Chapter 109: Forward (Patreon)

Coop was wielding an ethereal bo staff as he finished off the last of the Ruin Excavators for the quest line. The pearlescent chamber was getting a break from the constant smashing that normally accompanied his morning star hunting sessions. Instead, the bo staff cracked down on the carapaces of the monsters, smashing them just as efficiently as his heavier mace, but with a larger emphasis on speed instead of pure strength.

He should have been working on proper technique while incorporating the weapon into his arsenal, but he felt inclined to use it like a blunt spear instead. The problem was that a blunt spear was perfect for taking advantage of the Excavators’ physical weaknesses and lack of range, and Coop already had so much experience with his spear that it just felt natural to default back to his original weapon’s techniques. As long as he practiced, he would slowly develop his own style thanks to the nudging of his Haunted title. Ledwidge might not be happy with his personal touch, but if it was effective, Coop didn’t care if it ended up ugly.

The Ruin Excavators were defeated either way, and if he asked them, he didn’t think they would have a preference on the matter of his technical expertise. Coop basically spawn camped an entire chamber as his quest drew closer to completion.

[You defeated Ruin Excavator (Level 33)]

[+20 Basic Credits]

[+1 Soul Dredger (Uncommon)]

[Congratulations! Your profession has leveled up!]

[Defeat Ruin Excavators V (10616/11111)]

He continued on his rotation while his thoughts wandered to his upcoming skill choice. He was anxious about it. It would be his first time seeing any skill options after selecting the Path of the Mistwalker. Even though it started with Arcane Comprehension, he had to admit that the name of the path didn’t really imply that it would lend itself to a spellcaster choices.

Obviously, it was too late to do anything about that, so he’d just have to wait and see. No matter what, he’d make the best of it, and he’d have his strong foundation to fall back on in the worst case. It was all the more reason to continue mastering more weapons and further improving his mana costs through Practical Application.

Coop squeezed the bo staff as he leveraged the full length of the weapon into a whirling smash that crushed the carapace of a Ruin Excavator. What the weapon lacked in heft, when compared to his morning star, it made up with velocity. Instead of the solid, weighty thump reverberating through the chamber that followed his morning star’s slams, each attack was preceded by a whirling rush of air as one of the ends of the staff flew toward his targets, then a crack that echoed after it collided with the metal monsters.

He had to keep himself from making extraneous flourishes as he enjoyed the whooshing of the bo staff’s swift movements through the air. It didn’t help that the ghostly wisps of his ethereal weapons highlighted the exaggerated motions, turning them into painterly strokes of teal colored art for fleeting moments before the trail scattered.

More than any of his other weapons, the bo staff seemed to lend itself to incorporating his own limbs as well. He’d never had the urge to kick and punch as much as he did while wielding the bo staff when his grip shifted, though he also refrained from getting too close to the Excavators. There was no reason to expose himself to their debuffs, but he kept the idea in mind.

Coop wondered if Ledwidge would be able to help him incorporate hand to hand combat into his technique given that the Knight Marshal was a tree. Would he be able to properly account for human limbs? It might be something Coop should try learning on his own. It certainly seemed like it would be a good idea to learn how to fight more while disarmed. He knew how to throw a punch, but that was about it, and there had already been a few situations where he had needed to resort to an unarmed attack or two. When he acquired the ability to conjure his own weapons, and the ability to resummon them at will, he thought he was completely immune to losing them in combat. However, the Empire’s Soul Tether and the Avatar of the System had both been able to restrict his active abilities and therefore his weapons. He couldn’t ignore the possibility of similar effects floating around, even if unarmed combat would remain low on his list of priorities with so much else to do.

After a handful more cycles around the entirety of the eastern pearlescent chamber, Coop finally got the level he was waiting for. He immediately changed directions, heading for the entrance, and with one last glance to the blue tinged underground cavern, bade farewell to the Excavators. He checked his notifications while he went on his way, back through the dank basement.

[You defeated Ruin Excavator (Level 32)]

[+22 Basic Credits]

[Quest Complete! Defeat Ruin Excavators V]

[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]

[Slayer title upgraded!]

Slayer IV at last. Another 100 Mind in the bank, or 110 now that his Siegebreaker title added 10%. Coop was smiling as he returned to the sunlit courtyard, satisfied as he took yet another step forward in his personal progress. He was level 98 already, an absolutely massive number in his opinion, and an achievement he hadn’t imagined when his journey first began.

