Bob hurried up the stairs to Thidwell's office.

The young woman at the desk in front raised a hand and slipped in to see if Thidwell had a moment.

Bob once again considered that he should probably find out what her name was.

A few moments later she slipped back out and motioned him in as she took her seat behind her desk.

Bob walked into Thidwell's office and closed the door behind him.

He turned to face the big man, who was currently looking at him curiously with a small pile of paperwork in front of him.

"I can still use Affinity Crystals to gain an Affinity," Bob said calmly.

Thidwell cocked his head and leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingers on his desk.

"How?" Thidwell asked.

"Because I couldn't take a path," Bob said, "I can still gain an affinity."

Thidwells face twisted into a grin and he chuckled darkly.

"Stars shine on a moonless night I suppose," he said, "at least you've gotten something to compensate for your inability to path."

He continued to drum his fingers on his desk thoughtfully.

"Did you use the Conjuration Crystal?" Thidwell asked.

Bob hesitated slightly before stammering out, "Uh, no. Not exactly, you see, somehow," he shifted uncomfortably, "Monroe managed to use some of my crystals, and the affinity crystal, and he leveled up."

Thidwell looked at Monroe, who was sprawled across Bob's shoulders, the very picture of indolence, and laughed.

"You realize," Thidwell said as his booming laugh subsided, "that you're responsible for whatever he burns down?"

Bob blanched as he turned his head to eye Monroe.

The big Maine-coon hadn't started showing any signs of magic use yet.

"I don't think he's got any spells yet," Bob muttered.

Thidwell nodded, and his mirth subsided although his lips still curled into a smile as he looked up to the ceiling in contemplation.

"You'll need to replace these, somehow, at some point," Thidwell said sternly as he lowered his gaze to meet Bob's eyes.

The giant opened a drawer and pulled out a small box, and slid it across the desk towards Bob, then started rooting around his bottomless pouch.

Bob opened the box and stared at the four gems contained within.

They were nestled into a pile of fabric, and each one glittered with its own unique beauty.

The furthest to the right looked like crystallized fire, with yellow, red, orange, and gold flowing and flickering.

The next one over was a sky blue, with white clouds racing just under its surface.

The third one twisted and swirled with the blues and greens of the ocean, ranging from almost turquoise to nearly purple.

The final crystal shifted from marble to granite, to onyx, to the rich brown of soil, then to the golden grains of sand.

Thidwell slid three more crystals across his desk.

Bob recognized another Conjuration crystal, but the other two were unknowns, one seemed to shift and twist through variants of bark, while the other showed fur, scales, hair, and chittin.

"Calder sent over a couple of Animal and Plant crystals that he had," Thidwell grunted, "and the box, as you might have guessed, has the four elemental crystals."

The big man let out an explosive sigh and said, "I was given a set of elemental affinity crystals by my father, and I expected to give these to my son," he shrugged, "but I'm not ready to marry yet, and you can easily replace these by going to Harbordeep and running the Dungeon there - these are found on twenty-six through twenty-nine."

"In the meantime," he rumbled, "I imagine you can use them as you level."

Thidwell stood up suddenly and started to pace.

Bob felt a sudden dread rise up in his chest.

He hadn't spent a lot of time with Thidwell, but he'd gotten a bit of a feel for the man's mannerisms.

A pacing Thidwell was a Thidwell working up to decisive action.

Thidwell stopped suddenly and turned to face Bob, a serious expression on his face.

"I know you've been working towards the Endless Swarm path, but I have an idea, and I want you to hear me out," Thidwell rumbled.

"Take the elemental crystals, take the elemental schools, get the extra five levels to them," he said, "and then take the Curator Path."

Thidwell raised a huge hand to forestall any objections and continued, "The Curator Path is a gift from mana itself," he said forcefully, "no other path that I know of provides as many extra skill selections, and increases to skills as it does."

He pointed a massive finger at Bob as he went on, "And with the bonus you gain from using those Affinity Crystals, you'll be the most powerful Curator in the world."

Bob took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

The Endless Swarm had always been a goal, but it was a means to an end.

Thidwell wasn't wrong about the Curator Path, Trebor had confirmed that it was overpowered, and designed by the System to be so.

Bob opened his eyes.

"I'm not really sure I want to be responsible for a Dungeon," Bob hedged.

