Chapter 278: Fork in the Road (Patreon)

It didn’t take long before Coop was presented with another fork in the road. Despite the compelling advice granted by Neon Park’s leadership, he ended up having to make his own decisions soon enough.

“Figures.” He mumbled to himself. No matter how much he desired to embrace the mindless grinds, he sometimes had to use his brain.

The Underlayer blurred time and distance more than the manipulations of mana already had, but he was still confident in his own actions. Despite feeling like he made no progress at all, his mistjumps had carried him a few hundred miles away from the tamed territory of Neon Park and its subordinates. If he had to assign a specific number he would have said he passed over 350 miles of smooth dirt plains. How many miles that translated to on the surface was unknown, but depending on the exact direction he was actually traveling, he imagined he was anywhere from Northern Ontario, to Quebec, or Newfoundland.

Other than the rare column acting as a landmark, he hadn’t encountered anything of note. He knew enough about Canada to recognize how sparsely populated it grew in its north, so not finding any control points representing settlements on the surface was relatively unsurprising.

There, approximately 350 miles beyond Neon Park’s territory, the tunnel of the Underlayer presented him with a choice. Continue in what he assumed was north-ish, or veer left in what he imagined was a more westward direction?

As far as he could tell, the Underlayer had consisted of completely linear, but extraordinarily wide tunnels. He found it unlikely that it was actually perfectly straight, but the deviations from Ghost Reef up the east coast of North America had been so subtle he wouldn’t have been able to identify them if they were there at all. Somehow, it felt like the tunnel had traveled in an entirely straight line from Ghost Reef to Neon Park and beyond. It encompassed locations as far apart as Boston and West Virginia without any obvious turns, stretching wide enough to mask its walls behind a veil of clear pure mana that thickened the air when he peered into the distance.

Coop would never be able to tell if the path shifted as he was only a tiny speck within its massive framework. To make matters worse, for all he knew, the tunnels could also be fluctuating up and down at small angles, or growing wider in certain sections. The dirt plains offered no real clues on elevation changes either. He shuddered at the idea of the tunnels actually including sharp turns and steep inclines, like a massive roller coaster, while mana played with his senses, making it all seem straight and flat. Luckily, he had already encountered enough connections to the surface to be relatively sure such extreme changes were unlikely.

His efforts to compare the underground layer to the surface probably weren’t helping himself draw a picture anyway. The surface of the Earth had been drastically changed at the start of the assimilation, probably as a result of the formation of the Underlayer in the first place. He might as well have been exploring a completely new planet that merely imitated Earth’s geography. If he fingerpainted the globe from memory it would be more likely to be accurate than a precise replica of the surface as they knew it before mana activated.

Coop shook his head at the thought. It wasn’t like they could do anything about that. He’d have to rely on his more cartographic minded companions to make sense of everything in the long run.

The path in the Underlayer was wide enough that he had been forced to drift hundreds of miles east or west in order to investigate possible landmarks in the distance, further throwing off his own grasp of direction. While he was confident he hadn’t missed anything, the distances still revealed the full extent of the underground. 

Objectives had appeared beneath settlements all across the underground, falling on either edge of the tunnel he happened to occupy. Did settlements always have the Underlayer directly below? It sure seemed like it, but did that mean the entire planet contained a hollow layer, and the walls of the Underlayer abutted more tunnels in order to account for the small amount of mobility of the civilization shards? If that was the case, the massive pillars must have been doing a lot of work, structurally, to maintain the globe.

The one fork in the road north of Neptune’s Bridge had been the main exception to the linear path he followed from Ghost Reef. He could add the one onramp that Neon Park was planning on traveling, assuming it took them across the continent as a second known extension of the highway. 

Coop only spent a few seconds recognizing the fork beneath Canada before he stuck to the right side, continuing in the same direction he had already been going. His logic was simple, preferring to avoid accidental redundancy while keeping an eye out for any sneaky settlements that hadn’t been contacted by Neon Park. If there were Primal Constructs marking their locations, he would find them.

As he repeated his mistjumps, he had a few second thoughts. The north pole wasn’t exactly known for established settlements even before the assimilation, but he felt confident that he would find something eventually. If it was Ghost Reef after completely circling the globe, it would be all the better, so he pressed on.

It didn’t take long for the gap between settlements to start feeling like the one between Neptune’s Bridge and Shenandoah. It was oppressively empty, presenting fewer columns than even the largest stretches he had seen before. He checked the leaderboards to distract from the loneliness of the empty world of dirt.

