I couldn’t lay here forever. At least I had rested up a lot already. A small win in my mind, but hopefully my legs would crust over before I had to sleep. The blood was oozing out less, but it was still concerning. I didn’t dare remove the energy I had placed over my leg stubs, bleeding out would be a horrible way to go.

Bringing up my right hand, I leveraged myself up and then forward. I slowly crawled across the top of the tower towards the center. What would have been an easy walk was painfully slow, dragging myself. I was hoping the pillar healed me or was a meta-point.

That would be the best outcome. If I had to drag myself back to civilization, that would be a nightmare. I didn’t want to do that again. The Divine Empress already made me drag myself once, I did not want to do that a second time. The thought of dragging myself through the miles to get back to Heaven would be a nightmare. With how the swamp was laid out, no one would be easily grinding all the way out here.

If I ran across a grinding group, they could hopefully take me back, but I wasn’t holding my breath. It was going to be a slog. A long slog, with no food or water. It would probably take at least three days to get back, but I would do it. I had won.

I paused as I was dragging myself. While the Astrologer was many things, he had been gloating. A restoration would bring back the gut tumor. Well, the tumor that disrupted my skills gave me a clue how to erase such a thing. It wouldn’t be easy, but I felt confident I could manipulate my internal energy to fix whatever had been done to me over a long period of time.

With the Divine Empress dead, there was no need to hide anymore. I was unsure if the Astrologer had died, but we would need to check for Astral Projections. I also needed to get back before he tried to replace me. That would be a headache I didn’t want to deal with, but needed to make sure. The protocols Clarissa had set up for the treasury would come in handy again.

I went back to dragging myself across the top of the tower with my right hand. I eventually reached the golden pillar. I pulled myself up and put my head on it along with my right hand. I was hit with a rush of information.

Tower 38 of 40

1 Tower Claimed

0 of 0 Cities

0 Cities Claimed

Quorum of 21 Required

This was tower number 38 out of a total of 40 towers. Out of the 40 towers, one tower had been claimed so far and not by me. No cities met the requirements to be counted and no cities had been claimed. Once there was a total of 21 cities or towers claimed, then a vote could be held.

A vote on what was unclear. Just that there could be a vote. Not clear on how the voting would work either. If I claimed this tower several things would happen. The first thing would be that the tower would descend into the ground and just become a platform with a pillar on it that only I could use.

If I was killed, then whoever killed me would get my tower vote. There were no other privileges. I just got one possible future vote and remove this tower from the Systemic Lands. It was aggravating in a way. This was the prize.

“That’s it?!” I called out. “That is a shitty prize!” There was no response. But I shouldn’t be surprised. With the Almighty System running things, what need was there for anything actually helpful or informative?

It also didn’t escape my notice that the Divine Empress could have sealed both the Astrologer and me in the tower and killed us if she had claimed the tower. Anything inside when I claimed it would be lost forever. “What an idiot,” I muttered. All her brains were battling IQ or intellectual quotient, but her strategic IQ was in the negatives, her emotional IQ was zero, and her general IQ was average. She min-maxed a bit too hard there and overestimated herself and had too much hate.

The pillar didn’t offer a restoration or anything else unfortunately. Nothing I could purchase either. No other information. For such a fancy golden pillar, it sure was disappointing. I considered the fact that another tower had already been claimed and there were 40 towers. It was a fetch quest, kind of. Fetch the towers.

I knew where there were five towers total. Four of them were in level 3 zones. The first one I had found, then this one, then one by the Free City of Hong Kong, then another South of the Forbidden City. Then there was the tower in the level 4 zone I had run into while running away from the Divine Empress.

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That meant I could get 4 out of 40 of the votes reasonably soon. Whatever the vote was on, I knew it would be world changing. You didn’t give votes for reaching the top of these death towers to vote on something like the meal plan. Possibly the votes would allow for people to leave or escape this place.

For the first time in a long time, I felt hope course through me as I had a real and concrete goal beyond surviving. I needed votes, all the votes. Whatever the vote was for, I wanted to win it, or get it. Didn’t matter what the vote was, I couldn’t allow anyone else to decide the outcome.

