"So, have you considered our request?"

As Bob rubbed his temples, he took the time to consider that his life on Thayland had taken a drastic turn for the worse after he'd started bringing people from Earth over.

Really, once he'd started involving the government. The retired marines had been fine, mostly, as had the Dungeons and Dragons crew.

With an effort of will, he stopped himself from closing his eyes and grinding his teeth.

"I have," Bob replied slowly, "and I'd like to outline the reasons I have for declining, and I hope you document them and pass them up, as I'm sure the idea won't die here."

"First and foremost, when you advance to a higher tier, you cease to be human," Bob raised a hand to forestall any questions, "all social, religious, and logistical considerations aside, part and parcel of that advancement is a mental adjustment based on physiology, the end result of which is that you will consider yourself to be better than tier five humans."

"And this is without taking into consideration the natural inclinations and predilections of an alien species. A Drakonian, for example, is a popular choice here on Thayland. They have a natural affinity for Endurance, making them extremely long-lived, even by Thayland standards, and are completely carnivorous. The legends from Earth that speak of Dragons were clearly people somehow remotely viewing other worlds because they are, in many ways, accurate. That draconic need to claim territory and horde wealth is very real, as demonstrated by the King of Greenwold, and Drakonians are the first step in that evolution," Bob explained.

"I saw several of them in the capital, and I can attest that you do not want your people following that path," he stated firmly. "Even going down the path of apotheosis and becoming a Paragon, which just a bigger, slightly better human carries the inherent realization that regular humans are beneath you." Bob shook his head. "I spend a lot of time in my human form because interacting with people seems to help with those inclinations, but have no doubt they are there."

"Now, let's take a general or a senator. These are men and women who are driven, who have sacrificed a lot to attain the power they have. They've been forced to embrace utilitarianism due to their positions, at least to some degree. They've trained themselves to consider people as numbers, resources, etc. In doing so, they've already acknowledged their own superiority, at least subconsciously. Adding a mental compulsion to that is a recipe for tyranny," Bob finished.

The Secretary of Defense had remained silent while Bob had explained.

"Is it really that bad?"

"It's bad enough to be a real concern," Bob replied.

"We're probably going to do it anyway," SecDef shook his head, "it'll just take longer without you doing the digging."

"I'm not going to try to stop you," Bob assured him, "I'm just telling you why it's a bad idea and that I'm not going to be a part of it."

"Do you regret tiering up?" SecDef asked.

Bob shrugged. "I wrestled with it," he admitted. "Ultimately, I needed the additional power to make all of this," he waved his hand around the tavern, indicating Glacier Valley, "happen. If I could have waited, I would have, but at the time, I couldn't see a way forward without doing so."

"On another note, I understand that the new Marines are delving without following the rules," Bob said.

SecDef shook his head. "To be fair, the old guard, which is what the retired Marines have decided to call themselves, by the way, tried to impress the rules on the active-duty Marines, but command didn't feel it was necessary."

"I read something once about the rules being written in the blood of less careful men," Bob replied quietly. "Something you might want to mention to the powers that be. Also, due to the capacity being what it is, there is no harm in making sure all of their skills are capped."

"We're rushing the engineers from the 7th, inserting them into fire teams," SecDef explained, "once they're near the bottom, we can start having them dig out more Dungeons." He hesitated. "I believe that at one point, you'd indicated that you'd be willing to teach them?"

"Yeah, just make sure they have all of the Elemental Control spells, as well as Shadowmancy and Mana Sight," Bob replied, "if you're rushing them up, and without Elemental Affinity Crystals, you might as well, then try to get them to level ten."

SecDef nodded. "Does it bother you at all that the System makes everything almost trivial?"

"I can see both sides," Bob shrugged, "on the one hand, assuming you're part of a community that has discovered the secret of Affinity Crystals, and they've shared not only that information, but the Crystals themselves, you're apt to have an easy life."

