Chapter 231: Preparation in the Desert (Patreon)

It didn’t take long before I saw what the Sand Hive was.

After meeting the woman in her little caravan, we hitched a ride in the back of one of the covered carts, legs hanging off the back. She had a few hired guards with her, as she said, who walked alongside the carts in big, intimidating suits of armor. It seemed like their jobs were mostly to scare off any prospective bandits from trying to steal the woman’s cargo.

After some conversation with her, I learned that she apparently owned a company that dealt in the transportation of goods for other companies. Right now, she was heading a shipment of steel from some mining town to the capital—evidently, enough steel to warrant an armed guard to ensure nobody took it. Though, I wasn’t sure how some random bandits would manage to sell off three entire carts worth of ingots.

It was during that conversation, though, that I caught my first glimpse of this desert’s wildlife.

Initially, the only one I saw was this large four-legged beast with tusks protruding from its mouth. In the expansive desert, the monster was so far-off that I couldn’t tell how big it actually was, but I assumed it was at least as tall as I was. It wandered the dunes, sniffing idly at the ground.

“Is the Sand Hive just a bunch of those things?” I asked our traveling companion.

“They’re a part of it,” she answered. “Just wait, the rest’ll show up.”

Sure enough, not soon after, some more monsters began to show up, as well. Many were more of the tusked ones, but then I saw a few others. I saw big flying insects that zipped through the air with surprising speed, considering their size. And, though it took me a while to catch a glimpse of one, I could even notice some worm-like things digging through the ground. When I first saw one, I thought it was a Hellion and started panicking, thinking the Demons had somehow beat me here, but then I noticed the differences. First off, they were much thinner and longer, definitely not able to bite your leg off in a single chomp, and their coloring was different. Plus, I had to assume their origins weren’t that of the Underworld, so they were probably a lot less bloodthirsty.

“These things are all part of the same hive?” I asked as we passed along the road. Interestingly enough, none of the monsters ever came near enough for me to examine one up-close. All of my watching was done peering across the wide empty fields of sand dunes into the packs of the things in the distance.

“Pretty much,” she responded. “Sand Stompers, Sand Stingers, and Sand Sifters. Those’re the tusked ones, the flying ones, and the digging ones. They sometimes form smaller colonies and get into little territory disputes and such, but for our sakes, they’re all one big collective. You anger one, you anger them all. Even if you start killing Hivers from a colony that another colony’s at war with, they’ll still drop everything to fight you.”

As we continued traveling further and further down the road, I saw more and more Sand Hive monsters popping up over the horizon. I’d frequently see them all grouped up around some of the larger of those multicolored crystals cropping up from the sand, seemingly eating the glassy rocks. Seemed like we were passing into their territory now.

“Are they hostile?” I asked.

“Only if you really get on their nerves. Just don’t be aggressive, don’t get too close, and don’t mess with the crystals in their territory, and you’ll be fine.”

I went ahead and passed that information along to Ainash, emphasizing the part about not getting too close. Knowing her, I was worried she might try to befriend the things or train them into being her soldiers or whatever. If pissing one off would anger the entire hive…

I looked around us, seeing the hundreds of monsters wandering around off in the horizon. The Sand Stompers lumbered along, the Sand Stingers buzzed from place to place, and presumably the Sand Sifters were doing whatever they did underground—maybe they ate the buried portions of the crystals. Either way, if you got on the bad side of every single one of these things, it’d probably mean a fight that would never end.

Though, thinking of that…

“That’s a lot of XP,” I muttered.

“Don’t even think about it,” the woman responded, as if automatically.

“What?” I asked.

“Do not, for a second, think you could survive a scuffle with the Sand Hive. Not to mention you’ll just get me killed in the crossfire, if you do that, more monsters than you can count’ll be coming for you. And not just today, either. Those things communicate with each other through scent, and when they fight you, they mark you with a special one. One you can’t easily wash off. For as long as you live, you’ll be enemy number one the moment you set foot into this desert.”

“What Level are they?” I asked.

She looked back at me with a serious expression. “It doesn’t matter what Level they are. There are enough of the damn things to kill you no matter what. I don’t care if you’re a particularly cocky bronze plate, or a gold plate that doesn’t realize you’re not a god just because you have a shiny hunk of metal around your neck. If you go against those things, you’ll die. End of story.”

Index, what Level are they?

“The tusked ones go up to Level 30, the winged ones to Level 20, and the worm ones to Level 25.”

Thanks.

“Are you considering going for an XP run? Kill as many as you can for the Levels, then go back to before the fight?”

If they’re weak enough that I can kill a good few before I go down, that seems like a good play. I need to find reasons to use Time Loop anyway since I’ve got Spell Crystals waiting to be used, and I can’t use them until I can go back in time to keep them while still Upgrading my Spells. So this seems like as good an excuse as any.

“Oh, before you go and do that—”

I was gonna wait until nightfall, actually.

“Right, sure. But before you go and kill yourself against these monsters, I want you to do something for me. Remember when you killed that Young Dragon back in Salvation, and when the Goblins were going through its hoard, they found that glowing crystal? The Beacon?”

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot that we even got that. It set itself up in that forest, right? And then we needed to travel super far away before it’d let us set down an ‘anchor point’ or whatever?

“Right, exactly. You’re definitely far enough away now to set down that Anchor Point.”

So you want me to do that now? The location mattered, right? Is this place a good spot for that?

“I can’t tell you very much right now, but this exact spot would probably be a little suboptimal.”

I really wish you could tell me why so I could at least pick a spot on my own.

