I cashed in my points. One more bit of progress. Slow and steady was going to push me to the top.

Body-500; Mind-175; Spirit-200; Perception-175; Aura-175; Regeneration-620 (+160); Endurance-50; Absorption-50 for a total of 1,945 upgrades.

Naran had passed the 1,000 point threshold and had passed me in the Body stat.

Body-540 (+100); Mind-100; Spirit-100; Perception-70; Aura-70; Regeneration-100; Endurance-30; Absorption-30 for a total of 1,040 upgrades.

We had done several tests. While he had a slight edge in speed and strength, it wasn’t such a massive difference one would experience between a person with a 0 in the Body stat and 40 in the Body stat.

This was further confirmation that stats were logarithmic, or at least the Body stat was. Regeneration still gave 1 Energy every 100 minutes for each stat point, which was linear. I was at 6.2 energy per minute. Not a big enough number to switch over to seconds.

I wanted more stats in everything. Every time I considered which stat to invest in, it was frustrating since I wanted to invest in them all. Even the ones that didn’t do much. While Endurance and Absorption might be the odd ducks out, I had no doubt that pushing into level 4 zones would require that I don’t fall asleep and not carry supplies.

While they weren’t stats that were critical right now, there was no useless stat, only how they were applied. Still being a generalist, meant falling behind in a specific stat to people who specialized.

Naran had reached the point where he could grind level 3 monsters, very slowly and with great difficulty. That was a huge leap in grinding potential. Which meant grinding location was even more important.

I had decided we were coming back out here after Purgatory. I was going to face the white gargoyles and deal with the mind attacks, and he could handle the blue ones with their force walls. One thing I had noticed fighting the Ritualist, was that mind attacks were mostly pass or fail. If they failed, they would be distracting and make it hard to focus, but they that was something that could be trained.

Just like I had learned to time my movement facing the blue gargoyles and their force walls, I wanted to train my ability to ignore mental attacks. I had probed them a few times, and it was doable, but my grinding speed would be slower. Also, I would have a headache at the end of each day.

Still, it was the worth the cost. While people might like to think of this as a game, or treating virtual reality as a game, it wasn’t. Moving one’s body was a lot different than using a keyboard and mouse. It was like playing Trackmania on your computer and expecting to be able to be as good as a NASCAR driver, driving actual cars.

While things might appear similar, there was a vast difference in skill sets. The same applied to combat in real life compared to game. It was something I had come to appreciate more and more. Combat against people or monsters was fast paced, brutal, and completely unfair. Abilities and skills that I didn’t know about could be used instantly and each fight was a fight to the death.

That was why, even though grinding was boring, I took it as a chance to work on my fundamentals. Things like timing my movement, watching the enemy, and timing my skill use. I still wasn’t completely sure on this, but I was working on a combat equation to better and more quickly evaluated my chances in a fight.

Stats would be 50%, skills 25%, and fighting ability 25%. Surprise would act as a one time multiplier. I put a lot of weight on stats, since with high stats a person could dodge a skill. At the end of the day, if someone could move faster and hit harder, then winning would be a challenge that system skills or combat skills could only do so much.

“What buildings do you think Clarissa has purchased?” I asked Naran.

“Good ones.” He parodied Clarissa’s deadpan voice poorly.

“Ha! Well, there should be some progress hopefully. Finally get to see the city tech tree in all its glory. Not that I have much hope for anything useful,” I replied.

“Not even airships?” Naran asked.

“You know my thoughts on them. They will run on barrels of points or there will be some other requirement. Or it will attract a level 5 monster from the sky. A city could easily throw quite a bit of points at one. The fact I haven’t seen any airships zipping through the sky means there is a limitation.”

“Don’t be a downer, Michael. Soaring through the skies instead of walking. It would cut way down on the travel time,” Naran said.

“Still why airships? It just seems like an odd choice instead of a car, plane, tank, or so many other options,” I complained.

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“It was turned on in the default settings for the Almighty System,” Naran grinned at the end. That was a good joke.

“Never know, you might be right,” I said, and we walked in silence for a bit before Naran spoke up.

“Back here, or on a tour?”

“Back here, most likely. Almost tempted to poke the Ritualist and Truth, but I am not that worried. If Purgatory hasn’t sent out an alert by now, then the rotation plan for new arrivals is going well,” I replied.

“So, more grinding. Level 3 monsters will be difficult,” Naran said.

“Well you can do it.”

“The wear on my weapons is a lot. Might need to get an enchanted weapon,” he said in a contemplative tone.

“Up to you. I know I am going to wait for a while. While you just need something to be tougher, I would need to change my entire fighting style,” I replied.

“You want to lean into the equipment effects? That is an investment,” Naran said.

