“We are going to kill a lot of things! We are going to kill a lot of things!” Katie sang as she pranced in front of the group as they headed for a fracture to warm up.
They only needed a few more experience points to reach the desired one hundred and one level, thus Sam decided they would get it in a fracture. He could have used one of the ‘exploits’ he knew about, but with how chaotic his team was, and how he couldn’t explain what they needed to do lest being labeled as a cheater, it was much easier for him – and on his soul – to grind fractures.
Maybe he could have found another titan, but all the guilds were on the lookout for them. And arguably, they got lucky with the gigantic spider. It was slow and seemingly placid, plus smack dab in their ‘territory’. No other guild should have had complaints about them defending their area. Of course, they did complain, but nobody cared.
The only titans in the area he knew the location of for sure were in other guilds’ territories. Not feeling up to fighting those guilds right now, he let sleeping dogs, or rather titans, lay where they were.
Around Ironwood there were a limited number of fractures, most of them long ago lost the appeal to the high-level players. They were mostly used by players with the right level to gain experience points or people farming them for drops.
The one they had set up in conjunction with the Silvercrest family was basically a fountain of ores and metals. Thankfully, with the increase in player numbers, wars, fights, and general MMO player behavior, the price of processed metals hasn’t decreased much.
Deepanchor was the same, along with Brightgarden. They were surrounded by smaller fractures, catering to the general populace in the city.
The current only ‘raid’ fracture was the poison one, which everyone hated, due to needing special antidotes. Only a few guilds could manufacture it and the ones sold by the government cost an arm and leg.
The Viper guild would do a few runs per week, mostly to train their poison skills, but after they had been illuminated about the multitude of weaknesses of their vaunted Black Blood, they spent most of their effort in leveling it up in the hope that an upgrade would eliminate most of those weaknesses. In other cases, they were trying to figure out a way to get rid of the skill so that they could once again use normal health potions.
According to Tim’s reports, most of the guilds were trying to slow this down, as well as sabotaging every effort to make the Viper guild waste even more effort, while selling them failed health potions that poisoned their users. Failed products from learning alchemists.
Capitalism at its finest…
Sam had been thinking about helping them out by dropping a few hints. Of course, with how the Abyss Vipers were, those hints would be the size of the moon…
It wasn’t like all guild members were morons, just that the leaders were particularly hardheaded…
With the incoming assault by the Blood Brothers, he wanted to prevent a full guild from falling under their control.
As the ideas percolated through his head, he hit on some rather funny ones.
‘Oh, yeah… that should work!’ he thought with a quiet chuckle. He then threw the idea into the back of his mind and refocused on their approach toward the facility holding the poison fracture.
The government of the Emerald Kingdom made sure that not even a drop of the dangerous poison could leak from the dimensional portal. The portal to the fracture was housed in a gray square building without any windows, and the only door to it was made of several layers of very tough metal alloys. The guards were all wearing medieval-looking gas masks – Sam made a note to have Lucy sell some of Liz’s designs to them – and clothing that covered almost all skin.
There was an entire fortification built up around the fracture, housing government researchers, mages, guards, and most importantly, the people who made sure that those who entered the fracture paid their dues.
When the fracture appeared, the entire area was abandoned, and old hot springs were left in ruin, but now that the fracture brought in all these people, the area was slowly but surely being rebuilt. Buildings for accommodations, workshops, small shops to sell consumables and even a few hot springs were trying to bring back the relaxing atmosphere.
Altogether, a small town was being built around the fracture portal, filled with players from all around the Emerald Kingdom, some even from further away.
Thankfully, there wasn’t any queuing as the government quickly realized that letting people in armor and fully equipped with weapons stand in line would be a recipe for disaster, they instead set up a basic ticketing system.
According to Lucy, there was even an entire secondary market for those tickets. Somebody set up a site where people could agree to swap tickets for their preferred time slots. For a price, with a small cut going to the site for ‘upkeep’. There were even some enterprising individuals who simply bought tickets and sold them, never even stepping inside the fracture.
Lucy, being who she was, was always prepared, so they didn’t need to stand in line, as a man from their guild with a ticket that would allow them to enter, approached them almost as soon as they arrived near the fortress.
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‘Man… I love it when my colleagues are competent…’
Ignoring the suspicious, measuring, or even aggressive looks from the onlookers, the team with Sam at the head – and a still skipping Katie – headed directly to the gate protecting the way to the fracture portal.
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Entering was surprisingly hassle-free.
They showed the ticket, the guy at the desk asked for IDs, then noted their names and affiliation down, reprimanded Katie and Isabella for poking something they shouldn’t have, and waved them through.
Sam made sure to have his hands on their shoulders while they waited for a minute for the group before them to enter the portal, before a very tired person, wearing a very scuffed gas mask askew on his face, waved them over.
“Party leadeeeeeeeeer, please step forward,” he told them while yawning.
Sam nodded to the clearly overworked civil servant and touched the fracture.
[Your team is entering a new fracture!]
