“Alright,” I said, once Dawnbreaker had passed a mug of tea towards me, with a little container that held sugar cubes and a tiny pitcher that held milk.

“The most immediate danger is that soon, the Ocean Zones will attack the coasts. The water levels will temporarily rise, like with a tsunami, to allow the water-based monsters to attack from their natural habitat. There will also be amphibious monsters, which will perhaps pose the greatest danger. Their development and growth has been synchronized, in order to lead to a deadly attack tomorrow. Frog-like creatures, salamanders, toads, and so on. The water pressure itself will be a huge test for any Mana Shields that we have.

“The good news about the Ocean Zones is that we really only need to worry about them for a few more days,” I said, earning a raised eyebrow from Dawnbreaker. “The sentient species will invade in three days. This includes elves, dwarves, fey, werewolves, vampires, humans, and merfolk. A Fey clan has likely claimed North America. Along with the other species, Merfolk will appear in the seas. Merfolk are the sole dominating force of the ocean. They will more or less eradicate all the sea monsters, and they are generally content to stay in the oceans.”

Dawnbreaker looked intrigued. “So, it is possible to negotiate with the invaders?”

“It is possible,” I said. “But in most circumstances, it would not work. The Fey Clan that is going to claim this Zone, for example, is paying a hefty price to send their troops to North America. They likely already know the make-up of our forces, thanks to the Merchants’ Faction. They are coming for resources and territory, although they would likely accept our surrender. We would have to prove our strength, and prove that they cannot conquer us, before equal negotiations. As you are probably aware, the various factions have already negotiated among themselves, for the most part, how to allocate the various Regions.”

Dawnbreaker nodded. “What factions are you aware of?”

I took a breath. “There are several Fey Clans, each a different faction, but loosely tied together. There is the Council, which is a combination of Elves and Dwarves. There are the Metans, which are a collection of humanoid species—werewolves, vampires, and beastkin. The Merfolk are powerful enough that they have their own faction, which is pretty much completely left alone. Nobody messes with the Merfolk. There is the Mentalist Cooperative, which you already know about. The other factions don’t really like the Mentalist Cooperative, and the Mentalist Cooperative tends to play by its own rules. And there is the Human Empire—I have already killed several of their scouts, which were sent to North America illegally.”

“What do you mean, illegally?” Dawnbreaker asked, taking a slow sip of her tea.

“The Schema has rules that everyone is expected to follow. At the same time, the Schema is not omniscient, or omnipotent. One of the rules is that people from Acclimated Worlds are not to visit a world that is in the process of Acclimation. There are a dozen reasons why people would want to do this—to lay an early claim on resources, or to mind-control world leaders, and so on. The Human Empire and the Mentalist Cooperative both figured out a way to travel to this world without the Schema’s knowledge or approval.”

“And what is their end-goal, in invading the Earth?”

I responded to Dawnbreaker’s question with a question of my own. “What do you know about breakthroughs?”

“I know some. But explain it to me like I don’t know anything. We have the time.”

“Breakthroughs happen at every fifty levels,” I started, repeating the knowledge that Samantha had told me. “In order to rise from level 49 to level 50, you need to experience a breakthrough. This means you must either raise the rank of your profession or your class by one. If you are an F-rank swordsman and an F-rank blacksmith, then you would have to become an E-rank swordsman, or an E-rank blacksmith.”

“In order to upgrade a class or your profession, you need to reach peak affinity for whatever the required affinity is for your class. So, if you are an F-rank Swordsman, you need to reach F-rank Strength or Agility Affinity (Peak) before upgrading your class. Or if you choose to upgrade your profession, you would need to reach F-rank Metal Affinity (Peak) before upgrading your class.”

Dawnbreaker was nodding along. So far, much of this information was for sail by the Merchant’s Faction, which meant many people already knew this.

“The easiest way to upgrade your affinity is to swallow cores that have that same affinity. If you’re an F-rank swordsman, with F-rank Strength Affinity (Low), then you would have to swallow three F-rank cores, moving from low to medium to high to finally reach E-rank Strength Affinity (Low). Once your affinity is a rank above your profession or class, you can finally breakthrough to Level 50, upgrading your profession or class in the process.

“Now, I can finally answer the question you asked—why are so many factions interested in our world? The factions that are fighting for our world all include A or even S-rank powerhouses. For an F-rank swordsman, it’s not a problem to find three cores that will push you to an E-rank Metal Affinity. Or, if you’re really strong, you can even kill an E-rank beast, and swallow its core, directly pushing your affinity to E-rank (low).”

“But what if you are an S-rank existence, seeking to break through and become an Ascendant? There are very few S-rank beings out there to kill in the first place to find S-rank cores, and every one of them would be a life or death battle. So instead of fighting a life-and death battle, why not pay some money, and have your minions fight for a newly Acclimated World. If one of your minions is able to become the World Emperor, then they can directly access the World Core. With some elaborate attunement steps, you can turn a World Core into almost any affinity, and an S-rank individual can absorb its power to help it evolve and become an Ascendant.”

Dawnbreaker looked shocked. “Wouldn’t absorbing a World Core destroy the world?”

