B2 - Chapter 10: The Leaderboard (Patreon)

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 62 Flying Hunting Snake!]

[You have defeated a Level 58 Flying Hunting Snake!]

[…]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

[…]

[Quest Progress: 410/500 kills]

[120 seconds remaining.]

Snake after snake, Logan commenced a slaughter of hell. Best of all, he’d figured out how to jump on top of the swarm, briefly touching the back of a flying snake to trick his Pink Sock into launching him into the air.

He might as well be on a trampoline.

There were hundreds of these things. Hundreds. His experience in the trial dungeon had shaped him, sculpted him, made him into the person he was now. Logan was so high leveled compared to the snakes that it wasn’t a contest. All he had to do was grind, using his sword to slice off heads and tails, clip wings, sever bodies, while he soared by like Ernie’s dream of a slaughtering god.

He was gaining level after level, making his adrenaline surge, dopamine shooting through his brain and making him feel high on life. It was difficult to tell how long he’d been at this, getting into a mindless, repetitive motion of kill, kill, kill.

It was only the countdown of the quest that kept him sane, that tick of the clock making him go ever faster. For Logan’s sword was death and his talons were Hades.

Behind him, Ernie squeed in delirious excitement, his mouth gaping, his eyes flush with greed and pleasure. Logan had given Ernie his dream—unending slaughter, a hailstorm of guts and a plethora of green blood raining down to the ground like they were the powerhouses he’d yearned for.

“More, more!” Ernie chanted. “Yes, more! All will weep in sorrow and fear as they look upon our monstrous triumph!”

The Cursed Rope was rabid with greed and savage satisfaction, its body doubling in size once again. Glee glee glee. The user is strong. The user will get stronger.

Each time it latched onto a snake with its gaping mouth, acid ate into the flying snakes’ bodies so quickly they didn’t have a chance.

The rope swelled as it sucked in fluid, draining the bodies of its victims, fibres fat with blood. Blue light flared over the swarm like lightning. The blue current trickled over Logan’s body like a caress, but against the snakes, it crackled like electricity, stunning them and making them fall out of the sky so the Cursed Rope could snatch them out of the air for a quick kill.

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 62 Flying Hunting Snake!]

[You have defeated a Level 58 Flying Hunting Snake!]

[…]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

[…]

[Quest Progress: 490/500 kills]

[30 seconds remaining.]

He was leveling up so much that it was taking more kills than before to receive a level up notice. At first, he’d leveled up after 15 kills, then it was 30, and now he needed over 40 to make a dent. Which was nuts, since a week ago, killing hundreds of monsters over level 50 had seemed like a pipe dream.

Logan panted, his eyes wide. He’d had to remove his facemask since it had gotten so filthy with the remains of the snail and snake blood that it was impossible to see. Green, crusted goo covered his face, his hair standing on end.

And for the first time in a while, his anger was satisfied. Logan didn’t know why he’d been so angry, but it had been like a gremlin living inside of his chest, festering and making him into a Logan rage monster. But killing hundreds of monsters had finally satisfied that rage, replacing it with deep satisfaction instead.

Logan flicked his wrist, severing the head of another snake, and then let himself drop to the ground next to the remains of the snail’s shell. At a certain point, he’d slaughtered so many snakes that jumping on top of the flying bodies became an impossibility.

He’d thinned the swarm until only a handful of snakes remained.

Ding!

[Congratulations! You’ve successfully completed the Quest: Snake Swarm Fiesta! Reward for completing the Quest: an answer to a puzzle.]

[Choice Number 1: Learn the requirements to unlock [Life Fabricator].]

[Choice Number 2: A reveal. A list of the top ten humans in the world and relative levels. This choice will grant the user continuous future use.]

[Choice Number 3: I lurk in the depths, sprouting my network, only available to the user if they can see.]

[CHOOSE.]

Logan blew out a breath of air and ran a hand through his gore covered hair as he paced. There were only a handful of flying snakes left up above, and even with [Eager Beaver] in effect, they were flying around in a panic, confused, as if Logan had given them a serious case of PTSD.

