I easily completed three dungeons in level 2 zones, bringing my skills up to level 4. When upgrading to the next level I was offered the ability to adjust the skills slightly. I declined, since I was happy with how they all worked. Changing them would throw off my fighting style.
Once I took the time to fix all my skills and redo them, then I would look into different skills. I had run across Null Refraction which dispersed energy in an area. It sounded quite good, but I didn’t want to change my skills. Also, I was keeping my skill slot open for when I killed a level 5 roaming boss monster. Right now I was going to stop by a level three dungeon on my way to a level 4 zone to the Northeast of Normandy. The North part was all blocked off by void zones.
The level 3 cat monsters weren’t that hard. Even the striped teleporting ones were easy enough to finish off. The main thing was finding the dungeon. I kept scanning the horizon for any feature. It was only when I came across a large shadow in the middle of the zone and looked up did, I find it.
There was a floating island above the frostlands. Well, good thing flying was a specialty of mine. “Air Burst. Air Burst. Air Burst.” Having to say the skill out loud again and make hand signs was annoying, but it was a lot stronger than before. What should have taken me five or six uses of the skill, only took me three to get high enough.
The floating island was about five or six stories above the ground. I figured it would take a good leap and just a single good Air Burst to clear a city wall now. It cost 200 energy per use, which it was before. I still couldn’t believe that I had thought leveling up the skill increased the cost. Just one more thing to my list of mistakes.
Still, with the increased power, I estimated that it would be touch and go to keep out of the Divine Empress’s range, but it was just a bit more doable if she was injured. I landed on the floating island. More large cats of various colors rushed me. There were some boulders up here, but not much in the way of terrain features other than it being a floating chunk of rock.
The first level 4 monster was a large gray cat that leapt out of shadows. A few Acid Shots killed it. My Perception and the corresponding danger sense made it too easy. I had that stat at 5,000 which I considered a very good investment.
It might not work on assassins or certain monsters, but for troublesome teleporting or disappearing monsters like this it was amazing. It took all the difficulty out of the fight. The other level 4 cat monster that showed up was one that breathed fire, with wings, and a wire whip tail.
One well placed Acid Shot brought it down. I really needed to get the multi-cast upgrade back. A huge advantage I had was just dumping overwhelming attacks into monsters. The machine gun use from the double multi-cast upgrade had been even more amazing.
It was a shame I gave up all those upgrades to raise my skills to the next level but they were stronger. The level 4 monsters died within seconds of a single Acid Shot. That was a huge improvement from the twenty to forty seconds the Bulwark Shields had taken.
They were different monsters, but I didn’t think I had an energy type advantage against both level 4 cat monsters. The skill options were Shadow Form and Flaming Tail. Well, those assassin cultist women had all the stealth skills around here. All the better to claim this territory and build up my own cadre of elite super stealth assassins.
I picked the power upgrade for Acid Shot. That skill was getting 4 upgrades first no matter what. After that it became trickier. It would be nice to get 10 upgrades on all my skills again and I considered the cost implications.
My Spirit stat, which gave me energy at a one to one ratio, was at 10,000 and my Regeneration stat was at 10,000 as well. That meant I got back 100 energy per minute. Air Burst and Aqua Sphere both cost 200 energy with Aqua Sphere having an upkeep cost of 40 energy per second. Acid Shot cost 80 energy.
It would impact my grinding speed to upgrade the skills more. But I realized that grinding was only so useful going forward. I needed speed, power, and most importantly ease of use. Fighting was about experience now not getting points. Points would come from my empire.
Getting my skills maxed out at the current level with upgrades was the most important thing. I figured they were level 4 skills since they killed level 4 monsters. There was no good level system for skills, but it seemed like adding one to the zone I got them from and the level of the harder monsters was the best option to align combat levels.
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This meant I needed 29 more level 3 zones and to locate the dungeon in each one. It would be a slog for sure. But I had the time. The deadline was day 999 for having the Astrologer dealing with the living bomb he had placed inside me supposedly. I was still unsure if this was true. His living proxy was just way too suspicious, and some things didn’t line up perfectly. I am sure many things like this city of female assassins had explanations, but it was suspicious.
I figured a day per floor at most. That was the level of supplies I planned to bring. I also wanted some buffer time. So, my target date to go up the tower was day 900. I also needed to get crafting crystals for the super weapon.
