Chapter 37: Day 57 – Nope!

The grassland turned into shadowlands. The closer I got to the next biome, the darker the sky became, and the grass quickly died off. There were scraggly bushes and rocks sticking out of the ground. The weather should not be determined by the biome and there shouldn’t be such a quick transition either. It was less than half or mile or about a kilometer before there was a transition area to the next biome.

Crazy game logic. The number of small wolves had been quickly decreasing and I kept my eyes peeled for the new monster of this area. I banged my shield and saw something moving towards me. That was very big scorpion. It was the size of a large dog and the barb on its tail was the size of an arm.

It was also armored. It was moving toward me fairly quickly, so no waiting and seeing the tactics it used. “Acid Shot.” The ball of acid hit the brown scorpion dead on. It actually let out some noise. A pitiful screech and collapsed to the ground. It then turned into dust. I went over to the crystal.

It was the size of a 50-point crystal. Ok, these things were insanely dangerous based on the crystal given out for killing one. Far more than I had initially thought. Still, they were alone, and my magic skill could easily kill it in one shot.

I then began a zig zag route, only occasionally heading into the scorpion’s area while mostly working to clear out the small wolves in the transition area and the grassland nearby.

When I called it a day, I had managed to grind out 448 small crystals and 8 medium ones. I was going to start labeling that way, until I found more denominations. Might as well leave room in my nomenclature for large and super large for the future. It was biggest haul to date. With each medium crystal being worth the equivalent of 10 small ones, I had grinded out a total of 558.

I made sure to spend my night away from the scorpions and the transition area. That place was incredibly scary without magic. Armored, fast, with three means of attack, and probably poisoned, that thing was insanely dangerous. The medium crystals only confirmed that.

Swords would have a hard time penetrating the armor and shielding against three different attacks would be a struggle. You would either need magic or to swarm the monster from multiple directions. Even then its legs were weapons in their own right.

The difficulty scaling was ridiculous. If the number of points implied a ten times greater threat, then what were the monsters like above the scorpion and super slimes? It was a worrying thought. Still, the only thing I could do right now was to rake in the crystals.

When I returned to the city, I wanted to have a large amount. I was also leaning more towards Regeneration, than Spirit. Then I could really start plowing through the tougher monsters. I would need a lot of Regeneration though.

Realistically, I felt I needed about 200 total upgrades in Regeneration, to gain back 2 energy per minute. The next 90 upgrades alone would cost about 75,000 to 80,000 points. The cost of a well-furnished house. The next 100 upgrades after that would cost around 130,000 to 140,000 points.

I was becoming a glass cannon. That felt weird after all the upgrades into Body. I could move easily enough, and my body was a fat burning furnace. There was also the new stat Endurance. I thought that was covered by Body. The stats needed a manual like the skill had come with.

I went to sleep and woke up the next day, before dawn. I had my route already worked out. Like a very tight sine wave. I would poke into the scorpion area, kill two. Then I would do a long loop through the grasslands killing wolves.

When I looped back to the shadowlands, I would have enough energy to take out another two scorpions. I had some vegetables for breakfast and set off for another day of grinding.

This was by far the best choice I had made, getting away from the city and the drama that was etched into its stone. I was a free agent at the end of the day, not Carlos’ right-hand man. The main risk was being intercepted when I returned, but I was confident with magic and a very early pre-dawn arrival would take care of most risks.

Still, it was something to consider. Might just plant my cart in a dead end and offload it a couple packs at a time. No, that was the path of weakness. People might get past the white slime, but the boss brown slime was tricky. Also, the cost of torches would make it a massive attempt each time. Then there was only one skill crystal every ten days and you needed to kill the blue slime for Acid Shot to appear?

Maybe one, possibly two people would be able to use magic and they wouldn’t be guarding the pillars at night. I doubted anyone would make it that far, but I learned not be surprised by what people did, especially here in this new world. If I could do it, I was sure someone else could do it better than me.

I expected more people to go out and fight monsters, but that didn’t happen. Well, I did expect betrayal at every turn and Evaline proved that right. Still, I couldn’t count on my guesses, no matter how many I got right.

As I hunted down the small wolves, I would leave my cart, and sweep out to the side, pulling and killing the monsters. I would then go back, and then push forward to the next spot and do a sweep. I really needed a mule or someone to pull the cart.

That evening as I picked a hill to camp on, I considered my recent pace. The main limitation was my magic cap, both my Regeneration and Spirit. Still, it was an okay pace, and I didn’t want to return to Purgatory any time soon.

“I officially declare you the City of Purgatory of the Systemic Lands,” I announced out loud. Nothing happened, but I had a slight grin on my face. It felt good to put names to things. I wasn’t about to call it Carlosville.

Now I just needed to get it to catch on when I returned. I was never popular or a trend setter back on Earth. Now my decisions would ripple across the city. It was a weird feeling, not bad or good, just weird. I was not good at handling stress long term. While I could deal with short term challenges, I wasn’t good at upkeep.

A city and people needed a lot of upkeep, and I didn’t and couldn’t handle that type of responsibility. No, it was better for me to take a leave of absence like I was doing. Return on day 90 to 95 with a huge cart of crystals.

Figure 30 more days, at around 2,500 points per day would put me at 75,000 points. It was quick and dirty mental math, but it gave me an idea of the upgrades I could afford, 90 more. Well 10 to the new stat Endurance and then 40 into Spirit and Regeneration, bringing them both up to 50 each. That would put me at 10 Acid Shots, and it would take 100 minutes to fully refill.

