Monroe-Chapter Three Hundred and Thirty-Two. So it begins...

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Bob let out a cough as he equipped his Living Stone Scalemail. The armor hadn't been too heavy or restrictive when he'd been tier seven, even with the minimum of fourteen strength. Sadly, even the attributes he hadn't allocated points towards had been drastically reduced.

Name Bob Level 0 Tier 8 Size 9 Armor Hardness 124 Weapon hardness 30 Str 8 Achievements : Extradimensional Traveler Armor Style 1.01 Weapon type 1.01 Cord 8 Pinacle Durable Dodge 8 Spell casting 1.01 End (Affinity Crystal Applied) 8 Pedagogue Extradimensional Ferryman Level Thresholds Int (Affinity Crystal Applied) 8 Academic Fragmented Level 8 Threshold Bonus Locked Level 56 Threshold bonus: Locked Wis (Enduring Affinity Applied) 8 Stamina (Maximum): 8 Stamina Reserved : 0 Savior Reconstituted Level 16 Threshold bonus: Locked Level 64 Threshold Bonus: Locked Stamina Regen (maximum) 1.6 Stamina Regen Reserved: 0 Progenitor Paragon Level 24 Threshold bonus: Locked Locked Health 72 Mana (Maximum) : 8 Mana Reserved: 0 The Old Ways Level 32 Threshold bonus: Locked Locked Armor 129 Mana Regen (Maximum) 1.6 Mana Regen: Reserved 0 Extradimensional Explorer Level 40 Threshold bonus: Locked Locked Damage 38 Spell Casting 38 Venerated Level 48 Threshold bonus: Locked Locked

The less said about his meager spell casting attributes, the better. He could cast his Summon Mana-Infused Creature spell, and keep it up, but that was it. Luckily, Jake was going to be doing the work.

Summon: UtahRaptor(Jake) Tier: 8 Size: 9 Level: 1 Weapon Hardness: 15 Hide hardness: 10 Strength: 14 Mana: 6 Armor: 24 Coordination: 14 Stamina: 14 Claw Damage: 127 Endurance: 10 Health: 82 Bite Damage: 123 Intelligence: 6 Movement: 25 Wisdom: 6 Dodge 15 Summoning Mastery 1 Caster Value / 2 18

It was painful to see how far his mighty UtahRaptor had fallen. Worse was the knowledge that he'd need to kill six hundred and forty monsters to see him reach level two.

He accessed his System menu, and confirmed that it was still set to enter Dungeons at his own tier, one level over.

That particular setting had been an interesting discovery. If you were part of a group, and someone entered the Dungeon at a tier/level combination beyond what you'd set for yourself in your System menu, you wouldn't be able to enter the Dungeon.

He double checked his potion belt, put his hand on Monroe's shoulder and touched the entrance to the Dungeon.

You have entered The Hidden Dungeon.

Capacity 99%

Estimated time until overflow 2 solar cycles.

User Tier Eight, Wayfarer, Level zero, User Familiar, Tier Seven, Divine Feline Overlord, Level zero.

Dungeon set to Tier Eight, Level one.

New Quest!

The Hidden Dungeon was once a sanctuary for those who sought to advance discreetly. It was abandoned, and over run by monsters who have left it in ruins. Now warring tribes of monsters battle for control.

Defeat ten monsters to receive a reward!

Defeat one patrol from each faction to receive a reward!

Locate the outpost of each faction to receive a reward!

Defeat the leader of each faction to receive a reward!

He frowned at the Dungeon's total capacity. The overflow timer had dropped to two days, but the capacity was still reporting ninety-nine percent. One of the discussions amongst the group was how quickly the Dungeon would run out of juice. They'd managed to delve the Dungeon on the Eire seedworld down to near zero capacity, but they'd taken a few days off to allow it to recuperate.

They weren't sure they'd have that luxury here.

Of course, they wouldn't be killing monsters any nearly as quickly either, so there was that to consider.

Planting his staff, which was little more than a stick, he summoned out Jake. He knew he'd have to move slowly, as he couldn't regenerate an entire point of mana when doing so, which meant the casting cost would have to come out of his meager eight point pool. He'd have to move for a few seconds, then wait.

Luckily, he'd cleared the Dungeon before, so he knew where he was going.

"Time to put in the work," Bob muttered as he stepped forward. 𝒻𝓻𝑒ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝑛𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓁.𝑐𝘰𝓶

The good news was that Monroe did almost as much damage as Jake, and enjoyed working in tandem with the UtahRaptor, attacking enemies from behind when they engaged the furious dinosaur. Between the two of them, they were tearing the level one Gwarli apart in just a few seconds.

