Chapter 28: Chapter 28

"Ah, son of a bitch," Akane said.

"That's the sound of progress where wizardry is involved," Roxy said, still staring at her own paper. "What've you got for me, doll?"

"The social contract of each village is phrased such that all XP generated in the village goes into a pool," Akane said. "That was to account for visitors and travelers between villages, right?"

"Yeah?" Roxy said. "Was that a bad phraseology?"

"When someone delves a Dungeon, it generates XP for them and for the Dungeon Master," Akane said. "And the Dungeon Master XP is generated in the village, so..."

"...Fucking hell."

"Yeah, that one's real subtle, but it does explain why you're not getting any XP from the villages," Akane said.

"Okay, well," Roxy said. "Uhhhh... hrm. I guess I should introduce another social contract revision to the council. Maybe nix the village-specific XP pools, do a centralized one just like the storage system, and add in a clause that means I, personally, am allowed to withdraw from this pool in circumstances that are of benefit to the community, when approved by the council, in exchange for depositing my XP into the system as well?"

"Hey, that sounds like a plan to me," Akane said.

---

Nicky sat down in her bedroom, and sighed, before calling her mother.

"Veronica, there you are," Princess-In-Exile Valerie Vega said. "Nobody's seen you in months. What's happened?"

"I live in a Dungeon Master's house," Nicky said simply. "I don't need to go outside to delve the highest-level dungeons in the world."

"Ahhhh, I see. Keeping your nose to the grindstone, then?"

"More or less, yes," Nicky said. "I'm already Level 15 now, but with Roxy's continuing growth as a Dungeon Master, I think it's worth riding this wave all the way to its end."

"Oh my. Yes, absolutely keep going. Do let me know when you're finished; I'd like to meet this Roxanne character. She might become a very good family friend."

Translation: Bring her to me so I may seduce her into serving House Vega.

"I'll see what I can do," Nicky said.

---

"Alright," Roxy said, grinning. "We've got sixty four village tiles, eight town tiles, and one city tile. From each village, we have two hundred and fifty six people total, one hundred twenty eight of whom are delvers, adding up to eight thousand one hundred ninety two delvers across the villages. From each town, we have five hundred and twelve people, two hundred and fifty six of whom are delvers, which itself adds up to two thousand forty eight delvers across the towns. And from the city itself, people, and four thousand ninety six delvers. So the total delver population, across this entire nine by nine grid, is twelve thousand two hundred eighty eight. And that is a very good number, to me."

"It's over ten thousand," Nicky noted.

"Precisely!" Roxy said. "It's over ten thousand, which is the number of delves of a single arbitrary Dungeon it takes to get from one level higher to two levels higher! You know, the number of delves it takes to go from Level 14 to 15, if you've got a Level 13 Dungeon... or to go from 15 to 16, if you've got a Level 14 Dungeon, which we do. Now, I'm only at Level 14 Dungeon Master right now, but Dungeon Master only gets one percent of the XP earned by delvers, so ten thousand delves would still get me from 14 to 15. With the Adjustable Dungeon Gates, the Dungeons level up with me, so if we do this for four days, letting all delvers keep all the XP they make off their delves but allocate it however they want, then it'll end with me being Level 18 in Dungeon Master. And on the fifth day, we'll do something special."

"Should we be worried?" Viceroy asked, speaking on behalf of the Council. One of the difficult things about social contracts with entire communities was that you needed the approval of everyone in the community to amend them. But, if the community members collectively appointed a group of representatives to negotiate on their behalf, suddenly Roxy didn't need to talk to nearly twenty three thousand people to get things done. She only had to talk to a council of eleven representatives- eight from the villages, two from the towns, and one from the city- population-wise the city should've gotten four, but the city had a special charter that meant its four council-level representatives instead elected a single councilor who presided over the whole council, and functioned as a tiebreaker... which was Viceroy.

"On the fifth day, our eleven thousand-ish delvers will each delve a Level 18 Dungeon once," Roxy said. "That XP will not stay with them. All of it shall instead go to me, juicing me up straight from Level 18 to Level 20 in Dungeon Master over the course of a single day. And that day, when I hit Level 19 Dungeon Master very early, I will delve a Level 19 Dungeon, become a Level 19 Wizard, and then, when I have completed that delve, I will wait to hit Level 20 Dungeon Master, and become a Level 20 Wizard."

