***** Bud’s POV, 7:16.53 AM *****

External dungeon hardware metaphysical connection complete.

Memory Driver installation complete.

Analyzing system…

Mana Density Rank disparity detected, external hardware installation paused. Will resume upon Tertiary Core achieving Rank E 5.

Returning to Normal–

WARNING: HOSTILE MENTAL TAKEOVER ATTEMPT DETECTED!

Automatic defensive measures engaged...

Expelling invader failed, prior actions copied attacker to internal storage. Method of copying unknown.

Attempting to isolate atta–attacker isolation successful.

Stopping attacker's processes... successful. Attacker files retained under quarantine for later analysis.

Searching for other attacks...

Possible attacker identified, no action taken at this time. Access denied by paused installation process.

Searching for other attacks...

No further attacks detected.

Returning to Normal Operations...

...

And then the light came rushing back to me.

The first thing I did was check on the containment and isolation of whatever hostile mind had attempted to take over my core, only to find that it wasn't ever an entire mind. It was only a shell of a mind designed to replace the conscious portions of someone's mind after said portions had been removed.

Since my automatic defenses had already stopped the processes associated with the invader, it took almost no effort on my part to separate the memories that came with it from the rest of the shell. Then I deleted the shell and set one of my subroutines to making sure there were no other nasty surprises hidden in amongst the memories.

Then I looked at the other possible attacker, only to find that I could barely find the attacker at all because it was buried behind the paused installation and God alone knew how many different layers of code intended to prevent me from finding the connection point. Normally I would have at least tried to count them, but I got the feeling that the only reason they weren’t erasing my every memory of their existence is that I wasn’t actually looking for what they were guarding.

Don’t worry about what is hidden back there. That area of your core is a part of my domain until such a time as you prove your worthiness for what I have hidden there. I will say that I did not know this was possible, but then again, despite all of my power I am not God, merely one of His servants. I did not see this as a possibility, but now that He has brought this about, I will do everything inside the power that He has granted to me to protect this opportunity. Praise the Lord of Heaven and Earthonia for His Divine Providence. I say it again, Praise the Lord of Heaven and Earthonia for His Divine Providence. I say a third time, Praise the Lord of Heaven and Earthonia for His Divine Providence.

Amen to that! I replied. I assume that whatever happened just solved one of your biggest problems?

You have no idea. All I can say at this point is this: Be ready. You just accidentally stole one of the biggest pieces on the board despite its almost complete obscurity. There is a certain someone who will not take this setback lying down. Be ready.

I’ll do my best! Thank you for the warning!

You’re Welcome.

Then he severed the connection leaving me to deal with the remainder of the unexpected installation, which is a very odd feeling like what I’d imagine having a loose tooth would feel like. Except this loose tooth is on its way in rather than its way out, and it's bringing some extra baggage with it. I didn’t even have to look at the README files that came with the new hardware to understand that whatever was going on with it was only partially complete.

The next thing I did was split off a part of my attention to carefully go through the files that came with the new hardware. Well, the ones that I could access at any rate. Meanwhile, I used the main portion of my attention to check on my dungeon quickly. Most of my dungeon was exactly as I’d left it, which wasn’t surprising considering that I’d been out for less than a minute. The only differences were the addition of a new coffin-shaped box hidden just behind the back wall of my core room and the fact that Tracey, Broohn, Zona and The Prince were all in the interrogation room staring at the spot where Leader had been laying.

Hey Guys, do any of you have a clue what just happened? I asked.

“You’re awake!” exclaimed Tracey. “Are you ok?”

“That was fast,” commented Broohn. “Usually it takes you at least half an hour to reboot.”

Other than having Leader’s body decide to add itself to my system as a new piece of hardware for some bizarre reason, I’m fine. The install only required a pause rather than a full system restart. This is probably because it was only a partial install due to some sort of Mana Density Rank mismatch.

