Week 2, Day 3
Alia caught him as he exited his room. “Let’s go for a rift today. Level 1, or Level 2 if you can find Zaram. Andrew, Jovan and Basil’s down.”
Ethan looked at the brunette. “You seem happy, did anything happen?”
“We just cleared 3 level 1 rifts yesterday! Took the four of us, but we did. I’m now in the 9th stage of the 1st realm! It’s easier to do with a larger team, even if the GP is spread out more. A larger team is just better, as long as the allocation is fair. We could do 1 rift a day just the two of us, which spreads to 5GP per day, but a team of 4 could clear 3 rifts quite quickly without overexerting ourselves, so even if we spread it 2 or 3 GP, it’s still 6 to 9GP.”
“Huh, that makes sense.”
“If Zaram could join us, we’d take the level 2 rift, which earns 50-70GP. Divide that by 6, and that’s about 8 to 12GP each. Though, Zaram could probably take a Level 2 rift almost on his own.” Alia said sheepishly.
“The nobles, they didn’t bother you recently?”
“Let’s not talk about them and ruin my day.” Alia smiled and Ethan felt stupid.
“Ah sure. Let me see if I can find Zaram, alright? I’ll meet you guys at the Tower after breakfast.”
“Got it.”
***
“Guys, I want you to meet Zaram Blacksword, he’s a... uhm... a student. I kinda met him here somehow, and he’s really awesome at fighting.”
Alia endorsed him, “You guys got to see how he fights.”
“So, a level 2 rift?” Jovan said, with a mix of trepidation and excitement. Basil and Andrew nodded and voiced their concerns. “But that does mean we gotta share a bit more GP with him, right?”
Zaram naturally played the team player role. “It’ll be split equally, so long as everyone plays their part.”
“Oooh.”
They walked to the level 2 rift, their main concerns settled, and mining equipment equipped. Thankfully, with no unwanted noble interruption. Almost. One noble did almost attempt to harass Alia, but immediately slithered away when he saw Zaram, and Zaram glared at the wannabe assailant.
***
“A swamp. Great.” Jovan looked about, and three giant crocodiles awaited them in the thick swampy waters. They immediately repositioned themselves on the exposed roots of the swampland trees.
Zaram took out his black scimitars, and stabbed it into the water. “Can’t fight long in the water. Too deep and sticky.”
Ethan looked at Zaram, and noticed he was level 9, out of 10.
“We’ll have to stick to fighting on the roots, then.”
Alia frowned. “Isn’t this a little hard for a level 2 rift?”
“It’s normally not this hard?” Andrew asked.
“I’m not sure, but environmental effects are usually fairly mild in the first three levels.”
One of the giant crocodiles swam towards them, and walked up the banks of the swamp. Zaram grinned. “Well, the crocodile came to us.” Zaram charged, and dodged the large bite of the crocodile. The crocodile turned abruptly as he approached, the tail swiped towards Zaram like a whip.
The tail swipe attack slammed into Zaram’s scimitar in a loud bang, and the blade cut deep into the tail, almost cutting it off entirely.
Andrew charged ahead, metal claws on each hand, and Jovan’s lightning spear glowed. They both went to one side in a flanking attack, and landed their own hits. Andrew’s claws didn’t do much against the crocodile’s thick hide, but the lightning from Jovan’s spear stunned it momentarily.
The stun gave enough time for Zaram to jump onto its back, and he slammed it into the mushy ground, and rammed his scimitar through the crocodile’s brain. “One down. Hit the head, then.”
“Two more.” The other two crocodiles swam their way, and climbed up the swamp banks together.
“Three a team.” Alia said, as a small gust of wind appeared around her blade. Ethan looked a little puzzled, not sure how to attack the crocodile with his own limited range, unless he charged into the range of that huge, dangerous looking tail.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
He could dodge it if the land was firm, but on this mushy ground, it felt like he would probably take a hit. He positioned himself in the direction of the crocodile’s head, the tail swipe needed some time.
Alia smirked. “Just jump, the tail swipe only happens sideways.”
“Easy for you to say.” Basil cursed.
The crocodile swiped, and Alia jumped above it easily, and then, with a bit of wind, landed on the crocodile’s back. She cut with her sword repeatedly, but her attacks did almost no damage.
“Huh.”
Basil decided to take the attack head on, and instead of dodging, aimed for a blow into the gap of the crocodile. His sword momentarily looked like a magical boulder, and slammed into the throat of the crocodile.
It died instantly, to Basil’s surprise. “Oh. We just got to aim it in the throat?”
A trick which Jovan’s lightning spear replicated. He stabbed his electrically charged spear into the crocodile, and the crocodile died instantly.
“Such a glaring weak point.” Jovan scratched his head, and looked around the swamp. There was a path, made from the exposed roots that led to another section.
