Quest Complete!

Meluben has been overrun by monsters! The rituals that prevent the volcano above the city from erupting are in danger of failing!

Kill the monsters, 10,000/10,000

Locate the Temples, 10/10

Seal the Ritual Chambers 10/10

Defeat the Elite Monsters that are drawn to the Rituals 10/10

You have received 160 energy crystals.

"Not that I'm complaining, but normally we only get ten crystals for each objective, not twenty," Amanda mused.

"Well, we're at eighty-four percent. Let's split into teams and speedrun this fucker," Mike said. "Bob, which team do you want to join?"

The truth was that due to the nature of Dungeon scaling, fighting as a single large team wasn't as efficient as fighting in two smaller groups. Bob could slot into either, and while his presence did allow for a slightly faster clear, it was often a very close call as to if it would have been more effective just to have him soloing.

In this instance, he had something else in mind.

"I'm going to shepherd Lara and Gualla," Bob replied. "They're currently terrified of the monsters because they've only seen them in the context of the tide and then the over-tiered and over-leveled ones we fought in the Dungeon. It doesn't make sense to save them, only to tell them to figure it out as we jump the Freedom to the next solar system."

"You're going to miss out on grinding up your skills," Dave warned.

"I can always add a few hours to the day," he raised a hand to forestall Bailli, who had already opened her mouth. "It's not like I'm going to be impacted by the mana density in a Dungeon two tiers and forty-one levels lower."

Bailli closed her mouth, frowning. Then she nodded. "Just let us know when you're delving and for how long," she said.

"I will," he agreed.

His friends disappeared into the Dungeon and he opened a portal beneath his feet, falling into his inventory.

Lara and Gualla were sitting at his table, each with a glass of water in front of them, while Laura and Monroe were out of sight.

They both jerked as he fell to the floor in a crouch before rising.

"By the storm, that's unsettling," Gualla muttered.

"Sorry, I developed the habit of orienting my portals beneath my feet pretty early on," Bob explained. "There have been a few instances where being able to fall through rather than having to actively walk forward has saved my life."

He walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a laminated piece of paper, which he laid on the table.

The first rule of delving is Caution. Everything in the Dungeon is here with one single, mindless purpose - to kill you. Horribly!

The second rule of delving is Humility. You can't win every fight. Don't fight unless you are absolutely one hundred percent certain that you will win.

The third rule of delving is Skill. If your skills aren't at their maximum levels, you don't go deeper into the Dungeon. You ensure all your skills are fully leveled.

The fourth rule of delving is knowledge. Never delve blindly. Someone has been on that floor before, and they can tell you what you'll be up against. You can't follow rule two if you don't know what you're going to be fighting, so educate yourself.

The fifth rule of delving is equipment. If you aren't fully armed and armored with a complete set of enhancements, you're leaving damage, survivability, and sustainability on the table. Those few points of armor or damage, or stamina or mana, and especially health, can be the difference between life and death. It's worth spending the extra time on a floor you are tired of to gain the crystals you need for your equipment.

The sixth rule of delving is that you can never have enough crystals. You'll always need them for something, and you'll always be short. So PUT IN THE WORK, spend those hours in the Dungeon every day.

"These are the rules for successfully delving the Dungeons," Bob began.

Lara cocked her head to the side, and Bob realized it was to bring the paper more fully into view. The Urlinad likely didn't have the best stereoscopic vision, and he wondered if or how that impacted their depth perception.

"I can't read this," Lara said, "Gualla, you know the ancient script, can you?"

"No, I'm afraid I can't," Gualla replied.

Bob rubbed the bridge of his nose for a moment. The ease with which he was able to speak to them had caused him to forget that it was the System making that possible. He'd just handed them a document written in English.

"Sorry," he shook his head. "If you needed proof that I'm just a regular person, there you go. I completely forgot that the System was translating for me."

"This System is how you can speak Urlinad so perfectly?" Gualla asked.

