Chapter 205: Charged Heartwood (Patreon)

Coop had successfully defeated yet another High Priest. This time it was the Voice of Kukulkan, a man who was named Kul-Hau by his master. Kul-Hau exploited supreme speed in his fighting style while sprinkling just a bit of deceptiveness into his tactics. The Priest’s hyper-focus on Agility wasn’t enough to overwhelm Coop’s wider spread of stats, and his speed hadn't been completely out of control thanks to the dynamic adjustments made by Mindbender during combat. As Coop used his toe to nudge the charcoal remains around the clearing, he was feeling relatively confident in his build.

Coop’s self-assuredness was leading him to consider skipping ahead. What would happen if he drove straight to the heart of the Yucatan? He assumed that most of the Cult’s forces would collapse inward in order to defend the settlement. Coop wasn’t completely sold on the Priest’s insistence that they had no need for factions or settlements with the way they were organized. If he rushed into the core of their territory and the result was Coop fighting the likes of the Avatar of Huracan and the Voice of Kukulkan simultaneously, could he win? Coop frowned at the twinge of doubt he felt. What if there were a dozen more High Priests? He suspected that he would be overwhelmed. Coop supposed he should be patient and trust the judgment of his new local allies.

Of course, even if he could guarantee a victory, the risk had always been that the Chakyum and his Priests would slip away, shifting their sphere of influence onto other groups of people and becoming a greater problem in the future. There was no actual evidence that they would rush to defend the Yucatan settlement in the first place, so Coop’s direct challenge would end up being a multifaceted gamble. He still had nearly a month before any kind of deadline approached, so he didn’t need to rush into things on his own. The closer they drew to the next settlement event, the more likely he was to bet on an aggressive push, but in the meantime he had capable allies in the process of organizing themselves, and his own outpost to safeguard.

The High Priest’s stronghold had been established within the territory Coop planned to take for Ghost Reef, inside of an enormous banyan tree in the northern interior of the Yucatan Peninsula. The tree’s form had been twisted by a constant stream of lightning erupting from a permanent thunder cloud above, transforming it into a lightning rod of blackened branches. The Priest sacrificed every speck of power he had accumulated, dissipating the storm and causing the charred tree to collapse into a massive field of ashen debris in his efforts to overcome Coop’s challenge. In the end, Coop’s slowly accumulated reserve of attributes had proven to be far too much for the flash of last minute growth demonstrated by the High Priest.

Even after the Priest was gone, Coop was unable to completely relax. The Avatar of Huracan’s mana experimentation had resulted in the appearance of another Icon of Mana, and Coop was concerned the event might repeat. He controlled his breathing while utilizing his glaive to poke around in the charred detritus that covered the High Priest’s clearing, keeping an eye out for any signs of escalating boss events while his mind ran through his future prospects.

The Lowlands were calm. A weak breeze partially disturbed some of the loose remnants of the tree, but there wasn’t much sound beyond the gentle rustling of leaves in the distance. Without any clouds in the sky, the sun was free to shine its light directly into the black clearing that scarred the environment.

When Coop finally started to let his guard down, feeling comfortable that nothing else would happen, he noticed one of the piles of debris shifting. Something was moving underneath. Coop took a combat ready stance and kicked the top off the pile before quickly backing away with his glaive angled forward. While he was relatively confident that a boss monster would have had a more dramatic entrance that included blasting mana waves or splitting the sky, he wouldn’t put it past one to have a more humble start.

A single hand emerged from the pile. It weakly shoved away the ash, skin smudged with the burnt char of the fallen tree. Coop instinctively rushed to help, ignoring the potential threat, grasping the hand with his own and gently pulling it out of the rubble.

After a bit of struggle the form of a man emerged. “Thank you!” The stranger weakly offered as he collapsed on his back, coughing as he tried to clear his lungs of any remaining pollution. “There are more.” He declared, gesturing to the pile he had emerged from while Coop inspected him.