Ernie plopped out of the pouch on Logan’s back and jumped to the ground, swatting the gore covered long rattlesnake grass that was fluttering in the wind as if he wanted to do war with it. He had a crazed look in his eyes, his face flushed even underneath all that snake blood.

Dancing with his tentacles and hitting the grass like he was swatting flies, he crooned, “I’m a flying slaughtering murderous octopus god! All will cower at my feet while I tower over them on my mighty throne.” A flick of a tentacle like Ernie was a conductor. “I am immense, stealthy, smart, and I will be the power hidden from those more powerful than me! I will build a ten thousand strong minion army and save my brethren. Fleshy human Logan and I will reign—”

Logan tuned him out.

Ernie was slaughter drunk.

As for the quest reward, what bullshit was this? You’d think the reward had to be as good as the potential penalty, and like hell was this the equivalent.

[CHOOSE.]

If he chose option number one, he’d learn how to unlock [Life Fabricator], but there was a chance that all his leveling would be enough already. It would be wasteful to pick that option when he might have taken care of the problem already. And besides, it wasn’t a puzzle. He knew how to unlock it. By upgrading his wisdom attribute.

The second option intrigued him.

[Choice Number 2: A reveal. A list of the top ten humans in the world and relative levels. This choice will grant the user continuous future use.]

It appealed to this competitive nature, and it might give him insight about the Man in Black. That man’s leaching black oil skill was terrifying.

Logan wasn’t sure if [Foresight] had shown him an image of the man in real time or in the future, but obtaining recon would be valuable. Not to mention that the System ranked Logan number three in the world, which meant that two other people were ahead of him. Just how high? It was a tempting choice.

If he had access to that information, he’d know how many levels he’d need to overtake them on the leaderboard and become rank number one in the world.

As for the last option….

[Choice Number 3: I lurk in the depths, sprouting my network, only available to the user if they can see.]

Talk about a puzzle. It could be anything!

It reminded him of the description of his [Foresight] skill:

[Foresight gives you the ability to see. The skill is limited only in time—600 seconds—and your imagination. Activation limit: once per 24 hours.]

Foresight was a legendary skill and beyond valuable, but Logan didn’t trust this new, exorcized AI minion System yet. For all he knew, if he picked that option, it could be the worst of the lot.

Frustration festered in Logan’s stomach. The Snake Swarm Fiesta Quest hadn’t been a walk in the park. Although it had ended up being fun and it had helped Logan work off his anger, if he’d failed, the penalty would have been immense.

Receiving a shitty reward was frustrating beyond belief.

[CHOOSE.]

With a sigh of resignation, Logan mentally hovered over option number two.

[Selection confirmed!]

[Processing….]

[Leaderboard Populated!]

Leaderboard:

·       Rank 1: Charon: Level 150

·       Rank 2: Idiot: Level 119

·       Rank 3: Yogi Bear: Level 118

·       Rank 4: Damsel Fuck You: Level 117

·       Rank 5: Thor: Level 109

·       Rank 6: Mictlantecuhtli: Level 108

·       Rank 7: King Kong: Level 107

·       Rank 8: Xuanwu: Level 107

·       Rank 9: The General: Level 105

·       Rank 10: Skywalker: Level 104

Logan blinked.

Then blinked again.

This list had to be a list of everyone’s hidden names rather than true names. His glitchy AI minion had chosen Logan’s name, but if the others had chosen theirs… holy hell. Crazy people. Crazy people dominated the world!

It was possible that rank one, Charon, was someone other than the Man in Black, but he couldn’t imagine someone with a worse skill than that man. The potential for leveling and XP harvesting was immense.

Plus, why would the System show him that scene if he wasn’t the biggest threat. And the name Charon, Charon… Logan had heard that name before. In Greek mythology, Charon was the ferryman of the underworld, ferrying souls to the afterlife. That was a hell of a coincidence. And at level 150, holy shit.

