A short time after John finished creating the Myrmekes and placing them on the second floor of the Dungeon, he received a notification asking him if he wanted to put an exhibit for them in the Zoo. John couldn’t see why not to do this, as it would give him a chance to observe them in a more peaceful situation, even if it might warn Adventurers of their possible dangers. Either way, his decision was settled when Lenny woke up from his sleep and watched them for a bit before heading out with his bug net. It was getting close to midnight, so there was no reason to stop him from running out, but he did want to look into getting Lenny a fishing rod since he seemed interested in fishing as well.

Jake had come back to the Soul Space as Lenny had gone out of the Dungeon, and since there was no one in the First Room, there was no reason for Jake to be there. John felt that this would be a good time for him to catch up with his brother, so he went to the Entertainment Room where Jake was. Jake was playing God of War on the PS4, probably feeling that it was a bit too violent to play with Lenny. John thought it was appropriate given the role Jake had taken with Lenny, but he wasn’t sure if Jake would appreciate hearing the sentiment voiced out loud.

“How’s it going, Jake?”

“Pretty good, just relaxing with some gaming.”

“You seem to be enjoying spending time with Lenny, and you two did a good job, by the way. You and Lenny are the first ones to unlock anything by Researching a song.”

“Thanks, it’s fun hanging out with Lenny. He has so much enthusiasm towards everything, and being looked up to as a big brother is a nice feeling,” Jake said with a warm smile on his face.

“And how are you dealing with things? I know some after-effects of my depression and state of mind are still showing up.” John said, while looking at Jake with some concern in his eyes.

“I’m doing better, I think. There’s no physical dependency, but I still get a bit of the user thoughts every once in a while.”

“I get that. I mean, I don’t even know if anyone even knows I’m gone yet. I’m still not due back at work for a couple of days, and communication with most of my friends is sporadic at the best of times. Looking back at it, I was kind of isolating myself from everyone a bit, which isn’t the healthiest of behaviour.”

“Well, we can work on our issues together. And it seems like Gwen is helping you in a similar way that Lenny is helping me. I love you, and I’m here for you if you need it.”

“Same, I’m here for you if you need it, and I love you too.” Jake knew how hard it was for John to say those words, and responded by giving an even warmer smile and pulling his brother in for a hug. After the hug, John cleared his throat with an awkward cough and said, “Speaking of Lenny and Gwen, I’ve got an idea for tomorrow if you are interested.”

Jake replied to John by saying, “I’m listening.” and raising his right eyebrow.

“Well, Lenny has expressed an interest in fishing, and Gwen wanted to learn a bit about how shopping works in our world after I told her most of it is handled by computers in some way. And even though we’ll have access to the internet soon, she would like to do some in-person shopping. So maybe you can take her to Canadian Tire tomorrow while Lenny sleeps in the middle of the day.”

“Yeah, but where will we get the cash for it.”

“I still have access to my bank account, so Gwen will be able to use my bank card. I’d let you do use it but figured that might tempt you to misuse it.”

“Yeah, I’d like to stay away from temptation as much as possible right now. I have enough existential worries to deal with right now. No need to add addiction worries onto that.” Jake said with a wry smile on his face.

“What kind of existential worries?” John replied to Jake with a sardonic smile on his face.

“You know, the usual. Are you and me still ourselves? Me being a soul without a true physical body unless you make me one, and you being a hunk of minerals technically.”

“Ah, the regular stuff.”

“Yeah, the new usual. You’re doing good, though?”

“Yeah, I’m good. I’ll talk to you later.” Jake said, dismissing John, with a wave of his hand.

John left with a wave of his hand, heading towards Gwen to let her know about the plan. She was even more excited when John let her know that further down the road from the Canadian Tire, they would be a store called Chapters that were pretty large and specialized in selling books. Once Gwen knew how to go shopping, she would be more than free to head there in the future and pick up some books that interested her. John also let her know about ebooks and that she would also be able to download those once they got the internet connection, and she was interested in those as well.

As John had finished explaining the plan to Gwen, it was practically midnight, and even though Gwen was interested in the internet, she wanted to finish The Two Towers first. John left Gwen to her reading and went to see if anything interesting had developed on the second floor of the Dungeon yet, but it looked like enough time hadn’t passed for anything other than a few basic Slimes being hunted. As John was checking through the different chambers of the second floor, he finally received the notification he had been waiting for. The Research was complete, along with a notification that Research had levelled to 7, giving John an available 3.R.P. left to use. Wanting to see if he had unlocked any new Research, John pulled up the Interdimensional Internet Connections description, along with the newly gained Research’s description and a list of all the available Research 10 R.P. or below, to decide what he should Research next.

Research Completed

Interdimensional Internet Connection

Description: Allows Dungeons to connect to Earth’s internet.

Research Cost: 5 R.P.

Benefit Of Research: This allows the user to connect to the internet.