“I know. It is just something I am going to have to suck up and accept. The gap to level 5 would be too immense otherwise. The trick is finding the right equipment.”

“Any guesses on crafting crystal color to enchantment?” Naran asked. It was something I had thought on, but there was no way to make an informed guess. The fact that the wolf crafting crystals and the brown slime crafting crystals all yielded the same enchantments had thrown me for a loop.

I was missing something about the alignment system and how monster colors worked. It wasn’t a simple elemental wheel or anything that I previously knew of. So, while I had been trying to work out the type chart, the chart was incomplete and translating that to enchantments was a headache all on its own.

“No. That is the way of madness. Working with numbers is much easier. That is why I left it in the hands of other people. Let them figure out that nonsense. It isn’t going to be simple or easy,” I replied.

“I guess. Well, you have a stockpile of crafting crystals already,” Naran said, pointing out the level 2 monsters I had turned into crafting crystals.

“We have a stockpile. You are welcome to use them and test them if you want. I was thinking about just saving up a large amount and possibly selling them. Get people motivated about enchanting,” I replied.

“That makes sense. The real trick will be finding the type of monster that is level 3, but aligned with death,” Naran said.

“Oh, you want a dusting sword?” I asked.

“Yes. Something like that would be completely overpowered. Just dust stuff. I can’t think of a better weapon for melee.”

“Hmmm, well I don’t disagree. Dusting would be quite useful. Especially if it consumes so much of a monster, even if it isn’t a one hit kill. Would need to be careful with something like that. Other weapons would be dusted as well.” Now he got me thinking on the dusting sword.

“The dusting went to the weapons as well, right?” Naran asked.

“I believe so. I know it counted clothing. Yes. The guard that was dusted had his weapon dusted as well. That was why I threw my weapon in the fight. Maybe the same thing that links enchantments to people, is the same thing that is the carrier for the dusting attack,” I said, and it sounded right. Like two pieces of a puzzle coming together without having to force the connection.

Energy, such a small all-encompassing word, for what the Almighty System put into my head. It had come to me when I had gotten the first skill crystal. Downloaded into my brain like all the other knowledge, but with none of the background. Energy, what kind of energy was the real question.

Perhaps there was no good word, or the Almighty System didn’t want to describe it. It was quite stingy in knowledge and details. Like a miser, hording every scrap of knowledge, only doling out what it had to. Whatever it was, the word energy was vague on purpose. I had thought on this issue, but it was at the crux of several abilities and lines of research.

“Well, that is good to know that a dusting sword would go through a lot. A melting sword isn’t that great,” Naran said.

“A person could stab…no, stabbing and leaving the blade behind won’t work. Since a person has to keep holding the weapon to activate the enchantment,” I said trying to think of a good way to use such a weapon.

“It is like one of those items that drop, but are useless. Diablo, that is it. You get loads of garbage, and only some things are useful,” Naran said.

“That makes sense. At a higher level of power, I could see it being much more useful against large and tough monsters. Or clashing with blades and then melting through the opposing weapon,” I said.

“Or ranged weapons. Need to check that. Can a person throw or shoot a weapon and have the enchantment still function?” Naran asked.

I was about to say no, but hesitated. While letting go of an enchanted weapon, cut the mental connection and the effects, things could be different with projectiles. But how would the Almighty System know? Well, that was a stupid question, but it seemed a weird distinction to make, but it was one that could be made.

“Something we will have to test, or someone else will test. Personally, I am more interested in testing the effect of the crystals themselves, since that will clearly point to what that type of crafting crystal will do.”

“Surprised you didn’t do that on this trip. Just buy a bowl of water,” Naran said. I shook my head at that.

“And risk getting injured away from safety and a regeneration. I learned my lesson the last time poking at crafting crystals. If I poke them again, then I want to be sure they are poked by someone else or in a safe environment.” There were no safety rails, which was concerning to me.

When I had been hit with the force wave, it had gone through me. At least I think it did. I didn’t know if my stats had done anything, but there was a real risk if I activated a death crafting crystal and died or was seriously injured.

I knew enough to be concerned about the results. But that was why I had other people doing the research and taking the risks. Messing with crystals outside of the system was just asking for trouble. I didn’t trust myself to avoid an accident. No matter how high my stats were, the effect of the force bomb was incredibly quick, with barely any time to react.

No, other people could die working out the secrets of the crafting crystals. And then, just like the Ritualist, I would swoop in and get all the benefits and knowledge. Let the other people die for me to progress my understanding of the Systemic Lands forward, while I accumulated more and more stats.

While it seemed simple, the best answers tended to be the simplest. Strength and stats were the key to a lot of problems I was facing. I just needed to grind up more and the problems would no longer be problems.