One person was already ahead of me. That was unacceptable. I would have to kill them or get ahead of them in some way. I couldn’t let anyone else get these votes. If other people had this power, then it would be a huge loss. After coming so far, I couldn’t fall behind. I had defeated the Divine Empress and the Astrologer.

I didn’t regret hating the Ritualist and finishing him off, but that kind of hate created tunnel vision. It made a person blind to the bigger picture and had what allowed me to come out ahead between the Divine Empress and the Astrologer. Both of them had been idiots, but I wasn’t about to complain about their foolish choices.

They could have had reasons, but at the end of the day, I had won. That was the most important thing. I claimed the tower. The entire building shook slightly. I saw the elevator and safe room descend into the top of the tower and looking at the occasional cloud, I saw the tower was slowly descending. The pillar now just gave an indicator of my location, a direction and distance.

Of course, it would do that. That way people could hunt me down. That also meant if I came across a claimed tower, I could find out where the owner was hiding, track them down, and get their vote. After the Astrologer, people would bend the knee, or lose their head. No more trying to work with people.

The Divine Empress was many things, but one thing that impressed me about her was her power. She had power in spades. I was going to get that by having crystals flow towards me. Just having 65,000 stats was not enough. I needed a million stats, perhaps more. That would take almost a trillion points, but I was done playing around.

I couldn’t afford to be nice anymore. There was someone out there who had a head start and I needed to beat them. That meant I needed to consolidate power and the point flow. I needed to squeeze the cities and the grinding teams as much as possible to empower myself.

Skills could come a bit later. The first thing would be to set up my empire, and get the points flowing. Clarissa would be invaluable for this. I would also be taking the time to show the flag and get things stabilized.

It would be painful, annoying, and tedious work, but I needed that income from my Empire. It was too critical to leave to chance. I would also use that time to fix myself and purge whatever nonsense the Astrologer had done to me.

I would make sure every tumor that he had placed inside of me, was removed, completely and utterly. It would take time, to focus on every minute twitch of my energy, especially my brain, but it would be a semi-vacation to heal up combined with empire building and showing the flag.

There would be far against the Avatar’s Fifth Caliphate. It would be destroyed and purged. She would be arrested and tossed into a prison of some kind or a pit. Probably in a level 5 zone or something. I still needed to check those out.

One nice thing about the tower was the similar terrain and monsters, it made fights predictable to some degree. I was not looking forward to the mushrooms, the jungle, and whatever nonsense level 5 zones had.

Well, that could come after I had an empire, healed up, and fixed my skills. After all of that, I would also clear out the remaining towers in level 3 zones and claim them. Get a team together in case there were more puzzles and to carry supplies.

That could all happen later on. But it finally felt that I was making progress and moving forward. Even with the loss of both my feet and my left hand, and most likely filled with hidden Astrologer tumors, I was far ahead and poised in the best possible position I had been in for a long time. All my immediate enemies were either dead or had suffered a huge blow.

I was still unsure if the Astrologer had survived. But I was going with the answer, ‘yes, he has survived’, until I melted his body. Even then, I wasn’t so sure if he would truly die. That man had a plan for his plans on top of another plan. Also, his knowledge of energy and how everything worked was scary.

It was possible he had lied about things, but there was just too much risk that I would catch him out. Also, he was clearly trying to make me relax and build up trust. So, I trusted his knowledge, but not the Astrologer himself, either his intentions or actions.

With his Astral Projection, he could easily make trouble. The trick was going to be to set up institutions and procedures that could survive anything he tried to do. It would also help stabilize things for the future in case there was someone who could hide their presence as well.

The tower continued to descend slowly, giving a slight vibration and rumbling sound. At least it just didn’t drop or plummet downwards. That would have been less than good, but I would have managed to survive with my skills regardless.

I was not looking forward to crawling back to civilization. I couldn’t risk sleeping either, or I might bleed out. Thanks, Divine Empress, making me drag myself back a second time. The thought sarcastically bounced around in my head. I looked over at her melted remains, there were only bits and pieces left.

Pulling myself up, I saw with my back against the golden pillar. I would enjoy the view a bit before the tower settled down at the base. That was when I noticed an airship approaching. There was only one person I knew who had an airship.