“Die!” I yelled out as I kicked off an exploding chunk of ground, twirling through the air, like a sub-sonic missile, and kicked open the Giant Centipede’s head. I snatched the crystal out of the air, before it fell into the churning terrain of the moltenlands as I continued to constantly move.

Shouting out ‘die’ was a way for me to alleviate my frustration. I didn’t mind grinding, I had done it a lot in the past, but fighting these monsters in this terrain was frustrating. I had to constantly pay attention to my movements, or I would be forced to use an Air Burst to recover.

I had a stroke of luck that I had found Radiant Beam with another monster, since I couldn’t get the same skill point twice. That luck hadn’t stuck around unfortunately. Now everything was moving to a head rapidly.

The fact that the city upgrades were done, pissed me off quite a bit. It was aggravating to a large degree. “Die!” I crushed another bug’s head with my fist. I resisted the curse damage and general energy the monsters were giving off. I hated fighting in melee, but I couldn’t afford to run out of energy just in case I needed to recover my positioning, or the level 7 showed up.

Even with my limited Mind stat, it was easy to crush the monsters with my fist or foot. I was only willing to do this, since I knew I could beat them with my Body stat alone and not with my skills. “Die!” I killed another one and collected the crystal and put it in my enchanted pack.

So many little things that were a headache about grinding in a level 6 zone. Collecting the crystals without the pack being destroyed was a headache. These little things that people normally wouldn’t think about as an issue were made obvious when fighting in a level 6 zone.

Still, my speed was impressive and I had a routine fairly well worked out. I would zig zag across the entire zone from East to West. Sure it took me from the Giant Centipedes to the Hell Lords, but it was quite efficient, since I didn’t want to go deeper into the zone and risk the boss.

The monsters were thankfully pulled across the zone. “Die!” I killed another monster and collected its crystal. Air Burst. I had to use my skill so I didn’t fall into the molten exploding terrain. There was no good rock for me to land on. This was also practice for movement.

I needed to be able to plan out my moves and attacks. I couldn’t overly rely on Air Burst. It was energy hungry, even at 50 energy per use. I had fought enough to know that every bit of energy mattered. Especially when there was a need for some overwhelming attacks.

Worst case, I could beat the boss of this zone and get cursed again, but I wasn’t too worried. I had seen it once and while impressive, it had weaknesses. Not that I wanted another fight any time soon. Its point crystal would be useful, but not that useful at the moment. Michelle could manage with her two level 6 monsters, grinding out other level 5 monsters.

The skill was interesting, even if it was insanely expensive. I wanted to try the skill at least once. Empowered Destruction Beam, just sounded like a skill I would love. Long range, powerful, and a single screw you attack. The cost of 50,000 energy was annoying, but not insurmountable.

I needed to bring the rest of my stats up to 100,000. Then I would go back to Body and raise that up to something much higher and repeat. Being a generalist wasn’t something I enjoyed. I would rather be an artillery mage. In the way, way back of any fight.

But that wasn’t the case unfortunately. I had to fight up close. I hated it and was no good, but I could kill these monsters with my feet and hands. Mostly my hands, since I didn’t want to ruin my boots. “Die!” I killed another centipede and entered the lavalands, landing on piece of rock, kicking off before it sank into the lava.

I punched a Hell Lord in the head and grabbed its crystal. The trick was to understand where the crystal appeared as the monster dusted. It was best to hit the head, move down its body, kick off as it dusted, and grabbing the crystal as I passed through where it had been.

There was an art to moving so efficiently, without touching the ground. I had to use my skill if I screwed up or there was no nearby place to land or monster to attack. Once the pattern was down, it was simple to do over and over.

Level 6 zones had 400 level 6 monsters of each type. My goal was to clear out at least 600 total each day. Night and day didn’t matter, since the glowing lava was more than enough to provide light. The biggest issue was my pack size. Once it got full, I would take it back, have a meal and a shower, and then head out again. I went to sleep every couple grinding sessions, but just stayed out here for the most part.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

My teammates or teammate could grind at the rate they felt was right. Doctor Katz was staying behind for Director duties and seeing the set up of the farms. Michelle was off killing monsters in the level 5 zone the Crystal Vortex was parked in.

