Chapter 197: Projections (Patreon)

Coop continued to be amazed by the settlement’s upgrade. He was leaning one hand against the civilization shard with Jones by his side. The old caretaker was gazing at his own status as the pair theorized how the passive bonuses gained by Ghost Reef would improve their territory. It wasn’t completely unlike the discussions they shared when they were planning the very first upgrades for the settlement. It made Coop strangely nostalgic.

The catalog of City titles was a reward that had been building ever since the very first challenges of the assimilation, back when it was just the pair of them considering the best ways to survive. Now that the early investments were bearing fruit, they were discovering that they had an exceptional harvest. They were in significantly better shape than they had been a few hours before, and even at that point they couldn’t have envisioned a more comfortable position for Ghost Reef to face the challenges of a turbulent future.

If they hadn’t been forced into difficult situations early on, where he and Jones had angled to rely on the fort itself out of necessity, they wouldn’t have accumulated the rewards that enabled investments back into the settlement. The preliminary recruitment of Balor was what had revealed the feasibility of relying on contracted residents for key enhancements of their settlement. The dwarf-like stonemason had been integral in setting them up for success. Then, the gambit of sending Coop to the oil rig to pursue the bonus objective when the opportunity arose had resulted in extra rewards that kept building upon each other. With the phantoms they were able to succeed in the face of escalating threats during the siege event, which rewarded them even further with more recruitment opportunities.

They might have only received one or two titles under different circumstances. Instead, they had the opposite situation, where they were happily overwhelmed by the initial influx of territory and resident bonuses. Coop never thought he’d see the day that he was looking back at the siege event with so much gratitude.

Recognizing the contributions of the phantoms reminded him to check for more reinforcements. The number of phantoms had nearly doubled after the previous upgrade, so he had some reasonable expectations that the ghost army would grow once again. Unfortunately, he was left scratching his head when he found the reinforcements button unavailable.

At first, he thought it was due to simply having zero casualties. Honestly, the fact that they hadn’t lost a single phantom since the previous settlement upgrade was an even bigger shock than the system refusing to elaborate. However, taking a moment to consider the tribulations they had faced, Coop thought something must have been wrong. Was it really true that they hadn’t lost even a single pirate during the Sapphire Armada’s blockade? He knew that several of the ships had taken damage, but none were sunk and no one had informed him of any losses.

As he shifted his attention to Jones to ask for confirmation, he noticed a number tick up near the bottom of the menu he had been browsing. He squinted at the number and watched as a counter grew by one, moving from 15,502 to 15,503.

Coop recognized the figure as the number of phantom residents in Ghost Reef, more or less. There were 15,000 phantoms in the army, and 500 phantoms in the navy. The fact that the number had grown by a few had him peeking into the courtyard of the fort, searching for fresh level one phantoms, but it was business as usual outside the citadel. None of the residents that were strolling along the stone roads appeared lost. There weren’t any new level one phantoms bewildered by their new setting.

“What the hell is this?” Coop finally asked, before asking Jones about the number as well.

After a moment where they were both silently investigating the limited information provided by the system, Jones responded. “Moments of Twilight?”

Coop raised an eyebrow. “Twilight? Like from the title?”

Jones frowned, equally confused. “Is it possible for a City title to have had some kind of reaction to one of the previous upgrades?”

Coop’s other eyebrow joined the first as his imagination ran. “Oh, that’s definitely possible.” He confirmed.

He recalled the many times his titles had interacted with another that he had already earned. Title evolutions happened all the time, in his experience. They usually asked him to confirm which direction he wanted his title to evolve, but something like the Vanquisher title had been consumed as soon as he triggered his path evolution, providing the choice to upgrade a few of his skills independent of his input. The others didn’t completely remove functionality either, instead emphasizing one aspect of either title when absorbing a counterpart, and those happened when the titles offered similar bonuses.

“Is that what happened?” He wondered rather skeptically.

“It seems like our ability to call for phantom reinforcements has evolved with something called Moments of Twilight.” The wrinkles on Jones’s forehead deepened. He paused before continuing, clearly seeking descriptions while leaving Coop in suspense. “It shifts the burden onto the individual rather than the settlement. Bringing empowered residents back won’t drain the settlement’s mana.”

Coop just blinked for a moment, wrapping his head around the possible effect of the bonus. “So, we lose the ability to resurrect them on demand? Doesn’t that kind of suck?” Coop didn’t mind the cost if it meant bringing his companions back from the dead, not to mention he was worried about Ghost Reef’s ability to continue growing its defensive army. “Can we get more phantoms if the settlement can’t use the reinforcement feature?”

Jones nodded slowly as he wondered the same things. “I suppose we can still get more phantoms through the reinforcement feature, it’s still there, just more specialized, but I don’t really think that’s what this upgrade is about.” He glanced at his forearms, striped with glowing red corruption. “I appear to be included beneath the umbrella of Twilight as well.”