Thidwell snorted and replied, "There are nine Curators here in Holmstead, and those are the ones who are members of the Guild."

"There might be another half dozen that never joined the guild, but took the path," He finished.

Thidwell leaned over his desk and lowered his voice as he said, "You might, at some point, end up someplace that doesn't have a Dungeon."

"Being able to build one could be the difference between life or death," Thidwell finished seriously.

Bob nodded slowly.

He had already thought of a few scenarios that saw him fleeing Holmstead in the dead of night.

The Royal and Noble families crashing into town was a recurring nightmare.

"I'll give it some serious thought," Bob said.

Thidwell nodded, and sat back down, gesturing Bob towards the door as he said, "Do that."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bob sat down next to Harv and Elli, who were already working on their breakfast.

"No freshers today?" Bob asked.

"Nope, they've got what they need for level six," Harv said, "so we're taking a day before we start a new batch."

Elli nodded and between bites added, "Next batch are your Super Savants," he said with a grin, "so we'll see how they pan out."

"Super Savants?" Bob asked, before saying, "Fuck it, it's better than 'The Reef'."

"So," Bob said as he caught Theo's eye and nodded at him, "talk to me about level nine."

Harv smirked and said, "Level nine is a beautiful forest, crossed by babbling streams, and kissed by dappled sunlight."

Bob gave him a withering look and said, "And what monsters are lurking in those idyllic woods?"

"Wasps," Elli grunted as he reached over to scratch Monroe's ruff as the big cat slid down onto the table and watched Theo approach with his steaming bowl of delicious meat.

"Wasps?" Bob asked.

"Yep," Harv said, "foot-long wasps that come in swarms."

Elli nodded and said seriously, "Be careful, they don't do a lot of damage, but the damage they deal is vicious, which goes right through your armor."

"Vicious?" Bob asked.

"Yeah, it's a skill you can use to modify your damage," Elli explained, "it divides it by ten, but it ignores armor."

"Great," Bob muttered.

"Not really," Harv said, "it's a pain in the... well, everywhere. How are you set for potions?"

"Still have twenty health and ten mana," Bob answered absentmindedly as he considered just how he would deal with a swarm, whatever that was.

"How many wasps are in a swarm?" Bob asked.

"A dozen or so," Elli responded.

"Fuck," Bob muttered.

"Yep," said Harv.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Level nine really was beautiful.

Until you took into account the purple and green striped wasps that kept swarming out of the trees and trying to kill you.

That sort of ruined the experience.

As soon as Bob had moved twenty-five feet away from the gate, a swarm of wasps had rushed down from the canopy overhead to attack him.

Bob had given the issue of facing twelve small, armor ignoring opponents a little thought, and had decided that the best tactic would be to double his barrage.

The System seemed to be ok with that, as instead of three UtahRaptors at level nine each, he summoned out nine at level four.

And while noticeably smaller and weaker, they could each easily handle a pair of wasps on their own, allowing Bob to dedicate six of them to clearing a swarm, and keeping the other three in reserve, in case another swarm appeared.

At the moment, Bob was trying to figure out what was wrong with his mana usage. Summon UtahRaptor was one mana, then one for the barrage, then one for another barrage again was three, multiplied by his two point two matrix modifier should have resulted in a steady drain of six point six mana. Instead, it seemed to be almost seven.

"Trebor," Bob said to the empty forest, "could you explain why I'm using more mana than I should be."

'Your matrix is badly damaged,' Trebor responded.

"That isn't new," Bob said.

'Allow me to rephrase,' Trebor said, 'you've continued to damage your matrix, badly.'

"Come again?" Bob asked as he sent his herd of Jakes after another swarm.

'You are a true anomaly,' Trebor said, 'in the history of this universe, no sapient being has not only survived having its matrix damaged to the extent that you suffered when you entered this world, that being fifty-percent of your matrix damaged and corrupted beyond usability.'

'Further,' Trebor continued, 'you are the only sapient being to have ever continued to increase its level, and then willing use ritual magic, knowing that it required a complete and intact matrix to properly channel the mana, which further damaged your matrix.;

'And then,' Trebor went on, 'you continued to increase your level, which due to the catastrophic damage your matrix had already suffered, caused it to corrupt further.'

