Chapter 15: The Clumsy Shark (Patreon)

The Tavern they just built had taken a lot of real estate, so Coop was surprised when it was also three stories tall. It was a solid wood and stone structure with thick glass windows on the second and third floor. The wooden sign that hung on a pair of chains above the heavy wooden door had the image of a shark drinking a beer with the words The Clumsy Shark etched across it in a curved font. Coop and Jones headed inside.

The scent of something delicious immediately assaulted Coop’s senses. He felt his mouth watering. The main room was large and open, with booths lining the walls, and a long bar that extended across the entire left wall and was only stopped by a wide wooden staircase. The staircase led to a balcony that overlooked the main room from the back. A large fireplace with stools that indicated it could be used for bands or bards was in the center of the wall on their right. A bartender was wiping the bar with a white towel and he called out to the new arrivals as they stepped foot inside.

“Welcome! Welcome to The Clumsy Shark! Just sit anywhere.” The bartender invited. Coop thought he looked like a human until he noticed the two horns poking through his black hair. He had dark eyes underneath a thick brow and a black mustache. Despite being slender, he was a solid looking man with arms thick enough to indicate to Coop that he could throw unruly patrons out if he needed to. The only other oddity was that his ears were pointy and when taken with the horns made him look a bit like a devil. He wore a black leather vest over a white long sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows showing defined forearms.

Coop and Jones sat at the spotless bar and Coop introduced them. “Hey there, I’m Coop and this is Jones.”

“Greetings, I am Desmond. Thank you for selecting our service.” He gave a mostly friendly smile, though he revealed sharp teeth reminiscent of a shark. “You would be the Champion then, yes?”

“Yea, that’s me.” Coop confirmed.

“Excellent.” Desmond smiled wider. “Maeve! Bring two bowls and come meet the Champion!” Desmond yelled over his shoulder, still smiling. “Would you two like anything to drink?” He asked as he returned his focus to Coop and Jones.

They both accepted when the doors to the kitchen swung open. Coop didn’t know what to do with his eyes. The girl that came out was beautiful. She had medium length blonde hair with thick bangs that bounced to her eyes with each step. Her large brown eyes were half-lidded and she had an easy smile directed at Coop. She wore a stereotypical medieval waitress outfit with puffy white shoulders and a mostly white apron, but the skirt was short and the neckline was dangerous. A large gold crystal that glittered in the firelight sat just below her collar bone accentuating the low cut. The only unusual feature other than her beauty was that she also had pointed ears that extended through her wavy blonde hair. Unlike Desmond she looked like an elf.

Coop ended up watching his drink intently as she leaned over the counter to serve both of them bowls of stew. “How are you two doing? I’m Maeve. If you need anything just holler for me!” She greeted with a casual cheer that all waitresses master.

Suddenly, the front door swung open with unnecessary force, and Balor appeared. He yelled, “Ale!” and Desmond had a mug filled and served before Balor even sat down. Balor put his finger on the bar and a number floated to which Desmond nodded.

“What was that?” Coop asked, indicating Balor's finger.

Maeve was the first to respond, “That’s how you transfer credits.” She giggled. “You just do some motion and concentrate on the transfer and the system takes care of it.”

Coop tried it, using a similar motion with his finger on the bar, a bill appeared in his vision and he transferred 10 basic credits, the price for the two drinks and two bowls of stew. The number 10 floated above his finger. Maeve gave a sweet smile before she held her palm up to her chin and lightly blew with a wink and the number three appeared in her palm before Coop received three credits.

When Coop looked confused, she explained, “That’s your cut as Champion of the settlement. All service buildings will pay a portion of their profits to you.” She gave another charming smile. “It helps motivate Champions to facilitate business.” She shrugged.

“Anyway, Pa’ takes care of the drinks and the cooking and I take care of the waitressing and lodging. So, if you need a bed, you come let me know… Champions stay for free.” She gave a wide smile that made Coop think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to stay every once in a while. As she returned to the kitchen, she called over her shoulder to the watching Coop, “A Well-Rested buff is guaranteed!” before she disappeared behind the swinging doors.

Only after she had been gone did Coop realize she had revealed that Desmond was her father. Coop brought his attention back to the stew that had excited him so much when he entered the Tavern.

