Bob sat on a bench in the predawn gloom, waiting for Elli and Harv.

Yesterday had been brutal. One thousand and eighty-eight boars. Still, progress had been made.

Your Summon Mana-Infused Creature Skill has reached level 6.

Jake was now level six, or more accurately level three when summoned with effect overtime.

He was still less than three-quarters full on his summoning school bar.

It hadn't been all bad. He'd picked up ninety-two crystals from the boars, and Kevin had given him thirty-six crystals for the boar corpses.

And today would be better. They were starting three hours before breakfast and would run again after breakfast, and after lunch, and after dinner, for twelve hours total, which at one boar every thirty seconds, should give him fourteen hundred and forty boars.

That would finally raise the level of his summoning school and place him solidly over two hundred crystals, maybe closer to three hundred.

He stifled a yawn. He'd already stretched, run around the plaza, done his burpees, situps, and pushups.

'Focus,' he thought. Three days. He'd level up at the end of tomorrow, and spend the third day on level seven, where he'd have to stay until he had the one-hundred crystals needed to bump from six to seven.

He could already hear Elli and Harv telling him that he was staying in the Dungeon too long.

They were probably right.

After he summoned Monroe, he'd have two skill points available. He'd take his time, research what the options were, and make a smart decision on using them.

In the meantime, he could probably keep himself and Monroe fed and housed with an hour every couple of days in the Dungeon.

Bob snapped out of his thoughts as he heard Elli's voice mumble something indistinct from the tavern behind him.

Harv, with Elli in tow, walked out of the Guild and looked over at Bob.

Bob stood up, and they crossed the plaza towards the Dungeon entrance.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"So, now that my summon monster is level six, I wanted to see if it could take on a boar by itself, and if so, how much more or less efficient it would be," Bob said as they shrugged and shimmied their way through the brambles towards the clearing.

Harv gave a wave of his hand and said, "Sure, sure. If things go wrong I'll box it off for you."

Elli just grunted.

Bob wondered briefly if he could take summon object, and ritually summon coffee. Statistically speaking, there had to be a large percentage of the population that weren't morning people.

As they reached the clearing, Bob summoned out Jake.

Summon: UtahRaptor(Jake) Tier: 5 Size: 5 Level: 6 Weapon Hardness: 15 Hide hardness: 10 Strength: 20 Mana: 8 Armor: 36.72 Coordination: 20 Stamina: 20 Claw Damage: 129.32 Endurance: 11 Health: 91 Bite Damage: 125.66 Intelligence: 8 Movement: 27 Wisdom: 8 Dodge 26 Beauty: 11 Caster Value / 2 56

Taking a good look at the UtahRaptor, Bob could clearly see that the muscles were more well defined. The pattern of the down was also richer, and more complex, and it spread to the plumage as well, which Bob noted was longer, thicker, and more lustrous.

The sickle-shaped talons also appeared to have grown about half an inch.

Jake was indeed turning into a very handsome boy. And based on those mental attributes clever as well.

Bob took a deep breath and stepped out into the clearing.

A mere moment later, he heard the familiar squeal as a boar crashed out of the underbrush and charged towards him.

Familiarity allowed Bob to dodge behind a tree as Jake leaped towards the boar, lashing out and tearing a terrible wound down its side. The boar staggered, and turned, whipping its head in an effort to catch the UtahRaptor with its razor-sharp tusks.

Jake dodged, and while he received a gash on his right leg, it wasn't nearly as serious as the wounds Jake had been receiving yesterday.

Bob maintained his concentration and watched as Jake dashed to the right, this time ripping open the boar's neck, which dropped it to the ground.

Bob blinked. That was fast. Much faster than yesterday. He dismissed Jake, and then pulled out a fresh UtahRaptor, this time using effect over time.

Summon: UtahRaptor(Jake) Tier: 5 Size: 5 Level: 3 Weapon Hardness: 15 Hide hardness: 10 Strength: 14 Mana: 5 Armor: 26.01 Coordination: 14 Stamina: 14 Claw Damage: 90.1 Endurance: 8 Health: 49 Bite Damage: 87.55 Intelligence: 5 Movement: 21 Wisdom: 5 Dodge 17 Beauty: 8 Caster Value / 2 28

'Armor is ablative,' Bob thought to himself. Assuming the Boar had similar numbers to his level six Jake, then the reduction in damage from effect over time was bigger than he thought because Jake had to overcome the armor value of the boar before he started doing damage.

So, single monsters, single Jake. Multiple monsters, multiple Jakes, to keep them off of Bob.

The effect over time Jake disappeared and Bob summoned one at full strength and maintained concentration.

Just in time as another boar charged out at him.

'I wonder how much faster this will be?' Bob thought as he mentally commanded Jake to kill.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The answer turned out to be significantly faster. Battles lasted an average of eight seconds now, rather than over twenty. Of course, Bob had to be careful, and immediately drop and resummon Jake as soon as the boar died, in order to have a fresh, unwounded UtahRaptor. A lesson he'd learned when he'd accidentally chained three boars in a row and Jake didn't survive the third.

