Bob lay in bed, his eyes closed, working to keep his breathing steady.

  He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about this whole magic, leveling, monster thing. He'd been just rolling with it, as all empirical evidence suggested that what he was experiencing was indeed real.

  In the end, all that really mattered was saving Monroe.

  Everything else could be dealt with after Monroe was safe.

  He might have to fight Monsters for a while, however, he was certain he could find a way to make a living here. And with Dimension magic, the Portal skill beckoned.

  'Help, Portal'

  That last section. He might be able to get back home. Maybe. He didn't need Dimensional Travel, which was for wandering around different Dimensions.

  Bob was really only interested in one.

  He indulged in a little fantasy. If he went home, with the Portal spell, he would basically be a superhero. Or a supervillain. Realistically, in his case, a Superhermit. He'd never commute again. Just Portal to work. Portal to the vet, Portal to the grocery store. Must not become Baron Harkonnen though.

  Hell, he could sell Portals. At the maximum level, that was twenty-five miles times tier five, so one hundred and twenty-five miles. If he took the skills for Intelligence and Wisdom that mirrored the ones for Strength and Endurance, and they had to be out there, he could just sit at an I-5 onramp and sell Portals to people's exits.

  Of course, the Government would probably arrest him and engage in some very unpleasant experiments.

  No public Portals then.

  Of course, assuming that the baseline human on Earth was rocking his same attributes, at level ten he would be three times as strong as the average joe. And he'd be quite coordinated.

  Bob had considered going to work in the oil fields. All you needed was to be young, healthy, and have a good work ethic. If you were frugal, you could save enough to retire in ten years.

  And Bob didn't know how to be anything but frugal.

  Head there, work for ten years, then live the rest of his abnormally long life (base fifteen Endurance at level ten, so figure at (tier2)+(Endurance*tier) he had a good hundred-year lifespan, maybe a little more if allocated some points into Endurance, or obtained of those items Kelli had mentioned. If he just put two levels worth of points into Endurance, there were another twenty-five years.

  He might even have a couple of skills that he could use without being worried about being locked in a secret government facility for the rest of his life.

  He idly wondered if he could summon diesel fuel. Keep it going until it was burned, and he could make a lot of money as an over the road truck driver. Hell, maybe he could summon uranium, wouldn't that be awesome? Pop-out a fuel rod or twelve, keep the spell going till they were used up, then drop the spell. Poof, no more nuclear waste from that plant!

  His mind turned down another path. Monroe was tier four. So, assuming a weighted ratio of attributes towards the physical, he probably had a six in strength, coordination, and endurance, with a two intelligence and wisdom and beauty. Well, maybe not. Probably more like a four in strength, an eight in coordination, a four in endurance, a two in wisdom and intelligence, and a four in beauty. He was, after all, a very handsome boy.

  So, (tier2)+(Endurance*Tier) gave Monroe a maximum lifespan of thirty-two, which would make him a very old kitty indeed.

  But, if Bob could figure out a way to get Monroe to absorb crystals...

  Well, a level five Monroe would have an endurance of nine. That gave him over fifty years.

  And that would give him plenty of time to figure out how just how to make sure he never lost Monroe.

  That comforting thought allowed Bob to finally drift off to sleep.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Bob was devouring a plate of eggs when Kelli walked over and dropped a large leatherbound book on the table.

  "That is the definitive work on Summoning," Kelli said proudly. "It's main focus is Arcane, although it does touch briefly on Divine. You'll find all the path information you need in there."

  Bob nodded, swallowed, and asked "I was wondering if there was an intelligence and wisdom equivalent to Might and Enduring?"

  Kelli's face took on a sour expression. "Brilliance and Enlightened, which allows you to buy Fountain, but it's not nearly as common, let alone as useful as its physical counterpart," Kelli said.

  "It takes three skills," he continued, "and for what? The vast majority of spells cost one mana, full stop. You can keep one going all day, while walking, with your base mana regeneration. The only reason to go down the fountain path is if you want to start stacking effects on with area of effect, and at one-quarter value, what good do those do?"