Underlayer Event Settlement Scores:

1. Ghost Reef - 7,702,671 (x1)

2. Neon Park - 5,808,973 (x13)

3. Beantown - 2,108,542 (x5)

4. Cherry Hill - 1,141,211 (x3)

5. La Piedra - 690,000 (x3)

6. Toronto - 446,831 (x2)

7. Aotearoa New Zealand - 324,247 (x5)

8. Akagera - 252,,582 (x2)

9. Shenandoah Confluence - 106,566 (x1)

10. Niagara - 104,465 (x1)

Coop grunted to himself in between mistjumps as he made some quick estimates. Was there a chance for Ghost Reef to beat Neon Park? They were approximately a fifth of the way through the duration of the Underlayer Event and Neon Park’s score wouldn’t increase much further than it already had, if it gained at all.

Their final score would be around 75,000,000? Ghost Reef was on pace to reach almost 40,000,000 but he was just ramping up. If he cut out the first days of progressing his skills and exploring the extent of the event, only counting the time he spent after Cherry Hill, the numbers actually looked to be in favor of Ghost Reef. Say, three days to get six million? Ghost Reef could end with more than 80,000,000 points at that rate. Coop hadn’t thought it would be possible to even get close enough to spark hope at all.

If Ghost Reef could be in range of Neon Park, he had to reevaluate their chances overall. The other mega settlements hadn’t really made much progress either, but it was too soon to count them out. Most of Neon Park’s score that had been earned without Coop was accumulated in the first four or so days. Any other force could take their time and organize themselves before doing the same. It would only take a few days to gain millions of points before adding the multipliers.

Then again, there were really only about eight settlements that had high enough multipliers to beat Ghost Reef’s current pace. Coop ran through the list as he traveled, wondering if he could glean their geographic locations based on their names. Would it be too much gamesmanship to prioritize visiting them over others?

He wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t like the tunnels of the Underlayer gave him that much flexibility. But if he could clear half their control points for the super settlements, as a favor, there was a possibility of Ghost Reef competing for the top spot.

He convinced himself that it wouldn’t hurt to keep them in mind, and a few of them seemed like they genuinely needed help. Shinjuku Gardens, the single settlement with a x25 challenge assessment was firmly in the negatives, though after its initial faltering it had simply disengaged completely. Then there was Gangcheon, the Korean settlement with a x15 multiplier which while positive, had also stagnated after gaining around 10,000 points. He supposed if he was in the neighborhood, he might as well prioritize visiting both places.

In the solitary confinement that was the Underlayer, his aspirations provided his only amusement. Recognizing that making it to what was basically the opposite side of the world was a bit too ambitious, even at his current level, so he just chuckled at himself. There were hundreds of settlements he would surely see before then.

It seemed like a major factor determining scores would be in others’ ability to deal with the Siege Bosses. Neon Park had four by itself, and though they had managed to defeat one, the experience had been discouraging enough that they were already exploring alternatives by the time Coop arrived. He wouldn’t be surprised if some of the other larger settlements had only fought until they realized the escalation of power the Primal Constructs had been allowed to bring into the Underlayer Event.

Coming back down to reality, the Shinjuku Gardens multiplier was actually still far out of reach. Even if they killed zero monsters, if Coop cleared their settlement on their behalf, and they only had an invasion force equal to Neon Park’s, when it would logically be even larger, they would end up with a final score as high as 125,000,000. Coop shook his head at how far out of reach it was, and no matter how competitive he was feeling, he wouldn’t leave their objectives alone just to secure his own settlement’s victory, should it come to that. The system was unfair like that, almost encouraging the victims of an assimilation to fight amongst themselves until a single final stronghold stood against the planetary sponsors.

The others with high enough multipliers to watch out for were Nyiragongo, Can Gio, Silvervalley, Englischer Garten, and Ordesa. Other than Silvervalley, which he knew was the hub of the Pacific Republic settlements, his ignorance was too much. He wasn’t even willing to guess on the locations of the first two, but the latter two seemed vaguely European. Maybe they weren’t too far to stumble upon.

He checked the individual leaderboard just for fun, guessing that he was firmly extending his lead.

Underlayer Event Individual Scores:

1. Coop - 6,990,671 (+5,652,671)

2. Neon - 123,829 (+15,674)

3. Emmanuel Seraphin - 121,164 (+121,164)

4. Sila Tupua - 121,048 (+109,319)

5. Sefu - 120,836 (+109,562)

6. Charlie Seraphin - 56,612 (+56,612)

7. Gibson - 35,905 (+35,905)

8. Platinum - 34,761 (+20,483)

9. Jose Molina - 29,495 (+29,244)

10. Camila Alvarez - 29,120 (+25,756)

Coop winced at his own score, actually finding it hard to look at. It didn’t really make sense for him to be that far ahead of everyone else. But compared to Ghost Reef’s score, it was actually lower than it should have been, not that he was complaining about a surprise boon. It was when he started looking at the rest of the list that his apprehension for his own score was quickly replaced by concern for the others. Familiar names were taking up half of the top 10.