It was delicious and he and Jones had finished their bowls before Balor could finish his fourth mug. Jones excitedly pointed out that he had finally received a buff for eating. Coop checked and he also had a buff called Well-Fed that increased all of his stats by five and increased his regeneration rate by 25% for two hours.

Jones asked Desmond how it worked, and Desmond explained that the buff was caused by the mana in the ingredients. Apparently, all the food from before mana was assimilated would be inert which is why they had failed to generate any buffs previously. Coop’s suspicions were confirmed.

As they were chatting Coop and Jones received a notification. Leaderboards had unlocked. Coop quickly found how to access them and checked the individual leaderboards. He was prompted to confirm his identity was Coop. He confirmed, wondering if the system knew it was really a nickname, or if that even mattered to the system.

His position was 183,801,312.

It was a huge number. At first Coop felt disheartened, but was it really that bad? He really couldn’t say. There had been eight billion humans to start with, and most of them should have been offered sponsorships. The question was how many had already returned, and how many wouldn’t be on the list because they were still receiving training.

His position dropped by the hundreds as he watched it. He noticed it go up one place occasionally as well, and he briefly wondered why, before the sobering realization that someone ranked above him had died. He didn’t even want to consider how many people had already died.

He didn’t like looking at his rank. He could view the top 10,000 as well as his own individual rank. He noted that it specified it was the Human leaderboard, but it didn’t seem like he could view any others if there were any. He wanted to see the burrowing owl leaderboard. Instead he just looked at the top 10.

Day 10

1. The Lich (Level 44)
2. Zombie Lord (Level 36)
3. Banshee (Level 35)
4. Hai Yun (Level 26)
5. Minu Misra (Level 25)
6. Rawiri Winiata (Level 25)
7. Tzultacaj (Level 25)
8. Hu Wei (Level 25)
9. Amawashi Haruto (Level 25)
10. Alex Nova (Level 25)

Seeing the first place level, he sucked air through his teeth. How the hell did someone reach level 44 already? He was level 14! And what was with the creepy name? Actually, all of the top 3 names were clearly associated with the undead, and there was a huge level gap between them and the rest. They didn’t seem shy about revealing sponsorships with the undead.

The rest of the top 10 appeared to have used their real names, he didn’t want to reveal his ignorance by guessing their nationalities. Their levels made more sense to Coop. Scrolling through the rest of the top 10,000 he found that they were all level 25. Other than Hai Yun, no one had gone beyond yet. He felt it was a safe bet to assume that was the limit the factions were capable of pushing their Chosen to in the first 10 days.

Coop felt a lot more comfortable trying to chase down level 25 than level 44. It seemed like the order they were positioned was based on when they hit the level. None of the level 25s were overtaking each other.

He wished he could compare himself to those who didn’t receive power leveling from factions, but it was useless to complain. In the long run, he wasn’t sure if the first 30 days would truly be that consequential. If they were running a marathon it would be like getting a head start of only a few seconds. The guidance and knowledge the factions possessed would probably be more valuable.

He checked the settlement leaderboards and they were just completely empty. No settlements had upgraded beyond the camp stage yet. It made sense with the first requirement of being held for 11 days. He would check later, sure that it would start populating over the next few days.

He realized they would need a name for their settlement. His first thought was to keep the real name of the islands, Ghost Reef. He brought it up with Jones, he was a bit more eager to keep the name, after a lifetime he was attached to it. That was fine with Coop.

Coop excused himself to go grind Ancient Defenders. He was motivated to push his level as soon as possible and he wanted to take advantage of the Well-Fed buff that still had most of its duration left.

—

Prime Commander Zalanth was unbelievably frustrated with these barbaric humans. Normally, she was unflappable. After a lifetime of service for her faction she had developed supreme patience. These humans though, she couldn’t wait to be rid of them. She had lived an honorable life for the glory of her God Empress, training generations of the citizen-warriors that made up the The Endless Empire. The Empress had decreed their purpose was conquest, and thus it was.

She had been denied the honor of dying for her Empress during the last sanctioned war, surviving until their victory, and had been directed to instruct rather than fight in the next. It was a disappointment to be denied a future honorable death, but no one in the Endless Empire would reject any opportunity to serve the Empress. She put everything she had into commanding the primary training facilities of the Empire, taking the responsibility of instructing as seriously as battle.