“Huh?” Coop managed, distracted by ways to reenable the reinforcement button to grow their army further.

“A Bloodstone Pact has been formed.” Jones seemed thoughtful. “At least, that’s what my buff says. Seems to be associated with my mana affinity in particular.”

Coop checked his own buffs, but didn’t find any Pacts. Only the Purification Aura and the City title bonuses were listed. “So, does that mean you can be resurrected?” He broached the question that hung in the air.

Jones snorted. “Well, I certainly have no intention of finding out.”

“Right.” Coop confirmed the logic in Jones’s response. “Still, it’s a possibility?”

“I suppose it is.” Jones agreed.

Coop felt like he needed to sit down and gather his thoughts, but they had only checked the basic rewards for upgrading the settlement from a Town to a City. The optional objective in claiming a subordinate settlement with greater than one hundred thousands residents had also been satisfied, and the reward awaited his perusal. When Coop finally got to it, he squinted at it for a moment before reading what it did. It was another first.

Ghost Reef had what was essentially a skill list embedded in its menus. A new tab had opened up, containing both the full list of titles and the passive bonuses applied to the settlement’s territory. There was no mention of Bloodstone Pact, but Moments of Twilight was certainly included with the passive bonus, though it lacked much clarification for what it would do, merely suggesting that certain residents could qualify for the settlement’s protection.

There was also a singular active option that drew Coop's attention. The name of the active skill was Champion Projection.

“Huh.” Coop grunted. “That’s me.” He astutely observed to himself as he found the bonus reward.

Champion Projection gave Ghost Reef the ability to ‘transport’ Coop to any of the subordinate settlements within their network at a significant cost of both the sending and receiving settlements’ mana. There were only two options: Empress City and Neptune’s Bridge. Empress City was grayed out, apparently lacking the resources necessary. The Corozal Outpost didn’t qualify at all, unfortunately. None of the mana pylons that had presumably been placed elsewhere by his allies were included among the options.

“Is this teleportation?” He wondered, finally stealing Jones’s attention away from his status.

“There’s more?” Jones asked with some incredulity. The titles had been more than enough to satisfy them for quite a while.

“Check if you can see.” Coop suggested, pointing to the shard for Jones to use his actual system granted advisor privileges.

After a few moments, Jones hummed as he found the new settlement skill, then he chuckled to himself. “You’re gonna be in even more demand with this.” He declared, already pitying Coop’s fate.

Coop agreed, but he thought it was only good news. “I mean, I would have needed to cover a lot of ground traveling to take care of things anyway. This is going to be a massive time saver, right? Not to mention it’ll be a relief not to have to get the timing right when trying to anticipate where I’m needed.”

Jones just smiled back at Coop, admiring his naivete. “It appears to be a one way trip. You can go, but you won’t be sent back.”

“Ah… right.” Coop frowned, realizing it would be even more difficult to arrange for his transportation if he was the only person being sent across their territory. Plus, they would most likely continue to expand whenever the opportunity presented itself, with the previous settlement restrictions gradually being lifted as they progressed. There didn’t seem to be a limit on the distance for Champion Projection, but if it was his own territory, he was pretty sure he would be able to mistjump back home relatively quickly. Still, he thought that the skill should probably be reserved for emergencies.

Coop reassessed Ghost Reef’s settlement skill with the limitation in mind, but he reached the same conclusion as his initial impression. It was a huge boon, and an appropriate reward for a burgeoning City with a growing network of subordinates. If the Champion of the primary city needed to manage several other settlements at once, the ability to quickly arrive in each one was a necessary bonus. As much as he wanted to test it by seeing if he could catch his friends before they left Neptune’s Bridge, he had to leave it alone for the sake of his own mission.

They already had some experience with Mana Projections. When the Chosen humans were brought to meet their sponsors, they had experienced the temporary version. The contracted residents also went through the same thing, but they had explained that the system has the power to make it permanent at the end of their contracts.

Coop considered the idea of being cloned when he teleported to a subordinate settlement, but it seemed like the system actively avoided that, only allowing everyones’ existence to persist in one place at a time. It certainly appeared as though the system could do more with the power of mana, but remained under some built-in restrictions.

He only had to look at the existence of Ghost Reef’s phantoms to observe some of the possibilities, not to mention his own spectral abilities and whatever was going on with Jones. It was probably for the best that the system couldn’t do literally anything with the power of mana, maintaining some restrictions to prevent uncontrolled replication. He hoped that meant that mana itself wasn’t unlimited, for all of their sakes.

Coop moved on to checking his own Champion title, confirming that it had upgraded along with the settlement, as usual. The title granted 100 to all stats, doubling from its previous 50 to all. He felt like it was a little crazy on his part, but a 600 flat stat bonus almost seemed quaint, especially after the other developments had blown his mind. He opened up his status seeking confirmation that it wasn’t something to be scoffed at.