[Fracture: Poisonous Hot Springs, Where Relaxation Goes to Die]
[Old hot springs that were abandoned after the healing waters turned noxious. This noxious water merged with the dimensional energies and created something so poisonous that most people would die with one second of contact. Aren’t you glad you prepared? Or did you? The government knows almost everything about it. If you find something odd, make sure to report it. Or not. I’m not your mother.]
[Time Limit: None]
[Charges: Unlimited]
[Current Best Clear Time: N/n]
Then they were surrounded by swirling rainbow lights as they traveled through the portal to begin their grinding session.
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The sight of what appeared in front of them was very familiar as like everybody else, they also watched all those videos of people who attempted the fracture.
Though, admittedly, Sam mostly watched the fail compilations. He only watched one or two full runs to make sure everything matched his memories.
The ruined hot spring building was still there, as was the ominous green glow coming from somewhere beyond their sight.
Before Katie could rush forward Sam’s hand snapped out and grabbed the eager girl’s shoulder.
“Easy there! First strategy meeting, then massacre,” he told her, to which she stopped and began sheepishly nodding.
“Sorry, Sam! It was just so long ago we fought together. I got excited!”
“No problem… Now gather around everybody!”
His team did so, bunching up, illuminated by a sickly green glow.
“What’s the plan, boss?” Dan asked, smacking his club into his palm excitedly.
“The Clean spell…,” he stated with a smug look.
The others looked at him, then around the fracture before letting out a small oh sound.
“I’ll be using my aura clean to keep away the poisonous air from us,” Sam continued. “Dan, you’re also on defense duty with your magic. Eruptions, area of effect attacks even if an elemental just spits at us. Make sure you freeze or evaporate it.”
“Got it!”
“Izzy buffs and roaming.” The young woman nodded and unsheathed her weapons ready to head in. “Clarissa, as always, healing.” The healer nodded her head before posing a question.
“What about the pets?”
Sam frowned. “Not on our first run. I want to see how we handle it. If it is easy, we can try with them.”
“Thanks!”
“What about me? What should I do?” Katie asked excitedly.
Sam just smiled wryly. The girl was a berserker with insane skills given by an eldritch monstrosity. He doubted some dimensional poison would slow the girl down much.
“Go nuts and come back to the group if your health dips low…” he told her.
The young woman immediately began to celebrate. He watched her for a few seconds, then he turned to the rest of the group.
“Take a minute to prepare, I’m going to check something.”
He then turned around and stepped through the ruined wall that separated the arrival area from the poisonous miasma permeating the very air, ground, and everything that moves and most things that don’t.
Instantly, the very air around his body began to sizzle as his new Pure Body began to fight off the effect of the poison in the air. Then he activated his Clean Aura and watched gleefully as a wave of clean – sadly, not fresh – air appeared around him. Even the grimy look on the stonework vanished and the air even lost some of its green hue.
Next, he took his mana and began channeling it into the aura, causing it to swell into a size that would allow all of them to move comfortably and fight the elementals that would pop up.
Sadly, he couldn’t really grow the bubble of clean air around him infinitely, as the magic began to thin as it got farther from him, losing its effectiveness. Still, the free space it gave them was enough for now.
Hopefully, with the insane amount of things to clean in this fracture, his skill would grow equally insanely.
‘Hehehehehe… Who knew that the cleaning spell would be this useful?’ he mused to himself proudly.
In the alternate timeline, the Clean spell was useful and later it was discovered to be useful for poisons but nobody, at least to other Sam’s knowledge, invested this amount of time and effort as he did. Or maybe his mana control allowed him to do it? Either way, the knowledge that this discovery (and munchkinry) didn’t come from his inherited memories made it so much better.
“Let’s go!” he called out to the others and stepped forward as they rushed to take up position around him while Katie rushed forward, dark energy appearing around her and waving her oversized and over-spiked greatsword like the maniac she was.
“HAHAHAHAH! Come to me, you balloons of poison! Mama wants a fight!”
Sam glanced at the others, who looked back and shrugged as one.
“We’re ready boss!” Dan stated as his club was already aflame and his eyes were darting around looking for danger. Clarissa snapped out a quick sequence of buffs at the running Katie then more sedately began to buff the rest of the team while Isabella began to hum and dance, using her own buffs.
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Thus began their grinding sessions.
Poison elementals were ground into nothingness under Katie’s boots, smashed into pieces after being frozen by Dan, evaporated upon touching the almost white flames the physicist shot out, or simply cleaned out of existence by Sam’s pinpoint precise Clean spells.
“Gotta say, boss, it’s mighty weird to see someone do a fracture with Clean spells as attack spells…” Dan mentioned as they took a small breather after a particularly large elemental ambush.
Clarissa was very interested in it.
“Do you think I could maybe fuse it with some healing spell?”
“Against undead?”
His response was just a sharklike grin.
“Well, first you need to take your Mana Control and…” he began to explain the intricacies of spell fusion and mana control to the eagerly listening healer as they headed deeper into the fracture.