Captain Francis would stay on the airship like always and provide support to Michelle while keeping an eye out on things. Joyo was eaten, which was a complete waste in my opinion. At least we had this Biter and he was going to start paying dividends no matter what.

I almost felt bad for whatever nation we would be going up against. All the fighting that occurred had pushed research and development in unique ways. The amount of madness we could unleash when putting everything into a war would be immense. Summons in multiple ways, skill combinations, airships, and lots of beam attacks.

The ABS weapon system was still being held in reserve as well, made from the highest grade of materials. That would soon change, once I started getting level 6 monster crafting crystals. That would be too much of a headache right now. Just killing them was possible, but making them crafting crystals was a massive headache, and one I hadn’t done yet.

There was no need for level 6 crafting crystals. As much as there was a demand, I knew Michelle was stockpiling crafting crystals from level 5 monsters to sell back to the government. With the Infinite Block, and her other summons it was easy enough for her to pin down level 5 monsters.

From there she could get crafting crystals. As the only source of high level crystals, they commanded quite a premium. It only worked for her since she could use multiple rods at the same time with her summoned monsters. For me going one by one, while trying to keep my footing would be a massive headache.

Better to leave such things to Michelle. I was content with earning my 90 million points per day. At 151,200 points each, level 6 monsters were worth quite a bit. Not worth the headache in my mind, since my passive income was around 60 million per day. But they added up togeather for 150 million points per day.

With 100 days of grinding, I would get another 15 billion points. That was a drop in the bucket, but in 500 days, that would be 75 billion points or 100 thousand stat points. I wasn’t planning to share with the others. I needed about 700 billion more points to hit a million total stat points.

That would take about another 5,000 days, unless my passive income increased. There were efforts to bring it up, since that meant more overall tax revenue, but things were pretty tapped out right now. I knew people were looking into grinding the bad type zones to not have to deal with other people. Find a swamp or mistlands and get killing a couple monster types down. Just repeat that every day.

The people who retired, I thought they were the most useless pieces of garbage around. Your points would run out eventually. I know some cities were trying to set themselves up as retirement destinations, I was glad Clarissa didn’t do that for Purgatory.

That was a place for people who wanted to progress, not sit around all day. Sure, there were restaurants, and craftspeople. But the city was humming. It had energy and excitement. Before I left, people were already gossiping about the trillion point options and how much of a scam they were and if the government would actually invest in any of them.

That was never going to happen. A trillion points was way too much. If they had been 10 billion points, or even a 100 billion points, I might have said sure. But a trillion points was way too much. “Die!” I killed another Hell Lord, got its crystal, and moved towards the next one.

Going to another level 6 zone, just wasn’t worth it until I had increased my stats by quite a bit. Also, I wanted to get better at fighting. The one thing I had to learn was not just the attack, but where I would end up.

Air Burst. I needed to recover from falling into the absurdly hot and molten ground. Another thing was the difficulty breathing. While it was slight, it was there. I didn’t have any serious issues, but it was concerning. We knew plants didn’t produce oxygen, so something else was maintaining life.

Just one more bit of proof of the Almighty System. We had a candle lit under a glass jar inside the Power Church as proof of the Almighty System’s power and divinity. It was a pain to make candles and very expensive, but a useful expense to convince people of the Almighty System and how it was everywhere.

The church was growing. XLR8 was doing a great job in his new position. Really getting the populace to convert. Clarissa had announced that while it was the official state religion and only religion to be allowed to actively proselytize, the Power Church was not a requirement for the Imperial Government and could not be made into a requirement for people.

Keeping religion separated from the state and aspects of government was important and I agreed with this. We needed the populace to convert, but we needed the bureaucrats to be more rational. There would be no litmus test of faith for soldiers or hiring, only competency of the person being placed in the role.

But not dealing with spiritual aspects of the population could lead to cults forming and other headaches, better to get them all praising things that wouldn’t get them into trouble, like the Almighty System and myself.

I felt a wave of danger wash over me and turned my head slightly. The Molten Millipede of Fear And Destruction was back for round 2. It was massive, but I beat it once, I could beat it again.