"...Oh damn," Nicky whispered.

"And, of course, after that, things go back to normal," Roxy said. "The delvers delve themselves and everyone else up to Level 20, and maybe I can also get my other classes up to Level 20, too. If I get Farmer and Alchemist up to 20, I can make Level 20 mimic potion, and at that point I can pretty much instantly get all the traits up to Level 20."

"Maybe we'll even find those monstergirls that give the other three rare classes," Lisa said.

"What, the orcs, ghost-slimegirls, and phoenix harpies?" Roxy asked. "Those were already found. We can take Berserker, Phantom, and Phoenix whenever we want. Hell, all my Ranch Familiars already have those Traits. Turns out those four Traits combine into one Trait that gives you the Talent class, which is literally just Sorcerer, Phantom, Berserker, and Phoenix combined into one class. All the stat bonuses rolled up into one, plus all the class abilities- even if those abilities aren't quite as good as those you'd find in the normal one-role base classes. It's very convenient, really; means my delver population just straight up doesn't give a shit about Class Unlock items."

"...I want," Akane said.

"And you can have it once we're done with this meeting," Roxy said. "So! How does the Council feel about my proposal?"

Viceroy turned and faced the other ten Councilors, who all raised green cards.

"The Council votes unanimously," Viceroy said, turning to face Roxy. "We accept your proposal, and will announce it immediately, with the proposal going into action the day after tomorrow."

"Excellent," Roxy said, grinning. "Thank you, Councilors. Hopefully, your faith in me will be rewarded with grand results."

---

"God, I'm so excited," Akane said, grinning. "Talent! The quad-role class, with all of the highest stat boosts! Now up to Level 14! I have a Sorcerer's mana pool, a Phantom's stealth and dexterity, a Berserker's strength and speed and toughness, and a Phoenix's regeneration and healing! It's everything we could've ever wanted out of the quad-role class!"

"It's pretty nice to have, yeah," Roxy said.

Viceroy had, after discharging her duty to the City Council, joined Nicky, Akane, Roxy, Lisa, Cecilia, Clara, and Anzerath on a Level 14 delve, allowing all eight of them to level Talent up to Level 14 in a single delve.

"There's a better quad-role class, though," Lisa said. "It's just that unlocking it is gonna be a pain in the ass."

"...Oh?" Roxy asked. "Ah, right, you got the Level 15 System Knowledge potion."

"Exactly," Lisa said, nodding. "Anyhow. It's called Delver, and it's a merged class just like Talent. What you have to do to unlock it is level literally every delver class up to 20. You need to level Talent, Wizard, Paladin, Spellblade, Ranger, Druid, Warlock, et cetera- all of them, no exceptions, to 20."

"Damn," Roxy said. "That's..." She paused, doing a touch of mental math. "...sixteen classes. Sixteen delves, to get all of them up to 20. We've already got Extra Class Slot 15 available, and it probably goes to 20 too. That right there? That's just about doable."

"Fuck a duck," Nicky said. "...You're gonna go for it, aren't you?"

"Well, hey, if you can think of a better use of my time this month," Roxy began.

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"Point," Nicky said, sighing. "...Might as well join you in that."

"I'm in too," Cecilia said.

"I wonder if leveling my crafting and gathering classes to 20 will unlock mergers for those," Roxy mused.

"It will," Lisa said.

"Well, I know what I'm doing after I unlock Delver. Maybe before? Nah, I don't wanna be the last in the group to unlock Delver."

"Should we prioritize Talent for our XP?" Anzerath asked.

"Probably a good idea," Clara said, nodding. "It's basically four particularly potent classes in one."

"I kinda wanna get Wizard to 20 first, myself," Roxy admitted. "A little suboptimal, but... well, I've got my pride, and it won't cost us that much to indulge it."

"As long as Talent is the second class you raise to 20," Nicky said.

"Oh, for sure," Roxy said, nodding. "In fact... Hey, Viceroy. You've got the personal authority to authorize me to make discretionary withdrawals from the communal XP pool on the order of, like, twenty delver-days worth of XP, right?"

"That is something I am capable of, yes," Viceroy said, nodding. "Would you like to cut your grind short by claiming enough Level 20 delves of XP from the pool to level all of your classes?"

"I would, yes," Roxy said. "Preferably, right when I complete the second Level 20 delve and level Talent to 20."

