Three Hundred and Eighty-Two. God Damn it. (Patreon)

Lara and Gualla were looking somewhat dazed as Bob finished explaining the basics of the System.

Laura was still half-buried in Monroe, both of them napping away the day.

"So the thing to keep in mind is that I don't know everything, and like everyone else, I do have my own bias," Bob smiled.  "I personally think you should both choose magic.  While I can't make any promises regarding paths as the System knows best, I can tell you that if you use an Affinity Crystal and max out your skill levels, you'll do well.  The trick is to match a type of magic to each of you."

"I think the magic of the Storm would be best for me," Gualla said.

"Ok," Bob said slowly.  "We could do Air and Water, giving you Lightning and Ice, respectively.  At some point, you could probably use those two to create storms?  Either way, I have both of those Affinity Crystals on hand."

He looked at Lara, who shrugged.  "I'm a farmer," she said simply.

"Plant and Earth then," Bob offered.  "You'll be able to grow crops incredibly quickly, as well as deal damage in the Dungeon."

He stood up from the table and walked over to a cabinet, and opened a drawer.

Mana Crystals might only coalesce at a rate of one for every thousand or so monsters now, and Affinity Crystals were even worse, only showing up once every ten thousand, but when the final step of his quest to unlock delving a Dungeon at any tier or level had been to slaughter over sixteen million monsters, he'd rounded up a fair few of them.

He opened four pickle jars with the labels 'Earth', 'Air', 'Water', and 'Plant' sharpied on the lids and pulled an Affinity Crystal out of each, idly noting that he would need to feed the jars in his cabinet some mana crystals in another six months or so.

Bob returned to the table and sat back down, dropping the Affinity Crystals before digging into his satchel for a fistful of Mana Crystals.

"What we will do is have you pick whichever you want to start with, and I'll give you the Crystals to get you up to level two," Bob began as he pulled another handful of Mana Crystals out.  "First, you'll take a Divine Blessing.  If you aren't sure of what you want, it's hard to go wrong with Vi'Radia and the Rise from the Ashes blessing, which will quite literally bring you back to life if you die."  He shook his head.  "Then you'll use the Mana Crystals to advance to level one and select your school of magic.  You'll use Mana Crystals to advance to level two, where you will choose your spell."  He paused and looked at each of them seriously.  "This is something you're going to use billions of times, so choose something you like.  Once you've done that, you'll use the Affinity Crystal for the school of magic you selected, and you'll select the bonus it offers to be applied to that spell by increasing its maximum level.  Then you'll be going back into the Dungeon, where you'll be blasting monsters with your new spell over and over and over and over and over again."

"I'll start with Air and choose lightning," Gualla said firmly.

"I'd like to start with Plant, but I'm not sure how I'd fight with that," Lara admitted.

"Poison Blast," Bob replied.  "It's also something you'll find useful for dealing with insects and weeding once you have the Area of Effect and Spell Sculpting skills.  Initially, you'll just use it to destroy monsters."

Lara's expression brightened.  "Oh, I hate weeding," she smiled.

Gualla hesitated as she reached over to the Affinity Crystals and the pile of Mana Crystals Bob had laid out for her.  "How long will it take us to repay you for these?"  She asked.

"Being as you'll have to grind up your skills, you'll be able to pay back the Mana Crystals quite quickly, but even if you go all out, I doubt you'll be able to find any Affinity Crystals to pay me back with.  Those only appear when you are fighting monsters a tier higher and half your tier above your level, and then only about once for every ten thousand monsters you kill.  There is a quest you'll have to complete to fight anything higher than one level over your own, and I expect we will have finished our quest to clear the Dungeons and have everyone settled in well before you even get close."

"These are precious then," Gualla nodded.  "Why are you just giving them to us?"

"Because you need them," Bob replied.  "The faster you become stronger, and the stronger you become, the better.  Once we are gone, you'll need thousands of people delving into that Dungeon every day.  The more powerful the person delving, the fewer you need.  I'm not going to have time to train everyone, so I'm going to help you so that you can help others."  He smiled.  "In my old world, we called it 'Paying it forward.'"

He reached over and pushed the piles toward the Urlinad.  "Let's get started."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lara pointed the staff Bob had given her and unleashed a flash of sickly green light which struck the Qouar that was rushing toward her, causing it to stumble as its flesh sloughed away in a rush of black blood and rotting meat.

She cocked her head to the side, allowing for a better view of the monster while also distancing her poor, abused nostrils from the scent as she unleashed another blast of necrotic poison, bringing the monster to a halt a few feet in front of her.

Lara was profoundly grateful that the monsters disappeared after a moment, taking the smell with them.

She was beginning to regret not starting with Earth and the Stone Blast spell.  She should have known what she was getting into, taking the advice of the Lord of Blight.

Still, this was much better than hitting the monsters with the staff.  When a predator got that close, she couldn't help but panic a little.  They were making real progress this time, although Bob had warned them that they wouldn't be advancing their skills very quickly, as the monsters were now lower level than they were.  He'd said that once they had their spells at level two, they would start fighting level two monsters, and once they had the spells at level three, they'd start fighting monsters a level higher than they were.

He'd warned them that they would be doing that for a very long time.

Bob was following behind them, far enough away for them to feel alone in their fights, but he'd demonstrated that he was powerful to heal them from hundreds of feet away, which was reassuring.

She'd taken his advice and accepted the Divine Blessing of Vi'Radia, Rise from the Ashes.

Rise from the Ashes, Divine Blessing, Vi'Radia

Once per solar cycle, upon suffering sufficient to terminate your life, you will recover to a percentage of your health equal to your tier.

