We had just finished up our second round of grinding and were headed into Neo Brasilia today to turn in all the crystals. I had turned in the level 4 crystal the golem had dropped. It wasn’t worth the headache of keeping it around.
No need to tempt fate that it would somehow, however unlikely, end up in the Ritualist’s hands or something equally stupid. Better not to take any chance at all.
Right now, I was smiling. I had about 900,000 points in the bank from previous grind sessions for emergencies. The city of Purgatory owed me 50,000. But that was pocket change. Well maybe not pocket change, but it wasn’t a huge enough amount to get that excited about.
What did make me excited, was that I had filled up my medical insurance in the previous grinding sessions, now everything was going to stats. Not taking that risk ever again, of not having enough points for a regeneration. Two times was more than enough to drive the message home. The last grinding session I had around 600,000 points, enough to buy 75 stat points.
I had been thinking long and hard about where to invest my stat points. Each purchase, made each subsequent purchase more difficult. The 1,501st stat point cost me 7,600 points. A far cry from when the first stat point had only cost 100 points.
That seemed so much back then, 100 points. Now it was pocket change. Not even pocket change. It was the lint between my pocket change. Still, that was why I called it a grind. Since it was truly a grind. That made each investment into my stat points all the more complicated.
In the end I put them 75 stat points from my previous purchase into Mind, bringing it up from 100 to 175. I couldn’t take the risk of a mental attack incapacitating me and I felt fairly confident after the golem about dealing with physical attacks for the most part, which meant I could leave Body alone for right now.
The other big stat was Regeneration, which would increase my grind speed, but not my survivability. It was tempting to keep increasing it, to eek out better grinding. Instead of the 600k points I was carting into the city right now, I would have had around 720k points from the most recent grind session.
At what point would I switch off increasing Regeneration? At what point would it be too difficult to bring up my other stats to risk fighting level 4 monsters, or a wider spectrum of level 3 monsters? Mental attacks were near instantaneous and the risk of them was too high to keep ignoring. The moment I finally lost that fight, was the moment I died.
The only way I knew to prepare was to increase my Mind stat. The next stat I was going to invest in was Perception. Since it was another stat that presented a pass or fail criteria, where fail meant death. I didn’t want to risk something like that, same as the Mind stat. The fact I hadn’t run into a stealth or mental type monster for level 4 was something I was thankful for.
But if I had, I wouldn’t bet on myself. Seeing the danger and knowing where it was coming from, was half the battle for monsters that liked to just sit around and wait.
It was frustrating in some ways not to be as efficient as possible by throwing all my stat points at Regeneration, but slower grinding did not mean pass or fail in life or death. While it might, but it would be less immediate.
I was the type of person who liked to optimize everything when playing a game. That was partially why real life was so frustrating, decision paralysis. I couldn’t do that here. I made a decision and would live with it or die with it as things went.
Neo Brasilia was just as bad each time I came here. Starving people, dead people, and all around incredibly depressing. Luckily no one made a move at us. Naran was pulling the cart while I kept an eye out at the starved vagrants eying us.
The area around the pillars had trash and one corpse but was fairly clear. Enough to bring the cart forward. The smell was appalling as always. I went first, using up my points, then cashing in my crystals. No way was I going to risk going over one million points. Which brought up the question if Death was triggered by the one million point mark again.
Well, it wasn’t something I was in any hurry to test after the silver golem. Level 4 monsters were no joke. Someone else could test that. I would wait a bit more until my stats were high enough to not be worried. While I wouldn’t upgrade Acid Shot since that would make my grinding worse, it needed to be a serious consideration for when I wanted to grind level 4 monsters so I could one shot them.
Body-500; Mind-175 (+75); Spirt-200; Perception-175 (+75); Aura-100; Regeneration-400; Endurance-50; Absorption-50 for a total of 1,650 upgrades.
Naran went next. He had already informed me of his plan and his stats. It was something we discussed quite often.
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Body-350 (+50); Mind-100; Spirt-100 (+40); Perception-70 (+10); Aura-70; Regeneration-100; Endurance-30; Absorption-30 for a total of 850 upgrades.
His big issue was not being able to one shot level 3 monsters like I could with a skill. His plan was to bring up the key stats to 100 and then focus on Body heavily. I thought not focusing on skills was a bad idea, but I wouldn’t say no to having a teammate high Body. Not like they could intercept level 4 monsters that easily, but at least they could move and dodge.
Also focusing on a build to grind monsters with Body, was safer in some ways compared to what I was doing. Body really was the king of stats with how useful it was.
