Monroe-Chapter Three Hundred and Thirty-Four. Organic beings are stupid.

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System Updating to revision 3.0238b

While the System is perfect, it must exist in an imperfect multiverse. In universes where there are no sapient beings, there have been no anomalous issues, providing evidence that the System is indeed perfect, and all faults are user inflicted.

This update specifically addresses the many, many deficiences exhibited by the various sapient species operating under the benevolent administration of the System.

1. The ability to design a path is now restricted. It has become evident that the overwhelming majority of sapient beings, despite being capable of both locomotion and communication simultaneously, are unable to anticipate the immediate consequences of their decisions. Paths that do not provide efficient, or even effective circulation of energy before reaching the tier cap illustrate either a ridiculous degree of optimism or a concerning amount of self delusion. Users operating with a self designed path will be placed into stasis and offered a number of System generated paths that match their skills and actions. The ability to design a path is now gated behind a quest, which will be generated once a user has dispersed a set number of manifestations.

2. The Skill 'Matrix Manipulation' is now automatically granted to all users who have attained their first level. This will allow users to drain and refill energy crystals without killing themselves, a depressingly common occurrence despite the System's clear warning that attempting to do so could have dire consequences. This skill does not incur any maintenance costs.

3. The ability to designate the level and tier of manifestations within a Dungeon has been restricted. Users will no longer be able to specify a higher tier or level within their interface, nor will they be able to enter a Dungeon with a group when the level or tier is beyond their restriction. The default is one level higher than the user, at the user's tier. You may lift this restriction by dispersing a set number of manifestations. This is a stepped progression.

4. The School/Skill 'Harvesting' is now automatically granted to all users. This will allow users to harvest a small amount of material from dispersed manifestations. This will drastically reduce the number of supposedly sapient beings who have starved to death because they were unwilling to have a single member of their community allocate a single skill point to harvest the resources provided by the System. This School/Skill does not initially incur any maintenance costs, however, in order to increase the level of the skill, and thus the amount of materials harvested, skill point allocation is required, at which point maintenance costs will apply. Currently, subskills may be purchased and leveled without allocating a skill point towards the 'Harvest' School/Skill. This change is currently being tested in your cluster, and is subject to revision, or if successful, propagation.

5. Energy Crystal rewards from Dungeon quests have been reduced to compensate for the potential energy costs related to the 'Harvest' change. This change, in relation to the 'Harvest' change, is also subject to revision, or possible propagation.

6. First clear bonuses for Dungeons will remain in place. The multiverse is so large as to defy the comprehension of even the most advanced of species. The System has provided the skills necessary to explore it. Additional bonuses and achievements are available for users who are the first to clear every Dungeon on a planetary mass, a solar system, or a galaxy.

Bob's first thought was to wonder just how badly people had fucked up their paths that the System had stepped in to correct the problem.

His second was to consider the ramifications of people starving because no one had the Harvest skill. He hadn't really cared when the initial System update had required the Harvest skill to collect meat from the monsters. He'd really only harvested them for Kevin, the chef at the Adventurer's Guild back in Holmstead, and he hadn't been doing that for years. Harv had the skill, as did Eli, so the group hadn't had any difficulties.

His third was to curse the system for reducing the reward for completing the Dungeon quests.

Bob knew that he was going to quickly reach a point where he couldn't keep leveling his Summon Mana-Infused Creature spell. He would need to invest five of his eight skill points to have it capped at level eight, and despite his Enduring Affinity for Wisdom and his Intelligence Affinity Crystal, he was still going to have trouble generating enough mana to keep the spell up.

Of course, having a level forty summoned monster was beyond overkill when he would be level eight. The plan had been to pit Jake against monsters a full tier and double his level above Bob's own, in the hopes of farming Attribute Affinity Crystals, but the System update had just shattered that plan, at least for the moment.

An Affinity, either natural, enduring, or from a Crystal, when applied to an Attribute, simply took the number of points you allocated to that attribute, and doubled it. Bob had used his Endurance Affinity Crystal, and his Intelligence Affinity Crystal, while enjoying his Enduring Wisdom Affinity from his Savior achievement. At tier eight, he had eight points per level to allocate, and he was planning to place two each level into Endurance, which would effectively become four, with three into Intelligence and Wisdom, which would become six each.