Though, he had to admit that each Slayer title was becoming less impressive as his total levels continued to climb. He understood why the aliens didn’t emphasize chasing the 100 bonus stats, since it was ‘just’ 20 levels worth of growth. When Coop got his first Slayer title, he was level 23, so it nearly matched the total stats his class levels had awarded him. Now that he was nearly level 100, it wasn’t as huge of a step forward. He imagined being level 1,000.

Coop decided then and there, as he crossed Balor’s stone bridge, that he’d never look down on the bonus stats he was accumulating. So what if he was level 1,000? He would aim to have 50 Slayer titles by then. He would keep collecting every bit of growth, no matter how incremental, and then he would hunt down more percentage bonuses so that even the tiniest margins were meaningful. As long as the opportunities presented themselves, he would do his best to take advantage of them.

There was no denying his desire to become an absolute stat monster, with passives that multiplied his attributes to absurd levels. He hadn’t come across another class that matched the snowballing foundation he had developed. In fact, stats seemed to almost be an afterthought when it came to gauging relative potential of a class for the broader universe. Stat advantages were perceived as a secondary bonus outshined by a primary advantage. The scale of levels broke the common sense calculations. One class gets more stats? Just get more levels to catch up!

Charlie’s Aeromancer was the perfect example of a class that benefited from stat conversions, but was considered superior due to other factors. Her area coverage understandably drew all of the attention when evaluating her abilities, but with her Acumen feeding into Intelligence, she effectively reduced what would have been four mandatory stats into three.

When she distributed her attributes, she would be that much more efficient than a class without any conversion. And that was ignoring the fact that even casters would be tempted to put points into Agility, for the physical speed, in addition to Intelligence, Acumen, Body, and Mind. Over thousands of levels, Charlie would come out extremely far ahead in terms of raw stats in the attributes that affected her skills.

However, the evaluation of mandatory stats was purely from Coop’s perspective, where he believed being well-rounded, individually effective, and durable were the most important factors. He didn’t want anyone to die! Not to mention each class seemed unique enough to require specific considerations instead of such overly broad directions.

Factions like the Eternal Empire were looking at it from a very different, and much more impersonal perspective. They wanted hyper-focused party or raid members who distributed their stats in order to specialize in a single role. If they had their way, the difference between Charlie and another caster, in terms of stats, would be zero. They would both put all five of each level’s unallocated points into Intelligence, ignoring the individual benefits of unique classes and personal skills. Therefore, the only difference would be that an Aeromancer had a bigger area of effect than another caster. They didn’t seem to bother accounting for the specific ratios that might maximize the skills of each individual class, opting for the simplest possible standards instead.

Coop thought it wasn’t an entirely unreasonable determination, though it left a lot of potential on the table. The galactic community wasn’t exactly wrong. It was just a different perspective where their members were simply units in an army. If he was forming a raid in a video game, there’s no way he would invite a damage dealer that wasn’t optimized for damage, and he wouldn’t waste time micromanaging the individual variance between each unit while directing an army.

Camila, similarly, ignored Strength in favor of Agility based momentum damage. Coop thought that should be enough to consider her class elite, but in her case, they concentrated on her movement abilities instead. He would have figured they were sleeping on damage mitigation as a valuable resource, but if Camila had selected the class they wanted, she would have been a pure tank for Charlie, who would have been a pure damage dealer. As a package, they would collectively cover each others’ bases.

Between Charlie’s legendary Aeromancer, which seemed to be widely accepted as top tier, and Camila’s Interceptor, which she took to the dismay of her faction, Coop would honestly put them near each other in terms of advantages. Everyone in the universe would probably have their own tier lists when it came to classes and Coop’s own biases contrasted with the Empire’s.

Meanwhile, Coop’s Revenant skills were something else completely. He wasn’t distributing his stats at all. Forget about the efficiency of going from four stats to three, he spent all his points in one. For his personal tier list, that put Revenant firmly at the top, but he wouldn’t be surprised if factions thought his class was pitiful. He was doing all of his damage without active abilities, like some kind of plebeian, poking millions of monsters with his pathetic spear. So what if he had as much Intelligence as one of their pure casters? They had skills with multipliers on them. It would take some truly special scaling to keep up with their multipliers, though that’s what Coop had been chasing.

