The Systemic Lands

Chapter 228: Day 514 – More Exploration Around Heaven

“Ahh!” Naran let out a shout and came up to a crouch while stabbing his sword above him.

Acid Shot x2. I covered his flanks from the smaller level 2 monsters as he skewered the boss. My attacks lost a bit of cohesion midair before impacting on the monsters to either side. Monster fluid rained down on him and he quickly shifted his sword to toss the boss to the side, ripping the blade through the monster in the process.

It was a level 3 monster, dangerous, but not something that could easily beat Naran with his Body stat. So, while I was a bit worried, it wasn’t an active concern. More like, ‘Oh, that isn’t the best.’ Not, ‘He is about to die.’

A skill crystal appeared, but we spent the next minute clearing out the rest of the chamber of smaller monsters. I gave the skill crystal a poke first.

The first option was Poison Shot. It was a level higher than my Acid Shot, but would probably take longer to work. Poison was damage over time while acid did direct damage by melting an enemy. I preferred the melting. Acid Shot had a lot of utility as well, while Poison Shot would be much more niche. So that was a hard pass, not even taking into account the higher level.

The second skill was Null Field. It would create a volume of space, where energy was dispersed, or lost cohesion. That was probably why Naran stumbled. Now this was a very interesting skill. I stopped poking the crystal and let Naran take a look while I thought about what I had just learned.

There were clearly counter skills, or energy canceling skills. But at the end of the day, it was only so good. Naran only stumbled and the acid attacks to either side of him only lost cohesion, they weren’t stopped. It sounded like a good skill, but was mediocre in my opinion.

Naran stopped poking the crystal. “What do you think?” I asked.

“At least I know why I felt off kilter all of a sudden. A good ambush skill, but beyond that complete trash,” Naran said echoing my thoughts.

“It didn’t even stop Acid Shot, so it is much more esoteric. Definitely a niche skill, no interest?” I asked to be sure.

“No,” Naran said. I gave the skill crystal a poke again. I had three options for Air Burst, multi-cast, prep and hold, and minor effect. I wouldn’t get to see what minor effects unless I picked the last option first. But Air Burst already did exactly what I wanted. There was no need for weird effects to be added to it.

It wasn’t meant as a damage skill. It was meant as an emergency movement skill, or a midair movement skill. Anything that didn’t help the skill perform its primary purpose, was out right away and I was taking no chances.

The third or eighth upgrade I had split to different upgrades unlike the ones that came previously for Acid Shot. Multi-cast allowed me to use Acid Shot multiple times with only a single mental command or hand sign. Useful for an attack skill to spam it, but not useful for a movement and escape skill, since each use cost the full amount of energy.

That left prep and hold. I picked that option. “Let’s go,” I said to Naran.

“Not going to test?” he asked.

“Not enough energy. Let’s get out of here,” I said, and we made our way out of the dungeon. The rope was still there. I put out the lamp and put it in the pack I had on, that had some crystals in it. I went up first. Climbing was incredibly easy, with my Body stat.

I thought back to the Ninja Warrior, or Sauske show from Japan and the final challenge being a vertical climb. I would have put those top competitors to shame with how easily I climbed up a vertical rope. I only used my feet to stop myself from banging into the cliff side, not to help me climb up.

Once I got to the top Fethee and Heba were there. I checked the rope and gave Naran a thumbs up. He quickly climbed up faster than me. I let out a long breath. While it was annoying he was ahead of me in the Body stat, my skills gave me a huge advantage. He probably felt the same way only reversed sometimes.

Naran reached the top. Once there he untied the rope and wiggled his massive sword out of the ground. It was just past midday. Well no need to waste that much time so we kept going.

Later in the afternoon we started coming across level 2 clear centipedes. A good source of clear crafting crystals we stocked up on. Close to the end of the day we came to the end of the zone and hit a level 3 zone, frostlands straight ahead and to the West, with boulderlands to the East portion of the zone. We backed up and called it a day. I would poke that zone with Naran tomorrow. Now it was finally time to test my upgraded skill. It had been a chore to wait this long, but wanted to keep making progress exploring while there was light out.

“Air Burst.” I made the hand signs, spent the energy, and said the words, but nothing happened. I frowned a bit. I only had 100 seconds until the skill had to be used or it was canceled, and I lost the energy.

“Air Burst.” I used the skill a second time, but it was forced to activate. I could only have a single used stored up and I couldn’t reset the timer by moving in the second Air Burst. Well I could, but I would need to do it mentally, without the Almighty System holding my hand during the process.

