It feels strange. This new integration. It is like a second me, like a new me. -104.5 Seconds Post-Integration.

  As with all aspects to life, napping was but one aspect.

  Though he awoke well-rested, SIMP thrust him back into his reality. "It is time to think about how we will fulfill our new Augustford obligation and use the belt for their benefit. You mentioned during the meeting how the belt might be used for the transportation of goods between floors. I like this idea."

  He was halfway through his waffle when SIMP spoke. "Morning to you too, SIMP." He took a drink of orange juice. "Yeah... I think using the beltway as a means to deliver goods between floors is the most realistic usage for the belt. What's still left to figure out is how floors would request to use the belt and when..."

  As normal, SIMP had the answer. "Easy one, that. I will send out an email using the List-Serv with a link to a Sign-Up sheet. They can use the sheet to jot down what goods and when are needed on what floor. I will include a disclaimer that the goods they need might not arrive in a timely manner. I should be able to grant access to whatever local manager wants to use the leyline belt. To ensure it doesn't interact badly with our own usage, I will need to take some time to familiarize myself with the machine -- once it's active, of course."

  "Sounds like a plan to me," Clark said between bites of eggs.

  His breakfast finished, Clark moved on to the next problem of the day. A notification warning of the increased power levels of monsters was perfectly level in his vision. It further warned workers and shoppers to be careful.

  Stronger monsters, huh? How great is that...

  Clark dismissed the message and composed voice messages to Theo and Hera. He told them of how the meeting went and of the big news, that the leyline belt would be re-activated soon.

  Work wise, they all had the day off from Climbing.

  Again, per the norm now that crisis policies had halted the Climb for pretty much everyone. Which meant he was free to do what he wanted. Which today was fight his way through part of the Interior. If monsters were getting stronger, it would show in the Interior. He would be careful, since he would be by himself, but he had to test the Rot's might.

  What he found during his outing was that, yeah, the monsters had increased in strength. The System wasn't just telling lies.

  Two dozen slime carcasses later and sweat dripped from his brow and straight onto the small pile of Airhearts he had killed. He felt like a hunting bad ass! Like he was a real pro.

  Despite the sweat, Clark wanted to keep going and find the next node. It had been so long since they last encountered one, he had started getting antsy despite Hera's estimate that it would take weeks more before they encountered one. SIMP, however, convinced him to stop and to pace himself.

  Back and safe in his dorm's shower, he asked SIMP what the stronger monsters meant. "How did the monsters get stronger? Is the plague spreading?"

  "Monster strength can vary depending on the scale of Rot, yes. It can also depend on the duration of the rot. If a heavy sum of Rot spends a long time undisturbed in an area, the monsters born from that location will be stronger than in the surrounding areas. I checked the alert sent out and the meta-data suggests the alert was only sent out to people in our specific area," SIMP explained to him.

  "Well, that's good, I guess... it means the other parts of the tower don't have to concern themselves with this, right?"

  Beep-boop: a shrug: "Perhaps. It is hard to say what challenges the other sectors of Augustford Central face. For all we know, they might be facing more difficult obstacles than what we are confronting."

  "Considering we've stumbled upon what is likely the location of the Dungeon Core, I doubt that. You never know, I guess."

  Before going to bed, Clark reviewed his status.

  There wasn't much to say. He had over a thousand credits in his bank account and a good couple dozen Opportunities he left unopened. He was saving those for when he could concentrate and fuse them into a higher tiered Opportunity. Hard to do when he didn't spend much time Climbing anymore. Not that he had much control over that.

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  He also reviewed the Dwarven Pod stats. Not that there were many to review.

  SIMP had connected the status of the Pod to his System Link read out. He could now see how many Power Cores were in stock along with how many of their manufactured goods were in stock. Alongside those numbers was also a health bar for the magi-ants. This readout never went below 100%, at least as of yet, so he didn't know why he bothered to even check it.

  Such a status readout for the Pod was useful as it even told him how many workbenches were optional and how many of his team were on site. If he wanted, he could even receive alerts for when someone entered the Pod's vicinity. Since there was so little going on in the pod, aside from Brenda removing the Cores a couple of times a day, he didn't bother checking the notifications every time he was sent one. SIMP would let him know directly if something was up anyway, so what was the point?

  Thinking about the Dwarven Pod, he knew he needed to invest a lot more time into the Pod.

