“Good morning Michael,” Clarissa said as she sat down for breakfast.

“Morning, Clarissa,” I replied.

“Have fun?” she asked. She wasn’t even grinning at me. And with her tone of voice, it was hard to tell if she was making fun of me.

“It was nice, but not something I would do constantly. Soft Voice was okay and opened my eyes to the minute implications of the Body stat,” I said while calmly buttering some toast.

“Oh, like what?” Clarissa asked.

“The stat begins and ends at the surface of one’s physical body. Not right below the skin or surface. Not often I have someone trying to poke my ears and my ears won’t move,” I replied.

“Interesting, but no unexpected. So, you don’t want me to schedule another appointment?” Clarissa asked.

“No. I got all the tingles I needed for a long time. Naran enjoys that?” I asked.

“All the time. It is one of his favorite ways to relax while in Purgatory,” Clarissa said and I shook my head. I bit into my buttered toast, savoring the warm rich texture.

“How is food development going?” I asked.

“Getting there. The main challenge is finding the most efficient way to process food into food products with as little waste as possible. Each bit of food represents points. Also, the shape matters as well, for processing. Also, the food combinations don’t behave exactly like they do on Earth, so even more complications.”

“Good news, I am expecting to have oil and spice production fully realized by day 540 with near one hundred percent efficiency. At least water is free from buildings, which would have been a huge expense. Lots of food scraps are sold back to the city for the arrivals to eat,” Clarissa said.

“Very eco-friendly, or point friendly,” I said.

“It helps the bottom line. Getting rid of any waste now, will prevent issues long term. Also, it will prevent anyone else from muscling into our businesses,” Clarissa explained. This was something she enjoyed if I had to guess with how much she spoke on the topic.

“Well, keep up the good work. I plan to head South for today. Got a date with a swamp and some giant spiders,” I said reluctantly. It was not a date I wanted to go on. I ate some more fruit slowly wanting to put off my departure, which I knew wouldn’t help things.

“You don’t have to go you know?” Clarissa pointed out. I shook my head at that.

“Naran won’t be happy if I drag him along at a later date and I am not too worried about the dungeons,” I answered. Since I was the one benefiting from the dungeons, it was kind of pointless for him to come along for these two swamp dungeons when it wasn’t even exploration.

An argument could be made for learning about different monster types. But that paled in comparison to how miserable the swamps were. I could easily find and clear the dungeon in the zone to the North and the South while Naran recovered.

Then once he was better, we could go grind up some more stats or explore a bit more. Perhaps Soft Voice could extract the stress from his mind with her mastery over tingle immunity. I chuckled to myself as I thought about the session.

“Well take care out there. If you need backup, let me know,” Clarissa said.

“Thanks, but if I need back up then there are much bigger problems.” I let out a sigh and stood up. I really didn’t want to do this. What I really needed was a stat that let me run across water to stay out of the muck.

I went back to my room and got changed into my armor and took time to stretch. I was doing everything to delay the misery that I was about to endure. It would be too easy to sit back down in my comfortable chair and have women whisper sweet nothings into my ears all day.

I could even understand why dictators and rich people would fall into such a trap. They let their brains turn to mush and their ambitions melt away. This was why I was the best. I might occasionally indulge, but I wouldn’t let such things pull me down and trap me.

Leaving my home, I quickly left the inner city to the South. I was loving the wide-open road from the inner city of Purgatory to the gate. No more navigating and headaches trying to remember where to turn.

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I soon reached the gate and after a quick hello and goodbye to the soldiers of the RMPF I left Purgatory to the South. I raced through the forest that used to have brown wolves. Now there was nothing. The rotation strategy was being squeezed for everything it was worth.

The fact I didn’t run into a single monster showed how well Clarissa had organized things so far away from her presence. I could probably clear the forest if I was in charge, but Clarissa had managed to create and maintain this system while residing inside Purgatory and not stepping outside the walls. That kind of skill, which wasn’t readily apparent, showed how good she was at her job.

I soon came across the front line of people. I stayed back as I observed that there was a line moving forward. The guide or trainer hanging back noticed me after a minute while he was keeping watch and he jumped a bit in surprise

I went over to him, and he spoke up before I could say anything. “Sir, you are not allowed to be here. This area is for reserved for rotational clearing only. I will have to ask you to leave,” the man said. I blinked slowly as I processed what he just said.

He was very polite, but I was Champion Michael. How did he not understand who I was? I had an animal design on my armor and was wearing dark blue.