"On the other hand, if you lack access to those crystals, you'll have to work longer and harder to gather the mana crystals that you need," he shook his head. "Even if you don't have an Affinity Crystal or a path that requires or benefits from them, you can still work with others to delve safely. You can also delve more deeply to get the affinity crystals, and then you can reincarnate back down to take advantage of them. Frankly, the single factor holding Greenwold back was the secrecy surrounding Affinity Crystals."

SecDef shook his head. "I was thinking more along the lines of how much food one person can grow, or the fact that you can just summon blocks of metal, or even complex machinery if you have the knowledge."

Bob nodded. Eric had summoned out an engine block, then pistons, a crankshaft, and a whole raft of other parts. He was slowly but surely ritually summoning out the bits and pieces necessary to build a late sixties Dodge Charger. Another one of the Marines was bringing out the parts to build a jeep of some sort.

"It's going to be a change," Bob agreed, "I'm not an economist, but I expect that we'll see a near-total collapse of centralized industry, with a few exceptions, and the switch from the dollar to mana crystals..." He shook his head. "One of the things you might want to get someone involved with is putting together a banking system, but with the knowledge that not all mana crystals are created equal. For the purposes of enchanting and enhancing, the higher the level of the crystal, the more powerful the enchantment. Also, mana crystals will dissolve if they aren't used within a certain amount of time."

"I don't even know how banks would work," Bob shrugged, "when the currency is completely fungible, I think we'll see people opening their own businesses based on their skills and providing goods and services accordingly."

SecDef grimaced. "I've been trying to get a handle on all of this, but the implications are too broad and far-reaching. Every time I try to write out a report, I end up going down a rabbit hole. I'm bringing in some experts, but the truth is that I don't know enough to answer their questions, which leads me to this one; would you be willing to sit down with some people to help them understand what they're going to be dealing with?"

Bob resisted the urge to rub his temples again. "I'm stretched pretty thin," he said slowly, "but if they can agree to do it over meals, I'll do what I can."

"Speaking of which, I finished eating ten minutes ago, and I need to get some sleep, as I'm hoping to finish the eighteenth floor tomorrow," Bob stood up and headed out of the tavern.

The Secretary of Defense had turned out to not be a completely horrible person. He didn't think he'd end up friends with the man, but he could work with him.

Ed watched Bob leave, slumping in his chair a bit. He'd been concerned that Bob was going to react badly to the Australians being cut out of the Dungeon, but Bob hadn't mentioned it, and Ed knew that they'd told him.

The more he learned about the System, the less confident he was that the United States would endure after the integration, at least in the fashion it currently did. Ed was a student of history, and he foresaw the country returning to a structure where individual communities exercised nearly complete control over their own affairs, sending minor taxes and a representative to the state government. The state governments would only concern themselves with disputes between the communities and the general defense of those communities against monster waves and tides. The representatives sent to the federal government would likely carry even less of those taxes forward, and the federal government would be reduced to providing for the national defense and diplomacy.

In a post-scarcity world, with spatial expansion, what would cause a country to go to war? Greed was the most obvious, but greed for what? The finished product of skilled artisans? The truth was that the most highly skilled artisans would also represent those with the highest levels, which would make attacking them a bad idea. Religion was a quagmire that he didn't want to dwell on. How would the sudden appearance of real, functional magic impact the people devout enough to go to war over their invisible sky wizard? Then there was the existence of actual gods, although Bob had told him that unless one of the gods from Thayland made the trip over, Earth would have to come up with its own.

He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. The truth was he had no idea what was going to happen. The one thing he knew for certain was that he was going to continue delving that Dungeon every goddamn day until his level was as high as it could be, then he'd keep delving for the crystals to get better equipment. He'd managed to avoid an argument with Bob about his six rules for delving the Dungeon, which was fortunate, as Ed agreed with every single one of them.