Released the charge and it was just like Acid Shot, with how I could trigger it mentally. I explained all this to Naran who grew a bit thoughtful.

“You will be locking up 50 energy at the start of the fight, to give yourself a small edge for the next 100 seconds. Useful if a level 4 pops up to use right away,” Naran said.

“I figured as much. Will be interesting to see what a second upgrade of prep and hold does for the skill once I get there,” I replied.

“Thinking of going all the way with the upgrades?” Naran asked me.

“No. Maybe. I really want to see what happens when I upgrade Acid Shot first. I could go with the cost upgrade twice, but that seems like a sub-optimal approach. It is an emergency skill, so having it be silent and gestureless are quite important. That way I can use multiple skills at once and not be limited to hand signs or calling them out,” I replied.

“Acid Shot definitely got a huge upgrade being both silent and gestureless. Even if it cost more, it was a fair trade off. But Air Burst is a level 3 skill, so who knows what those upgrades will do,” Naran said.

“Exactly and they can be picked twice. It gives me a headache every time I try to work out what will happen. Even clearing dungeons like we are doing right now, it still doesn’t feel worthwhile to take the risk of experimenting,” I replied and let out a long sigh.

“It is a lot of upgrades to go back and get and test,” Naran said.

“Exactly. While doable, grinding up more stats would be more worthwhile. Especially since I don’t think any of the upgrades or combination will be a silver bullet,” I replied.

“Fair enough. So tomorrow, what are you thinking? Straight South to try and spot the dungeon, or something else?” Naran asked.

“Well, there are borderlands to the East. Kind of want to check the corner to the Southwest if we can. Check three different zones, but South works as well,” I answered.

“Well, no rush, we can spend two days. We might not get that far, you know,” Naran said.

“Perhaps. So, the far side, level 4 zone or level 3 zone?” I asked.

“There might not even be level 4 zones, with how the monsters act at that level,” Naran countered.

“Maybe, maybe. But I doubt that. Still, there might be different rules governing the zones. Not like we are even going to poke them,” I said.

“As soon as we see anything like a level 4 zone, we are stopping and going the other direction. I know you get over ambitious sometimes and the recent dungeon clearing, has gotten bad for your mindset,” Naran said.

I winced at that. He was right. I was rushing quite fast into situations. “Fair, but not like the monsters at level 2 or 3 are a threat anymore,” I replied.

“I didn’t say anything, but you rushed the last boss,” Naran said.

“Oh, I know. It doesn’t matter,” I replied. Naran stared at me. “You know what I mean.”

“I do, but you have swung from super careful to reckless,” Naran said.

“It is about threat assessment. I understood it was a dungeon in a level 2 zone with level 2 and 3 monsters. We had cleared a lot of it already and I knew how fast the monsters were,” I replied.

“And the new skill from the level 3 centipede?” Naran asked.

“We dodge level 4 monsters all the time. Why are you stressed?” I asked.

“It is hard being in the front. Melee combat isn’t simple,” Naran said. It was my turn to stare at him. No shit, Sherlock. That was why I didn’t want to engage in melee combat. It isn’t just about hitting and dodging, you are in the line of fire for skills as well.

“Well don’t worry, a level 3 zone will be handled much more slowly and carefully. Also, no poking a level 4 zone. I am not about to risk my life,” I said and Naran let out a long sigh. The stress was probably wearing on him, also the swamps.

“Naran, think of the good part. After this, we can swing back to Purgatory before poking the swamps to the South of the city,” I said.

“I am not tired, just…this place. I was hoping we would make more progress, or something,” Naran complained. I nodded at this. Everyone had these days, even me. The realization of how much nonsense the Systemic Lands truly was and the unrelenting scope of the place.

“Could be the void area to the West wearing on you, a possibility?” I asked. Naran frowned and looked around.

“Maybe. I haven’t felt this agitated since Truth. There might be something to that. Perhaps a grind session away from void pits for a while after this to raise up some other stats,” Naran said.

“Not a bad idea. My money is on Spirit providing void energy wind protection or at least resistance,” I said.

“I know. Some rest should help,” Naran said. I nodded at that. A bit of rest and he should be fine for tomorrow. Looking at my map, we weren’t that far from our grinding spot. There was just an unknown zone to the East, probably a level 3 zone based on the pattern of the map.

The zone layout reminded me of minesweeper in a way. A city was a level 1 zone, and everything adjacent to it was a level 2 zone, including diagonally. Then everything adjacent to a level 2 zone that wasn’t a level 1 or level 2 zone was a level 3 zone.