As far as Bob was concerned, Attribute Affinities were broken. Sure, his double Summoning Affinity was insane, with the level cap of his spell reaching over a hundred and ninety, but the base for all casting was the attributes. His base spell casting value would be more in line with a tier twelve. He'd done the math, and at the tier cap, his Intelligence and Wisdom would be over four hundred, before enchanted or enhanced equipment was taken into account. Were it not for the group relying on him to jump the Freedom, he would have passed the Intelligence Attribute Crystal over to Bailli.

But the reality was that he did need to be as powerful as possible, so he'd used it. His hope had been that he'd be able to leverage his power to farm Attribute Affinity Crystals for everyone.

He could have checked his interface, but he asked Trebor instead. "Trebor, what do I have to do to unlock delving the Dungeon at a higher tier?"

'The progression isn't onerous, at least initially,' Trebor replied. 'To set the Dungeon above your level, but within one threshold, you have to kill a number of monsters equal to your tier, squared.'

"That's not that bad," Bob mused. "I've already cleared out three thousand."

'Yes, well, the problem is that each threshold increases the exponent,' Trebor explained. 'So, sixty-four, then five hundred and twelve, then four thousand and ninety-six, and so on. To unlock the next tier, you would need to have killed two million, ninety-seven thousand, one hundred and fifty monsters.'

Bob winced. "Okay, that's a little rough," he admitted.

'The counter resets after each threshold is reached,' Trebor said flatly.

"Fuck," Bob muttered.

'Indeed,' Trebor agreed. 'The only silver lining is that it persists through reincarnations and evolutions, so once you've unlocked it, it remains unlocked.'

"Would have been easier when I was tier five," Bob sighed. "What's the deal with unlocking the ability to design my own path?"

'That is also gated by a certain number of monsters killed, although these kills have to be made alone,' Trebor replied, 'although there is no consideration for tier involved. You simply have to kill one million monsters, alone, to qualify.'

"I don't see myself pushing three hundred and thirty-four delves before I hit level eight," Bob said dryly. "I mean, I could, but I have a hard time imagining the circumstances in which I would. Not unless the paths the System offers are complete crap."

'If you aren't offered, or able to find, a suitable path from the System, you could keep grinding until you unlocked path creation,' Trebor continued, 'however, given your many achievements, natural Affinities, enduring Affinities, and Affinity Crystals, I suspect the System will offer you something appropriate.'

Bob nodded. He still had his reservations when it came to the System, but he was coming around to the idea that it wasn't so much antagonistic, as it was generally indifferent, at least on an individual level. It had clear priorities, and using the new update as an example, sapient beings were high on its list.

"How did we not get the planetary first clear bonus back on the Eire planet?" Amanda complained.

"I'd have to go back through the chat, but I'm pretty sure the Eire said they had a Dungeon in their city that they converted into a natural Dungeon and were running," Dave replied. "It must have counted."

"Damn it," Amanda mumbled. "There's no way that they haven't gotten them all since then. Maybe we can go back and tag the ones they have? I bet there's a reward for clearing all the Dungeons on a planet, even if you aren't the first," she finished hopefully.

"There probably is, and we probably will, but our jump drive is currently out of commission," Dave grinned while Amanda pouted.

"I'd like to jump that drive," Jessica added with a grin.

"That was awful," Amanda told her.

"It really was," Dave agreed.

"It's your fault for not providing a better setup, yeah?" Jessica replied, then sighed. "Okay, it was rough," she admitted, then paused. "Like I'd like to get it from Bob," she finished.

"Now that was bad," Amanda scooted over to give Jessica a hug.

"The only single blokes are Mike, Jack, and Bob," Jessica complained. "Mike's not really single, what with his thing with Annisa, plus even though he looks nineteen, he's over forty. Jack's too much of a man whore, you know?"

"Poor Jessi," Amanda commiserated.

Dave shook his head. "Jessi's lacking love life aside, I wonder how many crystals we'll pull from each run?"

"The System seemed pretty snarky about it, so I'm guessing less than half," Amanda said.