[Human (Level 48)]

[Monk of Dusk (Strength)]

[Chosen of the Manakana Conspiracy]

[Focused]

Coop dug through the pile a little more aggressively after determining that the guy wasn’t a threat. The Priests were known for taking captives, and while the previous few examples hadn’t left any to be saved by the time Coop arrived, he couldn’t ignore the possibility of saving people from the Cult. All of the experience the Priests could suddenly tap into had to come from somewhere. Coop had rather naively considered that Kul-Hau may have been primarily utilizing the mana from monsters, given the man’s Slayer title and the way lightning was constantly zapping the Primal Constructs that drifted into the edges of his stronghold. Obviously, he should continue giving the Cult even that much benefit of the doubt.

Coop had to dig deep into the debris, given the hundreds of feet of burnt wood that had collapsed onto the clearing, but in the end, he found a small number of survivors. The four of them were covered in soot, making them seem like old-timey chimney sweeps. They were exhausted, having been kept in captivity for some time, but grateful to have been freed from their shackles.

They had been held within the tree while their mana was siphoned into the thundercloud above. The Priest had transformed the tree into some kind of mana conductor that none of them could entirely explain.

Coop frowned at the evidence that the Cult was discovering so many different ways to manipulate mana. To him, it seemed completely unreasonable for them to have succeeded in developing such a variety of strategies unless they had some outside information.

The Cult may have claimed to have no need for factions, and so far they had been members of several different groups, but Coop wondered about Chakyum’s faction specifically. He was growing suspicious of the methods the Cult was using. It was all coherent, revealing a tremendous understanding of mana. They utilized such a wide variety of strategies to achieve the same end goal, it was well-beyond even what Coop had learned. Perhaps it was a result of survivorship bias, where among thousands of failed attempts, only the successes brought about Priests and ultimately High Priests, but Coop couldn’t help but feel like there were too many either way.

Coop had been able to consult with contracted residents with thousands of years of experience absorbed in the reality cultivated by the system, but a group of humans were exceeding his understanding of how mana could be manipulated and transferred. Coop had been preoccupied by the ruthlessness they demonstrated as they viewed humans as a tool for their nourishment. He didn’t think he would learn anything from them because he wasn’t in the market for collecting other peoples’ experience and storing it in some kind of permanent mist domain. He was just surprised at the different successful strategies he had already witnessed: cultivating a mushroom monster, stoking a living flame, and now what seemed to be electrical conduction with human generators. The flavors of mana were broad, but he was still in awe of how different each method was from the others.

According to the survivors, there had been a constant stream of prisoners brought to the tree. The High Priest hadn’t worked alone, but actually had a full contingent of Acolytes that scoured the region on his behalf. However, the Acolytes had left with a group of Priests several days earlier, after they warned the High Priest that a VIP was in the area and called the others home. The change occurred right after Coop defeated the Avatar of Huracan.

“Me?” Coop pointed to himself, doubtfully, with an eyebrow raised at the mention of a VIP, but the two conscious survivors nodded that he was definitely the one that was receiving the Cult’s attention.

“I’d say so.” The Monk responded. The other was still on the floor, too fatigued to even sit up, while the other two had passed out completely. “Who else could cause all of this?” He asked rhetorically.

Coop shrugged, willing to give credit to the abilities of the Jaguar Sun Elites, at least..

The four of the freed prisoners were just random people that had scraped by during the siege event in the wilds. They were all from a city called Merida who hadn’t known each other before the assimilation, but difficult times had a way of bringing people together. They were a part of a larger group that had worked together to fight off Primal Constructs. They were eventually scattered by the Priests, and the four of them were the only ones alive from a group that had been trapped in the bark of the burnt tree until Coop arrived.

When the tree began to crumble, they were freed, and rather than try to escape, they had actually tried to destroy the High Priest’s treasure. It was a last minute attempt to spite their captor and avenge those that had already died, even if it meant throwing away the last chance they had of living. From inside, they hadn’t known that the High Priest was being defeated, though they knew a fight had begun when Coop arrived. At best, they hoped for a temporary distraction, never imagining that the Cultist was no match for the challenger.