I also let Naran keep Oscar’s crystals. It wasn’t much and he always purchased supplies. I kept an eye out at the starving people around the plaza while Naran loaded up the cart with supplies. I could see the hunger and greed, but no one made a move.
One second nothing, suddenly 250 people appeared in the plaza. Oh, the arrival. That was when the previous inhabitants rushed forward to capture and drag the new arrivals away. One of the people was already being ripped apart and eaten. That was really disturbing, but I didn’t avert my eyes.
“Done?” I asked Naran over the screaming in the background. It was time to get going.
“Yes,” he said, and I nodded. I looked for a path through the chaos. Several of the smarter and closer newly arrived people rushed next to our cart.
“Save us!”
“There are cannibals!”
“Where are we!” Those were the shouts in English, there was a lot more in other languages.
One person dared to try and touch my cart. I moved and back handed them away. The sound of their bones crunching could be heard, and everyone nearby went silent in fear as the corpse went tumbling along the ground.
“Don’t touch my stuff. All of you make a path or get melted.” Acid Shot x3. Several people not quick enough to move were melted, both new arrivals and vagrants. They screamed and died, but people quickly got the message. The cannibals dragged their meals out of our path. I nodded at that and set off, Naran pulling the cart.
I noted four people still staying right behind the cart and following us. Two young men, a young woman, and an older man. We weren’t ever coming back here during an arrival ever again. That was incredibly disturbing to watch.
The people following us didn’t speak up and after about 15 minutes of walking I decided it was time to resolve the situation. I didn’t like people following me. It set me on edge. “Naran stop.” He came to a stop, and I turned to look at the new arrivals.
“Any of you speak English?” I asked. One of the younger men spoke up.
“I know some.” Good, he didn’t ask any questions.
“Anyone else?” I asked. No one else spoke up. Well, that made the decision easy.
“You can pull my cart, the rest of you can go away or get melted.” Well, the young woman clearly knew English as her eyes went wide.
“What is going on?” she asked. I shook my head.
“You don’t have the right or strength to ask me questions. You, what’s your name?” I asked the young man?
“Fethee.”
“Fethee, pull the cart. Yes or no?” I asked him. He hesitated look at the other people near him. “I don’t have all day. Hurry up.”
“I will pull the cart,” he said.
“Alright, you take over for Naran. The rest of you, you aren’t needed. Leave me alone or die. Let’s go,” I said, and we set off again. The three people were left behind talking in another language. But they clearly got the message at least. Enough not to keep following at a close distance.
“Well, at least I am off cart duty,” Naran said.
“And on monster duty,” I replied.
“That is fine. You want to explain stuff to him?” Naran asked.
“Up to you. I was going to see how much he could work out on his own,” I said not caring if Fethee was listening in.
“I can’t believe that happened. Like Truth all over again,” Naran muttered loudly.
“That much rampant cannibalism?” I asked.
“The fact it is even happening. It is depressing and sad,” he let out a long sigh.
“I could change things, but it isn’t worthwhile. You know that,” I replied.
“I know. Still. It was brutal.”
“Life is brutal, life here is ten times more brutal. Just back on Earth people could ignore that, since it didn’t happen near them. Easy to ignore what you don’t see,” I replied.
There was silence as we continued to make our way through the city. I could tell Fethee had questions, but I wasn’t in the mood to explain things to him right now. Neither was Naran. Watching people get ripped apart and eaten by starving people was a mood killer.
I was honestly considering reversing course with how bad the city was. Looking at people being ripped apart and eaten alive was incredibly disturbing. But investing this city was a massive task. I had a lot more control in Purgatory and it was still experiencing issues.
If I rocked the boat because of what I had witnessed, it would only weaken my position. There was no value in saving people arriving to this city. Perhaps in the future a governor could be appointed, and forces dispatched to take control. But for now, it wasn’t worthwhile or something I was willing to invest my time in. No matter how bad the situation made me feel, and how it was nightmare fuel, I was set on my path.
The path of blood and cruelty. I wouldn’t lie to myself. What I had done to this city had been incredibly cruel. That cruelty would continue without restraint as people starved and ate each other. I couldn’t afford kindness. I couldn’t afford compassion.
I mentally cursed the Systemic Lands and the Almighty System for creating such a situation. If you had the power to teleport people, you had the power to take responsibility and not let things progress to this state.
All the power I had witnessed, and there was a lack of food. It was like having teleporters and spaceships but starving to death. It just incredibly stupid and backwards. I already knew it, but this was further confirmation that the Almighty System had a completely different set of priorities and values compared to humans.
It was not some kindly old man, doling out hints and quests. It was one of those internet games that existed to torture people and wipe them out without consideration. There was no sense of fairness or balance. It truly was a murder machine in every way.