Bob woke up the next morning feeling refreshed.

He'd retrieved his armor from Gary, and splurged on a Makres shirt for twenty crystals.

It was fitted a bit like his armor, with cleverly hidden cloth straps keeping the reinforced shoulders in place.

He'd then taken a shower, and gone straight to sleep. Ten hours of glorious sleep.

And today he would take level seven.

He pushed the feeling of anxiety that built up at that thought away. Thidwell had called in his debt, laying out a path for Bob to repay him.

He'd farm up more crystals for enchantments on level ten or eleven.

The sixteen thousand experience to level his Summon UtahRaptor spell each level from twenty to twenty-five would certainly provide the time to do so.

Still, it was time to get moving.

Moving slowly, in order to avoid disturbing his feline overlord, Bob slid his legs out from under Monroe.

He didn't have a scale, but he thought that Monroe had gained two or three pounds when the fluffer had eaten his crystals and leveled up.

He walked over to the shower and turned on the water, testing the temperature to confirm the proper level of heat, before stepping into it.

As Bob worked up a lather, he couldn't help but think that today was going to be a good day.

~ ~ ~ ~

'Hope,' Bob thought bitterly, 'is the first step on the road to dissapointment.'

The day had started off so well.

He'd leveled up to seven and taken barrage, then headed down into the Dungeon after a hearty breakfast.

Bob shuffled a few feet to the right as the dank, putrid muck he was standing in started to quiver.

As he moved out of the way, a five-foot long, three-foot tall centipede burst out of the ground and lunged for him.

It was intercepted by one of the three UtahRaptors Bob had summoned out, and it let out a high pitched noise that sounded a bit like nails on a chalkboard.

Jake had bowled it over and was enthusiastically ripping it open with his scythe-like rear claw.

Another centipede lunged out of the ground and latched onto Jake, who stumbled and desperately tried to bite the insect that had latched onto his flank.

The other two UtahRaptors moved to assist, ripping the centipede off, and taking a chunk of first UtahRaptor's flesh with it.

Bob grimaced as he felt heard a bubbling pop and the air around him grew heavy and noxious.

'Fuck this level,' he thought, and held his breath as his UtahRaptors finished off the centipedes, then he portaled over fifteen feet, keeping the centipede bodies inside his twenty-foot radius of light. He was pretty sure he'd missed a few crystals already from hopping around, and he wanted to get the fuck out of this level as soon as possible.

He planted his staff, released his summoned monsters, and took the second of not moving to regain some more mana.

Giant venomous insects that ambushed you in packs, pockets of flammable, poisonous gas, and absolute darkness, all served up with a side order of disgusting muck that clung to your boots and made it hard to move.

"Fuck this place," Bob muttered.

He barraged another concentration based UtahRaptor pack as the muck shifted towards him again.

~ ~ ~ ~

Bob staggered into the tavern and spotted Eddi sitting at a table with two other kids Bob didn't recognize.

He slumped over and slid into the spare seat.

Eddi grinned excitedly and gestured to the other two, "Bob, this is Carri," a young woman with pale, freckled skin and auburn hair nodded to him, "and Grayson," he indicated a young man with coal-black skin and brilliant blue eyes.

Bob nodded and favored the table with a grunt as he coaxed Monroe out of his inventory.

Monroe liked level eight even less than Bob did, and had taken shelter in his inventory almost immediately.

"A piece of advice," Bob said tiredly, "have everything lined up so that you only need to be on the eighth level of the Dungeon for as long as it takes to get the crystals you need to level up."

"It sure smells pretty bad," Carri muttered as she wrinkled her nose.

"Believe me, the Dungeon is far worse than the meager bouquet I've brought back up with me," Bob grumbled.

The kids already had their plates, so Bob waved to catch Theo's attention and just gave him a nod.

"So how has your delving been going Eddi," Bob asked as he poured Monroe onto the table.

"It's going great!" Eddi exclaimed, "I'm on the fifth level of the Dungeon, and Rexxy is just destroying those rats," he beamed.

Bob nodded and perked up slightly as Theo dropped off a plate of stew for him, and a bowl of meat chunks for Monroe.

"What about you two?" Bob asked as he dunked a piece of bread into his stew, "are you two adventurers?"

"We are," Grayson said proudly, "and we're both Endless Swarm pathers too."

Bob cocked his head as he chewed.

"I summon hounds," Grayson said proudly, then he jerked a thumb towards Carri and finished, "and she summons huge spiders."

Bob paused mid-chew, then resumed. He remembered being told that one of the kids had decided on spiders.