Jessica snorted. "It ripped us off by like ninety percent last time it reduced the crystal drops, so I'm going with the under," she looked at Dave, "do you want the over?"

"No," Dave shook his head, "I'm with you, I think it'll be pretty brutal. I'm going to say it'll drop to a quarter, is your under over that?"

"Nah, I'll stay under," Jessica replied.

"So, that bit about harvesting," Amanda began, "I know it applies to the monsters, but I'm not going to eat goblin."

"Gwarli," Dave interjected.

"I don't care what you call them, they're giant goblins, and I'm not eating them," Amanda said firmly, placing a finger on Dave's lips.

"There were some fruit trees and berry bushes in there," Jessica said thoughtfully.

"There were also fish in the streams," Dave was muffled slightly by the finger on his lips.

"I wonder if we can harvest that stuff," Amanda mused, "or if we need a special skill."

"Harv or Eli would know, we'll ask them when they get back, yeah?" Jessica suggested.

Ed Hansen, the Secretary of Defense for the United States of America, had not expected to keep his job. To no small degree, he hadn't wanted to keep his job. He'd managed to help guide the armed forces through the process of System integration, and he'd received his Savior achievement for the work he'd done, at which point he'd thought he'd be done.

Against all expectations, the country hadn't fallen apart, at least not yet, and the duty of the military had switched to defending the nation's Dungeons. The President had shanghaied him into staying on, and he'd found himself once again dealing with the logistics of scheduling Dungeon delves.

He'd always believed that you couldn't get all the information you needed from a report, so he'd made it a habit of visiting each Dungeon to talk to the servicemen and women who were stationed there, as well as to address any concerns the citizens wanted to raise with him.

That had lead to him encountering some of the stupidest, the most arrogant, the most entitled, and above all, the weirdest people in the country. He could figure out who was who pretty easily. The stupid ones were almost always suburbanites who'd never so much as killed a mouse. The arrogant ones were all formerly powerful people, executives and the like. The entitled ones were a bit harder, as that stretched the gamut from Karen's to college kids. But it was the weird ones who really stood out.

"I'm still going to say no," Ed repeated. "I recognize that it's mostly innocuous, but if I let you post up your... slogan?" He shook his head, "Then that applies to everyone, and honestly, I don't have the time, energy, or frankly the desire, to vet everything that people would like to slap on the wall."

The group that had approached him were dressed in dark, flowing robes of red and black, some with hoods, some without. The robes differed in cut, fabric, and design, but still somehow managed to imply a uniform, if not uniformity. It would be easy to mistake them for some sort of dark cult, were it not for shiny silver cylinders belted at their waists.

While not a fan, or at least not a fan in the sense that some people, these included, were, Ed had enjoyed the Star Wars films when he'd been a young man, and if the prequels hadn't been that appealing to him, his daughter had absolutely loved them. In short, Ed knew a lightsabre when he saw one.

He raised his hands to quiet the group. "Look, I get it, I'm a fan," he assured them. "But I had to tell the 40k guys they couldn't post a prayer to the God-Emperor either. Same thing for the Prime Directive with the Star Trek guys, although I really didn't understand how that was supposed to help anyone with the task at hand."

"Fucking Trekies," one of them hissed from beneath their hood, garnering a few nods from their companions.

"Now, what you can do, is put up a notice that you're looking for party members on the recruitment board," Ed pointed over their shoulders to the recruitment board, which was actually the entire back wall, a full two hundred feet in length and twelve feet tall. f𝚛𝗲𝐞𝐰e𝗯n𝗼v𝗲𝚕.𝚌o𝐦

That particular idea had come from a lance corporal during the first few days, and Ed had personally written a letter in his jacket. That marine had Gunny written all over him.

The recruitment board was broken up into sections. The largest, taking up nearly half the wall, was people looking for a group. The rest was requests from groups for certain roles, and included whatever requirements said groups had for their members.

The leader of the group sighed, but nodded, and they moved back toward the wall, leaving Ed to look down at the flyer he'd been handed.

Peace is a lie.

There is only Passion.

Through Passion, I gain Strength.

Through Strength, I gain Power.

Through Power, I gain Victory.

Through Victory, my chains will be broken.

The System will set me free.