Bob ignored the sting of sweat in his eyes as he focused on the thin threads of mana. It turned out that separating a single aspect of mana was far easier than stripping mana of every aspect. He hadn't appreciated that fact until he'd started attempting to work with shadowmancy without the System. Comparing it to working with the elemental schools was like comparing addition and subtraction to algebra.

He'd discovered that all mana had a certain resonance to it, for lack of a better term, with certain schools of mana attracting or repelling each other to one degree or another. Stripping mana of every school, or aspect, was time-consuming and difficult. It required him to evaluate the strength of the various aspects in real-time as he worked to remove them, each change he made requiring a further revision.

It was both frustrating and challenging, and the feeling when he finally succeeded was extremely satisfying.

He cursed as he lost his mental and metaphysical grip on the strand he was trying to unravel, and the aspects he'd stripped away rushed back into place, although in different proportions, leaving him back at square one.

'It would be far easier if you apotheosized into a species with a natural affinity for either Mana or Shadowmancy,' Trebor advised calmly. 'What you are attempting isn't something often accomplished by tier five races, let alone by a tier five human progenitor.'

"Progenitor?" Bob asked. "You've never mentioned that before."

'The title is apt,' Trebor replied, 'the people from Earth who have been integrated into the System by coming to Thayland are the progenitors of your universe's Human subtype.'

"I've meant to ask about that," Bob wiped his brow, looked at his damp sleeve, and headed for the shower. "What is the difference between a Human from Thayland and a Human from Earth?"

'Humans from Thayland, or more specifically, Greenwold, have a natural resistance to cold that exceeds what you find on Earth. The range at which they begin to suffer hypothermia is a full five degrees celsius, on average, from people from Earth. Conversely, they suffer from heat to a similar degree,' Trebor explained. 'Further, over the millennia, their steadfast devotion towards their deities, in the form of accepting divine blessings, has predisposed them towards those deities. Although it hasn't occurred yet, if they were to continue this practice long enough, they would eventually find the rare individual born with a natural affinity for either Animancy or Sanctum.'

Bob turned on the shower on autopilot, digesting that particular fact. He reached out to pet Monroe who had hopped up onto the sync, no doubt to continue the big floofers continuing documentation of the strange bathing habits of his human-servant.

"Out of curiosity," Bob began, "and given that I haven't reincarnated, so I don't have a full grasp on it, but what are the differences between a Paragon Human from Earth and one from Thayland?"

'It's important that we define a Human from Thayland as a Human from Greenwold,' Trebor stressed. 'Humans from Thayland, but the Kitherian Empire as opposed to the Kingdom of Greenwold differ significantly from one another. To answer your question, you, as the true progenitor of the Paragon Human from Earth, chose to enhance your matrix and to focus the human drive towards creativity and curiosity. A Human Paragon from Greenwold would have a heightened sensitivity toward Sanctum and Netherworld, with a drive towards productivity.'

"Huh," Bob muttered as he stepped into the shower and soaked his head before reaching for the shampoo. "So, hypothetically, if someone from Earth and someone to Thayland were to reproduce, would their offspring have both traits, degraded versions of both, or would the present with a trait from a single parent?"

'Normally the later, uncommonly degraded versions of both, and rarely both traits,' Trebor replied.

"Neat," Bob muttered. "I imagine that we'll see that happen sooner rather than later." He scrubbed for a few minutes before speaking again. "Do you think I'll be able to do it? Create an Arcane Depths for myself, without the use of the System, or any skills at all?"

'It will be easier after you reincarnate,' Trebor promised, 'assuming you are the progenitor and that you choose to advance your species further down the path of sensing and controlling mana.'

"I guess someone could beat me to that particular finish line," Bob mused, "but I really don't see how. As much as I've let other demands on my time keep me from delving, I feel like I have enough of a head start that it isn't likely that anyone will reach Pinnacle before I do."

'While I cannot speak directly of other living beings specifics, I can say that mathematically, your claiming the right to act as the progenitor for the Pinnacle of your species is not unchallenged,' Trebor warned.

Bob grimaced as he toweled himself dry. "What I'm hearing is longer hours spent delving," he grumbled.

'Also done so at deeper depths,' Trebor agreed. 'You have noted that as you increase your level, and thus the depth at which you must delve in order for mana crystals to coalesce, that they do so less frequently.'

"I have, in fact, noticed that frustrating trend," Bob replied as he struggled to remove Monroe from the sink so that he could shave. The big Maine-Coon having adopted the 'liquid' property common to all felines when they didn't want to be moved but couldn't muster the energy for more than passive resistance.