Still, after some adjustments, Bob had increased his grim harvest to three boars a minute. When they broke for breakfast, He'd slaughtered five hundred and thirty boars, and collected forty-eight crystals. He'd also loaded twelve boars into his inventory.

"So," Bob said as they sat down for breakfast, "summoning seems pretty powerful. Why doesn't everyone use it?"

Harv sighed and leaned back before replying, "You don't have anything to measure it against. Let's say you were throwing firebolts," he glanced at Elli, "as all right-thinking men should. Your spellcasting power is one hundred twenty or so because you're only using the staff one-handed, and with a level six firebolt spell you have a sixty percent bonus, so call it one hundred and ninety damage."

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He grinned widely at Elli's grumblings and finished, "At level six, after I'd leveled up my Conjuration School to level one, I was killing boars in one hit."

Elli nodded, and added, "Level six is supposed to be an easier level, facing single, powerful monsters. I'm glad a single summon is working better for you because you were honestly struggling more than we expected."

"Now don't get me wrong," said Harv, "having the ability to pop out one of those monsters to protect you for a few seconds gives you quite a bit more survivability than a pure fire flinger. It's almost like having a pocket Elli."

Elli sighed his face announcing to the world that he bore a terrible burden. "Summoning is one of those things that can be useful, but it takes a really good Adventurer to use it well, while any poor excuse for a spell slinger can throw around fire and succeed," he finished while very deliberately not looking at Harv.

"You're doing better," said Harv, "and unless I mistake my guess, you should be on track for reaching level seven and summoning your friend in three days."

Bob nodded. While there might be more powerful skills and schools, in the end, that didn't matter. All that mattered, was Monroe.

Bob looked down at his plate, which Bailli had delivered, unprompted.

Bacon, sausage, and a ham steak.

Maybe he could get a salad for lunch.

"Yesterday," he said as he started crunching into the bacon, "you said that a group of Adventurers could basically feed a whole village. I'm kind of starting to see how that works, but could you elaborate?"

Elli nodded as he cut into his own steak, "Ideally, you'd have a curator, and you'd build a Dungeon, maybe ten levels deep. Even a bad curator can manage a meat animal in ten levels. Should be pretty easy to get five hundred pounds of meat a day from there with a group of adventurers."

Harv took over as Elli started eating, "Now, you're also going to need someone with the plant school, the earth school, and ritual magic. They can take a ten by ten chunk of land, spend one hundred crystals, and have a fully grown garden, ready to harvest in one hour."

"That's how most new villages are founded. A group of people, usually from a city, head out into the wilds, find a hill, dig a dungeon, and build a town," said Elli as Harv finished off the last of his sausage.

"How often does this happen?" Bob asked as he pushed his empty plate away.

"Depends on a lot of factors, but I think the guild has posted up two expeditions in the past ten years," Elli answered.

"What are the names of the villages they founded?" Bob asked as he stood up to head for the kitchen.

"No one knows - they haven't been heard from, so the general assumption is that they didn't make it," Harv replied solemnly.

Bob stopped for a second, then started walking again. "And how often does that happen?" he asked.

"Better than half the time," Elli said grimly as they entered the kitchen.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It turned out that Kevin was only going to be able to take one more load of boars after this one.

"While I appreciate the supply," he'd said, "I only have so much room in the larder."

So, Bob had taken his twelve crystals and headed back to the Dungeon.

Nearly two hours later, Bob found his mind wandering as Jake lashed out at another boar.

What exactly was a Curator? Was it a path? A job title? How did curating a Dungeon work exactly? Elli and Harv had implied fairly strongly that Thidwell had basically designed the place.

How far did that control of the Dungeon go?

Bob was snapped out of his reverie by the sound of a boar crashing out of the brambles.

"Fuck!" Bob cursed, as he tried to dodge away.

A single tusk caught him in the gut as he failed to get out of the way on time.

Pain screamed through his body as the boar drug him for a few feet, then tossed its head, ripping the tusk out of his body.

[Boar] has gored you for 75 points of damage. Your [Adventurer's Leather Armor] has reduced this damage by 48.

Bob rolled to the side as the boar charged again, intent on finishing the job. He mentally commanded Jake to attack and was relieved as the UtahRaptor barrelled into the boar, its powerful jaws ripping a chunk out of the boar's neck.

He levered himself up with his staff, well aware that he was much more mobile on his feet rather than crawling on the ground.

As Jake and the boar each traded a hit, which resulted in Jake's victory, Bob looked down at his side.

The armor had done its job, the main strike of the tusk had slid off the strike plate, and then cut into his side before being ripped out. He was bleeding pretty badly, but if that tusk had gone through the armor where it initially struck...

He shook his head and limped back towards Elli and Harv, who were both watching him worriedly.

"Can you heal me up, Elli?" Bob asked.

Elli nodded, and he reached out and touched Bob's shoulder, enveloping him in a light pink aura that immediately vanished, taking Bob's pain with it.

