The Systemic Lands

Chapter 219: Day 506 – Leaving Once More

I got up and showered. I stretched as I let the water run over me. There would only be more fights in the future. Another battle I managed to pull through somehow. My old armor was trashed. I put on my new armor. Same as the old. Elise did good work on her designs.

I looked at the chest that I had requested to be put in my room. I left all ten of the flying worm crystals inside of the chest along with the golem crystals I had managed to keep. I was not ready to summon a level 4 monster. The risk was too high in my mind. I would not be the first person to test that. But I also wasn’t going to let those crystals go.

Opening the door to leave my room, there were two guards outside who quickly saluted me. “Glad you are doing alright Champion Michael,” one of them said. While it would be nice to try and learn people’s names, I didn’t have the energy or motivation to do that for people I rarely saw. Better to just be polite to the staff and not worry about remembering everyone’s’ names.

“Thanks,” I replied with a nod and set off to get some breakfast. I was glad my room hadn’t been destroyed. Clarissa had been smart to put it in the center of the building on the third floor, with no windows. That was just asking someone to sneak in and kill me.

I arrived at the mess hall’s second floor overlooking the main area. This was the reserved table for semi-private conversations that Clarissa and I had eaten at before. I sat down, it was quite early still. I was a bit surprised when an older woman came into the dining area and smiled when she saw me. “Champion Michael, what do you want for breakfast?” she asked.

“Whatever is prepared. Don’t go out of your way,” I answered. No need to make a fuss or ask for impossible things. I could do that with Clarissa when she annoyed me or had a minor screwup, but I wouldn’t torture the staff of my home like that. I needed to come up with something after the latest debacle.

“I will prepare a full spread, don’t worry. The bread will finish baking in about ten minutes. Some orange juice or apple juice?”

“Orange juice,” I said.

“Pulp or no pulp?”

“Pulp is fine,” I replied. The woman curtsied and quickly left. At least Clarissa hired efficient people. I rubbed my right arm. The level 4 monsters weren’t going to get any more of my limbs. My arms and feet had all been replaced.

It made me wonder if my head was cut off and landed on a store pillar, could I buy a new body? There would be the issue with having two contact points, but it was an interesting and grim hypothetical. At least the core of my body or my head hadn’t suffered serious damage yet.

Naran came out a few minutes later and sat down.

“How’s the arm?” Naran asked.

“Weird like the last time. Just feels different, or it could be my mind playing tricks on me,” I said.

“Maybe. You mentioned that in all test cases people felt weird,” Naran said.

“Yes. Too bad, I wasn’t able to save my old arm. We are going to need to work out our aerial combat tactics as well,” I said and forced myself to put both hands on the table. I clenched my fingers on my right hand. There was just something off about getting a new limb, but I couldn’t say what it was. Probably my brain and nerves being silly, but there could be other system related reasons. Regardless, it was annoying and a bit stressful.

“That is going to be hard. We did the best we could, I think. If it wasn’t for the Airship Port, we would have been screwed,” Naran said. That was the truth unfortunately. No monster had hit an energy limit, since they all seemed able to spam attacks.

“And the city shield, you feel that?” I asked. I still didn’t know what to make of the city shield and how that tied into energy and everything else. Why did everything lose color except parts of the level 4 monster? Why the pressure at the start?

“Yes, like being squeezed. I noticed the energy doing it as well,” Naran said. I considered doing negative energy training, but I had come this far without it. I was not about to take drugs of any kind. My resolve was being eroded but was still unbroken in this regard. “The energy was twist up. It is hard to explain.”

The server lady came out with my drink and Naran asked for apple juice. He was a traitor to the glorious pulp orange juice. The thick sweet taste, instead of the weak watery apple juice. He lost Michael points for his choice, the most important points of all. Why were we even friends again? Besides him saving my life multiple times and having my back? I grinned a bit as I sipped my wonderful pulp filled orange juice before speaking up.

“Well, it was a general suppression. Also, the outer edge of the shield aligned just at the outer edge of the wall. Attacks could go through, but there was a barrier in place preventing a person from going back in. Once they started to exit, they were forced to exit all the way. Six people were trapped sticking an arm or foot off the top of the wall,” I said. Complete idiots, but it was good we had learned about that issue now.

The city shield was a one way barrier and everything not a person was suppressed in some way or dusted as was the case for the low level summons.

“Ah, Clarissa update you last night?” Naran asked.