Was Ghost Reef under attack? He hesitated before letting another mistjump carry him even further away, planting his feet in the dirt as he reassessed the leaderboard. At this point he was getting pretty far from home. If he had to return, he guessed it would take less than half a day of straight mistjumping without stopping before he made it to familiar ground, but in an emergency that was a long time. If he had to walk, he imagined it would take closer to a week.

However, it seemed unlikely that they needed his help, especially considering the actual scores they were putting up. There was no way one of the smallest settlements on the planet was being assaulted by enough enemies for the defenders to gain hundreds of thousands of points in a few days. For all the faults of the system, it was pretty consistent about strictly limiting the planetary sponsor during the assimilation.

It seemed far more likely that they had begun their own campaign to clear settlements. They’d had enough time to get organized while Coop was working his way through Neon Park’s holdings. Several notable names were also maintaining the exact same score as they had been after the start. People like Elder Olani, Shane, Arthur, the Cleary Brothers, and even Jones hadn’t gained any points at all, which made him think they had split up in some fashion. If they were defending an assault on Ghost Reef, they all would have increased their scores.

He double checked the settlement leaderboards and came to the conclusion that La Piedra had been visited by Ghost Reef’s expeditionary army. That was a relief in multiple different ways. It took pressure off him, increasing the settlement score aside from his own contributions and also reduced the number of settlements he would have to aim to visit. For all of his success, he wasn’t on pace to clear every settlement on the planet before the event ended, though he wasn’t sure how important that still was when he could help clear the surface in the days after the event as well.

Emmanuel had apparently defeated a Siege Boss. He joined the likes of Neon and two names that periodically made their way onto various leaderboards in Sila Tupua and Sefu. Meanwhile Charlie was proving the strength of her build and its massive area damage, climbing the leaderboards with what he guessed were primarily Elite Primal Construct kills. She really was in a league of her own when it came to area effects.

Coop may have been overshadowing the rest of the world at the moment, but they weren’t slacking off either, and he wasn’t only considering his companions from Ghost Reef. They were awesome in their own right, but others were clearly excelling elsewhere in the world.

The fact that two other groups had downed a Siege Boss was a major accomplishment, adding to what Neon Park had also achieved. While there were plenty of locations that would need Coop to visit, the rest of the world obviously wasn’t completely helpless, and many were showing that they were prepared for the level of challenge presented by the system events, at the very least.

Coop kept it moving, confident that Ghost Reef didn’t need his help. It seemed like parts of the rest of the world wouldn’t need it either, but that just shifted his priorities back toward accumulating points instead of saving lives: a much more comfortable position for him to be in.

The hypnotizing effect of the Underlayer weighed on his consciousness, but it was easily overpowered by his desire to find more Primal Constructs. He glanced at his own status, finding comfort in the fact that he was already averaging five levels a day for the duration of the event so far. The simple increase in levels, adding five attribute points to his Mind stat each time was satisfying, even if his skill choices continued in the same vein as before.

[Status]

HP - 23500/23500

MP - 44500/44500

Class - Revenant (Level 290)

Profession - Scavenging (Level 181)

Affinity - Spectral, Abyssal

Race - Human (Rank 1)

Faction - The Lighthouse

Strength - 125 (+4450)

Agility - 125 (+2225)

Body - 125 (+2225)

Mind - 3560 (+890)

Intelligence - 125 (+4450)

Acumen - 125 (+2225)

Unallocated - 0

Titles - Champion IV, Haunted, Ethereal, Reaper II, Slayer XI, Dauntless, Stacked, Defiant, Siegebreaker, Mindbender, Valor XXIV, Dedicated, Dynamo

Skills (Active) - Mistwalking

Skills (Passive) - Mind Over Matter, Adamance, Practical Application, Arcane Comprehension, Clarity of Purpose, Reverence (Rank 2)

Quests - Fortune Seeker (22/50), Upgrade City to Metropolis

Basic Credits - 15,111,836

Could he actually gain 200 levels in one event? While he expected the experience gains to continue to taper off, he also thought he could keep ramping up the kills. 40 levels was already a ridiculous amount, but settlement events were substantially rewarding. Even people around Neon Park had gained that much, and they had only really interacted with a small portion of their assault, thanks to Coop.

They were all getting stronger, though Coop was having to work a bit harder to keep his gains proportional. It might have seemed unfair, but he was completely unbothered.

While he dreamed of unreasonable progress, he spotted yet another pillar in the distance. The sight shook him from his daydreams since there was a thin string of smoke rising from near its base. Coop surprisingly stumbled upon more people before he found more Primal Constructs.