needed the Affinity Crystals, so he understands the reasons we couldn't risk having him out there on his own."
"He's twenty-four," Taylor replied. "I know he was a bit of a geek, but he has to have been dying for some company his own age."
"He keeps checking out my ass," Elania chuckled.
"He checked out my ass, and I haven't had as many points to dump into Endurance to turn back my clock," Taylor shook her head. "Poor guy hasn't had any relief for almost two years, and as I recall from raising two boys, they tend to be pretty much horny twenty-four-seven."
"He's going to tier up as soon as he can," Elania sighed.
"He probably won't lose the ritual," Taylor offered. "We have a lot more data, and special skills normally don't change when you evolve your path. In fact, I suspect that he'll actually get a boost of some sort to it, as he's spent the past two years using it for hours every single day."
Elania nodded. They just hadn't known that much about how paths evolved, but they had gathered quite a bit of data over the past couple of years.
"All things considered, Tim has done a great service for his country, and we hopefully won't need to call on his services again any time soon, at least not to this degree," Elania flipped open the folder and scanned the first page. "Especially not if all we can manage is two thousand," she frowned.
"You saw the projections," Taylor attempted to reassure her. "When the initiative rolls out, we should catch tens of thousands, and once we establish ourselves on that planet, the property inside the city walls should be enough of an incentive to draw in the numbers we need."
Elania nodded, still frowning. The math had been completed, reviewed, repeated, and revised over and over again.
One dimensionalist for every one thousand people. That was what they needed to keep Earth and their new planet bound together.
They'd extrapolated the data from historical records, mostly from their cousins across the pond. The British Empire had determined exactly what degree of contact was required to keep a colony loyal to the Empire. The situation was eerily similar. The people on the other planet wouldn't have the real-time communication they were used to, instead relying on transport from one planet to another, which was much more akin to waiting for ships to arrive from across the sea.
The plan was to have enough dimensionalists to follow a daily schedule of opening portals back to Earth from multiple points in every city. That would allow people to ebb and flow, and the surety of being able to go back to friends and family would alleviate the concerns of many of those who might otherwise refuse to be separated from their loved ones.
They expected to be able to keep the new planet subjugated with fifty million serious delvers. One hundred million would result in a more normal delve/life balance, offering many more opportunities for leisure. That was also the magic number that would completely ease the restrictions the government had been forced to implement to delving on Earth.
"Soon," Elania murmured.