Bob brought up his achievement.

Savior.

Upon discovering that billions of potentially efficient circulators of energy would be rendered inert, you devoted yourself entirely to leading them to shelter within the System. You were engaged at every point of the developing operation to rescue these valuable resources, recruiting other users to aid you. Your efforts have acted as an argument for the expenditure of the System's resources to preserve the lives of sapient beings during the process of integrating their universes under the System. You have directly saved the lives of eight billion sapient beings. These actions have vastly increased the value of this Achievement.

Reward: The many languages spoken by the beings you saved did not deter you. Upon request, the System will translate any spoken language you hear, and translate your words to those you choose to hear you.

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Reward: When the System integrates a new universe, it will now place all sapient beings into stasis until the initial energy disturbances have been balanced.

He had discovered that while he could truncate the notification to obscure the rewards, he wasn't able to erase or alter any of the information above the rewards.

"There's a long explanation for how I received this, but the important bit is that I can speak any language, which is very useful, as I'm sure we would have had a harder time telling everyone to stay in the temples without it."

"Anyway, my friends are delving the Dungeon, so I'm going to take the opportunity to shepherd you to, which means that I'll go into the Dungeon with you and make sure you come back out alive," Bob explained.

"I'll tell you about the rules while we're working, but first, where are Laura and Monroe?"

"I put her on your sleeping shelf in the other room, and Monroe curled up at her feet," Lara replied.

"That works, I'm guessing she'll be out for a while?" Bob asked.

"It's been a very hard day, so I think she will sleep for quite some time," Lara agreed.

"Great, let's get started then," Bob said enthusiastically, opening a portal in front of them.

"Before we go, do you have any more food?" Lara asked.

Bob thought she might have flushed, but it was hard to tell.

"We found your kitchen, and we drank our fill, but we could only find a small amount of greens, which we gave to Laura," Lara explained.

"I should have had some sandwiches in there unless Monroe got to them first," Bob mumbled as he stepped around his portal and into the kitchen, the two Urlinad following him.

Checking his stasis cabinet, he found the half dozen sandwiches, although they were missing the lettuce rather than the meat.

"Did you just feed her the lettuce?" Bob asked.

"The greens, yes," Lara agreed. "Were you planting them to sprout more? I've never seen those greens before, but none of the greens we cultivate will grow on dead flesh like that."

"No, they were part of the sandwich," Bob replied, taking a bite out of the sliced roast oxcipine, lettuce, tomato, and cheese sandwich. Minus the lettuce.

Both of the Urlinad recoiled. "You're eating flesh!" Lara cried out in disgust.

"Yes?" Bob asked uncertainly as he looked at his sandwich more closely.

"Flesh is poison!" Gualla said firmly.

Bob looked at them, and then it clicked. Something about their smiles had bothered him. Not in the same way as a Draconian, but still, something. Now he could see it.

"You're herbivores, aren't you?" Bob asked. "You only eat plants, right?"

"Of course," Gualla huffed.

"Ok, well, humans, which is sort of what I am, although I guess not really, not anymore..." He trailed off for a moment, before shaking his head. "My people are omnivorous, which means we eat plants and animals both."

"Is that how you keep the cat controlled?" Gualla asked. "Fear of a larger predator?"

Bob laughed. "No one controls a cat," he chuckled. "While I am technically more powerful than Monroe, I'm pretty sure he views me as his most favored servant."

"That's a child of Kessen," Lara muttered.

Bob nodded. "Every house cat is really just a lion waiting for their growth spurt," he agreed.

"Do you plan to eat us?" Gualla demanded.

Bob recoiled slightly, shaking his head. "No, we don't eat sapient beings. Hell, some of my people don't even want to eat animals, and we respect that choice as long as they don't get too preachy and self-righteous about it."

"When they do, how do you respond?" Gualla asked.

"We mock them," Bob grinned. "Endlessly."