[Status]

HP - 15500/15500

MP - 28500/28500

Class - Revenant (Level 180)

Profession - Scavenging (Level 134)

Affinity - Spectral

Race - Human (Rank 1)

Faction - None

Strength - 125 (+2850)

Agility - 125 (+1425)

Body - 125 (+1425)

Mind - 2215 (+475)

Intelligence - 125 (+2850)

Acumen - 125 (+1425)

Unallocated - 0

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

Skills (Active) - Invocation, Presence of Mind, Fog of War, Vaporform

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

Quests - Fortune Seeker (18/50), Upgrade City to Metropolis

Basic Credits - 4,468,155

Whatever negative feelings Coop had toward his bonuses were instantly gone when he observed another aesthetic stat page. There was something about round numbers that gratified his sense of accomplishment when he landed on them. If his stats were one point higher, he wouldn’t feel as satisfied.

Seeing the base stats grow ever so slowly, only from the improvements to his Champion title, was more fulfilling than he expected. Without any actual investment, all of his attributes were gradually increasing through titles alone. The Stacked title had added 100 total stats, and now, Champion IV was adding another 600 base stats. A total of 700 stats was the equivalent of all seven of his Slayer titles. 700 stats was 140 levels worth of allocated points, or put another way, more stats than anyone else on the planet had earned through levels alone. The Champion title was actually insane. The fact that he looked down upon it, even for a moment, was kind of embarrassing.

Sometimes he wished that the bonus stats would be absorbed into his base stats, but it didn’t seem like there was any way to make that happen. Not to mention, with the addition of his Mindbender title, and the ability to manipulate the bonus stats, he had turned the bonuses into a much more flexible pool of attributes. Having more of his stats sequestered into the base numbers would actively diminish the adaptability of his build.

Assessing stats granted by the upgraded Champion title as only 600 had also undervalued them. 100 of those stats went into Mind, which was increased by the percentage bonuses granted by the Siegebreaker title and his Spectral-Infused Under Armor. 100 in Mind was effectively 120 stats. Then, that 120 converted into another 420 stats as his passive skills added bonuses to every other attribute. Basically, Champion IV was worth nearly 1,000 stats all by itself. Coop shook his head at the madness that his build had become. It was just bonuses stacked on top of bonuses being multiplied by more bonuses. He couldn’t help but feel excited about what evolutions it would undergo next. He couldn’t compare his stats to a more basic build at all.

Viewing his status also brought his attention to the new settlement upgrade quest. Evidently, the next stage was a Metropolis. Coop was skeptical that Ghost Reef would ever become a true metropolis by virtue of its isolation and size, but he wouldn’t put it past Marcus to have a plan anyway. He checked the quest to determine what the system would need to give them the designation.

Firstly, it would cost 15 million credits. That was almost four times what he had currently accumulated. He tried not to panic at the escalating number of basic credits required to further progress the settlement. It wasn’t like he was the only one allowed to contribute. Surely, if it was necessary, the settlement would be able to pull from its treasury, and Ghost Reef had already proven to be able to generate a surprising amount of funds. Coop thought they could figure it out.

However, he didn’t really need to be concerned about the upfront cost. They would have plenty of time to acquire the fortune of basic credits. The prerequisite to upgrade the settlement from a City to Metropolis was to have a total population of greater than 10% of the entire planet among the settlement’s holdings.

Coop laughed out loud after he read the task presented by the system. Even if there were only 10 settlements left, he didn’t think Ghost Reef would be able to reach such an extreme threshold simply due to the scale of geography they were dealing with. He’d have to actively conquer the rest of the world for them to upgrade again.

“What now?” Jones asked, worried by Coop’s cynical outburst.

Coop just shook his head in disbelief. “How many humans do you think are left on the planet?”

“Hm?” Jones was surprised by the question. “What brought that on?”

“The next upgrade requires Ghost Reef and its subordinate settlements to have a combined population of human residents greater than 10% of the entire planet’s human population.” Coop explained the exact conditions provided by the quest. He squinted as he realized something was missing. “There’s no bonus objective either.” He frowned at the missing requirement. They had been shockingly valuable at each of the previous stages. They were clearly moving beyond the early stages of development into something else.

Jones held his chin as he seriously considered the main proposition regarding population. “Well, we can’t exactly use Empress City as a proper measuring stick. If anything, their experience should be considered one step above the unconditional worst case scenario.”

“What could be worse?” Coop absently wondered, not prescribing the quest objective with the same feasibility as Jones. He was thinking they needed hundreds of millions of residents; an absolute impossibility, even with the rate they were growing.

Jones leveled a serious look toward Coop before he answered, as if Coop should have known the answer already. “Complete annihilation, of course.” He stated, sobering Coop with the cold truth of the assimilation.