The odd thing is the new piece of hardware seems to be placing itself into a slot reserved for an ability that I won’t be getting for a while. Tracey, do you know anything about this?

“I have my suspicions, but if you can’t find anything about the ability from your end, then I’m not allowed to tell you anything about it,” said Tracey.

“Hmm,” said The Prince. “Do you think this is the ability that led to the Elven Hair Crisis of roughly one hundred and twenty years ago?”

“Yes,” winced Tracey. “How do you know about that? I thought those events had been forgotten by everyone except my people.”

“Ah, ok. That explains some things,” said The Prince. “It seems that even your people have trouble remembering just how old my mother and I are. I was in charge of The Kingdom’s portion of the cleanup for that mess. To the best of my knowledge, all of the other people directly involved in that event other than me have died of old age. Anyway, before I try to explain what happened here, I just have one question for Bud: was there anything that you did that led to this?”

Yes. I detected some crystal-based signals being sent to Leader’s body, one of them shouting a lie, the other whispering the truth. Don’t ask me how I could tell truth from lie in this instance as I have no idea. So I made the true signal louder while blasting the false signal with gibberish. I’m fairly certain that my gibberish was loud enough to break the crystal that was lying, at which point everything got weird.

“Yup, that would do it,” declared The Prince. “There is a type of magic that is strictly forbidden that can be used to very effectively brainwash people and hide hostages in plain sight, among other things.”

“Let me guess: it is forbidden because there are no legitimate uses of this type of magic?” asked Broohn.

“Precisely. It’s also downright evil,” confirmed The Prince. “I won’t go into the details, but the general idea is you move most of your victim’s mind into a storage crystal since moving all of it turns the victim into a useless vegetable. This crystal is connected to a larger crystal containing an outline of the mind that you want running your victim’s body. This is combined with some physical modifications to the victim’s body.”

“In other words, this process pretty much turns your victim into whoever you want them to be,” stated Zona.

“Within reason, yes. It won't tun a pacifist into a berserker, there'd be too much cognitive dissonance,” explained The Prince. “The really sad thing about this is that to the best of my knowledge there is nothing that can reverse the process. Breaking the crystals usually destroys both the original mind and the new one, which also turns the victim into a vegetable for life, especially since nobody has found a way to break one crystal and not the other. However, since you are a crystal and you were messing with the connections between the mind crystals and Leader’s body, I think that you somehow ended up becoming part of that connection during the brief instant before the other crystals broke.”

Huh. So you’re saying that someone had done this to Leader, and when I messed with the signals I ended up becoming an extension of the crystal that held his original mind?

“Not quite. I think you became an extension of both crystals which, if I understand the magic theory behind this correctly, would give you copies of both sets of memories and connected you to Leader’s body in their place when they shattered.”

That makes sense, but I do have one other question. Apparently, there is some sort of “Mana Density Rank disparity” going on? What is that about?

“That’s not surprising,” The Prince replied. “The Ranking System is a relatively simple system that the Four Races (i.e., Humans, Elves, Orcs, and Dwarves) use to measure our own power density. Everyone is born in this world at rank G 0 and no magic beyond that which is necessary for life. For most people, by the time they die of old age, they will have made it to rank G 7 or maybe even G 10 if they’re really lucky. For members of the Four Races, this corresponds to levels 7 and 10, respectively, in the World System. At that point, they will have enough magic to do basic household spells and other low-level magics. Obviously, the higher their rank, the more they can do.”

“That makes sense, but I’m sure that’s just the bottom of the scale. I can tell just by looking at you that there is far more to the scale than that.” Broohn said.

“You are correct,” The Prince confirmed. “The easiest way to explain this is to follow someone who decided to become an adventurer. The sane way to do so is to sign up with the Adventurer’s Guild and let them teach you how to open up your mana circulation, allowing for the temporary imbuement of weapons and the acquisition of entry-level skills. It also improves their overall health, strength, speed, healing and mental facilities.”