“It’s just a level 2 rift.” Andrew sighed. The manufactured rifts went all the way up to level 20 in the Tower. “Let’s go.”
Ethan, at that point, asked. “Why don’t more people just dive level 2 rifts all the time, if it’s so easy to get GP? No, why don’t everyone just form large parties and attack the higher level rifts?”
“Because it’s closed every third and fourth week, for maintenance?” Andrew said. “The rifts are powered by harvested energies, and the Tower only has enough power to run it for half a month every month.”
“No. Think about it, even if you did 60GP per day for a hundred days, you’ll just get enough to get a Titan-grade core.” Ethan asked. “Everyone should have a Titan core by the second year, as long as they went into a level 2 rift 100 times.”
“That’s true.”
“So what’s stopping it? Is there a rule preventing students from attempting the same rift too many times?”
“I don’t think there is.” Alia said. “But you raise a good point. I don’t think the Garden intends to actually fail us or make things exceptionally hard.”
Jovan looked at Alia and Ethan, “You two say it as if it’s so easy to take on a level 2 rift yourself.”
“It should be fairly easy once you get your core to the 2nd realm, no?” Ethan asked, genuinely trying to figure out how to optimize their path.
“Which you need to spend GP on, to train in the cultivation chambers.”
“So far I spent what... 25GP, and I’m already at the last stage of the 1st realm.”
“Did you notice that the 2nd realm’s energy requirements are a whole magnitude higher? And not to mention, stronger cores require more energy.”
“So about 250GP.” Ethan said. “And it goes exponentially higher?”
“Yeah. Most graduates are in the middle 3rd realm when they leave the school. If they swapped cores during the process, they might just hit the early 3rd realms, because you start all over from the first realm with a new core.”
“Oooooooooh.”
“The cores harvested from the rifts are actually the fuel used to power the cultivation chambers, and also the power the rifts themselves.” Andrew added.
It was a circular economy. They complete rifts, to collect cores, and cores are then used to create rifts and everything else. It’s a kind of infinite energy system, but requires students to constantly attempt the rifts to keep things running.
“Comm- Ethan, We should keep moving.” Zaram stopped the conversation, and led the walk on the exposed roots. They landed in another open space with four crocodiles. This second battle was easier, simply because they all knew they just needed to time their attack to the snapping jaws.
“It’s only easy because there’s six of us. If three or four of these crocodiles attack us together, we’d find it harder to aim for the mouth.”
“That’s true.”
The path led to an island with a large crystal ore, which they promptly harvested and moved onto the next island.
Where a giant crocodile awaited, three times the size as the ones before. Each of the earlier crocs were the size of a full grown adult human, but this one was massive. It roared, and charged with some kind of ability.
They all managed to get away, and the charge turned into a tail-swipe.
“Crap.” Ethan cursed as he ducked the giant tail. It wasn’t faster than the smaller crocodiles, just much bigger.
Zaram, fearless as he always was, rushed in and stabbed the crocodile through it’s hide. His weapon was the only one that was able to pierce through the thick natural armor, everyone else’s weapon barely hurt it.
“We have access to level 3 rifts too.” Alia said. “I wonder how we’re even expected to fight it, with our poor offensive abilities.”
Jovan, cleverly, stabbed his spear in the wounds left by Zaram’s scimitar, and seemed to hurt it slightly. “Pay attention, Alia!”
Alia smirked. “I am.” She dodged the giant’s bite and claws, and stabbed it in the throat. It was bigger, and it’s throat a little more fortified, so her wind-powered blade dealt just a scratch.
Zaram’s [Power Slash] left deep wounds in the thick crocodile hides, but it was so large that it didn’t kill it. It bled.
He cut it. Repeatedly.
Ethan also managed to rush in and stabbed the creature in the gaps left by Zaram, and the giant crocodile just roared.
“I think this rift is meant for a ranged-type core.” Alia said. “If we had ranged magical damage, we’d probably get through that thick hide fairly quickly.”
“Everyone here is some kind of melee-variant.”
“That’s the problem.”
Zaram kept cutting, his scimitars glowed black as his multiple [power slash] and [multi strike] led to a string of wounds. The giant crocodile flailed its tail, attempting its best to shake Zaram off, but each cut from Zaram’s scimitar bled it out further, and eventually, it died from all the cumulative wounds.
“Dude! You are insane! How are you able to dodge those attacks” Andrew immediately went and tapped Zaram on the back. Ethan honestly felt a little left out, that people are praising his summons, but after seeing what they have to go through, actually, it’s fine. He just needed to keep up and not be a total drag.
[Rift completed]
“Alright, we got to get the core out.”
Ethan volunteered to help cut the giant crocodile apart for the core, and it was actually tiring work. The innards were slimy, but eventually he carved out the giant core, and exited through the exit portal.