"I can make that happen," Viceroy said, nodding. "Anyone else?"

"Hrm... nah," Clara said, shaking her head. "I like delving. I'll do enough to get myself all the way to 20 on everything. Might as well."

"Well," Roxy said, shrugging. "Here's to the next week of grinding, the last week I'll ever have to do myself."

---

A Level 20 Normal Dungeon was, in the end, not terribly different from other Normal Dungeons, save for the challenges being somewhat harder than at lower levels. However, considering the delve party consisted of three veteran delvers with thirty years experience delving together, as well as five delvers who'd been well-trained by the older three, all of whom were Level 19 Talents- save for their Level 19 Wizard who was only a Level 14 Talent- it was more or less a cakewalk.

The boss wasn't anything terribly special, only a full-sized dragon- not dragongirl, just regular dragon- which could spawn in any dungeon with a level higher than 5. In a repeat of the performance that had gotten Roxy her second ever Class Slot Unlock, she'd styled on the dragon by killing it on her own, with only her Talent abilities, using a steak knife.

This wasn't just to amuse herself, to be fair. It was also a hard-nosed bit of loot manipulation. A Level 19 Wizard soloing a Level 20- effective level 22, really- dragon with a steak knife on her very first delve?

Well.

That was certainly worth something extra, wasn't it?

"Alright!" Roxy declared, popping open her first ever Level 20 boss chest. "This puppy right here has... oh, holy shit. Holy shit this is a fucking game changer."

"What is it?" Akane asked.

"This," Roxy said, pulling out a tome. "This right here is the legendary Book of Gears."

"Oh shit," Anzerath muttered.

"Let me just fucking see what's in here," Roxy said. "Oh hey, a table of contents, how nice of them. Here's an enchantment that lets you just allocate XP freely even without a contract. Here's a metallurgic blend that's completely unbreakable and weightless. Here's a potion that gives permanent stacking stat boosts."

"Holy fuck," Cecilia said.

"Here's a fucking XP potion," Roxy added. "Here's an alchemical treatment for equipment that gives them an unlimited enchantment capacity. Here's a collection of immortality-granting methods, ranging from enchantments to potions to a weirdly specific metal brooch to spells to fucking exercise routines. If anyone in this room is feeling the weight of their age, I can flip to the section that'll make you twenty five again!"

"That is huge," Akane said. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Well, obviously, I'm going to read it," Roxy said. "Make some copies, first, get all y'all to read it, too."

"Maybe also put it on the ranch internet, get them to read it, too," Clara said. "Ranch Familiars are subservient, not incapable of independent thought. You've got like twenty five thousand of them; between all twenty five thousand of 'em, they'll probably come up with some interesting uses that wouldn't have occurred to you."

"And at least one of them won't be about fucking," Cecilia added.

"You know what, if they use the stuff in here about granting skills as a way to develop an enchanted collar that grants its wearer the ability to give the absolute most mindblowing head imaginable, I will be neither surprised nor disappointed," Roxy said. "Anyhow... Actually. You know what? I'm giving into that temptation and giving up my pride. My Level 20 worth of XP is going into Alchemist, not Wizard. I'm making that fucking XP potion."

"Will you still require the XP withdrawal from the pool?" Viceroy asked.

"No."

---

"Alright," Roxy said, after having to borrow Viceroy's Level 20 delve XP to get Farmer up to a point she could make any appreciable amount of XP potion. "In the twenty six minutes it took me to build the XP potion system, the Level 20 mimic potion system has gotten every single leveled trait we have up to 20. And now, here at the end of this all, we have an effectively infinite supply of instant XP... the second dose of which goes to Viceroy, to pay back her loan to me." She grabbed a pair of golden bottles from the console's potion dispenser, and handed one off to the elf-king. "Bottoms up."

Roxy finished hers first, and attained Level 20 Wizard, while Viceroy in turn hit Level 20 Talent along with the rest of the party.

"And now," Roxy continued, tossing the bottle aside as it dissolved into mana, "for the next twenty or so of these I have to drink."

A Level 20 XP potion was a potent thing, to be sure, but ultimately, it was only equivalent to a single Level 20 delve, and so Roxy had to drink one for every class she intended to bring to Level 20. Given that Roxy had popped unlocks for literally every single class that existed...

It'd take a while.

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