"You lost track of the fighting, didn't you?" Asked Harv.

Bob nodded and took out a canteen.

"It'll get worse," Elli said as he looked Bob over carefully.

"That," Harv gestured to the bloodied ground where Bob had rolled out of the way of the second charge, "is one of the main symptoms of being under for too long. Adventurers don't talk about it much, but you're basically wading in mana down here. Add in constant combat, and the mental fatigue... well, you know the results first hand now," he finished, pointing at the rent in Bob's armor.

A fiery light flew from Harv's hand and enveloped Bob's armor, causing it to expand, stretch, and mend back together, leaving it whole and unblemished.

"Try taking a break once an hour for five minutes," suggested Elli, "it should help you maintain focus, although I have to warn you, the next two days are going to be even worse."

Bob took a long drink from his canteen. They weren't wrong. He sighed, and sat down, leaning against a tree.

"Five minutes, then back to it for another hour," he said in agreement.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lunch was pork chops, sliced into chunks and served over a bed of greens.

"Curators," Bob said as he took a tentative bite of the salad, which had been tossed with some sort of dark red dressing, "what are they?"

"I'll take this one," Harv said to Elli.

"Curator is a path," Harv began, gesturing with his fork, "it's fairly weak, initially. You have to have the schools of Elemental Air, Fire, Earth and Water, as well as the Ritual Magic skill."

"You'll note that there aren't any skills or abilities listed there that actually do anything," he continued, "which leaves a Curator stuck smashing monsters with a stick until level five, but then," Harv grinned, "then things start to take off. They get to pick an elemental shaping spell at each level for the first four levels. Then at level ten, they get access to the Plant school of magic."

"Now all this is in addition to the normal one skill per level they get to choose," he said as he waved his fork, "from eleven to twenty, they gain an increase of ten percent to their elemental shaping skills, and one free skill from any of the Schools required or provided. In the meantime, they receive the Animal School of magic at fifteen, and at twenty, they gain the Shadowmancy school. Twenty to twenty-four, they can choose any spell or skill they want any school they know, and at twenty-five, they get mana shaping."

Bob leaned back. "Damn, that is pretty overpowered," he muttered.

Elli made a see-sawing motion with his hand. "Getting to level five as a Curator pretty much means you have to be shepherded, although a lot of parents shepherd their children. At level six, you can take a damage spell, but it's level one as are your schools, so you need to level them both up, which is even harder than you've had it."

Harv nodded and said "Curators can dig a Dungeon when they hit level nine, using their shaping skills and ritual magic. But they don't really come into their own until twenty-five when they can see and shape mana. Up until that point, it's a lot of trial and error, watching the monsters appear in the Dungeon, and trying to figure out how the mana is moving around."

"Still," Elli chimed in, "there are always a few Curators around, leveling up. The path provides a lot of bonuses if you have the patience to wait it out. Even if you never plan to go past ten, you've still got all four elemental shapes and ritual magic. Plus whatever skills you opted to allocate."

'It might be worth mentioning,' Trebor chimed in from his left, 'That the Path of the Curator is a gift from the System to allow races to survive and even flourish. It is unique in that a version of the path is available from tiers three through nine.'

Bob blinked, and sent a mental query, 'Tier three?'

'Yes, although there are only one species at that tier that is sentient. They have a level cap of nine, and Curators are revered in most of their societies,' Trebor advised.

"So if an Adventuring group was planning to head out and build themselves a town," Bob said, "They'd bring a Curator along."

Harv nodded and said, "If a group is looking to leave and they don't have a Curator, they would shepherd one up to level ten in exchange for the Curator coming with them."

"How high of a level does a group need to go out there and build a village?" Bob asked.

"To succeed and survive, twenty," Harv answered.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Five-minute breaks turned into ten-minute breaks after lunch.

Bob was determined to push through and ended up spending three and a half hours underground, breaks included.

He managed to maintain the ten-minute breaks after lunch, but he freely admitted that he was exhausted as Harv and Elli escorted him out of the Dungeon.

"How many boars was that?" Harv asked with a yawn as they waved to Clyde and headed out into the Plaza.

"One thousand six hundred and four," Bob said, "I'm up to two hundred and forty level six crystals as well."

"And," he smiled wearily, "I managed to level my summoning school to level one."

Magical School of Summoning, Level One, Experience for Level Two, 10,000. Current Experience towards Level 2 1,356 Magical School of Summoning Level One. Any object, creature, or being summoned by a spell or skill from this school is increased by ten percent.

"Well done," Elli said.

"You're ahead of where you thought you'd be," Have said as they entered the Guild, "how about we start with an hour before breakfast?"

Bob wanted to argue, but he was just too tired. Instead, he nodded and shambled off to his room, taking note that the bonus from his unorthodox absorption of the Summoning Affinity crystal was starting to pay off.

Your Summon Mana-Infused Creature Skill has reached level 8.

Apparently, the bonus he'd selected to increase the maximum level of his summoned monster spell kicked in immediately, not at level twenty-five of the spell as he'd suspected.