Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-Seven. Achievements.

Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-Seven. Achievements.

Bob ignored the sting of sweat in his eyes as he focused on the thin threads of mana. It turned out that separating a single aspect of mana was far easier than stripping mana of every aspect. He hadn't appreciated that fact until he'd started attempting to work with shadowmancy without the System. Comparing it to working with the elemental schools was like comparing addition and subtraction to algebra.

He'd discovered that all mana had a certain resonance to it, for lack of a better term, with certain schools of mana attracting or repelling each other to one degree or another. Stripping mana of every school, or aspect, was time-consuming and difficult. It required him to evaluate the strength of the various aspects in real-time as he worked to remove them, each change he made requiring a further revision.

It was both frustrating and challenging, and the feeling when he finally succeeded was extremely satisfying.

He cursed as he lost his mental and metaphysical grip on the strand he was trying to unravel, and the aspects he'd stripped away rushed back into place, although in different proportions, leaving him back at square one.

'It would be far easier if you apotheosized into a species with a natural affinity for either Mana or Shadowmancy,' Trebor advised calmly. 'What you are attempting isn't something often accomplished by tier five races, let alone by a tier five human progenitor.'

"Progenitor?" Bob asked. "You've never mentioned that before."

'The title is apt,' Trebor replied, 'the people from Earth who have been integrated into the System by coming to Thayland are the progenitors of your universe's Human subtype.'

"I've meant to ask about that," Bob wiped his brow, looked at his damp sleeve, and headed for the shower. "What is the difference between a Human from Thayland and a Human from Earth?"

'Humans from Thayland, or more specifically, Greenwold, have a natural resistance to cold that exceeds what you find on Earth. The range at which they begin to suffer hypothermia is a full five degrees celsius, on average, from people from Earth. Conversely, they suffer from heat to a similar degree,' Trebor explained. 'Further, over the millennia, their steadfast devotion towards their deities, in the form of accepting divine blessings, has predisposed them towards those deities. Although it hasn't occurred yet, if they were to continue this practice long enough, they would eventually find the rare individual born with a natural affinity for either Animancy or Sanctum.'

Bob turned on the shower on autopilot, digesting that particular fact. He reached out to pet Monroe who had hopped up onto the sync, no doubt to continue the big floofers continuing documentation of the strange bathing habits of his human-servant.

"Out of curiosity," Bob began, "and given that I haven't reincarnated, so I don't have a full grasp on it, but what are the differences between a Paragon Human from Earth and one from Thayland?"

'It's important that we define a Human from Thayland as a Human from Greenwold,' Trebor stressed. 'Humans from Thayland, but the Kitherian Empire as opposed to the Kingdom of Greenwold differ significantly from one another. To answer your question, you, as the true progenitor of the Paragon Human from Earth, chose to enhance your matrix and to focus the human drive towards creativity and curiosity. A Human Paragon from Greenwold would have a heightened sensitivity toward Sanctum and Netherworld, with a drive towards productivity.'

"Huh," Bob muttered as he stepped into the shower and soaked his head before reaching for the shampoo. "So, hypothetically, if someone from Earth and someone to Thayland were to reproduce, would their offspring have both traits, degraded versions of both, or would the present with a trait from a single parent?"

'Normally the later, uncommonly degraded versions of both, and rarely both traits,' Trebor replied.

"Neat," Bob muttered. "I imagine that we'll see that happen sooner rather than later." He scrubbed for a few minutes before speaking again. "Do you think I'll be able to do it? Create an Arcane Depths for myself, without the use of the System, or any skills at all?"

'It will be easier after you reincarnate,' Trebor promised, 'assuming you are the progenitor and that you choose to advance your species further down the path of sensing and controlling mana.'

"I guess someone could beat me to that particular finish line," Bob mused, "but I really don't see how. As much as I've let other demands on my time keep me from delving, I feel like I have enough of a head start that it isn't likely that anyone will reach Pinnacle before I do."

'While I cannot speak directly of other living beings specifics, I can say that mathematically, your claiming the right to act as the progenitor for the Pinnacle of your species is not unchallenged,' Trebor warned.

Bob grimaced as he toweled himself dry. "What I'm hearing is longer hours spent delving," he grumbled.

'Also done so at deeper depths,' Trebor agreed. 'You have noted that as you increase your level, and thus the depth at which you must delve in order for mana crystals to coalesce, that they do so less frequently.'