The man was a serious threat.

Not to mention that….

Wait a minute.

Logan’s rank had changed!

Excitement surging, Logan pulled up his full stat sheet:

Name: Logan Hart [Hidden Name: Idiot]

Rank: 2 out of 6,006,982,919

Level: 119

Class: [Epic] Fabled Creation

Grade: E1

Species: Human

Skills:

·       Idiot’s Paradox Lv. 28

·       Idiot’s Inspect Lv. 10

·       Deepwater Explorer Lv. 3

·       Regenerate Lv. 12

·       Mimicry Armour Lv. 2

·       Undead Stamina

·       Foresight

·       Lodestone Creationist Lv. 1

·       Liche Devourer Lv. 1

·       Life Fabricator Lv. 1

Titles: Eager Beaver; Mass Murderer; Audacious Corpse; Run Until You Drop; Malicious Meat Sack

XP Progress: 220,000/238,000

Karma: 1,901/2,028

Intelligence: 260 + 30% = 338

Constitution: 46

Strength: 116x3* = 348

Agility: 121x3* = 363

Dexterity: 96x3* = 288

Endurance: 147x3* = 441+50% = 662

Perception: 35x3* = 105 + 30% = 137

Wisdom: 365 + 30% = 475

Luck: 101

(*Pure Grit Ring)

Free Attribute Points: 70

KarmaCoin: 302,600

His rank had gone up to rank two. Rank two in the world!

Hell yeah.

Logan felt a surge of pride. He couldn’t hold back a huge grin. That meant he was E Grade, and already E1. That upgraded [Regenerate] by two levels, getting him closer to a man who could chop off his fingers and grow them back just as fast. Curiously, his other grade dependant skill, [Idiot’s Inspect] had stayed at Level 10. Had he maxed out the skill?

And for the first time in a long time, the System had bumped up his luck attribute from 85 to l01.

But Logan was puzzled.

Rubbing his chin as he paced, he pondered the problem.

It had been over 24 hours since he returned to Earth, and he’d just about killed himself with acrobatics, punching the snail hull apart, using his dexterity to kill snakes, and going like a crazy endurance man in the air.

And yet he hadn’t received his daily attribute increases.

Why?

Once again, it was a case of having to figure it out. If the System were fair, it wouldn’t make people guess. The only possibility that made sense had to do with scaling. Each time he’d received a daily increase, it had gotten harder to upgrade it the next day. And to increase an endurance attribute that was already at 662? It wasn’t worth it if it meant he’d have to run for 24 hours straight.

But compared to his rapid progress, Logan wasn’t going to complain. He was rank number two in the world! Just thinking about it made him glow with pride. Lara and the kids were going to be shocked. Stodgy Uncle Logan rank two in the world? They’d never believe it. He could live with losing the daily cheat points against that.

Even better, his level increases meant that he had 70 free attributes that he could throw into either wisdom or intelligence. To be safe and to make sure he was making the right decision, Logan did the mental math.

If he assigned those attributes to intelligence, he’d upgrade the stat from 260 to 330. With his 30% static boost from his [Fabled Creation] class, he’d have 429 intelligence attributes. Each intelligence point translated into six Karma points, so that worked out to a Karma pool of 2,575.

That did it. That wasn’t enough to unlock [Liche Devourer]:

[Locked. 3500 Karma pool requirement not met.]

Damn. That was a serious Karma pool requirement. Trust the System to make unlocking it a mammoth task.

Even though Logan still didn’t know how much Karma regeneration he’d need to unlock [Life Fabricator], it made more sense to allocate his free attributes to wisdom.

Decision made, Logan made the changes.

[Wisdom: 366]

[Wisdom: 367+]

[Wisdom: 365]

As the upgrade surged, the world disappeared, the island, the reek of snake blood and noxious sewage slime fading, Ernie’s chatter turning into a murmur as if he’d stuffed Logan’s ears with cotton.

And in its place….