Parent Research: None

Research Unlocked: System Enhanced Internet Connection

Dungeon Ability Unlocked: None

System Enhanced Internet Connection

Description: Allows Dungeons to use Earth’s internet for Research using Research Points.

Research Cost: 100 R.P.

Benefit Of Research: Unlocks the internet as a Research source.

Parent Research: Interdimensional Internet Connection

Research Unlocked: None

Dungeon Ability Unlocked: None

Mineral Working (4 R.P.), Smithing (5 R.P.), Woodworking (5 R.P.), Clothemaking (5 R.P.), Papercrafts (5 R.P.), Glass Crafts (5 R.P.), Clayworking (5 R.P.), Basic Mana Element Type (5 R.P.), Enchanting (8 R.P.), Alchemy (10 R.P.), Creature Customization (10 R.P.), Advanced Trap Creation (10 R.P.), Mental Defenses (10 R.P.), Arena (10 R.P.), Dungeon Trading (10 R.P.)

Seeing the description of System Enhanced Internet Connection, John wondered if he could use the Internet for Research at all. As he looked into it, John could currently use the internet for Active Research, so he let Jake and Gwen know about that development. However, if he wanted to passively Research a website like Wikipedia, he would have to unlock that ability first. It seemed like a reasonable compromise to John, seeing the vast amount of available information on the web at large and could probably be used to overpower his Dungeon quickly. John didn’t imagine it would be fair if he could suddenly manufacture deadly lasers for use in traps with barely putting any effort in to get them.

If he had four R.P. left, John would have been very tempted to pick up Mineral Working, allowing him to make even better use of the crystals he had recently obtained, and possibly allowing him to create some new rock and mineral types. However, since he would be able to get a 10 R.P. Research done by tomorrow night and quite probably level up Research simultaneously, he was leaning towards unlocking one of those. Of the available 10 R.P. Research, John leaned towards Creature Customization, Mental Defences, Arena, or Dungeon Trading. As much as his most paranoid feelings told John that he should get Mental Defense, his intuition told him that while it would be useful, it wasn’t necessary for his overall safety. On the other hand, his instinct told him that Arena, Dungeon Trading, and Creature Customization were all excellent choices.

As much as Arena was tempting to get right away due to the other kind of people he could attract to his Dungeon with it, John felt he could hold off on acquiring it a bit longer. So really, the choice came down to Dungeon Trading and Creature Customization. John was interested in the Ability descriptions he would gain by getting Creature Customization and transferring those Abilities between different Creatures and Monsters and the power to create hybrid Monsters. However, he had just finished building his second floor, and no one had even got to the end of the first floor yet, so he didn’t need to make a bunch of new Monsters soon, and Dungeon Trading would provide a lot of help in setting up the deals he wanted to soon. As much as John wanted to get Creature Customization, he put the points into Dungeon Trading and went to see Gwen.

As he was heading towards Gwen, John received a notification that she had finished her Research on The Two Towers. There weren’t as many rewards as her Research on The Fellowship of the Ring, but John was still pretty interested in what she had unlocked. She had gained even more Elvish Script and Dwarven Runes, further reducing the cost of the Enchanting Research to 7 R.P. Along with that, he had gained the Templates for Oliphaunts, and the Horses of Rohan, both of which he felt would be exciting additions to the Dungeon. The Oliphaunts were classified as Legendary Monsters, meaning John wouldn’t unlock them for a little while. Still, the Horses were classified as N.P.C.s, meaning that he would probably be multiple ways to use them in the future. Maybe he could even set up Horse and Chariot races in the Arena when he unlocked them, as they looked like they would require much more attainable animals to attain the Template.

As John got to the Research Room where Gwen is, she turned around and smiled at him, seeing to have enjoyed the book. John could see a bit of pride in her smile at well, having once again unlocked new things for the Dungeon through her efforts. Gwen looked at John and asked, “So, now that I finished the book, are you ready to watch the final movie?”

“Sure, we can do that in a little bit and have a bit of a more casual date if that’s what you want to do. I thought I could teach you a little bit about the internet first, though if you want.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. From what you told me before, it sounds pretty interesting.”

John proceeded to show Gwen a bunch of different types of websites available on the web. The nerd in Gwen had been pretty excited upon finding out about Wikipedia and Wikis, especially when John showed her the one about Lord Of The Rings, as she would be able to look up the extended lore to her heart’s content. Gwen was also pretty interested in Wikipedia and the opportunity it provided her to learn more about John’s world on her terms. After John showed Gwen those sites, he offered her a bit of information about how search engines worked and how she could use them to find even more information. Finally, after that, he showed her some video sites, and they enjoyed watching some music videos for some songs that he had already shown her. After they watched a couple of videos, Gwen had a question for John, “So what’s the internet for? Just giving information out to people?”

John answered with a humorous smile on his face, “Most people would say the internet is for porn.”

Gwen tilted her head a bit, looked John dead in the eyes, and asked John with an intense earnestness in her voice, “What’s porn? Can you show me some?”