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to help you do. Pretty much, just go ahead and put down the Anchor Point before you get into that fight you know you’re going to reset. Then, when you use Time Loop, you can go back to before you set it down so nothing’s wasted, and then you get to actually know what it does! And since you know more about it, that means I get to tell you even more, too!”

Oh, that’s actually a really good idea.

“Well of course it’s a good idea. I came up with it.”

Ignoring Index’s cockiness—

“Hey!” Index interrupted my thoughts. “Don’t call me cocky behind my back. I’m omniscient, remember? So it isn’t being cocky, it’s being correct.”

Trying even harder to ignore Index’s cockiness, I went ahead and sent a message to Ainash asking her to pass along everything I talked with it about to Erani, so everyone was in the loop. Then, it was just down to waiting for the right time to start a fight.

Around an hour before midnight was the time I decided was best for bloodshed. That way, I wouldn’t have to spend much time in a situation where I had no Time Loops remaining after I went back post-fight—I still only had a single use remaining because of my fight with Jon. Plus, it seemed like we were beginning to leave the Sand Hive territory, with the monsters starting to thin out as we went further and further. And I wanted to go up against as many of them as possible; lessening the numbers just wouldn’t do.

So I went through my checklist of things to do before starting the fight. First, I looked through my list of Spells, finding all the Spells that needed an Upgrade.

Spells:

Curse of Echoes 9 - XP 355/355

Sanguine Bond 11 - XP 59/623
+Hypnotic Bond

Expedite 9 - XP 355/355

Ethereal Armor 11 - XP 212/623
+Broadened Armor

Gravity Well 11 - XP 21/623
+Taxing Well

Ray of Frost 9 - XP 355/355

Crippling Chill 9 - XP 355/355

Noxious Grasp 19 - XP 688/7.62k
+Venomous Grasp

Currently, in my possession I had two Poison Spell Crystals, and one Curse Spell Crystal, Alteration Spell Crystal, and Arcane Spell Crystal. The two for Poison would be for Noxious Grasp once I got the Spell XP up to the current requirement, and the Arcane couldn’t be used for anything currently, either; all of its Spells were already past the Rank 10 milestone. That left the Curse and Alteration Spell Crystals.

The only thing Alteration could be used on was Expedite, so that was a given. Which meant my main choice right now was which of the Curse candidates I wanted to Upgrade: Crippling Chill, Ray of Frost, or Curse of Echoes.

At the end of the day, it didn’t matter all that much which I chose to go with first, since they’d all get Upgraded eventually, but making the right choice here still mattered. I’d be getting these Upgrades before a fight, and if I could perform better in that fight, I’d be able to kill more enemies before I died, which would mean more XP. So, I turned to my guiding light in situations like these.

Index, got any info for me?

“You’ve got good Upgrades for all three Spells waiting for you, to be honest. I will say that the Curse of Echoes Upgrades won’t help as much for this particular fight, but that’s mainly because the Spell itself is lackluster against these enemies to begin with.”

Yeah, I was already thinking that. The lady was talking about how they communicate through pheromones, so if they put their scent on me, then it doesn’t matter how many copies of me there are in their sight since they can always sniff out the real one. What about between Crippling Chill and Ray of Frost?

“I’d say Ray of Frost will be the more useful Spell overall during the fight since you’re gonna have to deal with flying enemies, but Crippling Chill’s Upgrades might prove to be more impactful. Like normal, there are some options for the Upgrades that provide a simple numerical boost to aspects of the Spell’s functioning, while there are other options that fundamentally change its use cases. In this instance, something like a damage boost would definitely be better if you got it on Ray of Frost. But some of the options for Chill…I like them.”

So you suggest using the Spell Crystal on Crippling Chill, then?

“I think either would be fine, it comes down to your preference.”

Well, I’d really prefer to be fighting those flying Sand Stinger things on my turf, rather than theirs. Bringing them down to the ground and killing them on my level sounds much preferable to trying to snipe them out of the air with Ray of Frost. So, if that’s gonna be my plan, then Crippling Chill would probably be the way to go. And if you like the Upgrades for it, then I’m happy to improve its effectiveness in accomplishing that goal.

Grabbing the two needed Spell Crystals from my bag, I focused my Mana into them and selected the Spells I wanted to Upgrade.

Threshold reached. Expedite XP has reached 355.

Expedite Rank has increased to 10.

Due to Expedite Rank reaching 10, it has undergone the following changes:

Mana Cost: From 68.7 to 85.9

Dexterity Buff: From 31.1 to 32.7

Buff Duration: From 46.5 to 48.8

Expedite Upgrade has become available.

Threshold reached. Crippling Chill XP has reached 355.

Crippling Chill Rank has increased to 10.

Due to Crippling Chill Rank reaching 10, it has undergone the following changes:

Mana Cost: From 56.2 to 70.3

Health Drain: From 7.76 to 8.15

Stamina Drain: From 6.21 to 6.52

Dexterity Debuff: From 15.5 to 16.3

Crippling Chill Upgrade has become available.

In a way, it was almost emotional for me to see Crippling Chill’s numbers change away from their previous values. That Spell had been stuck at Rank 9 for the longest out of any I had, ever since what felt like the beginning of my journey. I’d memorized its cost and damage, having gotten to the point where my mind instantly did shortcuts when working with those numbers. I knew instantly that hitting six enemies with Crippling Chill would set me back by exactly 337.2 Mana, because that was the way it’d always been.

Now I’d finally moved on. And once I finished Upgrading Ray of Frost and Curse of Echoes, that’d be every single one of my Spells past the Rank 10 barrier. It was like the end of an era, in a way.

But that was an era I was glad to end. If the future contains better Spells with bigger numbers, I say head straight for it!

Alright, time to see what those Upgrades are. And to finally see what the fuck that Beacon thing is.