“She did. A lot of new things to think about. What about you, melee combat work out okay?” I asked. I hadn’t been able to focus too heavily on Naran during the fight.

“Need better weapons. I was breaking swords left and right. Also, that landing was bad,” Naran said. I nodded at that. It was a bad fall.

“Surprised your leg broke like that, with your Body stat,” I replied. I wanted to get his opinion on why his leg didn’t hold up.

“It was a really bad angle, and I was moving at a high speed. I did feel my Body stat try to resist the impact for a second, but it wasn’t enough,” Naran said, and I nodded at that.

“Good to know. Jumping off a ten-story tower, dangerous,” I replied a bit sarcastically.

“Yes, who would have thought that?” Naran asked while rolling his eyes. That was when food was brought out. I enjoyed the fluffiness of warm bread and butter. It was delicious. Fruit platters were brought out as well. I really enjoyed the strawberries. They were nice and juicy and in slightly different shapes. I guess there was some variation allowed even with food.

“You really want a round two of that disaster?” Naran asked me. That was a loaded question. I let out a sigh and looked up at the gray ceiling.

“No. I am half tempted to say we need to grind more,” I replied. Grinding up stats was the safe answer.

“No world tour then?” Naran asked.

“I said temped, but I am not changing my mind. We won in the end. I could probably win one on one against those monsters without the city shield,” I said. It would be a hard fight, but I could win. I felt I had a good understanding of my combat ability compared to level 4 monsters. Especially after losing an arm.

“But the worms came in a swarm, pack, whatever. The point is level 4 monsters form teams,” Naran countered. That was where the real problem was. Level 4 fights, could easily be a team battle. Still, that wasn’t the biggest problem at the moment.

“Well, I don’t see people stepping up, unfortunately,” I replied and shook my head. “There are a lot of implications that are more concerning. A city can be wiped for million points. Just get someone with a lot saved up to sneak in buy the upgrade. Then it gets worse,” I explained.

“There is the issue of one of the pillars being destroyed. If all eight are destroyed, something bad will probably happen and the repair cost is astronomical, but it might scale on city level,” I finished explaining. The words ‘critical damage’ were bouncing around in my head.

“Not much we can do. Anyways they are getting more Radiant Beam skill users. Get a 100 people, you could blanket the entire sky. Even a level 5,” Naran said.

“Maybe. The skill is powerful, but it didn’t kill the level 4 monsters it did hit. It is flashy, but it is only a level 3 skill,” I replied, basing the skill level off the dungeon boss, not the zone. “If there was a level 5 monster, it might just be a tickle.” The level of a skill mattered, since skills were clearly less effective as one went up in levels.

All the level 4 monsters had taken time to die after being hit with Acid Shot. Even level 3 monsters took a second or two. A level 5 monster would just get some irritated skin. That meant I couldn’t count on Radiant Beam being super powerful despite how flashy it looked.

“That is true. Also, level 4 monsters have more variation, you notice that?” Naran asked me.

“No, what do you mean by variation?” I was curious what he had spotted.

“That their stats are probably not almost all the same like level 1 through 3. There is no way I would have been able to cut through the golems with how they were throwing themselves around without a scratch. But when the worms hit the ground, they took some minor damage, especially if they landed on one of their wings,” Naran explained.

“That means different Body stats since the golems were leaping everywhere, which probably means they all have different stats. Still a lot of them, but combined with skills, that is just more variance,” I worked through the issue out loud and then frowned. It was good to know that monsters could specialize.

“So, we are going to do this again?” Naran asked.

“Yes. Getting the store upgrade is important. If we want level 5 equipment, then we need a higher level Processing Rod and higher level enchanting tables. It will be a hassle and a half, but worth it in the end. Also, if I wasn’t an idiot jumping into the sky to fight aerial monsters, things would have gone better,” I answered.

“I never thought I would be the one saying this, but perhaps more grinding?” Naran asked.

“Well, we are planning this 100 days from now. The world tour will take 30 days at most I would guess. To find all the level 3 boundaries and level 2 monster types,” I replied.

“Dungeons?” Naran asked.

“Maybe. Depends on how much risk there is. I could use 8 level 3 skill upgrades. You could use some as well,” I suggested.

“Not really. I am going to focus more on the physical route, Body and Mind. Just need a good weapon that can handle a high Body stat,” Naran said.

“Sounds like you should be the one trying to upgrade the store then,” I said.