Chapter 222: Day 510 – Cliff Dungeon And Beyond

We followed the edge of the swamp as it mostly went to the East and a bit North the following day, killing vine monsters along the way. When Naran struck them with his sword it was like an axe splitting apart tubes of toothpaste. Vine juice went everywhere before turning to dust.

We eventually reached some cliffs in the middle of the zone. Each zone was about 20 miles across or 32 kilometers. I had a good sense of my speed after all the traveling we had done. I looked at how the swamp land was at the high point of the cliffs while the deadlands were the low end.

This was the opposite of the cliff with the bulb monster West of Purgatory, where the swamp was at the bottom. I carefully inspected the boundary. There were some trickles of water pouring off the top of the cliff, but they quickly disappeared as mist.

I had to know, so I went into the swamp. More vines, just without thorns and I checked the level of the water. Okay, that was freaky. I quickly returned to the cart and swamped out my soggy boots and socks.

“Find something?” Naran asked me.

“The Systemic Lands are freaky…”I trailed off, trying to put what I had seen into words. Naran gave me a time to put words to my thoughts.

“The water ascends. While the depth is a bit less and it isn’t obvious right away, there is very little water flow in relation to the change of elevation. But the water is flowing naturally near the cliff,” I pointed out at the small streams coming off it.

“As the edge of the cliff comes up, the terrain quickly becomes less water logged and the water depth disappears. But it makes no sense,” I said.

“Since the water table of the swamp is so much higher than this portion of the zone,” Naran said.

“Yes. Only something like the cliff makes it obvious. But it is a clear macro effect of the terrain. What this means is that, there could be water zones,” I said.

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Naran replied. I gave him a look trying to convey as much distain as possible.

“Water levels suck. This is an immutable fact. If somehow the water zones don’t suck, or suck equally to other zone types at that level, then…then I will be very surprised,” I said.

“Why do they suck?” Naran asked.

“Slow, annoying monster types, different physics. Using a skill underwater has the chance of something different than happening on land. I mean my Acid Shot would just spread out and the water would slow down the attack. Your sword would drag you downwards and the resistance would make it impossible to swing,” I explained.

“Water zones. Well hopefully that won’t be for a while,” Naran said.

“I hope they are one of the level 4 zones actually. Better to just get it over with. Urg, it pains me to think of it being a level 7 zone and trying to work things out the higher up we go. That will be worse than the swamps,” I complained.

“Keep going?” Naran asked as I finished changing my boots and socks.

“Of course. This is a terrain feature. I feel at trying my hand at some level 3 monsters. I like open air dungeons like this. Lots of space to maneuver and see what is coming at me,” I said.

We set off staying a slight distance away from the cliff. That was when we came to a vine riddled section. “Double team?” I asked Naran as he looked over the vines.

“Lots of vines. All green, but some look meatier than others,” he said.

“I think I take point? Since there is a risk of getting entangled,” I suggested. Our default had been for Naran to take point due to his high Body stat, but there was a lot more risk with all those vines. My acid would do much better for taking out a back of monsters.

“I will be ready to cover,” Naran said, agreeing with my basic plan. The cliff was about 5 to 6 stories tall at the tallest points where vines were covering it. So big, but not that imposing compared to the Airship Port and the Tower.

Acid Shot x5. I opened up with a barrage as the vines whipped forward. I leapt up into the air and backwards as more vines burst out of the ground. Acid Shot x3. Several of them began to turn into dust. A thick meaty vine burst out of the cliff face and swung down towards me.

I dodged to the side. Acid Shot x2. Naran was right there where I had been and swinging up and at the vine with his monster sword. The vine took a lot of damage but wasn’t completely cut in two. The ground under Naran’s feet also shook a bit and dust rose up.

I was already moving back in while Naran managed to retreat with his massive sword. Acid Shotx5. The remaining vines attacking were splattered and began to dust. I noted they had red pods on them, but I didn’t let any of the vines get close. I was taking no chances.

A large bundle of vines began to emerge from the cliff. Acid Shot x5. The large vine also dusted, my final acid barrage and Naran’s attack being enough to finish it off.

That was when a floating diamond shaped skill crystal appeared. I gave it a poke. The two skills were Constrict and Fire Pods. Constrict would squeeze a target and make it difficult to move. Fire Pods would cause several pods to form and explode in balls of fire. Basically, fire mines for all intents and purposes.

I let Naran give it a poke and then he stepped back. “So, take it or test it?” It would hurt my soul to test it.