The Empress had seen fit to provide the gift of sponsorship to primitives in a bid to control a newly assimilated planet. It was unusual, as the Empire primarily challenged other factions where they could employ their own military might rather than rely on the proxy competition that newly assimilated planets underwent. The Empress had recognized something in the humans that she found compelling enough to strike early for.

Commander Zalanth would never consciously doubt the wisdom of her Empress, unquestioning loyalty was deeply embedded into her heart, but she still came close after interacting with humans for the last standard 10-day cycle. She was the prime commander overseeing the instruction and training of their 100,000 Chosen. At least, it should have been 100,000 Chosen. The heretical primitives were wildly unpredictable even from the start.

Almost a full third of their offered sponsorships had been flat out rejected during the required interview. An unbelievable figure for any faction, let alone one as exalted as the Endless Empire. A fortune in victorious sponsorship bids evaporated without providing anything in return.

Lesser factions would have collapsed after that first setback, insolvent, with their corpses picked apart by their galactic competition. But the Empire was robust, with experience under a wartime economy which they found themselves shifting to, despite a depressing lack of true battlefields. They soldiered on, only to discover it was only the beginning of the difficulties.

These humans had ridiculous notions of freedom and were stubbornly undisciplined. Even the individuals who accepted the sponsorship were a constant disappointment. They demanded explanations and would refuse orders they disagreed with under naive notions of morality. They were distrustful of the Empire’s people, and painfully difficult to coordinate even amongst their fellow humans. Zalanth was at the limit of her creativity trying to find ways to motivate the primitives. Even the timid ones would quietly listen, indicate that they understood, and then make their own unique decisions. It was infuriating. No one in the Empire would dare question or disobey in such a way.

To make matters worse, Zalanth had never seen more promising individuals when it came to mana. Many of the humans would have easily become elites in the Empire if judged solely on classes and affinity. They would have been showered in wealth, groomed to become specialists, operatives, or generals. Of course, a single interview would send them to prison or exile instead, given their personalities. No one in the Empire tolerated blasphemy toward their God Empress.

These foolish humans had rare affinities at unheard of rates. A few of them even had more than one affinity to begin with, such an extraordinary event that every single time it had happened in the Empire it had been the start of a new era. Classes appeared that the Empire had never seen before in the entire universe, revealing new possibilities that could alter the way battles were conducted for all civilizations. They had a natural harmony with the system that other species would take generations to reach despite coming from a planet absent of mana, instantly able to understand the menus and intuitively activate their skills. It was infuriating.

The Endless Empire always planned on victory. Their campaign on Earth was no different. They chose a tactically sound location and gathered an army of individuals with the intention of monopolizing any civilization shards in the region. Suitable prospects were given accelerated programs and returned to the planet as early as possible with the intention of hunting down and claiming any shards in the region, with instructions for prepping the settlement to become the headquarters for the Empire’s operation.

A second group would be returned after 10 days. These would be organized in structured parties of five who would confirm the success of the shard claiming and eliminate potential threats in a slowly expanding perimeter before the threats could establish themselves.

The final group would be sent after 20 days to fortify their holdings and consolidate the region before beginning the campaign to conquer the planet over the next 111 years.

Every day that they kept training each individual Chosen was an expense just as significant as the initial sponsorship itself. Most factions returned their Chosen as soon as possible to avoid compounding the costs. Yet, these humans did not grovel on their knees in supplication as they should, when given access to the training facilities for days and weeks. Their first inclination was to leverage their positions instead, claiming they would never be slaves, they bowed to no one, and shouted ridiculous things like freedom or death!

The plan remained, but Zalanth was already worried. From the beginning, shortcomings appeared. It was essentially a roll of the dice determining which Chosen would also make a suitable Champion for their settlements. If their loyalty faltered it would handicap the Empire’s entire strategy since they would hold control of their settlements.

The other problem was that there were just so many humans on their planet. Forces larger than their own were possible, even in the region they intended to dominate at the start. The second group could be annihilated if a different faction had made their move faster than the Empire. Zalanth didn’t understand how humans had grown so numerous under pre-mana conditions.

The second group would be sent soon, and as Zalanth looked over the gathering battalion, grouping into 100 person batteries composed of the five person structured parties, she harbored even more doubts. She begged forgiveness from her God-Empress for her errant thoughts, but she doubted the humans would deliver their planet to the Empire.