"But we've gotten rather far afield. I do have some more stuff in the pantry, let me grab it and you can eat it before we head into the Dungeon," he said as he flowed his mana into the wall that hid his pantry before stepping through the opaque shield that covered the entrance.

He had needed to take several layered measures in order to defend the pantry from Monroe's 'Mysterious Paw' and his 'How did you get there?' skills.

Returning with two heads of lettuce, a head of cabbage, two cucumbers, a large bowl of green beans, and a jar of pickles, Bob spread the selection of vegetables on the counter.

"Do pickle things?" Bob asked.

"Yes, preserve food in brine," Lara replied.

"Great, the jar has dill pickles in it. You two can eat in here, I'll go in the other room so you don't have to watch me eat my sandwich."

----------------------------------------

Bob was reading a book when Gualla and Lara came back into the dining room. He thumbed the power button on his kindle and slid it into his satchel as he stood up.

"Ready to go?" Bob asked.

"Yes, and thank you for the meal," Lara replied.

"Not a problem, although I should probably ask, how much and how often do you need to eat? I'll probably need to grow some food for you."

"How will you do that?" Gualla asked. "I didn't see a garden anywhere, let alone fields."

Bob frowned. "Shit. I haven't been handling this as well as I could have," he said. He took a deep breath. "So, welcome to the System. The System is, as near as I've been able to determine, an Artificial Intelligence created by an alien species billions, maybe even trillions, of years ago. It was designed with the sole purpose of preventing the heat death of the universe, a task it succeeded in accomplishing. There is a lot of background to this, but the important part for you to understand is that the System will allow you to become more powerful. It will allow you to do seemingly impossible things by manipulating certain types of energy that you aren't able to see."

He lifted his hand and began to recreate his terrarium. He had enough practice that even creating the patterns without the aid of the System that it only took a few moments.

Gualla and Lara watched in fascination.

"You can use this power in a million different ways," Bob explained. "I know people who can grow thousands of pounds of food in only a few minutes. You've seen the different manner in which my friends wield their own powers. None of this comes for free," he warned. "There are eighty-four Dungeons on this planet, and your people will have to go into them and battle the monsters within in order to keep the monsters from spilling out. For doing this, the System will reward you with these," Bob held up a mana crystal taken from his satchel.

"These are mana crystals, and they are what you will use to improve yourselves," Bob continued. He produced another crystal in his other hand and held them out to Gualla and Lara. "Take them," Bob urged. "The System will ask if you want to absorb them."

Lara was the first to reach out and take the crystal from his hand. She blinked, her eyes widening, as the mana crystal disappeared. "It says I need to absorb one hundred and nineteen more of them to reach level one," she said.

"Can you show me your status?" Bob asked.

Name Lara Tier 6 Level 0 Str (Natural Affinity) 9 Cord (Natural Penalty) 3 End (Natural Affinity) 9 Int 6 Wis 6 Health 51 Armor 36 Damage 51 Mana 6 Mana Regeneration 0.6 Stamina 9 Stamina Regeneration 0.9 Mana Reserved 0 Mana Regeneration Reserved 0 Stamina Reserved 0 Stamina Regeneration Reserved 0

Bob blinked.

'Trebor, that looks different,' Bob mentally projected.

'The presentation of someone's status is often a cultural thing. If you had shown them yours first, they likely would have presented theirs the same way,' Trebor replied.

'I'm guessing a natural penalty is the opposite of a natural affinity?' Bob asked.

'It is,' Trebor confirmed.

"Alright, so it looks like you will be naturally inclined toward being strong and durable, although you'll have to work twice as hard to be dexterous. When you advance to level one, you'll have six points to increase your attributes with. If you place them in either Strength or Endurance, you will receive an additional point for each one you use. If you place them in coordination, you'll need to place two of them there to receive one, while Intelligence and Wisdom, which are the attributes that determine your magical power and mana, will advance at the normal rate of one for one," Bob explained.

"But all of that has to wait until after you've killed a few monsters," he said as he opened a portal.