Bob didn't have any particular vendetta against spiders. Although he'd always kept his apartment clean and tidy, his neighbors often hadn't so there were always insects around.

A few arachnids not only helped on that front, but they also provided amusement for Monroe, who liked to hunt them.

"Much like Eddi here," Bob motioned towards the excitable youngster, "I'm sure you'll be nothing but happy with the path."

"We were actually thinking about grouping up," Carri said, "with our primary summons at level fifteen, and each of us having four level three summons guarding our group, our thought was that we could tear level six apart."

Bob nodded, swallowed, and said, "I bet you could, and that is a damn good level to gather crystals for gear on, as well as to work towards leveling your summoning school up."

"So do you want to see our summons?" Eddi asked eagerly.

Bob eyed his plate. He'd eaten all the bread and most of the chunks of what he believed was ham. Monroe also appeared to be done.

"Sure," Bob said and shoved himself back from the table before picking up Monroe, and sliding him into place on the Makres with a series of clicks.

Bob followed the kids outside where they promptly demonstrated their summons.

Rexxy had grown a bit larger and Eddi was quite proud.

Grayson summoned what appeared to be a five-foot tall, six-foot long boarhound, brindle, with enormous brown eyes.

Carri summoned a six-foot tall, five-foot long spider, which had, much like the Big Fucking Nope, a pair of scythe like pincers in addition to the fangs. It was black with brown spirals and had some sort of asymmetrical marking on its back.

It was more than a little terrifying, and Bob felt it would traumatize anyone who suffered from arachnophobia.

"Those will do," Bob said as he gave the monsters a good once over.

"Are you going back down to the eighth level of the Dungeon tomorrow?" Eddi asked.

Bob shuddered.

"No," he said wearily, "I'm taking level eight tomorrow morning, I earned all the crystals I needed from that cesspool," he finished as he waved to the kids and headed back into the tavern, "and on that note, I'm off to bed, you three be safe."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bob woke up the following morning and grimaced. He really ought to have stayed on level eight and ground up his UtahRaptor and Summoning school, but it just sucked.

"Better to do it on a level that sucks less," he muttered as he carefully eased his feet out from under Monroe.

After a shower and shave, Bob found himself waiting outside the Ritual room, as it was currently in use.

He leaned back against the wall and stroked Monroe, who was locked onto the Makres and enjoying the attention.

He'd take eight, then catch Harv and Elli at breakfast and get the download on the ninth level of the Dungeon.

As he slowly stroked Monroe, listening to the rumbling of his purr motor, he considered the next skill he might take.

Bob had everything he needed to go down the Endless Swarm Path.

'At some point,' Bob mused, 'I'll have my matrix fixed, and matrix manipulation will be on the table.'

The door to the ritual room swung open, and Thidwell strode out with five of the kids Bob had lectured the other morning following him like ducklings.

"Go up to the Tavern," Thidwell rumbled to the kids then turned his attention to Bob, "Bob, I trust you're here to go to level eight?"

Bob nodded as he stood, "The eighth level of the Dungeon kinda sucks," Bob said to the huge man.

Thidwell snorted and replied, "It was designed to, as you say, 'Suck'."

"And the ninth level of the Dungeon?" Bob asked.

"I believe you will find it somewhat more agreeable," Thidwell said in his gravelly voice before digging into the seemingly bottomless pouch he wore at his waist.

He pulled out a crystal and tossed it to Bob, "See what you can make of that," he said, "Calder apparently has a dimensionalist in his town, the lucky bastard, so he got back to me within a day."

Bob looked at the crystal.

It looked like an opal encased in a diamond. As he turned it, examining each facet, he could see through the clear diamond to the multi-hued opal within.

"Abjuration," Thidwell grunted.

Bob nodded and rolled between his fingertips as he considered what little he knew about Abjuration.

"I sent him a copy of your Conjuration handout as well as ten Conjuration crystals," Thidwell rumbled, "And I expect he might portal over to talk to you at some point."

Bob nodded as he tried to hide a grimace.

He only had one Curator to base his assumptions on, but Thidwell was like a force of nature.

"Alright," Bob said, "I'll take eight, and then start putting in the work."

Thidwell nodded and then moved away, as always moving with surprising lightness and grace for his nearly eight-foot height.

Bob stalked into the ritual chamber and sat down, mentally calling his Mana Crystals out of his inventory.

He was somewhat lost in thought as he started the process of flowing mana into the crystals, as he contemplated what Calder could possibly want from him. The paper laid everything out.

You have absorbed the potential of fifty mana crystals. You have absorbed the Affinity Crystal of Abjuration. Please allocate attribute and skill points now.

