The rest of the monsters were defeated in a more conventional way, mostly with Bethany’s spear and Eli’s cudgel. The others helped but Bethany was a bit zealous, noticing that Eli was processing the implications of what he had just done, and how that would take him further from the humanity he was trying to hold onto. It wasn’t long until double the requirement for monsters killed was met and a floor boss was due to appear, but even after the monsters stopped coming nothing happened. After 5 minutes, they looted the monsters and started walking again, mostly sure they were going in the right direction.

  An hour of walking had gone by and they ended up back at their monster kill site, having gone in a circle that whole time. They tried going again but they changed directions every few minutes, still ended up back at the kill site after a bit over an hour. They sat near the dried out husks of what used to be monsters taking a rest while Eli thought about it in his head, then he started conjuring throwing cudgels and flinging them into the distance. He threw four at first, with no results, then he threw twenty, giving himself enough time to hear when they crashed into something. They could all hear it, he was throwing those things very hard and they were crashing into a wall or something that was always making the same noise. Until after another round of twenty, one didn't make the noise.

  After hearing that, or rather, not hearing that, they all got up and followed as Eli moved fast so as to not lose the proper direction. He threw five more in an arc in front of him and followed the path of the one that didn’t make a loud thud. They could only move about fifty feet before they had to stop and throw them again, since any further and it would have changed direction on them. Another two hours of slow moving and they were getting close to the limit for Cody and Lucy, both were physical fights and didn’t have a large amount of magic reserves or any kind of decent regeneration. As they were getting close to having to stop for their sakes, Eli walked through the bubble with the others shortly behind him. They could see the eight-sided pyramid, and sitting on top of it was a dog headed man that reminded him of the Egyptian god Anubis and two large scorpions on either side of it.

  Eli decided to call it Fanubis since it was a fake Anubis, it was about nine feet tall, had four arms, each of which was holding something, and was wearing some kind of regal gold headdress with four large blue gems in it. The scorpions were about three feet tall with extra long tails that ended in spiked chitanus balls, they had 8 legs, a pair of massive pincers and a pair of furry monkey hands coming out near their somewhat ape-like face. The two on the mummy’s left ran after Bethany and Lucy and the two on the mummy’s right ran after Cody and Beau, leaving Eli and the Fanubis to walk slowly toward each other. This whole pyramid and boss fight felt so close to old earth that it made Eli smile as they walked to each other.

  Fanubis looked like he was about to say something when he stopped walking but Eli didn’t stop walking and just before he was in bare fist range, Fanubis used two of his arms to touch together in the shape of a cross, two gold poles that were in his hands. The motion and items seemed to make a shield that when hit, absorbed the magic. Eli’s fist was fine but any magic was absorbed into the shield itself. Fanubis again was about to speak just as Eli conjured a Cudgel, a particularly heavy one and let it hit the ground, shaking it and leaving a large crack in it. As he brought it up to swing it at the wide eyed boss in front of him, he stopped and spoke.

  “You want to talk?” Eli asked. Fanubis nodded his head. “Call off your dogs,” Eli said with a smirk glancing over to his friends fighting the scorpions.

  The four blue gems on Fanubis’ headdress flashed and the scorpions returned to the pyramid.

  Eli lowered his Cudgel but didn't dismiss it, “Speak.”

  The floor boss sighed and uncrossed his golden rods, one each held in his lower set of arms. “Can we make a deal?”

  Eli raised an eyebrow, “Deal?”

  “Yes, kill me in a normal way and I’ll have my ‘dogs’ as you called them be easy kills for your friends, getting them more contribution.” Fanubis said with hope in his eyes.

  “Deal, can we talk while they fight, don’t go too easy on them. They won't get stronger if it's too easy.”

  “I hear you,” Fanubis said as he waved his upper arms and the gems on his headdress glowed again. The scorpions started heading back to them, fighting one each instead of grouping up.

  “My world is new to the system, it’s only been a few months and I feel like there's a lot of basic information that we aren’t aware of. Is there anything you can share?”

  “Well, the programing of this dungeon doesn’t let me say everything but if you ask a question vague enough I can answer around my rules as much as possible.”

  “Why would you help me like that, risking getting in trouble?”

  “Trouble is relative, I can’t say specifics but our existence isn’t always pleasant, but it's not terrible either. Helping you would save me soul damage and result in something like a ‘time-out’”

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  “Okay then, I guess my first question is, what is the true purpose of the system?” Eli asked. He chose this question because it was vague enough and he already had a pretty good idea so he would know how the monster would lie.

  “Wow, going straight for restricted information huh?” Fanubis sighed and began moving his foot on the ground for a few moments then took a step back. He took care not to look at the ground or Eli the entire time. The ground crudely said ‘WAR’ then Eli understood and cleared it from the ground.