  Bob nodded. He wasn't totally convinced, but Kelli seemed fairly adamant about it. It wasn't like he'd have the points to consider it anyways.

  "Anyways, take a couple of hours to go over the path options, Thidwell has scheduled in for just after lunch," said Kelli as he strode away.

  Bob looked at the book. It was large and heavy, and upon opening it, hand-printed.

  Maybe he should invent the printing press.

  There was probably some spell to duplicate books in the system somewhere though.

  It appeared that the idea of an Index transcended worlds. It was also the very first section of the book.

  'Help Eternal Builder,' he thought.

  Bob blinked. Eternal Builder took the Summon Object skill from a cap of level twenty-five to a cap of level forty-five. And if that last ability included resource expenditures when ritual magic was involved...

  He flipped to the end of the Eternal Builder chapter, and read:

  Well, wasn't that interesting.

  'Help, Arcane Knight'

  Bob exhaled sharply.

  Next was... 'Help, Endless Swarm Path'

  'Help, Barrage' Bob mentally projected.

  "Fuck..." Bob muttered. One Summon Monster spell, Barraged and persistent effected, with Endless Swarm, would be eight Summon Monsters, which...

  Bob paused. He was operating on incomplete information.

  'Help, Effect Over Time,' he thought firmly.

  'Help, Persistent Effect'

  Bob closed his eyes. Magical Skills cost one mana and pretty much happened instantly. You could extend it to three seconds for another mana, at half value. If you barraged it, that was another mana, raising the cost of the Skill to three, and now it was running at one quarter the value. If you used a persistent effect, it was now running at one-eighth value, and it took thirty points of mana off the top of your mana pool.

  So, with Endless Swarm, you had eight Summon Monsters out at one-eighth - wait. Twenty-Five percent reduction in total penalties. So it ended up being fifty-eight percent of the value as opposed to seventy-seven point five. And the mana cost went down to twenty-two point five as well.

  Assume level twenty-five, no points allocated, baseline.

  Base attributes are all at thirty.

  Assume a caster build, ten levels in Intelligence, ten levels in Wisdom, five levels in Endurance, Path selection bonus in ... hell, Wisdom.

  Intelligence is at eighty, Wisdom is at one hundred and five, Mana is at ninety-two point five. If the System does the math correctly, four Endless Swarms are going to cost ninety mana. So, naked, at level twenty-five, you'd have thirty-two Summon Monsters going, each monster at fifty-eight percent of the level twenty-five skill, so fourteen point five.

  Rounding down, that was four hundred and forty-eight levels of monster, that fucking self replenished every five seconds.

  Of course, at level five you were pretty shitty. You could pop out four monsters, but each one would be level one, and it would eat thirty points out of your thirty-five point mana pool.

  Ok, that wasn't actually that bad.

  A small, and eventually a large army of monsters to keep him safe sounded awfully good.

  Bob sighed and opened his eyes.

  He wouldn't have the skills.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Bob took a few minutes to scan the other paths. Flesh Sculptor required either the Divine School Animancy or the Divine School Animal and seemed to be focused pretty heavily on Lovecraftian horrors.

  Skeletal Lord required the Divine School of Necromancy and focused on making Skeletal horrors.

  Master of Summoning required the Summoning School, and all four of its sub-skills, as well as placing your path bonus into intelligence, and finally ending up with at least a twenty-five in both intelligence and wisdom.

  The only one he would qualify for was Shepard of the Titan.

  He qualified for it, but he wasn't sure he wanted it. The end goal seemed to be sending Monroe back home, which was the opposite of what he was going for.

  He didn't need to take a Summoning Path. He'd spent a lot of time in the Tavern over the past couple of days, and he had overheard enough conversations to know that he could just take Arcanist.

  The requirements were simple. The restriction to only Arcane magic seemed harsh but the extra skill at every level was outstanding. A ten percent increase in skill values and a five-point bump in the skill level cap wasn't incredible or groundbreaking but seemed solid.

  Bob stood up and stretched. He'd drop the book off in his room, and go for a run. He needed to clear his head.