Bob blinked and looked down at his other hand as he realized he'd still been holding the Abjuration Crystal.

"Well fuck," Bob muttered.

"I guess I can get that school for free," he sighed.

Bob quickly assigned his attribute points to Endurance.

You have absorbed an Affinity Crystal of Abjuration. Would you like to obtain the Magical School of Abjuration by allocating a Skill Point? Either Mentally project or Verbally articulate, "Yes" or Mentally project or Verbally articulate "No"

Bob paused. He could get a free spell out of it, and from what he understood Abjuration contained 'Wards and Shields'.

"Trebor," Bob muttered, "can you briefly tell me what spells are in the Abjuration school?"

'Abjuration,' Trebor said quietly, 'is, much like conjuration, centered on the application of pure magical force, or "Eldritch", except it seeks to protect, rather than damage.'

'A wall, or a cube of force, enhance armor, resistance to elemental attacks, hermetic seals, and wards are all found in Abjuration, as it was created as a distillation of the Divine School of Protection.'

Bob mulled that information over.

A wall of force didn't sound so bad. And he could think of a lot of uses for pure force in general.

"Might as well," Bob said, and he mentally projected 'Yes.'

You have absorbed an Affinity Crystal of Abjuration at the same time as you obtained the Magical School of Abjuration. Please select from one of the following bonuses:

Maximum Level of the Magical School of Abjuration Increased by Five. Mana Expenditure for all Skills from the Magical School of Abjuration reduced by Ten Percent.

User may select one skill from the Magical School of Abjuration.

Bob blinked hard and jerked upright, causing Monroe to let out a 'mreow' of complaint.

"The actual fuck?" Bob muttered.

"Trebor," Bob said slowly as he looked at the options, "you mind telling me how I got the absorption bonus past level five?"

'Affinity Crystals,' Trebor said, 'allow the user to create an affinity before selecting their path. Because you have not yet selected a path, you're able to utilize them to create an affinity, despite being over your racial tier threshold for selecting a path.'

"And you're just now telling me this?" Bob said harshly.

'Bob,' Trebor said calmly, 'I'm more akin to your own personal Google, rather than an AI companion. If you don't ask me a question, or if it doesn't come up during a conversation between us, I'm not programmed to volunteer information,' he continued, 'remember as a mirror protocol I'm supposed to be a friendly and unobtrusive aid towards your acclimatization to the System.'

Bob's mind raced.

He could take level nine, take conjuration, take level ten, and max out a conjuration nuke.

Sure, he wouldn't have the savant bonus, but he could still be a heavy hitter.

Bob took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, listening to Monroe's gentle rumbling purr.

He had already committed pretty heavily towards just using his UtahRaptor to level up.

He might be better off just taking the bonus five levels to each school he could scrounge a crystal for, and enjoy the triple threshold bonuses.

Although...

'Trebor," Bob said quietly, "if the experience to raise a Magical school from level five to level six is one hundred thousand, what is the experience required to raise it from ten to eleven?"

'One million,' Trebor answered flatly.

Bob shook his head slowly.

That was five-hundred thousand monsters, assuming he was earning crystals at one level over his own.

Bob blinked. Assuming a kill time of five seconds, that was two point five million seconds of monster killing, or, he did the math, roughly twenty-nine days of non-stop monster murder, twenty-four hours a day, to level a Magical school once from ten to eleven. And that was using only one spell, the reality was that he'd be lucky to raise any school but summoning at a quarter of that speed. Which would mean four months, not one. And of course, he wasn't going to spend twenty-four hours a day down there, so let's triple that with the assumption that he can spend eight hours a day, every day, murdering monsters.

A fucking year.

Or to be more accurate, five fucking years, of non-stop monster killing, a rough guess of ten million monsters slain to go from level ten in a spell school to level fifteen.

"Fuck," Bob breathed.

He did, however, have the time.

His Endurance was now eighteen, or twenty-point-seven with his enchanted armor on, which placed his lifespan at one hundred and twenty-five. Assuming he kept raising it once each level, Bob would wind up with an Endurance of fifty-five, before enchantments, at level twenty-five. Which would give him a life span of three hundred years.

Yes, his plan did have plenty of time baked in.

Bob sighed and made his mental selection.

You have selected the following bonus: Maximum Level of the Magical School of Abjuration Increased by Five.

Bob winced as he felt the changes take place, and he once again wondered if that was due to allocating all of his attribute points into endurance.

Bob stood up and slipped his few remaining crystals back into his bag.

He needed to talk to Thidwell.