They handed the treasure over to Coop, having failed to destroy it, though they did manage to reach it before being trapped beneath the rubble. He opened the small container and found another Unique item. It looked like a small burnt stick, only the length of his forearm, that smelled a bit like chlorine or bleach. When he inspected the item, it gave him a little shock in protest, like touching a door knob after rubbing his socks on carpet. At least he was able to identify it. Coop sent the Charged Heartwood into his spatial storage where it wouldn’t be able to fight back, chuckling at the inanimate object’s resistance.

Coop nodded at a job well done. A High Priest was defeated, a treasure was collected, and there were even prisoners that were freed. Unfortunately, Coop couldn’t just mistjump back to the Corozal Outpost, and dive into the next mission, as he now felt responsible for the four survivors. While he tried to decide on the travel arrangements, they insisted they only needed some rest and would be able to find their own way in a few days, but he couldn’t just leave them behind after freeing them. Abandoning them would be akin to a death sentence given the level disparity between themselves and the monsters.

Coop ended up leading them through the light forest, heading toward the more dangerous thicker jungle to the south. The Monk helped the next strongest of the group walk and Coop slung the other two unconscious people over his shoulders. They had to take the trip slowly, as weak as the survivors were, but it allowed Coop’s gentle fog to escort them through the vegetation. They would never have the opportunity to see a monster with their own eyes as Coop used phantasm to diligently clear the path.

At first, Coop was feeling a bit frustrated with the escort mission slowing him down immediately after he got started. The survivors had reminded him of the urgency he felt to defeat the Cult of Chakyum, and he was ready for the next fight. His agitation faded when he started getting extra notifications from defeating the monsters that were caught in his mists.

[You defeated Ruin Nebula (Level 97)]

[+248 Basic Credits]

[Quest Complete! Defeat Ruin Nebulas II]

[You have a new quest!]

[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]

When Coop randomly started getting levels, the Monk practically shrieked in surprise, but Coop explained that he had been defeating monsters as they went, making sure they weren’t ambushed. He demonstrated by casting Legacy of the Mists to summon a sword-wielding phantasm at their side. The Monk didn’t relax when presented with a ghost, obviously, but at least he better understood that Coop was more than he seemed.

Coop’s mood changed when he started discovering regular Ruin Nebulas, with his tension disappearing. It meant that his previous experiment, where he wiped out tens of thousands of Elite variants in order to clear the way, had been a rousing success. He would be reaping the rewards after his first week-long grind session. The Ruin Nebula zone was so vast, he couldn’t help but feel excited about how deep into the quest chain he could get before they made it back to Corozal.

His giggles had the Monk giving him the side-eye, but it was hard for Coop to keep his child-like happiness under control. Nothing could stop his grind. He checked his status while maintaining a squad of phantasms ahead of their path.

[Status]

HP - 15860/15860

MP - 18284/29220

Class - Revenant (Level 185)

Profession - Scavenging (Level 141)

Affinity - Spectral

Race - Human (Rank 1)

Faction - None

Strength - 125 (+2922)

Agility - 125 (+1461)

Body - 125 (+1461)

Mind - 2435 (+487)

Intelligence - 125 (+2922)

Acumen - 125 (+1461)

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 (19/50), Upgrade City to Metropolis, Defeat Ruin Nebulas III (0/250)

Basic Credits - 4,254,561

Progress was progress. He was getting really close to eclipsing 30,000 mana. At the same time, his consistent casting of Legacy of the Mists to summon phantasms was chipping away at their mana cost. Practical Application was reducing their original 500 mana cost one mana at a time as he repeatedly used the skill. Legacy of the Mists only cost 287 mana.

