"The banquet of ascension?" Sophie parroted.

  "It's written right there on the first page: 'Three seats stand open at the banquet of ascension.'"

  Xenophon straightened himself up (subtly wiping away any remaining drool). He gazed seriously at them. At least as far as possible for a white fluff-ball sheep man lying on his stomach.

  "The banquet of ascension, Master Brown. Indeed, you are a scholar who asks the right questions. Would you oblige this Xenophon by searching for it in your integrated primer?"

  Bob typed in the words: "The banquet of ascension."

  "What..." Bob tilted his head in confusion. He reached out for his physical copy. Xenophon winced visibly, but allowed Bob to take possession.

  "See, it's right here. I'm not imagining things. Why doesn't it come up in the search then?"

  Xenophon silently extended a hand. Bob duly returned the system primer to the sheep man, who hugged it to his chest.

  "Concurred. The banquet is an enigma of unparalleled proportions. The first question and the final answer, we call it. It stands as no less than the research subject of the Bearded Scholar himself."

  Both looked blankly at him.

  "Ignorance. The Bearded Scholar is the world immortal of my home planet, The Academy. The deepest mind throughout the whole interverse and the fourth Olympian."

  Both looked blankly at him.

  "Disappointment. High Disappointment. Der B?rtige Gelehrte? Forgiveness, you are the unsystemed. We debate on the banquet. That solitary line or a variation upon it has appeared in every known copy of the system primer. In truth, it predates the primer itself."

  "How does that work?"

  "Origin scholars have found fragmentary allusions to it on the dark worlds. Hints of a great banquet to be held at the end of time. And in truth, that dates the banquet to at least the age of the Defiler, before storied history itself.

  Both looked blankly at him.

  "Displeasure. This Xenophon will rephrase. Thesis: the banquet of ascension is the core directive of the system itself. The system exists in order to achieved the banquet."

  "You might have said from the beginning." Sophie interjected.

  Xenophon looked wounded. "The path to wisdom is in the why and not in the what. You are green in your students, Scholar Blanchet."

  Sophie turned to Robert to defend her from this stinging put-down. Bob was stroking his chin. He ignored her,

  "Xenophon, three seats stand open. So how does one acquire an invitation to the banquet?"

  "A fine question, Master Brown." (Sophie looked outraged) "Achieving the pinnacle of rank, S class, grants you a seat at the banquet."

  "S class? Well that's a bit above our pay grade. It doesn't sound like anything we need to worry about today."

  "Medium Amusement. Master Brown, on the contrary, on the contrary. Your world has everything to do with the banquet."

  "I'm getting serious bad news vibes, Xenophon. This is where you tell me everything is about to go to shit."

  "Master Brown, you must comprehend, it is extraordinarily challenging to achieve S rank in a fully-integrated world—perhaps impossible. The system initiates but one world at a time, devoting its whole attention to the task."

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  "I don't follow."

  "Master Brown, an inquiry. Did you every earn achievements for unimportant or curious things?"

  Bob flushed a little. "Xenophon, you can't peep at my achievements, can you?"

  "Confirmation. Those same actions would not have been rewarded on fully-integrated world. Understand that hitting the level peak is no sufficient condition for evolution. You pass the potential value calculation. Its precise formula remains as yet mysterious to us, scholars. But the Bearded Scholar's opinion is—"

  "We're getting sidetracked. Banquet of Ascension. Planet Earth."

  "Annoyance. Ahem. Ahem. Very well. Master Brown will grasp the situation when I disclose that on average a newly integrated world will produce four immortals."

  "So you're saying, Earth is it?"

  "Perhaps, Master Brown. High probability, Master Brown. The interverse sits on the edge of a great change. There is eagerness. There is apprehension. And there is confusion. Master Brown, your planet took us all by surprise. The system is a being of order. The next planetary integration was not scheduled for at least ten to twenty years."

  "Oh?"

  "Perhaps you can settle this mystery for the academic community, Master Brown. Has your planet achieve anything of monumental scope in recent history? Examples, discovering the grand unified theory of physical laws; harnessing ambient colorless mana; developing near sentient artificial intelligence."

  "Ah, well, maybe. That AI one rings a little close to home."

  Xenophon noted something down in his notebook.

  "Understanding. Satisfaction. The system despises non-mana based life. It cannot level or evolve and grows independent of the system's guidance. The scholars were quite taken unawares. And naturally, all the major factions and most of the minor ones are scrambling to prepare.

  "Here it comes. To prepare for what, Xenophon?"

  "For the invasion, of course."

  "I knew it. I bloody knew it. Wait, Xenophon, hold on one second, are you, is this... I mean, are you invading, right now?

  Baa, baa, the sheep's rich rolling laughter. "This one is Xenophon, copper Academy Scholar, specialising in System Studies."

  Bob clapped the sheep on the shoulder. "You had be worried there, Xenophon. So why aren't I being swarmed with requests to enter?"

  "Two reasons. First, the system only permits transport of sentients one rank below the world rank. Hence, level 1 Xenophon. Second, requests that anchor to a claimed pylon must be approved by the pylon owner and an agent's motive honestly revealed."

  "But then we have nothing to worry about. No idiot on earth is going to let in somebody whose stated motive is 'planetary invasion'. Probably..."

  "Regret. At Rank C, the system auctions off any unclaimed pylon seeds..."

  "Oh no. I knew things were going to well. The minute the world hits rank C, Earth is going to be flooded with level 10 alien invaders, right?"

  "Correction. Level 49 alien invaders. Factions will artificially keep them at the level peak, hoping they will be able to quickly rank up upon arriving in Earth."

  "Man, it's all the same. The natives always get fucked."

  Xenophon shrugged. Sophie, who'd gone from outraged to interested to incensed, started to pepper Xenophon with increasingly frantic questions. What kind of powers will they have? How can we claim all the pylons? Could he bring help? The sheep man answered them all matter-of-factly and unemotionally. He hadn't forgive Sophie her earlier comments.

  Bob stewed. It was worrying. Very worrying. A second apocalypse just around the corner. But at the end of the day, it was a future problem. Rank C was a good way off yet. And who knows, maybe Bob would get lucky and die before he reached it; problem solved. Look up at the mountain and you'll give up today. Sometimes it's better to just keep tramping forward.

  "Hey Xenophon, what does 'level decay' mean?" Bob cut across Sophie. "I got an achievement that says 'increased level decay'?"

  "Level decay is the gradual erosion of experience over time. At E rank, a full level will be lost every one to two days. Any level-based gains, such as stats bumps etc., are retained but not reearned when the level is recovered."

  "Wait? If we sit around and do nothing for a couple days, we'll lose all our levels."

  "Within an individual rank, yes that is correct."

  "What the hell!"

  "Agreement. The reasons are debated by scholars, but a common, intentionalist theory is that the system seeks to encourage risk taking in its subjects. By disallowing slow leveling, the system forces the ambitious to pursue continual and unrelenting advancement."

  "Why you, slave-driving, god-complex, kick-em-while-they're-down system, you."

  And then it hit Bob. George was sitting on level 9. They had to go hunting. They had to find themselves another level 10 to fight so that George could level up. Crap.

  "Sophie do you want to come on another slime-hunting expedition?"

  "No, I do not."

  "Xenophon, up for some hunting?"

  "Remorse. The system primer must be studied."

  "Ok so George and me, just like the good old days."

  "You're leaving?"

  "Yes, was that not implied by my question?"

  "You're leaving me here?"

  "Well, I'm leaving. And you can come with me. Or you can stay. So I guess you are leaving me."

  "I'm coming."

  "And then there were three. George, off to the races."