The bad news was that the Gwarli patrols were comprised of three members, so Bob ended up having to tank some damage.

His Living Stone Scalemail proved its worth as it mitigated all of the damage. The level one Gwarli had clearly taken the melee skill, but it wasn't providing enough of a multiplier to enhance their attacks enough to get through the armor.

It had been years since Bob had felt weak, and he didn't much care for it. Sure, there was always going to be something out there that could crush him without noticing, but he wasn't planning on challenging anyone's power structure. His goal was to find a place where he could establish his home that didn't have any threats beyond the monsters generated by the System.

As he ran forward towards where he knew he'd find the next patrol, he considered the reincarnation process. He didn't know if it was because his matrix was properly aligned for the first time, or if it was being eighteen again, or even if it was just being tier eight, but he felt incredible. After the initial discomfort that apparently only he would ever feel, it had been incredibly invigorating. With the inclusion of evolution as an option to increase your tier, he expected that people who were truly dedicated to blazing up the tiers would evolve into a new species, reincarnate, then evolve into the paragon and pinnacle of that species before beginning the cycle again.

He was fairly certain that the King of Greenwold was following that model, although at a more leisurely pace.

He came to a stop as his mana pool was nearly empty, and waited patiently for it to refill. He could run for six seconds, but then he had to wait four seconds to regain his mana. He'd taken into consideration his reduced killing speed, as well as the need to move and wait, but what he hadn't really thought about was how much slower he was. He was moving at just over half the speed he'd enjoyed previously, and that was going to increase the amount of time it took to clear the Dungeon considerably.

Still, it was a beautiful day in the Dungeon, the sky was clear, the sun was shining, and there were thousands of monsters to kill. By the time he was ready to take on the leaders of the three factions, Jake should be level four.

Elizabeth smiled and waved as she rode the street, the roar of the crowd washing over her. It reminded her of the wild, raucous celebration that had roared through the nation when the Second World War had ended. She'd been out in the streets then as well, having escaped her minders.

Today was another that would be written in the history books. They'd officially cleared Great Britian of all monsters, mapping over forty dungeons in the process. During that time, the United Kingdom had rebuilt, slowly at first, then ever more rapidly as her citizens came into their new powers. There had been instances of lawlessness as criminals sought to leverage their abilities over others, but she had made certain that these attempts were crushed swiftly, with public hearings and immediate executions. It had worked to restore faith in government, allowing her to focus on the business of ensuring the safety of her people.

That was not to say that the country had not changed in both small, and dramatically large, ways. London, which had for over a century been the financial heart of the world, had instead become the center for manufacturing. Those who had worked to provide services for the bankers and financial managers had shifted their focus to providing for those who created wealth of a different sort. She felt it was a welcome change, as the distance between those laboured to provide services and those who purchased them had, if not disappeared, at least narrowed considerably.

London had lost over three quarters of her population, not to violence, but to the lure of adventure or the promise of quiet, simpler life. As she had marched out to reclaim her nation, south, east, then north, the mass of her citizens that had been awoken from their stasis had poured out of the city, most eager to accelerate their personal growth.

One of the many topics she'd spoken over tea with Huron had concerned the regulation of the Dungeons. The advent of the System Created Dungeons had meant that curators were no longer needed to build them, but someone needed to monitor the status of the Dungeon, ensuring that it wasn't in danger of overflow, while also ensuring it wasn't delved so frequently and deeply that it offered no rewards. He'd had little difficulty with the Dungeon in Harbordeep, but the population of Greenwold, even with the addition of the veterans of the Old Guard, and those others who had decided to remain behind, was miniscule in comparison to a city such as London. There were three Dungeons in London, and hundreds of thousands of people who were, if not always eager, determined to delve them.

She'd ultimately decided to control entry to the Dungeons by intent and deed. Police constables and emergency services had received the highest priority, followed by 'Druids,' or people focused on growing food, then tradesman, specifically those involved with construction, but any trade would provide entry to the Dungeon, eventually.

Her decision had not been universally well loved, although dissent had quieted when food, shelter, and security rapidly became the norm, rather than the exception.

Still, she was not unaware of the difficulties her nation faced. People had moved out of London in waves as word of a newly mapped Dungeon reached the city. Scotland had experienced a veritable population boom as people rushed to the Dungeons found there. The Isle of Skye, which had boasted a population of barely over ten thousand, now had over a hundred thousand people arrayed about the two Dungeons there, much to the displeasure of the original residents.

She hadn't wanted to consider the terrible mathematics of Dungeon capacity compared to population, but being Queen meant addressing every problem faced by her nation.