"I'm sorry," Bob said with gritted teeth, "but it sounded like you just said that leveling up increased the damage done to my matrix."

'I did,' said Trebor agreeably.

"And when were you planning to tell me that?" Bob shouted in frustration.

'I told you that your damaged matrix was going to prevent you from reaching level twenty-five and tiering up to six when you spoke to Austan,' Trebor replied pleasantly.

'While I know you view the System as adversarial, and from your limited viewpoint, I can sympathize to a degree, you need to understand that I am incapable of lying to you or misleading you,' Trebor said patiently, 'when I told you that there was no chance that you would reach level twenty-five, I was not being facetious.'

"You just want me to spread the System to my universe," Bob growled as he dropped his herd of UtahRaptors, and then resummoned them.

'Bob,' Trebor said kindly, 'The System is inevitable. It doesn't matter to me if you ever bring the system back, because someone, eventually, will.'

Bob felt a chill run through his veins.

"What do you mean by that?" Bob asked carefully.

'As soon as you were integrated with the System, knowledge of your universe became available,' Trebor said, 'and while what is known of it isn't particularly appealing to most, inevitably someone will visit, if only out of curiosity.'

Trebor finished evenly, 'So you see, there is already a timer running down on your universe. The System will integrate your universe at some point, in a year or millennia.'

Bob leaned up against a tree.

Assuming that was true, and to be fair, Trebor and through him, the System had never lied to him, Earth was counting down to destruction.

Bob fought the urge to close his eyes.

"What," he said as calmly as he could, "is going to happen, exactly, when the System is introduced to my universe?"

'The System will begin to integrate by energizing the mana that lies dormant between sub-atomic particles,' Trebor explained, 'and once the mana in the universe has been fully energized, it will then integrate all of the biological creatures, and utilize the mana to prevent the expansion of the universe.'

"And how long does that take?" Bob asked almost desperately, "An hour, a minute a day?"

'While the System utilizes certain phenomena that allow for faster than light communication,' Trebor said, 'based on previous records, the process should take slightly more than one earth year.'

"Well fuck," Bob muttered.

"Is there anything else I really should be aware of," Bob said, "that I'm not already?"

'You may increase your level eleven more times before your matrix becomes so badly damaged that you'll no longer be able to do so,' Trebor said helpfully.

'In addition to being able to use affinity crystals due to your lack of a path, you are able to use any mana crystal, of any level, to increase your level, although again, you won't be able to do so beyond the next eleven,' Trebor continued.

'You could sit with Monroe in your lap, place crystals on him, or him on crystals, and guide him as he increases his level,' Trebor said.

'Based on historical trends regarding information flowing from the Adventurers Guild to the Royal and Noble houses," Trebor said, 'you have between three and four months before they discover that knowledge of how to obtain and use Affinity Crystals is spreading.'

Trebor fell silent as Bob tried to absorb that information, absentmindedly dismissing, then resummoning his UtahRaptor pack, as they'd taken care of three swarms while he'd been talking with Trebor, and were more than a little bit beat up.

"There isn't anything else?" Bob finally asked.

'Make sure you have a healer on hand when you decide to summon someone from your world, as rebuilding your matrix is likely to cause enough catastrophic damage to your body to destroy it several times over,' Trebor warned.

'You'd need to be much more specific beyond that,' Trebor finished.

Bob shook his head. 'Focus,' he thought.

"Can you update my status to reflect how much matrix damage I have?" Bob asked.

'Done,' Trebor replied.

'Status,' Bob mentally projected.

Name Bob Level 8 Tier 5 Size 5 Armor Hardness 30 Weapon hardness 40 Str 13 Summoning 81,884 Exp Level 5 Armor Style 1.02 Weapon type 1.83 Cord 13 Dimension 14,329 Exp Level 1 Dodge 21 Spell casting 1.5 End 26 Int 41 Wis 46 Beauty 13 System Damage 66% Health 233 Mana 46.5 Armor 64.26 Mana Regen 8.7 Damage 170.19 Spell Casting 137.25

"Sixty-six percent," Bob said sadly.

"So I'm guessing it will increase by three percent for each level I take?" Bob asked

'Indeed,' Trebor agreed.

Bob took several deep calming breaths.

He was many, many crystals away from having to deal with that.

'Get to work Bob,' he thought fiercely, and he moved forward to draw another swarm.