“Who do you think I am?” I asked, curious to what he would say.

“A high level guard, possibly a captain, from Chief Administrator Clarissa to inspect our efficiency. Don’t worry, I will be hitting my targets, but I don’t want the monster patterns to be disturbed and imbalance the lines,” the man explained.

“How long till you reach the swamp?” I asked.

“Late in the afternoon,” the man said, and I shook my head.

“I am afraid I will be disrupting your lines and the monsters by racing ahead, as I head to the swamp. Don’t worry about Clarissa either,” I added.

“It will hurt my chances of promotion,” the man complained. I just wanted to laugh. I was the big boss, Champion Michael.

“Promotion to?” I asked.

“One of the hunting camps or Union teams. One of the teams would be the best. We need to talk and move as well, since I need to keep an eye on the line,” the man said.

“No problem.” I easily kept pace as he got behind the spread-out people in gray.

“Sound off, one,” the man called out. People began to call out numbers one by one. He nodded when the count hit twenty-two.

“You seem to be quite good at this, why the struggle for the promotion?” I asked.

“Pay isn’t that good. It is good compared to other jobs, but that isn’t real strength you know. I heard about the battle with the sky worms and saw the aftermath, not pretty,” the man said.

“Why not go off on your own, or to one of the hunting camps?” I asked.

“And risk my job?” He shook his head. “No way. I want to be one of the appointed people to the camps to help manage them. That way I get a paycheck and crystals from killing monsters. A Union team would be the best, but I need to find people for that,” the man explained.

I could kind of understand this man’s mentality, but it was weird. Clarissa had made grinding monsters into a 9 to 5 job. My soul cried at that. She had sucked all the excitement out of the profession. It made sense for stability and long-term profits, but it was a mindset I cringed at.

Whatever she was selling this type of person, it was clearly working. He was the type to rise up and become strong, but he would never sit on the Immortal Council. It was the safe path, the path that had already been cleared and scouted.

There was no talk about dungeons, going out on his own, forming his own team, or anything else he could be doing. Clarissa gave him a boring path forward she would benefit from and he just jumped into the role and began working away.

It made sense, a city couldn’t be composed solely of people like me, otherwise it would implode, explode, and catch fire all at once. This was the true strength and face of the corporation of Purgatory that Clarissa was in charge of. A man doing a job, to get a paycheck, in the hopes of getting a better paycheck later on.

“Take care, I am going ahead,” I said and took off. I rushed past the line of new arrivals in their gray clothing and continued on my way South. I was not about to stand around all day. They would just have to deal with disruptions as they came.

I raced past level 1 wolf monsters, quickly out pacing them and leaving them far behind me. It was unfortunate there was no way to observe monsters without people or summons. Monsters reacted to summons, so it wasn’t possible to observe them when they were doing nothing.

While I had made inferences about their movement patterns based on the amount I ran into versus the total number, it would be nice to have confirmation of what was actually happening.

I finally reached the swamp and let out a long sigh. I went right into the murky green water. A giant brown spider leapt down from a tree at me. Acid Shot. It died. I was not about to search for a crystal in the muck and kept moving.

The goal was the skill crystal and nothing else. I kept moving forward and scanning for any terrain feature. No one liked the spiders or swamps, which was why this swamp was underexplored. If that man truly wanted to get strong, he would get a spear and skewer spiders to get points more quickly.

Just killing 100 spiders in one day, would net him 5,000 points. I knew that this far exceeded any salary he was making. That was the difference in mindset. He had accepted his fate as a wage slave. I looked at that mindset in distaste.

Regardless, that wasn’t my path. My path was through the muck. Acid Shot. Another spider down. The most annoying part was the lack of footing. Acid Shot. I couldn’t just rush forward and out run the monsters.

It was late in the evening when I spotted the terrain feature of the zone. I had to wander about the middle area for a bit and thankfully it was easily spotted. A giant towering tree at least eight to ten stories tall. It was curved like a spiral, allowing a way to get to the top, even if it was really steep.

I stood in the murky water and evaluated it. My energy was below 100, so I waited. I wasn’t with Naran who could cover for me. I went to a nearby tree. I brought my hand forward and pushed the edge of my fingers against the tree.

There was a small amount of give, but not enough. I had tried the same thing on the pine trees in the level 1 zone. I could very slowly push my hand into them. The higher the zone, the stronger the terrain apparently.