She was staring over my shoulder at something behind me, her mouth agape. “Jeremy, take a look!” She reached out, grabbed me by the shoulders, and spun me around.

I had to squint to see my Dragonling. It was still at the Magic Defense Station, standing beneath the crashing waterfall of holographic liquid. Its entire body was glowing like a strobe-light.

As soon as I looked at it, the new stat readout for the creature appeared.

Dragonling’s Magical Defense has increased by 1!

Dragonling’s Magical Defense is now 3!

“That didn’t take long,” I said. “It’s increased its Magic Defense by a point!”

“It’s not difficult to increase attributes when they’re low,” Astrid said. “But it becomes harder when they get to higher levels. My Strength and Agility scores have been at 20 for months now.”

“Kyrine?” I called out. I had a few questions for her. No response came. “It looks like Kyrine is busy for now. I have something I want to ask her, but I’ll have to figure it out on my own.”

“What was your question?” Astrid asked. “Maybe I can help you.”

“I’m wondering if training for monsters stacks.”

“Stacks?”

“Yeah, for example, if I use all my points to summon ten Dragonlings, could I make them increase their attributes ten times faster? And do those attributes count for all the monsters, or just the ones who are doing the training?”

Astrid furrowed her brow. “Good questions.”

“Does that mean you know the answers?”

“Nope.”

I laughed. “Okay. Well, since Kyrine isn’t around to answer, I’ll just have to give it a shot and see for myself.”

I absorbed my Munchers and summoned nine more Dragonlings. They were identical to the first one, all sinuous pink scales with bright emerald eyes and sharp teeth. I gave the command, and they all joined the first one beneath the waterfall. I figured I might as well focus on the Magic Defense training station for the purpose of this test.

“What should we do while we wait?” Astrid asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “You don’t need another shower, do you?”

Astrid burst into laughter. “You want to walk in on me again?”

I felt my cheeks redden. “Oh, that’s not what I meant. Just that you probably worked up a sweat fighting my minions. I thought maybe you’d want to…”

“I was only joking, Jeremy,” Astrid said. To my surprise, she stepped up and put a hand on my chest, gently running her fingers down me with a thoughtful look on her face. “You know, Selena was right about you.”

“Selena? What did she say about me?”

“She said that you were a little sheltered. That you focused so much on your work that you had barely any time for fun.”

“Is that right? Well, that sure sounds like Selena. She was always bugging me to play video games.”

“She wanted to fuck you, you know.”