“It isn’t mid-day yet. So, take it, should reset,” Naran said. Clearly, he was paying more attention to the day than me. Earned some major Michael points. We had already discussed things over, and I would get priority on skill crystals. Naran was focusing on the Body stat, and I depended on my skills for combat.

It didn’t make sense to split skill points between us. He wouldn’t have the energy to get use out of them and upgrading his low-level skills would only have a small impact on high level monsters. He wouldn’t say no to skill points, but unless there was a skill he really wanted, I would get to keep them all.

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I poked the crystal and chose to upgrade Air Burst. It was an incredibly useful movement skill. I had the option of power, speed, or cohesion. I had chosen power for Acid Shot since it was an attack skill. This time I chose speed, since this was a movement and dodging skill. Any increase in speed would be welcome.

The skill crystal disappeared. “We should go,” Naran said, and I nodded. We left the cliffs and made our way past two hills to the South.

Once we were clear I decided to test things. I leapt off the ground and made the necessary hand signs. “Air Burst.”

I landed a short distance away. I repeated the test again, “Air Burst.” I returned to my original spot.

“So, what does the upgrade do?” Naran asked.

“The skill is activating more quickly. Like how it takes a moment for my acid to materialize or the skill to push me in the air after it has been triggered, well that time has been cut down,” I said.

“It wasn’t that much to begin with,” Naran added.

“I would say a quarter to a tenth of a second, barely noticeable. But in high level combat, with Mind stat upgrades, things will stretch out,” I replied.

“Makes sense, so how fast would you say things are now?” Naran asked me.

“Half the time, so about a twentieth to a tenth of a second. Hard to measure unfortunately. I would call speed a late stage type of upgrade. Even if the improvement isn’t that much, it is a lifesaving skill,” I answered.

“So good, bad?” Naran asked.

“Not bad, but not great either. We haven’t been completely outclassed in speed yet. But it does provide an edge to escape situations,” I replied. For my upgrades I would pick what I thought was best. While tempting to just by various combinations to find out what they did, going back to dungeons would be a massive time commitment. I also could afford 7 more upgrades before hitting the fifth one in both Air Burst and Aqua Sphere.

The different uses of the skills would also allow me to pick different upgrades without compromising them. Acid Shot needed power more than that little bit of speed, so I could kill level 4 monsters.

“So, take or test?” I asked Naran.

“Test, no rush for me to upgrade my skills,” Naran replied. I gave him a nod at that. He was probably just as curious as I was. This trip was a good way to get answers to a lot of questions. Once mid-day had passed, we went back.

The small vines were still gone, but the big vine had reappeared. “I got this,” Naran said.

“Good luck,” I replied as he raced forward and began hacking at the monster vine. I stayed back and watched. I nodded with approval as he kept his feet on the ground, using his heavy blade to counter attack when a big thick vine moved into to grab him.

That was when the knot of vines, which was its main portion fully emerged from the cliff since so much of it had been cut to pieces. Naran moved in slowly chopping his way forward, eventually reaching the main part of the vine monster.

One good overhead swing and it was over. A level 3 skill crystal appeared floating in the air at the base of the cliff once again. I got a bowl of water from the cart and went over to the crystal.

I slowly raised the bowl of water up until the crystal was floating inside the water. I poked the water, thinking dissolve. Nothing happened. I tried different thoughts, but none of them worked. I gave Naran a chance and he poked the water and then the crystal, but nothing changed.

“Well, that is a bust,” Naran said. I threw out the water from the bowl.

“Not yet,” I took a deep breath, and cut into my left arm. That hurt. Blood dripped into the bowl. The bleeding soon slowed down and Fethee handed me a bandage. He helped wrap up my arm.

“Michael, cutting yourself is not good, you shouldn’t do that,” Naran said with a serious face.

“Bugger off. Alright, lets try this again,” I replied. I brought the bowl of blood over to the floating skill crystal and rose the bowl up to submerge the crystal, just like before. I poked at my blood. My danger sense flared.

“Back!” I shouted and leapt away. “Air Burst.” I shot even further away, Naran was right behind me. The blood had fallen away, but the blood had been sucked up by the skill crystal. It was a deep red instead of the clear color it had before.

The skill crystal broke, I couldn’t breathe, and the world was on fire. So much fire. I couldn’t use Aqua Sphere, since my chest was being crushed. I hit the ground and rolled. The fire was getting closer and I saw fire pods bursting out of the ground.

Naran hit me on the ground as he went tumbling as well. Just as the fire pods were about to reach us, they stopped appearing and the constriction on my chest went away.

Note to self, poking crystals and trying to break the Almighty System is a bad idea.

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