'You may not have noticed that by delving a full two tiers below your level that you'll see a slight uptick in mana crystal coalescence,' Trebor advised. 'So by delving the fiftieth floor, you'll receive slightly more crystals. If you could somehow manage to delve the sixty-fifth floor of a Dungeon, you'd see coalescence rates more in line with what you experienced when you first started delving at level zero.'

"Yeah, I don't know if I can do that," Bob shook his head.

Summon: UtahRaptor(Jake) Tier: 5 Size: 8 Level: 64 Weapon Hardness: 170.64 Hide hardness: 159 Strength: 432 Mana: 306 Armor: 2679 Coordination: 432 Stamina: 933 Claw Damage: 0 Endurance: 289 Health: 44041 Bite Damage: 0 Intelligence: 142 Movement: 1909 Wisdom: 142 Dodge 0 Fleetness 2 Beauty: 149 Summoning Mastery 2.16 Caster Value / 2 363

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Jake was an awfully beefy UtahRaptor, but he suffered from being locked at tier five, as Bob was still technically tier five himself, not having reincarnated.

If he could push Jake past the threshold into tier nine, he might be able to hold his own against an actual level sixty-five monster, but until that time, he didn't see it happening.

'I wouldn't advise you try, not until such a time as you have capped your Summon Mana-Infused Creature spell at level seventy-five,' Trebor agreed. 'That said, the fiftieth floor is where you'll find the largest number of crystals coalescing.'

"So delve deeper, for longer," Bob sighed. He'd have to go from a twelve-hour a day delving schedule to sixteen hours a day. Still, he wasn't afraid to put in the work, and he really did want to be ready for when the update arrived. Given that Thayland would be warned ahead of time, he was planning on entering seclusion just before that happened.

His original plan had been to reincarnate and then level up in the safety of the Hidden Dungeon, but he wasn't sure if that was still viable. He was publically associated with the Endless, and anyone looking for him would start with them.

Bob shook his head, refocusing his thoughts. "Why is it that mana crystals coalesce less frequently?" He asked.

'Mana crystals represent static mana,' Trebor replied, 'which is precisely what the System was designed to avoid. The System designed mana created creatures to coalesce mana crystals so that sapient species could absorb them to increase the strength, density, and size of their matrices, thus allowing them to cycle through more and more mana created creatures, exceeding the natural rate at which said creatures would normally appear and disperse, thus cycling through more mana. However,' Trebor continued, 'the first update recognized a worrying trend, in that species were advancing rapidly, then stagnating, taking advantage of how easily they could obtain the mana crystals necessary to advance, given the increased lifespan their strengthened and improved matrices offered them. The update decreased the rate at which mana crystals coalesced as the level of the mana-created creatures increased. This measure has proven effective.'

"How dare anyone take a break from murdering monsters," Bob replied wryly.

'Motivating the various sapient species has proven to be the most difficult task the System undertakes,' Trebor agreed. 'In comparison, maintaining the processes to cycle mana and prevent the eternal expansion and eventual heat death of the universes was simple. In that regard, discovering your universe was a wonderful happenstance.'

"Really?" Bob asked hesitantly.

'Billions of humans, with no actual life and death struggle, upon which your species thrives?' Bob couldn't see Trebor, but he could hear the smile nonetheless. 'It's a tremendous opportunity to evaluate what steps could be taken to motivate you. While the multitude of universes hosts a vast variety of species, Humanity represents a significant percentage of the population of sapient beings. If subspecies are taken into consideration, that becomes a majority. Given that most societies formed by Humans and their subspecies eventually develop methods to reduce the threat from mana-created creatures to a common task, finding an advanced society with the population numbers Earth presents is a treasure trove of data.'

"And how exactly has the System interpreted this data?" Bob asked, razor forgotten for the moment.

'Absent actual challenges to survival, which the majority of your species don't wish for, despite that being the circumstances under which they thrive, it's perceived accomplishments that drive them. Often these accomplishments are intangential, such as obtaining degrees, being recognized as an expert in a field of knowledge, having accumulated a certain amount of currency. An even larger number of people strive for even more ephemeral goals, seeking out followers on social media, or achievements in video games.' Trebor continued. 'In fact, the phenomenon of Humans spending a huge portion of their lives seeking self-validation by playing video games is amazing. Given the correlation between the skills and spells from video games, as well as the growth of power, the System is consolidating data from which it will create an individual achievement system for users.'

"What?!?" Bob exclaimed, dropping his razor in the sink. "The System is going to award people with achievements for killing monsters?"

'Yes,' Trebor replied. 'Data indicates that even without any reward, individuals will seek out these achievements as a way to validate themselves. Even when they don't need to kill any mana-created creatures, they will continue to seek them out to earn achievements and titles. It won't require any resources on the part of the System, as the workload will be carried by the user's own matrix.'