I had a plan there, but I still didn’t have a good plan for the wolf dungeon. I wanted those skill points. Rope, lots of torches, and a good-sized amount of energy for my single spell should see me through. After that I considered what I should do.

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I was thinking of pushing through the scorpion land. I wouldn’t want to fight them head on, but with Acid Shot I could slowly advance through the biome and explore it. If I could reasonably kill 6 scorpions an hour based on my Regeneration after upgrades, that would put my effective point grind at around 3,000 per day.

Not that much better than right now unfortunately. I let out a sigh and looked up at the stars. I hadn’t seen any shooting stars or anything that might be another planet. That wasn’t saying much, I was no Carl Sagan or Neil deGrasse Tyson.

I considered the orientation of the shadows and while I had been in Purgatory, they hadn’t changed direction, indicating a shift in the orientation of the planet. But I was sure the days were getting shorter, but I could be wrong about that.

I really wanted some paper and a pencil to record my observations and come up with a better testing schema. I liked to scribble and mark up a notebook when there was nothing else to do. All the better to get my thoughts out and help me reflect on my decisions and conclusions.

The length of the day was bothering me, as well as the shadow’s keeping the same orientation despite the almost 2 months I had spent in this place. I looked up at the constellations again, I knew the Big Dipper and the Small Dipper, and I didn’t spot either of them in the sky.

No glow of a galaxy just points of light on a black canvas. It felt fake compared to the real thing and blinked away a tear. I couldn’t help but think of home. My family, my parents, siblings, friends. Were they in another city somewhere out there? Was another murder hobo killing them like I had killed people? Time was apparently in stasis in the real world, but there were other cities. I could only hope they showed up in Purgatory when they were teleported to this place.

Teleportation and matter manipulation. I wasn’t about to mentally confirm that whatever was running this place had the power temporal manipulation yet. People could have just been put in storage. It felt like a virtual reality with the lack of depth that kept popping up. The problem with the virtual reality theory was the type of people showing up here.

I would expect a huge slant towards a younger audience, but there was a fairly even spread of the ages that did show up. No crippled or handicapped people showing up either. I could recall right up to the moment before my teleportation as well.

There was no blank spot in my memory. One moment, sitting at my desk, next moment flopping onto the ground at the plaza. I knew it was pointless to speculate on all of this, but I couldn’t help it. This was the mystery to end all mysteries.

If I had to bet, my current favorite theory was aliens running an experiment of some kind. But then I got to thinking, what was the point of such an experiment when they already had so much power? Maybe some non-human like intelligence wanted to see how we would react in a structured environment? Set up multiple cities and see which ones thrive and which ones die.

I moved a hand under my shirt and felt my gut. It was shrinking but still quite jiggly. I thought I could feel some abs beneath the remaining flab. At least one good thing had come out of this place. I was tempted to make a vow to avoid killing people and try to be a better person morally as well as physically.

That wasn’t going to happen. It was like claiming to be a vegetarian. I was a vegetarian all the times I wasn’t eating meat. There would be a stupid situation with stupid people doing or wanting stupid things. I would be forced to kill someone since I either was unable or didn’t want to deal with the alternatives.

“I can only hope,” I muttered. I could only hope for a future that wouldn’t force me into making unpleasant choices. Still, arriving at a choice wasn’t something I would not be involved in either. It was like a bad poker hand and going into a flop. You might hit, but you could still be behind with the poor hand that should have been folded pre-flop. I could still make a decision now, like leaving the city to focus on grinding and it could be a bad decision long term.

I couldn’t see anyone grinding faster than me. Still, there was no guarantee I was in the first group to arrive. Then there was the possibility of teamwork surpassing one person’s efforts. I almost chuckled out loud at that.

Teamwork in this place? It wasn’t easy and it would be slow. Everyone would have an opinion. Only the physically capable would be able to get a head start on me in my opinion. I tried to think back on what the most optimal decisions would be in order to adjust my long-term thinking.

This type of self-reflection was only possible since I refused to lie to myself. I could lie to others, but I had to be brutally honest with myself. It came down to less spending and more grinding. But the returns were marginal the further I got based on the point scaling.

The scaling was key. I needed to kill a higher tier monster than the scorpion and see the number of points it gave. I speculated it would probably be 500. The problem was the danger and difficulty, and the scaling would only matter above that.

No, the scaling of monsters was the wrong way to think. It was the grind. This place was like a road. Going 70 or 60 mph didn’t make a huge difference when you arrived. It was the breaks or fuel refills that were taken.

My gut instinct to come out here had been a good one. Was there anything I could do to increase my speed? I couldn’t kill the small wolves faster and I wasn’t going to try and kill a scorpion without magic. I thought about my wave movement pattern to maximize my grind efficiency.

I considered my cart. I could park the cart in one location and then sweep out from there in a wave pattern along the border. Then at the end of the day, make a straight line back to the cart. The more I thought about this idea, the more I liked it.

I would leave the cart in a depression between two hills, so it wouldn’t be easily visible. I would sweep out in one direction for half the day, and then sweep out the other direction for the other half. I would only take a pack to carry crystals in.

That way I wouldn’t be too far from the cart. I would only be leaving it alone for half a day at most, which was the biggest risk I was willing to take.

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