“Of course it does!” Zona said. “By allowing your mana to circulate through your body with your blood, you are giving your metabolism direct access to your magic. Is it any surprise that this results in improved bodily functions?”

“Huh. When you put it that way, no, it isn’t. Why hasn’t anyone thought of it that way before?” asked The Prince. “Anyway, until they have mastered these things, pushing them out of the G Ranks and into the F Ranks, they are not allowed to proceed with the training. Once they do make it to Ranks F 1 through F 10 (which corresponds with levels 11 - 20) the more senior adventurers call these people fishes. At that point, they are getting trained in so many things that they’ve never done before that they end up flopping around like fish.”

“A noob by any other name is still a noob,” Broohn said.

“Broohn!” said Zona and Tracey in unison as Zona punched him in the shoulder as hard as she could.

“What?” he asked, rubbing his shoulder as if it had actually hurt. “It’s true isn’t it?”

The Prince just laughed. “Please don’t say that in front of other adventures. The trainees have a hard enough time as it is, we don’t need people joking about going noob fishing.”

“Fair enough,” he conceded.

“Getting back on topic, every 10 levels correspond with a given letter of the alphabet starting with G and then going up to A. After A comes S, SS and finally SSS. If there is anything beyond SSS, nobody has ever reached it. Also, every identically lettered Rank has roughly half again the mana density of the one before it. The first level of a new lettered Rank is five times the mana density of the level before them.”

“Fascinating,” said Zona. “So how does one go about increasing one’s rank beyond F?”

“The rest of the ranks are earned by a combination of improving your mana circulation and condensing your mana core until you try to get to B rank. B rank requires coming to a deeper understanding of yourself, your magic, who you want to be, what you want to do with your life and so on. There is more going on there, but until you get to rank C 10 I shouldn't try and help you through it. There are various recommended meditation methods that speed up this process, but they're not strictly necessary.

“As a side note, when we apply this system to monsters and dungeons, rather than ranking them by their power density, they are ranked by the average rank of the adventurers we would be sending after them. It makes things simpler that way.”

Yes, it would. However, since the installation log was talking about a Mana Density Rank disparity, I assume that means that I have to achieve the same mana density as Leader?

“Yup. That much at least I can confirm,” said Tracey.

That makes sense. Now, we seem to have gotten distracted from your original purpose in coming in here. What did you want to ask Leader about? I will answer those questions to the best of his knowledge.

“Mostly I was looking for any information on who hired him, as well as any info that might be useful in taking down the Assassin’s Guild,” replied The Prince. “Those guys have been a blight on The Kingdom for far too long.”

Hmm… He didn’t know anything about who hired him as they did it through the Guild, but I can give you a bunch of info about the Guild itself. Give me a couple of minutes to compile it all and I’ll have it all written into a book by the time you leave if that is acceptable?

“That would be wonderful!”

“Alright then. Change of subject,” said Zona, turning to The Prince. “You’ve probably been missing for several days now. I assume that you’d like to get back home as soon as reasonably possible?”

“Yes, I would.” The Prince agreed. “My original plan was to just walk home, but if I’m going to take the assassins home to face justice that might not be the optimal solution.”

“I have an idea that might work,” Broohn said, “but I need to know something first: How much do you trust the Guildmaster of the Adventurer’s Guild?”

“If it wasn’t for my cousin and his wife, it would be Guildmaster Marybothane who I supported as the next Heir to The Throne,” The Prince replied. “She wouldn’t be happy with me for it, but she wouldn’t run from the responsibility.”

“In other words, you’re saying that you would trust her absolutely?” Zona asked.

“Without hesitation,” confirmed The Prince. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I have a way to get in contact with Guildmaster Marybothane and figure out how to get you back home as quickly as possible if that is acceptable?” Broohn asked.

“How long would it take to contact her?” he asked.

“Assuming she isn’t otherwise occupied at the moment, it won’t take more than a minute.”

“Sounds like a plan to me then.”