Jordan grabbed the gem. It fit easily within the middle of his palm, as it was no larger than just his thumbnail. As it sat in his hand, he of course was quick to use Appraise.
Name: Advancement Crystal
Grade: E1
Description: This gem contains the essence of a Healer and a random selection from their highest Grade Class Skill. The Advancement Crystal can be consumed by any Initial Merger, and the essence inside may be used to influence the consumer’s next gained Skill or evolution of a current Skill. Alternatively, it can be shattered for a single and highly potent use of the Skill contained within.
Along with that essential pop-up was a reminder notification of the one from before, listing the more specific stats like the number of Traits and Titles collected. Jordan only gave it a brief glance to confirm that it was the same, and then dismissed both pop-ups.
The interesting part of the description was the wording of “may be used,” which seemed to indicate that it was optional even after being consumed. But before Jordan thought about it any more, he decided that now was probably as good of a time as any to check on the notifications from before. He didn’t have time to read them while getting chased, yet now it seemed like it could provide some potentially helpful context.
New Quest Acquired:
Quest Series: Mightiest of the 42nd Merging
Quest: Mightiest Slayer
Description: Become the individual with the most Initial Mergers slain of your universe within one year.
Reward: To be determined upon completion. Lesser rewards will be given to individuals below first place.
Congratulations!
By attaining your slain Initial Merger, you have now qualified for placement on the leaderboard of the Quest: Mightiest Slayer. You may now view the Mightiest Slayer leaderboard and your current place on it at any time.
Okay, so not really much at all on the valuable information front. Aside from some minor rewording, it was basically just the same message as the highest Level Quest. However, when it came to the leaderboard itself… he hesitated for a moment. But then his morbid curiosity just got the best of him anyway.
Mightiest Slayer:
1: Wilfred Wilbur Wyndham III (31 kills)
2: Zorliay Qorath’zyrunch (20 kills)
3: Yvaro Qorath’zyrunch (19 kills)
4: Sebastion Ironclaw (13 kills)
5: Carl Rowe (11 kills)
…
324: Jordan Joyner (1 kill)
At least for the top three, this leaderboard at least seemed to match the one for Levels. Though just looking at the numbers, Jordan’s heart sunk a little. Maybe it was just to be expected when it came to a population of billions, including who knew how many aliens. Especially since he was still pretty sure that the people with weird names in second and third place were aliens.
But even so, a high kill count after a couple of days or even just one day? That he would at least understand as just a matter of pure numbers. But when he scrolled through the leaderboard, he saw that it transitioned from one to two kills per person starting from position 290. Then it updated to three kills starting from just under 120. Four after 86, and then basically everyone in the top 70 had at least five kills or more.
This meant that in total, the kill count of people killing other people was… at least over a thousand? The even sadder fact was that Jordan wasn’t even placed at the very bottom of the leaderboard. Even though it hadn’t been long since he finished off Audrey, there were already way more under his spot that extended all the way down into the low 500s.
All of this in what, the hour or so since they would have arrived?
On that note, Jordan looked up from the sky. When this awoken on the platform, the large sun had been right directly overhead. But right around now, if he just had to estimate, it appeared to be a quarter between that midpoint and the horizon. So just going off that as a guess, he’d say that there were maybe only three hours left until sunset.
Man… I really can’t just stay here worrying. Need to collect everyone else’s Advance Crystals and equipment. Then, if I’m lucky, maybe I can figure out what to do after that. Dunno how these Rabbits are staying hydrated, but if I can’t find any water close by, I’ll have to explore that forest anyway, he thought to himself.
For the time being, Jordan went ahead and put both the gem and the clothes on the floor into his pocket space. He then began to walk around to find more bodies. One by one, he would just wander around until he came across another corpse. Effectively each one had been slashed at the throat, silenced by the Grass Panther before they had the chance to call for help.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
As he walked around, he quickly fell into something of a routine. Jordan sped up the search by using Summon Air Drone, and then giving it a simple set of orders. Kill any Rabbits that it found, because why not even at this point? Then if it found a human corpse, it’d hover in place. And lastly, if it took notice of anything else, it’d fly back to him. It was largely through the use of the drone in this manner that Jordan saved time that would have otherwise been spent just randomly wandering around without any sense of direction.