“I don’t even know what the population of the city was before the assimilation began.” Coop admitted, unable to even begin with his own estimate.

Jones rubbed his chin with his thumb. “Let’s just say roughly 10% of the region survived. The Orlando settlement was much more successful, but as far as we know, it’s the only other place in Florida. We’d have to do a proper survey to find out how many people migrated from the coasts and found their way into the settlement compared with how many started in the area. If we just wanted to assign another number, it would be between 10% and 25% survival rate for our new northern neighbors compared to the 10% or less for Empress City.”

Coop winced at the idea that even the places with civilization shards had been decimated. “Belize has been proving that people can hang in there even without a shard.”  Coop pointed out, hanging on to some hope as they put numbers to thoughts that he had been avoiding.

“Unfortunately, compared to the population before, I don’t think survivors in the wilds will account for more than a few percentage points of the original numbers.” Jones unemotionally calculated, dashing Coop’s hope.

Coop checked the settlement leaderboards to at least check how many settlements were still out there.

Day 92

1. Silvervalley

2. Gangcheon

3. Neon Park

4. Punihuil

5. Yucatan

6. Can Gio

7. Ordesa

8. Zahamena

9. Wakatobi

10. Glenveagh

Coop quickly scrolled through the list, making note that Ghost Reef was just outside of the top 10, with Shinjuku Gardens and Aotearoa New Zealand being the only ones above them after the first page. Their tiny island settlement had climbed to 13 despite having a total population that barely eclipsed 20,000. They were definitely getting credit for successfully upgrading to higher levels, but they also must have been pushed up the list thanks to the combined subordinate settlements.

There were 246 settlements on the list. Coop wasn’t sure how to feel about the number. The scale of an entire planet made the number seem small, but the fact that other successful assimilations consolidated into a single settlement meant that he felt like it was pretty high. Humans weren’t letting go of their planet without a fight. Unfortunately, they were losing a civilization shard at a rate of approximately one a day since the last time he checked, and that was with no settlement events active. In the long run, they were tending toward failure in under one year of a 111 year process.

“Damn.” He muttered.

Empress City was ranked 238. It felt like the first time they weren’t dead last. Hopefully, they could manage some stability now that their civil war was over. Coop also looked for Neptune’s Bridge, making note of the city for the first time. Given that they had a much higher population, he expected them to be high on the list, but they were actually all the way down at 166, firmly in the bottom half of settlements.

“Hm.” Coop hummed thoughtfully.

It was too hard to make any determination as to what the ranks really meant. There was no telling whether Neptune’s Bridge was so low due to them being slightly slower in terms of upgrades or if their population was actually that much smaller than so many others. Maybe Hali and the rest of the Sapphire Armada’s Chosen were right about the difficulties they faced with the untamed areas. Having more challenging Primal Constructs right up to their doors, pressuring their territory might come with a penalty.

If the settlement leaderboard scoring was anything like the siege event scoring, they would lose points for any deterioration of their territory. Ghost Reef’s rank would make more sense if it was also getting credit for all the improvements being made along the way as well as properly conquering the area it claimed.

Among the top 10, Chakyum’s Yucatan settlement had sunk in the rankings as well. They didn’t have any potential subordinate settlements nearby, so he was sure they hadn’t been able to upgrade to the City level yet. Their position had to be primarily by virtue of their population, but just how large could they be?

Meanwhile, one new city had leapfrogged them and a few dozen others. Punihuil was a name Coop hadn’t seen before. He wondered if they had received a massive influx of refugees. He guessed it would take millions to make an impact on the rankings in that manner.

“Good for them.” Coop sincerely thought. Anyone willing to take in people, especially enough people to have a massive surge on the leaderboards was alright in his book. He silently wished them luck.

In any case, there were nearly 250 settlements remaining. The problem was they had no idea what their populations were, so figuring out where Jones’s suggested 10% threshold lay was impossible. Ghost Reef’s ranking made it especially confusing to use the list as a way to gauge the world’s population. They couldn’t even use the rankings to extrapolate a population based on the ones they did know.

“I have no idea.” Coop admitted. In any case, he wasn’t even really sure if he wanted to know. “I don’t think we’d be able to figure it out even if the population was evenly distributed across the planet and we knew the exact number of shards we started with.” Coop shrugged. “Anywhere from 10% of 10% or 25% of 25%?” Coop was just mumbling numbers. “What’s that? 80 million or 500 million? Either way, forget about our upgrades, aren’t we completely screwed? Like, as a species?” He surmised, feeling deflated after the excitement of the settlement’s upgrade.

Jones frowned as he tried to come up with a more hopeful calculation. “We’ll survive.” He concluded stubbornly. “Don’t underestimate the resilience of humans. That’s a mistake for the aliens to make, not us.”