He wondered how many of their pure casters had massive investments into Agility so that they could match the speed of any fighter they faced, or how many rogues had huge stacks of Mind to negate the dangers of area spells attempting to counter them. Both were options that Coop intended to meet. How many pure casters even had atrociously large mana pools, like Coop’s? He admitted there were innumerable possibilities in the universe, and he didn’t have to go that far to find some examples of weirder builds, the Tomb Blade in Shane’s party was a Strength based caster for one, but they still had to distribute their points and water themselves down relative to what he was doing.

Coop nodded to himself, feeling eager to get his next skill and see what limits his stats could push. He had high expectations for when he could call his build ‘complete,’ and he wasn’t even close to that point yet.

The mangrove forest lay in front of him, darkened by the thick canopy of leaves like it was twilight in the middle of the day, with only occasional strips of sunlight penetrating to the marsh at the bottom. The steady sounds of the ocean breeze were diminished inside the still forest, leaving the dense carpet of leaves and interwoven branches motionless and relatively quiet. Only a few bird calls and ever present droning insects shattered the illusion of a forest frozen like a photograph.

He was at the end of one of the new stone-lined trails that led across the island with plenty of daylight left, and he was only making a relatively short visit, since he was still on the defeat 25 stage of the quest lines for both Devourers and Serpents. It should be two quick levels from the pair of monsters to hit another major level threshold.

He summoned his ethereal trident and picked a root trail to follow deeper into the oversized grove. The oversized stilt roots of the mangroves were broad trails with rough surfaces for him to follow deeper into the habitat. They made traversing the maze easy, as long as he could keep track of his directions.

Once he was far enough from the edge of the forest to start spotting several monsters, he dropped down into the dark water, letting his feet sink into the leaf-covered muck. As soon as he stabilized, he unleashed his Fog of War, establishing a thin layer that coated the surface of the calm water.

The goal wasn’t to discourage the Serpents from finding him, but rather allow him to leverage Presence of Mind to detect when they approached his position. The misty layer spread throughout the area until it consumed half of his nearly 15,000 mana. No breeze was able to penetrate the thick canopy and intertwined roots and branches, so it was an efficient use of his skill. Coop’s skills made him particularly comfortable in the mangrove environment, one that would be particularly inhospitable for most others.

Even before he made more of a commotion, he was able to detect dozens of the monsters as they idled between roots in the calm water. They disturbed the surface just enough to make tiny ripples that bounced between obstacles, turning the shallow swamp into a radar screen to his senses.

Coop used the prongs of his trident to splash around, making a ruckus that was guaranteed to gather the Serpents’ attention. As soon as he started, the aggressive monsters immediately started bee-lining to his location. A few splashes and they behaved as if dinner was served. Coop stood still and waited for the first ones to get into his range.

He had already defeated tens of thousands of these types of monsters during the siege, but the environment was different enough to force him to commit to an altered plan. He wouldn’t be able to kite them as effectively thanks to the quagmire of muddy water and thick muck bottom. Instead, he would hold his ground and preemptively strike with the help of Fog of War and Presence of Mind.

When the first monster prepared to lunge, expanding its bladed fins in an aggressive posture, it received a nasty surprise. Coop threw his trident and pierced the monster through the head while it was still beneath the water.

When the next Serpent dove through the dispersing mana smoke, shearing the water with its dorsal blade while the rest of its body remained just an inch beneath the surface, the prongs of Coop’s ethereal trident pierced through the thin layer of liquid before penetrating its toughened scales. The second Serpent was driven into the muck and defeated while the trident disappeared, resummoned to Coop’s hand to dispatch the next.

Coop stood like a turret, applying Presence of Mind to track and select his targets, then he deftly launched his trident to preemptively intercept the attacks of the Serpents. After a minute, he was already halfway done, defeating a dozen of the monsters. He needed to relocate to get the attention of more, which was easy enough. A simple throw and mistjump and he was in a fresh hunting ground. Another two minutes and he lit up the murky swamp with light of level 99.

He mistjumped back onto the roots, and began a search for the Devourers that would bring him over the top, leaving his foggy domain behind. The Devourers were more frequently found deeper in the forest, so he let himself be drawn even further, not overly worried about Field Boss surprises after both of the known resident monsters had their bosses defeated during the siege. He replaced his trident with another of his new weapons in his ethereal arsenal.