Pushing the tall grass out of his face, Jordan came across a scene. Even just as it started to feel like he was getting numb to the sight of dead bodies, what he saw now still made him grimace. For a moment all he could was stare while trying to keep his breathing even and not lose his lunch.
While some of the more adventurous members had spread out to hunt for Rabbits and treat this world like a game where they would just collect Experience, like himself, that hadn’t been a universal opinion. Other people had taken the more cautious approach of sticking together. So even as some moved away, at least some stuck to the people closest to them to form pairs or small groups of three. Before him now was one such triplet, though it hadn’t seemed to have done them much good in the end.
One had their throat slashed, while the other’s face looked like it’d been smashed by something heavy. The third was someone that Jordan would have hoped might have still been alive, but hadn’t answered for some improbable reason. That was Mike, whose heavy suit of armor should have been a natural counter to the stealth attacks of the predator picking them off. Yet even despite the thick protection around the neck, there were still two pairs of holes that’d been pierced through the metal.
Jordan wasn’t sure what the order of events had been here. Looking closer at the stomped face, he saw that the man’s chest had been shredded apart. Like the Panther had used its thick claws to tear through into his lungs and kill him that way. Yet while he didn’t know who’d been the first one to be attacked and who was the last, it did prove one thing at least.
His own survival was due to just pure luck. Lucky that he had been the last and not the first of its victims. Lucky that the Pyromancer had somehow noticed and managed to both shout a warning while also burning the beast. And finally, lucky that Audrey had stumbled on him, to show that the threat was an immediate matter of life and death. Had it not been for her, he might have gone shouted out to see if anyone else was still there, and just given away his exact position as a result.
When Jordan steadied himself, he repeated the motions of turning their corpses into gems and then collecting his stuff. At the same time, a small list of notifications had steadily been appearing at the side of his vision.
Experience Earned!
+11 EXP
Experience Earned!
+11 EXP
Experience Earned!
+11 EXP
…
Two more Rabbit kills put his total Experience at 205, just 20 away from his next Level. Basically meaning that it would be just another pair of Rabbits until he hit Level 3, along with a very slight amount of progress toward Level 4. Jordan wished that he could have returned to the mental headspace where that prospect would have excited him. But now it just felt empty.
Maybe it was technically balanced in the eyes of the System, but a thought had entered his head just a moment ago. One that put it all into a perspective that he just couldn’t wrap his thoughts around.
Less than seven Rabbits.
That was how much Experience the Grass Panther had given him. Just over half a dozen harmless critters, versus an extremely dangerous beast that had killed everyone but him. Yet in just the time his drone spent flying around while he searched for bodies, it’d almost farmed enough Experience to match the Panther anyway. In a game such a thing made sense, because it was just a game. But here in the real world, the comparison between creatures that were complete opposites in lethality just felt… wrong.
Was the number marking one’s Level truly the only thing that mattered for that calculator? Out of every other difference that could be pointed out between any two animals, was nothing else even worth an ounce of consideration in the System’s eyes. Was it just the number, and then double for murdering another person? All for what when it came to that bonus, to encourage them to directly compete and kill one another?
“Fucking Hell, man,” Jordan mumbled. That train of thought was one that got depressing really, really quickly.
But he as walked around where the middle of the group would have been, he found more instances of people who’d stuck together. And for each one, the Grass Panther had repeated its apparent pattern of clawing out one throat, and then killing another person by either biting the neck or smashing the face while tearing at the chest. The type of kill was pretty consistent, such as those with any amount of armor protecting their neck had always been killed by its long fangs.
Jordan eventually came across the last pair of bodies, at least according to his count of the total members of their group. At one woman’s side was the book which they had all recorded their starting information with. A symbol of making cooperation one of their very first acts in this new world. He picked up the book, and just spent a few seconds to flick through the pages and glance through the names.
After putting it into his pocket space, he then collected the bodies and their stuff. But as he was about to put away what would be the final Advancement Crystal, Jordan made a promise. One that he spoke out loud to both himself and his fallen group.
“I don’t know if turning you into gems is the right way to go about things. But… either way, I won’t let them go to waste. I’ll survive on the Hellhole of a planet for as long as I can. If you have any family or friends out there, I’ll remember your faces and keep the text with your names safe, so I can tell them what happened to you. If there’s a way to “win” this sick competition, then I’ll do it. Because fuck any other result if it’ll mean your deaths are in vain,” he solemnly declared.