A Natural Dungeon represented an extradimensional space that through some sort of System tom foolery duplicated itself to accommodate whomever entered based on their level and the degree of difficulty they chose to face. It required an ever increasing amount of energy to create monsters as the difficulty increased, so while a Dungeon could hold quite a few groups, each group, and the more powerful the group, the greater the toll on the Dungeons energy reserves.

The figures failed to add up. There were too many people in the United Kingdom, and too few Dungeons, although from her discussions with other leaders, she'd discovered that as an island nation, the quirk that generated more Dungeons along the coastline was benefiting her.

While the crowd might be celebrating her this afternoon, there was a strong movement decrying her decisions.

Huron had warned her, but he hadn't been able to provide a solution either.

While there were still Dungeons to be found and explored in some of the more remote and less populated regions of the world, the general consensus was that for a tier spread of five percent at tier nine, ten percent at tier eight, fifteen percent at tier seven, and twenty percent at tier six, with the other fifty percent at tier five, the planet could only support half a billion people actively delving.

It didn't bode well, and the President of the United States had been quite frank when explaining it to her countrymen.

Nearly eight billion people called Earth home, but under the new reality of the System, they were overpopulated by half, or more.

Thayland was currently closed to them. She had a pair of dimensionalists amongst the Special Air Service who had benefited from Mr. Whitman's largess through Jason, however even with the Affinity Crystals, pushing through not only Earth's dimensional membrane, but into Thayland's remained impossible, at least until they neared the peak of tier seven.

Even if it weren't unavailable, Greenwold lacked the ability to hold thirty-five million of her citizens.

She had sent an embassy to Africa, where the Karcerian Empire had bought a small percentage of the continent. The country of Zambia had sold itself for enough mana crystals to put every one of citizens up to level five, with the explicitly stated guarantee that its people would receive full, unadulterated citizenship under the Karcerian Empire. The Karcerians had erected seven massive citadels, built with magic, the offered a safe haven for those people who were least prepared for the arrival of the System.

She had her suspicions regarding that particular move, mainly regarding the Church of the Light on the planet Parceus. Huron had confided in her that Kellan was only able to deal with their representative with a tremendous amount of forethought, planning, and a solid dose of hubris on the part of the representative himself. The Karcerian Empire did not, presumably, have the ability to do the same. Given that interest the Church of the Light had shown, it wasn't unreasonable that the Karcerians would take the opportunity to flee persecution once again, this time to another dimension.

Elizabeth was pulled from her thoughts as she felt Porose slowing, the massive Corgi's muscles bunching beneath her.

The crowds were largest here, and she moved to the throng of people cheering and reaching out to her. Her security still didn't like it when she mingled amongst her people, regardless of her level, but ultimately, the people needed to not only see, but sometimes touch the monarchy, to reassure themselves that, yes, there was someone who would lead them against the darkness.

It had turned out that leaders of the three tribes could, in fact, pierce through his armor.

Bob clenched his jaw as he extracted the last splinter of granite from the axe that had shattered when it struck his ribs.

He wasn't squeamish. He'd grown accustomed to the mutilated and half eaten corpses that his buddy brought back to him over the years, but there was something different about digging around in his own insides that just felt a little bit wrong.

While he knew a healing potion would handle the damage, he wanted to try something else first.

Slowly, carefully, he began to create the pattern for a regeneration spell. He'd become quite proficient when casting spells without the aid of the System, but he'd forgotten something rather important. He couldn't actually maintain his Mana Sight while casting another spell, at least without the System. So, he was casting the spell blind.

He wasn't sure he would have been able to do it before, but his racial evolution, when combined with his reincarnation, had been nothing short of revolutionary in regards to his ability to sense and manipulate mana. He was casting the spell by feel, and he could sense that it was coming together.

He spent nearly five minutes building the pattern for the spell before releasing it. Warmth surged through his chest as the wound began to heal, flesh knitting back together.

He remained seated, mentally allocating his mana regeneration toward repairing his armor. It would only take a few seconds, but he wanted it to be in perfect condition before he moved on to the next outpost. Pulling a bottle of water from his inventory he took a long drink, then checked the time on his armband. He'd been in the Dungeon for almost eight hours, which wasn't as bad as he'd feared it might be. The fights had shortened after Jake had hit level two, and then again when he'd reached level three. Based on what they'd done so far, the UtahRaptor should make it to level four after the next outpost, which would accelerate the last one quite a bit.

His wound finished healing, and his armor was repaired, so he stored his water bottle in his inventory, equipped his armor, and stood up. There was no slacking off when you were putting in the work.