The battle staff emanated ghostly mists as Coop held it at the center. Both ends were topped with cylindrical mace heads, the same width as the wooden shaft, but lined with four rows of metallic teeth, separated 90 degrees from each other. It was like a baby version of his morning star’s deadly spike ball.

He already knew he could overpower the Devourer’s with raw Strength, but he would take the path of least resistance when it came to finishing off the next stage of the quest. A blunt weapon made more sense against the sturdy protection of the shelled monsters. He wouldn’t have to dance around in order to get underneath the tanky creature either.

It only took a few awkward swings before he found the proper stance and grip. Admittedly, Coop had no idea what he was doing with any of the weapons to begin with, he could barely identify their particularities without someone else’s help. Coop had previously swung just about everything like a baseball bat or a sledge hammer, where he needed to grip the end of the weapon opposite of the striking area. However, the battle staff was a lot more rigid in that it required his hands to be nearer to the center. Swinging it like a bat would have him grasping the pointy teeth of one end, and was clearly not the way to do it, though Coop might give it a try at some point anyway.

Coop worked through the last of the Devourers, gripping the battle staff with both hands and holding it out in front of him. He would meet the charge of the monsters, shift to the side, and smash the shell with one end of his weapon, whichever side would move with the momentum of his dodge. If he needed to follow up, it was a smooth motion to strike again with the opposite end as it would already be held in a ready wind up position. It was almost like rowing a kayak with a double-sided paddle. He generated most of the power through his hips, lats, and shoulders and was always prepared to attack with one side or the other.

By the time he flashed with another level, he already felt like he had a basic understanding of the new weapon. He would never be able to generate as much power as he could his other options, but he could chain attacks together at a significant pace while maintaining a readily defensible stance. Even if it seemed less flexible than his other choices, it would be a nice addition to his arsenal, especially when he needed an alternative balanced option compared to either of his shield sets.

He swapped the battle staff for his spear and shield, and mistjumped his way back out of the humid mangrove forest, leaving the birds and the bugs behind. He checked his notifications as he emerged back into the open air of the island.

[You defeated Primal Serpent (Level 32)]

[+22 Basic Credits]

[Quest Complete! Defeat Primal Serpents II]

[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]

…

[You defeated Ancient Devourer (Level 35)]

[+26 Basic Credits]

[Quest Complete! Defeat Ancient Devourers II]

[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]

[Skill options available.]

Nothing for being the first to level 100, but it was a number that didn’t seem to have any significance to the system. Not everything would reward a title even if he wanted them all. In the meantime, he headed for the lighthouse and checked his status in preparation for yet another decision to overthink.

[Status]

HP - 8200/8200

MP - 15400/15400

Class - Revenant (Level 100)

Profession - Scavenging (Level 94)

Affinity - Spectral

Race - Human (Rank 1)

Faction - None

Strength - 50 (+1540)

Agility - 50 (+770)

Body - 50 (+770)

Mind - 1400 (+140)

Intelligence - 50 (+1540)

Acumen - 50

Unallocated - 0

Titles - Champion III, Haunted, Ethereal, Reaper, Slayer IV, Dauntless, Stacked, Defiant, Siegebreaker

Skills (Active) - Retribution, Salvation, Presence of Mind, Fog of War

Skills (Passive) - Mind Over Matter, Adamance, Practical Application, Arcane Comprehension

Quests - Fortune Seeker (15/50), Trophy Hunter (4/5), Defeat Ancient Devourers III (0/250), Defeat Primal Serpents III (0/250), Defeat Primal Kites III (0/250), Upgrade Village to Town

Basic Credits - 2,647,822

Coop skimmed over the stats. As long as they went up, he was happy, and another Slayer title was sure to make them go up.

Fortune Seeker progressed by two, thanks to the Serpents and Devourers, and the Excavator quest was completely cleared. He still had plenty of quests in progress and even though he’d really like to clean that section up, he was going to check out the Coral Forest Mana Well first.

Scavenging kept his pile of basic credits growing to his constant satisfaction. He’d find something to do with them, maybe just dump them on Marcus and tell him to keep the settlement development going.

Whatever he decided for everything else, first things first, he had a more important decision on his plate. It was time to select another skill.