When Coop’s mana was refilled, he could limit test Legacy. The two remaining restrictions on the skill were the mana cost and his weapon’s durability, with each summon reserving a single point of durability. Garod had revealed that his weapons had 100 durability, which was more than enough to sustain all of his phantasms when he could only cast 20 phantasms. With his increasing mana pool and decreasing skill cost, he could now cast barely over 100, exceeding the previously known maximum durability of his ethereal weapons.

Even 100 phantasms was a ridiculous prospect. Individually, they were extremely potent, as they inherited his absurd stats. More than a handful was already too many for individual targets, getting in the way of each other when they tried to fight. If he found himself in a situation where he needed to use more than around 20 to defeat an opponent, he was certainly wading into waters too deep for his level of progression.

His levels had been increasing in leaps and bounds, thanks to almost exclusively coming from boss fights. While he preferred the steady growth that came from grinding, it wasn’t as if he had been particularly restricted. Looking back, he had received almost 30 levels in 20 days. Relatively speaking, the rate had decreased, but it wasn’t so much that he couldn’t make up for it with a few more Slayer titles.

Previously, the levels provided by Slayer title quest chains had been a small bonus compared to the title itself, and his big level gains had come from fighting individual examples of higher leveled opponents. For some reason, he had the impression that the script was flipped in the Yucatan.

The leaderboards could always change the narrative; if the Kitawa party was catching up to him, he might consider being more aggressive about his personal progression once the Cult was dealt with.

Day 97

1. Coop (Level 185)

2. Hai Yun (Level 126)

3. Charlie Seraphin (Level 126)

4. Camila Alvarez (Level 126)

5. Reina Kitawa (Level 125)

6. Akari Kitawa (Level 125)

7. Banshee (Level 120)

8. Henri Garnier (Level 118)

9. Eduardo Sandoval (Level 118)

10. Callagun (Level 117)

Coop was surprised to find Camila and Charlie had clawed back toward the top. The Kitawa party lost their positions to the Ghost Reef elites. The trip to Neon Park had clearly presented them with some challenges. That was to be expected, given the information that Camila’s family brought, but still, Coop was a bit worried.

The fluctuations of the leaderboard made him wonder about Reina and Akari Kitawa’s role. Perhaps they had secured the mana well, then left it to their faction to farm, much like Coop had cleared the first floor of the Coral Forest. If that was the case, he considered the possibility of a settlement that could threaten Ghost Reef. If there was another group out there making collective efforts to pursue their own goals, they might find themselves as rivals.

Then again, if even Derek was taking his role seriously, Coop had a hard time imagining another settlement catching the reinforced stronghold that Ghost Reef had become.

There was also Hai Yun. An individual that had proven to be an absolute machine on the leaderboards. He had written them off when the siege event caused them to disappear from the top, but against all odds they had fought their way back. He found himself rooting for them, as if they were experiencing a redemption arc.

On the opposite end of the spectrum was Banshee. The lone Undead representative had faded from prominence after a rapid early start, but they never quite disappeared, unlike the others. Coop was worried that they hadn’t rid themselves of the threat that the Zombie Lord had revealed where Undead factions were taking a keen interest on Earth, and setting their Chosen up with clear paths to dominance.

The rest of the names appeared to be new, but if he scrolled down he found more and more familiar names. From those he had never met, but recognized from the leaderboards like Platinum and a whole suite of names with -Hau suffixes, to dozens of residents of Ghost Reef, many of the names were gaining familiarity.

Shane’s party were the clear frontrunners, with Shane and Arthur at 21 and 27 respectively, but Carlos, Gabriela, and Sofia Alvarez were right on their heels. Even Marcus was at the edge of the top 100, along with Gibson’s party and Derek himself. The Cleary Brothers, Champion Jackson Hobbs, and even Jones were all climbing. With the way things were going, Coop wouldn’t be surprised if half the names he didn’t recognize were also members of the Lighthouse or residents of Ghost Reef.

He couldn’t help but feel proud. But also, he felt like he needed more levels.