  Which was the problem. What he wanted to do was focus on the Interior. His real mission.

  But he couldn't. Not with his new promises to Augustford about using the leyline belt for their benefit.

  Of course, thinking about 'obligation' brought him to his League trainings. Another activity which eat up his day.

  'Never enough time in the day,' he sighed and went to bed.

  With the fury of stronger monsters urging him along, Clark jumped out of bed determined to have a productive day.

  "Clark. I wish to let you know that although the beltway is not fully activated as of yet, I have detected some energies throughout the belt. To put it simply, Augustford has made good on their promise, and the beltway is in the early stages of activation. As such, I have begun the transfer of the agreed upon data to the agreed upon corporate data banks."

  "Alright. Thanks for letting me know, SIMP." He spoke while rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  As a warm-up, Clark spent some time in the Interior cleansing Rot.

  At SIMP's urging, though, he spent only a couple of hours there. Within the Interior, he paid a visit to the dwarven pod. He decided to save his team a little bit of money by pulling a charged core himself; he was sure Brenda would appreciate the time off.

  Or maybe not, judging on the upset voice message he later received.

  Clark's relation to power cores aside, his purpose in the Interior was to try and chart a usage for the leyline belt.

  Intellectually, he knew what the belt was going to be used for: the teeth would be used as 'baskets' which would contain goods moved into different areas of the store. Local only, of course.

  There was a big difference, however, in understanding what something's theoretical purpose was and its practice.

  Furthermore, the more Clark looked at the leyline belt, and observed where the belt extended toward, the more he worried over the defense of goods against interloping monsters. Sure, part of him figured monsters wouldn't be attracted to random items within the teeth 'baskets,' but he couldn't guarantee that. For all he knew, the monsters would be attracted to the movement alone and rip and tear at the baskets until the goods were devoured.

  'The baskets might need protection. But how?'

  He thought and mused and considered some more.

  The obvious answer was to hire on some security.

  Sending a couple of armed guys to protect the shipments seemed like the answer. At first.

  SIMP pointed out some limitations to this plan: "Firstly, there is the issue of speed: would the security guys be able to keep up with the belt's movement throughout the store? Secondly, what if we have multiple shipments at once -- how many security guards do you think we can hire without going bankrupt? Thirdly, and this is mostly a combination of the previously two issues, what if the package is traversing a monster infested area and the guards are unable to keep up with the shipment or are overwhelmed by the monsters?"

  And on SIMP went. He groaned in the vein of Theo and snapped. "Okay, okay! I see your point! Bad idea!"

  Beep: "It's not a bad idea Clark. It's a good idea with bad execution."

  Ego aside, was SIMP telling him the truth? Was it a good idea? If its execution was the problem, how would one remedy that?

  He gave it a think, but nothing came to him...

  How would he protect the goods being sent along the belt while ensuring he didn't lose his paycheck over hiring armed muscle? How could said muscle protect the cargo while keeping up with the beltway and not getting overwhelmed by the monsters?

  A gruff sigh later and he agreed to put the issue on the old mental backburner.

  Still in the Dwarven Pod's chamber, Clark decided to spend some time using the Power Cores to create objects. Fitted Armor, drones, and so on.

  A notification sprang up: [Labor Flow Shift Detected: Due to Changes in Policy, Experience Can Now be Earned from Optional Activity: Pod Item Creation].

  He finished making a grenade and a notification came: [Grenade: Status: Perfect. +50 XP].

  Fifty experience points... it was hard to say how much that was in the grand scheme of things, especially with his boost from that highly powered Opportunity chest active for him. He thought it was decent, though. Those fifty points was for but a single item, after all.

  In that moment, an idea came to him. If he received fifty points for that one item, then, theoretically, someone working the lines for hours at a time would receive TONS of experience points. Likely more than one would receive during the normal working day. Provided, that would also entail there being enough Power Cores to create items all day long, which there wasn't. Power Core generation would need to speed up significantly before that became a reality.

  Clark scratched his head. Another mystery, another problem.

  A voice message from Hermes snapped him out of his stupor: "Clark. Please relay this information to your team: I have been engaged in reconnaissance work relating to the escaped Slime Dragon. You saw the recent System Notification regarding the growing power levels of monsters? I believe that the Slime Dragon is responsible. It is rallying the Plague Rot in certain areas and encouraging a quicker and more profound gestation period for the lesser monsters. Finding and eliminating this creature has become our top focus."