I nodded. “Pretty much. I’m not saying every faction wants to do this. Most Factions would see this as a huge waste. It would be better to steal the World Core of a dying world, than one that is as vibrant with life as ours. But if there were a war going between factions, then perhaps a faction wouldn’t be opposed to having an additional Ascendant on their side.”

I paused, noticing my throat was feeling slightly parched, and I took a sip of my tea.

“Alright,” Dawnbreaker said. “What else.”

I almost choked on my tea. Various Factions might be seeking to literally destroy the world, stealing the World Core, and your reaction is ‘What else?’

I thought for a minute. “We should tell people about cores. People can only consume 3 cores every 50 levels. The Schema will only let humans gain three affinities. Most people end up with two affinities—one for your class, and one for your profession.

“What people need to know is that if the third affinity—the one that is not your class or profession-is in danger of being “drowned out” by the other two, if it is ever at a lower rank than the class or profession affinity.

“For example, I am an Mana Modulator, which grants me D-rank Internal Mana Affinity (low). I also am a Rune Master, which grants me C-rank External Unattributed Mana Affinity (low). A while back, I swallowed a core that gave me D-rank Soul Magic Affinity (low). If things stay how they are, my Soul Magic Affinity will start to disappear, weeded out by stronger affinities that are more deeply tied to my identity—my class and profession.”

“So, to make sure I understand you correctly,” Dawnbreaker said, “Any extra affinities that people pick up need to at least match the rank of the affinities that are tied to the class and profession. Is there any danger if the third affinity exceeds the other two?”

I checked in briefly with Samantha. “No,” I said, simply.

Dawnbreaker hummed thoughtfully. “You probably know my class is C-rank. If I reach level 50, it will be B-rank. If I reach level 100, it will be A-rank. If I reach level 150, it will be S-rank. Does this mean my level cap is effectively 200, if I’m unwilling to destroy a planet in order to become an Ascendant?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Like I said earlier, you can level your profession separately.”

Dawnbreaker frowned, and I explained a bit more. “Even if you don’t have a profession now, you can pick one up at any point. F-rank Professions aren’t too hard to come by. You can have an F-rank profession at level 199, and then to breakthrough, you can upgrade your F-rank profession to an E-rank profession. With this method, breakthroughs can be laughably easy—you just never get to reach the truly rare classes and professions.”

Dawnbreaker still looked somewhat unhappy at my explanation. “Of course, the other option is to just kill other S-rank existences. But if you think about the way the Schema works, and the incentive structure in place, most of the easy-to-kill S-rank existences would already be dead. The remaining ones are either too hard to kill by themselves, or they are too hard to find, or they are under the protection of a powerful faction.”

“Alright,” Dawnbreaker said. “What else?”

“You’ve heard about the other world of elves and dwarves?” I asked.

Dawnbreaker nodded. “Parker had a theory about a portal to another world, but—”

“It’s been confirmed,” I said. “Evangeline told me that when she challenged the Infinite Tower, she encountered people from Reyvania. Reyvania is a world that originally had a much higher ambient mana density—think of it as a natural crack in their World Core which released the Aether and mana—which means that even though they didn’t have the Schema, the moment the Schema appeared, many of them were granted higher levels than us.

Dawnbreaker nodded.

“The Schema calculates the tutorial difficulty, and the difficulty of monster hordes and invading forces, based off of the levels of the people in the world,” I explained. “So, it should make sense that the monsters and people attacking the other world are more powerful than the monsters and people attacking Earth?”

“Yes?” Dawnbreaker said, clearly ready for the conclusion.

I had laid it out like this partly to see if she would come to the conclusion. Samantha had not been impressed that I hadn’t pieced this particular part of my situation together yet, blaming me for not thinking things through, once again.

I was trying to ascertain if this was a “me” problem, or another case of Samantha being annoying.

“So, if there are more powerful forces in the other world—potentially C-rank or even B-ranked individuals, I said, slowly, before continuing, “And there is a portal that is currently closed between our worlds, that could potentially be opened again…”

“Fuck,” Dawnbreaker said.

This time, it was my turn to nod my head. “With the value of our planet, the various Factions wouldn’t hesitate to add a B-rank force into the mix if they could. So far, they can’t. But if the portal ever opens, then we could have an additional, unregulated number of monsters swarming our planet.”

“Couldn’t it work the other way, too?” Dawnbreaker asked. “What if the inhabitants of Reyvania successfully defend against the monsters? Couldn’t they help us?”

“It’s a possibility,” I conceded. “But of the hundreds of planets that have been acclimated, only a handful have successfully retained full control of their planet.”

Dawnbreaker rubbed her temples with her index fingers. “Have you seen any sign of this portal? Do you know anything else about it?”

“No,” I said.

Dawnbreaker sighed. “Anything else?”

“Well,” I said, adopting a more positive tone. “We do have a win condition. One of the Zone Lords will essentially turn into an endgame boss—think of it as a World Lord, or World Boss. Whoever kills that creature will get a World City Token, which will allow you to control teleportation into and out of this world—we could hire mercenaries to defend Earth from the other invaders, for example.

“So, there is an end in sight,” I finished, resolutely.