Bob woke up the next morning as he felt a gentle nudging pressure on his face. He opened his eyes to discover a wall of gray fluff, which disappeared as his feline overlord pulled his paw back and let out a heart-wrenching "mreow," signaling that there was a kitty slowly starving to death.

"Good morning to you too," Bob muttered as he wrestled out from under his sheets, which were held down by a hefty Monroe, who only abandoned his duties as a sentry/bed weight after Bob had gotten free.

Walking to the kitchen, he reached down and scratched the top of Monroe's head as the super-sized kitty padded alongside him. "Kitty is so hungry, huh, buddy?" Bob murmured. "How could I starve a kitty like that," he commiserated, pulling a steaming bowl of meat chunks out of Monroe's stasis box. "There you go," he placed the bowl on the floor, smiling as Monroe began to purr.

Monroe's stasis box had initially been 'the stasis box,' but Bob was prone to picking up his meals from the tavern, while Monroe was much happier if he didn't have to wait. Bob was pretty sure that this was a legacy of the meow-mix dispenser he'd had in his apartment, which had conditioned his floofer to not having to wait for mealtimes. So, the stasis box had become Monroe's stasis box, which Bob kept filled with a variety of delicious meats for the most handsome kitty in the world.

Stretching, he headed over to the shower. He'd finish the eighteenth floor today, and then he'd treat himself to a much-deserved break. He'd had an idea the day before about buying a small hydro-powered generator or two and just dropping them into a water-filled box with a ritual on it to keep the water circulating quickly. With an inverter, he'd be able to wire up his inventory, which would save him from having to ask for a charge from Vera.

Not that Vera wasn't nice or friendly, she was, but he liked being self-sufficient. And it would give him a nice project to take his mind off Glacier Valley's problems.

The less said about the pending integration of Earth, the better.

Soaping up, he wondered what breakfast would be like this morning. Someone had popped back over to Earth and went on a shopping spree at a seed store, and the greenhouses now provided every sort of spice imaginable. They'd had cinnamon rolls yesterday morning. They'd been quite proud about their cinnamon trees and promised that someone was working on chocolate.

Bob suspected that someone was Amber. She'd gone back to Earth and returned with her parents, or so he'd been told. He'd been surprised when he realized that he didn't have any strong feelings at all regarding that. The old adage about the best revenge being a life well lived seemed to be accurate. He had far too many things which were actually important to worry about, as opposed to being concerned with someone who'd wronged him in the past.

He summoned a towel and dried off, his thoughts still drifting. If they were really rushing those engineers up, they might be ready in just a few more days, a week at the most. Once he taught them how to properly build a Dungeon, he'd be free to help the Australians or whoever else might need him.

Hell, he might even have the time to delve a bit himself or even practice magic without using the System.

The only advantage his current path held was the Arcane Depths. It was a truly fantastic ability, and if he couldn't replicate it, he would simply pay the ever-increasing mana crystal cost to advance without reincarnating. The requirement for eleven affinities meant that he'd need to be tier seven in order to take the path again, and even then, he'd need to choose a species with four natural affinities and then use seven affinity crystals. He'd be much better off he could replicate the ritual without system assistance.

To succeed, he'd need to be able to cast rituals without the System, and then he'd need to practice casting the Arcane Depths ritual both with the System and then without, which would have the unfortunate side effect of resetting his Arcane Depths.

While it was a long-term goal, he wanted to have it sorted before the countdown timer for Earth's integration reached six months. He wanted to make sure he would have the time to reincarnate back down, then level back up before then. Despite the relatively pleasant experiences he'd had so far, he harbored no illusions that as more and more people became involved, some of them would blame him for the situation.

He needed to be completely self-sufficient, able to effectively exist in his inventory if necessary, and the Arcane Depths was the key component of that.

An effect over time summon mana-infused object spell provided a clean outfit, which he donned before dropping through a portal into the tavern. He equipped his armor from his inventory and headed towards the breakfast line. It looked like scrambled egg bowls were on the menu.