I could pick them up when I poked level 4 zones to test myself. I had about 100 days left until I needed to start climbing and even with one zone a day to get a skill point, which left me about 70 days to test myself against level 4 and level 5 monsters.
The real challenge would be getting crafting crystals from level 5 monsters. I would have to find an easy one and maybe check out a level 5 zone or two if the level 5 roaming bosses weren’t that bad. I doubted that, but I was hopeful.
Hope was doing well with Doctor Katz. Clarissa had sent her out there as a guard slash assistant. I had missed her when I had visited since she was out getting supplies, but I was glad she was doing well and was away from the fighting. That woman might be a bit ditzy but she had come in clutch for me.
The dungeon was fairly disappointing like they all were in my mind. Just a terrain feature with some harder monsters. But there appeared to be a qualitative difference between level 3 and level 4 zones. Well time to get moving, those skill points wouldn’t collect themselves.
I leapt off the flying island and headed North. I had a lot of level 3 dungeons I would need to clear, and it was best to do it as efficiently as possible. I would clear out all the ones around Normandy first while swinging through the city and then move South most likely and loop around the territory Purgatory controlled.
Purgatory Empire or the Empire of Purgatory didn’t sound as good as Dragon Empire. Well I wasn’t using that name, even if I wasn’t changing my personal symbol. I had it first and no one could argue otherwise.
It would be nice to have had someone tag along with me to talk to. But having an equal was something I wouldn’t tolerate anymore. Too much chance of drama. Concentrating absolute power and points into a single individual, namely me, was the safest choice.
I raced through the frostlands calling out my skills and wincing each time. I hated shouting out my skills and couldn’t wait to fix this issue. I entered the zone to the North as the monsters changed to wisps, clumps of misty air that shot out balls of energy.
It was easy to dodge them with my Body stat and they were vulnerable to Acid Shot. Anything level 3 and below was absolutely no challenge anymore. I just completely outclassed them so much. It was a curb stomp.
I arrived at the dungeon with perfect timing since night was falling and it was a ruined down. Mist filled the ruined town and I went right in. The mist was pushed away from me by a decent margin. I would say about the length of an Acid Shot, so about 30 feet or about 9 meters.
“Acid Shot,” I said over and over as wisps rushed at me. There were some bigger wisps, probably the level 4 monsters, but I didn’t even give them a chance to act as I went right after them. It was a shame to ignore the point crystals, but monster points didn’t really make a difference to me anymore.
The skill point offered me two skills, Mist Form and Death Wind. Interesting but I picked a second upgrade for Acid Shot as size. The more the better, since it would be harder to dodge when I unleashed a tidal wave of attacks at my opponent.
Once I grabbed the skill point, I considered my options. Well I was heading North, might as well keep going. I had more than enough mental stamina left to keep pushing forward. Another benefit of high stats. I traveled North in the darkness, killing wisps that approached me while barely slowing down.
I wanted to check out a level 4 zone. It was a bit foolish, but after killing off these level 4 bosses so easily I was honestly curious to check out the mushrooms and the jungle type zones. My caution would come back in full force for the roaming level 5 boss and level 5 zones, but level 4 zones seemed like they wouldn’t be that hard now.
It was probably a foolish mindset, but it was just a natural occurrence of breezing through the dungeons. If a level 4 zone was easy, should I upgrade my skills to level 5? I considered that possibly as I raced through the night.
The idea of going even further was quite tantalizing. I would be technically able to damage a level 6 monster with a level 5 skill. It would be a tough battle, but I would have a chance at least. The tower and the top of the tower were the biggest concerns.
With level 4 monsters outside, that meant at least level 5 monsters inside, and possibly a level 6 boss at the top. I was less worried about the Astrologer, but he was also a concern. The thing would be the time and care needed to get all the skill points from the roaming bosses. I was also getting ahead of myself since I hadn’t even fought a level 5 monster yet.
Still the possibility was intriguing. Even doing a roaming boss a day, it would be possible in the time I had left and give me a huge power boost to just crush everything in my path inside the tower. The main issue would be cost.
Acid Shot would go from a planned 320 energy up to 1,280 energy. That was too much, unless I chose cost upgrades for my next two upgrades at level 4 of the skill. Then it would only be 320 energy at level 5 and maxed out.
I would need to see how difficult a roaming boss was first, but that was just what I was going to check out. I saw mushrooms up ahead mirroring the frostlands and then jungle mirroring the mistlands to my right. Well time to explore these two new types of terrain.