Trebor, or the System rather, wasn't wrong. Getting an achievement for killing ten beetles on the first floor of the Dungeon in Holmstead would prove a motivator. After all, if you received an achievement for ten, what about a hundred? What about a thousand? Was there an upper limit? At one point, would you receive a title or even an actual reward?

'Rewards would be more the purview of quests,' Trebor responded to his thoughts, something that irritated him but something he'd also found to be necessary. Asking Trebor for information only when he needed it had proven disastrous in the past, and he'd had to accept that he wasn't taking full advantage of his access to the System unless he required Trebor to speak up without an invitation. 'Although the first time you kill a mana-created creature, the System will set the hook by awarding an achievement and having the creature coalesce a mana crystal.'

There were times when Bob considered the scope of the System and felt very much like a lab rat. This was definitely one of those times.

"So the System is going to make it clear from the very first monster kill that there are achievements to be had and that killing monsters is rewarded," Bob clarified.

'Yes,' Trebor replied, 'in fact, killing your first monster will not only reward you an achievement and a mana crystal, but it will trigger a quest to kill ten more of the same monster to receive another achievement.'

Bob opened his eyes and shook his head. "Definitely sending us after the cheese in the maze," he muttered.

He picked up his razor and focused on the task of shaving the fuzz off his face. "Eddi is going to love this update."

Eddi missed his Endless Swarm. Sure, Rexy was still large and in charge, even more so than she had been before, thanks to the Animal School being capped at level twelve, and the bonus to the maximum level of the spell from the crystal being twelve, and the percentage from the threshold bonuses of the school being seventy-two percent as opposed to fifty. Still, he missed his rexettes.

He'd been steadily climbing back up, this time with Wayna as his dedicated leveling partner. She'd reincarnated with him, happy to use an Animal Affinity Crystal as well, although she'd chosen a different path. Together, they'd made easy work of each floor of the Dungeon, delving a minimum of three floors deeper than their level and occasionally even further.

Grinding out the experience to level his Summon Animal spell was every bit as tedious as it had been before, but having Wayna with him made it bearable, and the crystals they gathered didn't go to waste either. The Endless had been called on to help over two million wounded and disabled veterans from Earth, and every crystal had been needed. Even now, there was a demand they couldn't meet.

All the critical injuries had been handled, but there were still men and women who were missing limbs to the extent that they couldn't fight. The Old Guard had built a hundred Dungeons with room for fifty people in each, and they were occupied day and night. Everyone in the Endless who had the Regenerate ritual was rotating over to the Deep Freeze, as someone had decided to call it. Eddi had required the skill, as had Wayna, so they were part of the rotation. It was amazing how the two lines never seemed to end. One with wounded men and women, another with people coming out of the Dungeons and depositing the mana crystals they'd earned into the pile the healers pulled from to cast the rituals.

It was humbling to watch so many people unified in purpose to help one another and reinforced his belief that the Endless had made the right decision to devote their resources to helping the Old Guard.

The active-duty United States Military, while impressive, were a bit standoffish and demonstrated a general attitude of dismissiveness towards the Endless that didn't sit particularly well with the guild. Eddi didn't expect reverence or anything like that, but a little respect wouldn't be amiss.

Hadn't they demonstrated their strength, as well as their good intentions?

The Old Guard recognized their accomplishments, and they respected them, although they did tend to take the attitude of older aunts and uncles, sharing life experiences with them.

Eddi was pulled from his thoughts as Rexy was knocked off course and crashed into a tree. "Hey!" Eddi yelled, "watch the tail!"

Wayna, who was slightly larger and stronger than Rexy when shapeshifted into her own T-Rex form, roared what Eddi construed as an apology as she eagerly snatched what would have been, to Eddi, a massive bear-lobster monster up by its tail and shook it gleefully.

He had to remember to bring some of these back to Kevin. Eddi knew he wasn't a bad cook, and neither was Wayna, but Kevin had gotten his hands on a trove of cookbooks from Earth, which had apparently served as motivation to level again. He'd nearly doubled his level, delving into the Dungeon a few hours a night, and his food, which had been delicious before, had become exquisite. Eating at the tavern when Kevin was doing the actual cooking now resulted in an increase in one or two attributes.

There was a bulletin board by the entrance to the kitchen, where Kevin posted up requests for ingredients, and he'd seen one for either lobster or crayfish. He didn't know what Kevin was going to do with it, but he desperately wanted to find out.

Eddi checked his phone after he redirected Rexy into the fight. They were about twenty minutes from finishing their delve, according to the timer he had running. They were supposed to meet up with Bob tonight.