  Eli paused and thought about his next question, he probably needed to change topics if that was how Fanubis had to answer the last one. “Someone implied to me that making a false node out of magic in someone's body is bad, can you tell me about that?”

  “Cursed nodes, or as you called it, ‘false nodes’ are generally looked down upon. They provide temporary power but slowly kill the recipient with magic poisoning over time. It can take years or decades for the effects to start depending on how much they use it.” Fanubis paused, noticing the deepening frown on Eli’s face. “I’m sorry, if you can, just make sure they don’t use it if possible.”

  Eli paused for a long time, just staring into the middle distance, motionless.

  After over a minute of silence, Fanubis spoke, “We will need to conclude this discussion after your party finishes off the scorpions, so if you have another question…”

  “Yes,” Eli barely spoke, then cleared his throat and seemed to remember what he had been doing. “Tell me about level 100 and beyond.”

  “Well now, that is the question I was expecting to be first since you all seem to be close. I assume that is why you entered a raid dungeon with only 5? To get your feat of strength?” Eli looked puzzled so Fanubis continued. “At 99 the system will stop your leveling, unless 2 things happen. First, you have to perform a feat of strength. It's basically just something that your average person could not, or would not do. Solo a dungeon, defeat a zone boss with very few people, etc. Secondly, you have to be chosen by a realm creature for a bond.” Fanubis took a breath and waited for the question he thought was obvious, but a different one was asked instead.

  “Realm creature bond?” Eli asked questioningly.

  “Yes, when you reach level 99 the system will notify suitable creatures from the realms of your two strongest nodes of available bond candidates. If they accept, you are brought to their realm to face them, if you aren't strong enough, they devour your soul. If they offer a contract, you get some of their power in exchange for something they want, it's usually magic or experience from the system. Like they would get access to 10% of your magic pool or take 10% of your experience as you get it, making it take longer to level.”

  “How many people make it past level 99?” Eli asked, already trying to puzzle out a way for his friends to all make it.

  “On average its 1 in 5 make it, 1 in 5 die trying, rather to the realm creature or due to trying a feat of strength and failing. The other 3 in 5 don’t bother with the danger and just stop at 99. Even getting to 99 will extend your life span between 200 and 500 years depending on class and vitality. So living that much life is often enough for people, but those who make it past are vastly stronger, can live over a thousand years, and get to keep progressing in the system.”

  “So if my group is 10, then only 2 of us will make it and 2 of us will die…” Eli trailed off trying to figure the odds of having all of his people try to make it.

  Fanubis interrupted his thoughts abruptly and loudly, “You will make it, there's no question, and if you are strong as I think you are, the others will have a far greater chance of survival.” He paused as again, Eli's confused face warranted an explanation. “You have 2 things going for you. One, you are a heartless, which means realm creatures will line up to get your bond, or even your companions bond, the rewards for them are too good to pass up. Two, you have the system's attention, you can feel its gaze just as I can feel it since we started talking.”

  Eli cleared his throat having his suspicions confirmed, “Are those good things?”

  Fanubis laughed, he laughed so loud and hard that both Eli’s friends and the last 2 remaining scorpions paused their fight to stare. “Sorry for laughing, I forgot that you're new to the system. Both of those things will make you strong, stronger than just about anyone on your planet or several planets for that matter. However, in the broader system, they are considered cursed blessings. Everyone will rather want to worship you, kill you, or use you for one reason or another.”

  “That’s about what I figured,” Eli said with a sigh, “Any advice?”

  “Well, you are lucky your planet is new, if you get strong enough fast enough, you can avoid most of the bad sides of all of it. When a heartless with a destiny is found in the system incorporated universe, the ten families usually buy, steal, or kill them before they turn 13 and get access to the full system. It's how they keep things from threatening their power. If you can get past the 200 mark before you get integrated, you should be able to be left alone as long as you don't directly threaten them in some way.”

  Eli was looking at the ground, rubbing his chin in thought when Fanubis spoke up again. “The scorpions are dead, you should kill me now.”

  “But I don't want to, well this isn’t like how you let Ferdie live on the last floor. I have to die for you to move on, don’t worry it doesn’t hurt if I die quickly enough.” Fanubis said with a happy but resigned smile.

  Eli swung his cudgel up into the air, he had never taken his hand off it the whole time, and with both hands, a skill activation and about 5% extra of his magic, the fake Anubis was crushed into paste faster than an eye blink. His shoulders slumped and he wordlessly walked over to the salt pillar that now appeared in front of the pyramid door, he put his hand on it and motioned for the others to join him. They were hesitant at first, but after taking a moment to look at each other, then joined him at the pillar. None of them had heard the conversation that Eli had had with the boss, but they guessed it wasn’t good news. When they were all touching the pillar, Eli activated it and they were all sent to the fifth and final floor, all of them were ready to leave this place, especially since the last floor had literally drained them.