Bob closed his eyes. While he hadn't ever become engrossed in video games, that was likely due to lack of access as opposed to lack of desire. He would have liked to have been like the other kids, and he was well aware of how obsessed many people were.

Trebor, or the System rather, wasn't wrong. Getting an achievement for killing ten beetles on the first floor of the Dungeon in Holmstead would prove a motivator. After all, if you received an achievement for ten, what about a hundred? What about a thousand? Was there an upper limit? At one point, would you receive a title or even an actual reward?

'Rewards would be more the purview of quests,' Trebor responded to his thoughts, something that irritated him but something he'd also found to be necessary. Asking Trebor for information only when he needed it had proven disastrous in the past, and he'd had to accept that he wasn't taking full advantage of his access to the System unless he required Trebor to speak up without an invitation. 'Although the first time you kill a mana-created creature, the System will set the hook by awarding an achievement and having the creature coalesce a mana crystal.'

There were times when Bob considered the scope of the System and felt very much like a lab rat. This was definitely one of those times.

"So the System is going to make it clear from the very first monster kill that there are achievements to be had and that killing monsters is rewarded," Bob clarified.

'Yes,' Trebor replied, 'in fact, killing your first monster will not only reward you an achievement and a mana crystal, but it will trigger a quest to kill ten more of the same monster to receive another achievement.'

Bob opened his eyes and shook his head. "Definitely sending us after the cheese in the maze," he muttered.

He picked up his razor and focused on the task of shaving the fuzz off his face. "Eddi is going to love this update."

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Eddi missed his Endless Swarm. Sure, Rexy was still large and in charge, even more so than she had been before, thanks to the Animal School being capped at level twelve, and the bonus to the maximum level of the spell from the crystal being twelve, and the percentage from the threshold bonuses of the school being seventy-two percent as opposed to fifty. Still, he missed his rexettes.

He'd been steadily climbing back up, this time with Wayna as his dedicated leveling partner. She'd reincarnated with him, happy to use an Animal Affinity Crystal as well, although she'd chosen a different path. Together, they'd made easy work of each floor of the Dungeon, delving a minimum of three floors deeper than their level and occasionally even further.

Grinding out the experience to level his Summon Animal spell was every bit as tedious as it had been before, but having Wayna with him made it bearable, and the crystals they gathered didn't go to waste either. The Endless had been called on to help over two million wounded and disabled veterans from Earth, and every crystal had been needed. Even now, there was a demand they couldn't meet.

All the critical injuries had been handled, but there were still men and women who were missing limbs to the extent that they couldn't fight. The Old Guard had built a hundred Dungeons with room for fifty people in each, and they were occupied day and night. Everyone in the Endless who had the Regenerate ritual was rotating over to the Deep Freeze, as someone had decided to call it. Eddi had required the skill, as had Wayna, so they were part of the rotation. It was amazing how the two lines never seemed to end. One with wounded men and women, another with people coming out of the Dungeons and depositing the mana crystals they'd earned into the pile the healers pulled from to cast the rituals.

It was humbling to watch so many people unified in purpose to help one another and reinforced his belief that the Endless had made the right decision to devote their resources to helping the Old Guard.

The active-duty United States Military, while impressive, were a bit standoffish and demonstrated a general attitude of dismissiveness towards the Endless that didn't sit particularly well with the guild. Eddi didn't expect reverence or anything like that, but a little respect wouldn't be amiss.

Hadn't they demonstrated their strength, as well as their good intentions?

The Old Guard recognized their accomplishments, and they respected them, although they did tend to take the attitude of older aunts and uncles, sharing life experiences with them.

Eddi was pulled from his thoughts as Rexy was knocked off course and crashed into a tree. "Hey!" Eddi yelled, "watch the tail!"

Wayna, who was slightly larger and stronger than Rexy when shapeshifted into her own T-Rex form, roared what Eddi construed as an apology as she eagerly snatched what would have been, to Eddi, a massive bear-lobster monster up by its tail and shook it gleefully.

He had to remember to bring some of these back to Kevin. Eddi knew he wasn't a bad cook, and neither was Wayna, but Kevin had gotten his hands on a trove of cookbooks from Earth, which had apparently served as motivation to level again. He'd nearly doubled his level, delving into the Dungeon a few hours a night, and his food, which had been delicious before, had become exquisite. Eating at the tavern when Kevin was doing the actual cooking now resulted in an increase in one or two attributes.

There was a bulletin board by the entrance to the kitchen, where Kevin posted up requests for ingredients, and he'd seen one for either lobster or crayfish. He didn't know what Kevin was going to do with it, but he desperately wanted to find out.

Eddi checked his phone after he redirected Rexy into the fight. They were about twenty minutes from finishing their delve, according to the timer he had running. They were supposed to meet up with Bob tonight.