You may allocate additional Skill Points to increase the value of this blessing, with each Skill Point increasing the health recovered by your tier.  If you exceed one hundred percent, the additional health is converted to an essence shield on a two-for-one basis, with the shield lasting a number of seconds equal to the total percentage value of the blessing.

She hadn't even considered anything else once she'd read it.  Laura was the most important thing in her life, and with Hoalda gone, she couldn't risk leaving her behind.

Lara fell into a rhythm of destroying the monsters as they carefully advanced down the path.  It allowed her to think about something else, namely Bob.

He claimed not to be a god, but the System recognized him as something at least akin to one.  It had even identified him as the Lord of Blight.  He was also powerful beyond what she could understand.

Lara wasn't stupid.  She'd passed all of the tests to join the clergy, but she'd already fallen in love with Hoalda, so she'd chosen another path.  She'd spent several hours working her way through the System interface.  Then she'd done the math.

She couldn't compete with him.  Even after she had reached the maximum level and pushed her skill as far as it could go, she wouldn't even be on the same playing field.

He might not like the title of 'god,' but he was clearly a being beyond her.

All of that was before she considered his impossible tools.  He'd told her that the square of light he summoned from his wrist wasn't anything at all to do with the System but instead was a tool his people had developed.

Gualla had been the one to press him on that subject, which had made Bob visibly uncomfortable.  It was odd how much body language he shared with them.  He had told them that his people had a concept called 'The Prime Directive,' which prohibited them from interfering with the natural advancement of other species.

The long and short of it was that while he was willing to explain the System, as well as suggest ways of using it, he wasn't going to provide them with any of what he called his 'technology.'

She shifted her thoughts to his suggestions for her skills.

He'd said that if she truly wanted a path that embraced farming, she ought to devote her next four skill choices to 'Plant Growth', 'Earth Magic', 'Control Earth', and 'Ritual Magic.'

It would allow her to ritually clear her fields for planting, weed out anything that wasn't her crops, eliminate any pests, and accelerate the growth of her crops.

It had additional uses, such as using Control Earth with Ritual Magic for construction.

Bob had told her that it was important to use her skills as often as she could and in the way that she wanted to see them used the most, as that was how the System would determine her path.  If she only used her Poison Blast spell, the System would assume she wanted a path focused entirely on that.

She knew that by accepting his gifts, she had tacitly agreed to become what he called an Adventurer, which was apparently someone who delved the Dungeons to keep them from overflowing, and helped people wherever they could.  He'd assured her that once events had calmed down, she'd find herself with a plethora of free time to spend with Laura.

The Lord of Blight was an enigmatic member of the Pantheon.  He was alternatively portrayed as the bringer of pestilence and ruin and the harbinger of growth and renewal.  Bob clearly had the potential to deliver death and destruction but instead revealed a path toward progress and redemption.

His concern for Laura's well-being in the face of the terrible circumstances that threatened to end her people was another sign, in her mind, of his divine nature.  Who but a God could care so much about individuals unknown to them while racing to save an entire people?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I think it would have been easier if they were still all grouped up around the temples," Bailli complained.

"I'm glad that we aren't working against a clock," Mike disagreed.  "I also don't like having to deal with civilians in a combat zone. It's a lot easier to cut loose when you only have hostiles to engage."

"The good news is that this is our last run," Erick said as he tugged at the neck of his armor.  "The best news," he continued, "is that we will be out of this jungle and back in our nice cool spaceship."

"You could be using the collar," Bailli reminded him.

"It's a waste of Mana Crystals to keep it powered up when you don't have to," Erick shook his head.

Eddi shook his head.  Erick had always been frugal, even after he'd amassed what could only be considered a fortune in Mana Crystals.

Of course, he'd also donated them to the project of creating clean water for Dharavi, so it wasn't like he was greedy or anything.

Although he was an adult, and old enough to drink on Earth, and tier eight, he still found himself falling into the habit of viewing Erick and Bailli as his teachers.

"What do you think Bob is up to?" He asked.

"He has two freshers," Bailli laughed lightly.  "I'm sure he's drilling them on their ABK's."

"Yeah, he does get pretty intense," Eddi agreed.  "Anni and Sereh were working with Kelli to put together a training video using the memories from the freshers he trained so that the Endless could use it, although those two were talking about stretching that and making it available to every Adventurers Guild on Thayland."

"Bob's gonna love that," Mike chuckled.

"I almost wanted to stop them, but he did a really great job, and it doesn't seem fair to deny other people the opportunity to learn from him," Eddi agreed.

"He wasn't happy about the Church in Harbordeep using a statue of him alongside Mael'strom to represent Adventurers," Wayna giggled.  "He doesn't seem to mind when people try and build shrines to Monroe, though."

"I remember when I first met him," Bailli mused as she continued to hurl lightning blasts.  "He was absolutely obsessed with summoning Monroe from his world.  He was so worried that he came off as a bit of an asshole."

"He kinda does that when he's stressed," Mike agreed with a grunt as another Mantis monster bounced off his shield.  "When I met him, he had the weight of the whole damn world on his shoulders, all seven billion of us.  Not that it was really his burden to shoulder, but he carried it anyway."

"I'm guessing he's going to take this quest pretty damn seriously, too," Erick nodded.  He had stacked Effect Over Time heals on Mike, Wayna, and Rexy, so he wasn't doing anything more than refreshing them every few seconds.

"Maybe he'll finally let Jessica help him relax," Eddi suggested.

"I doubt it," Bailli shook her head.  "He's come a long way from the closed-off, paranoid wreck that he was, but I don't think he's ready for a romantic relationship."

"Poor girl is going to need to turn herself into a giant fluffy kitty cat if she wants any love from that man," Wayna shook her head sadly.