“Go fish?” Coop asked the table, but he didn’t even get an answer.
The Illusionist scooted over for Coop to have a seat next to her. He sat down and she gave him a strained but friendly smile that almost reached her eyes, one that the secretary probably repeated frequently while dealing with the public in the pre-mana days. Coop actually thought it was an upgrade from the nervous looks they shot him from their corner booth when he first let them stay in the settlement.
However, the rest of the party all sat quietly, staring into their drinks, ignoring their cards while taking quick glances at each other. The party was agitated, but at least he knew whatever was bothering them wasn’t due to his presence anymore. They’d all been through a lot together when considering the experiences of the siege event. Coop even felt a comradery with the residents he hadn’t officially met and Shane’s party had been along for the ride from nearly the beginning.
“Alright. Lay it on me. What happened?” Coop prompted the group. Of course, they all looked at Shane and let their party leader answer. It was a familiar pattern that had kept the group together through a variety of situations during the apocalypse.
Shane used his fingertips to push his hair behind his ears and straightened up in his seat before he answered. “It’s nothing, really.” He started, but it was obvious wouldn’t accept a non-answer. “We’ve just been banking on getting experience inside a Mana Well ever since we returned from the sponsorships. Then, you told us about the one right there in your backyard, and we really got our hopes up, but we are quite a bit behind being able to venture inside this one.”
He sighed like someone who had refused to give up only to find his goal was impossible. The weariness he felt was evident. “We spent the day doing more research in the library, trying to understand what is driving the invaders to develop as fast as they are, but we haven’t found a satisfactory answer outside of variable mana concentrations.” Shane glanced at Arthur who simply dipped his head in agreement. The group waited for him to continue, none of them had anything to add that would contradict his disappointment.
“The traditional scaling in a Mana Well is based on distance from the core as it behaves like some kind of mana emanator or magnifier. This leaves the initial monsters, referred to as first stage monsters, at the lowest level in the well, and therefore the easiest to hunt. Inside a plunging well, like the Coral Forest, the first stage would be at the upper most locations, furthest from the sinking core.” He stopped and shook his head in disappointment. “They were easy enough to find, but they had levels that were at least in the 90s. All of our identification abilities only displayed question marks.”
“We’ll need to do quite a bit of hunting around the islands before we can have a proper hunting party, and that’s only if the monsters don’t continue growing. To make it worse, if they’ve grown that rapidly during the opening days of the assimilation, the odds of them slowing down and stopping their progress suddenly are low.” Shane sighed again, understandably upset that their long term plans were being derailed even though they had made a massive leap forward through experience gained from the siege event. In the moment, they clearly felt like their efforts were wasted and they would be left behind.
While Coop commiserated with the party, he couldn’t help also being a bit excited when being presented with the challenge. He mentally penciled in ‘exploring the Coral Forest’ as one of his near future endeavors while he waited for the time-gated settlement upgrade and Jones’s recovery. It would be good to mix it up with his Slayer title chasing by delving into a dangerous abyss. He would need to test the experience gains inside of a vaunted mana well to determine if a shift in his personal priorities made sense.
Coop had an idea. “You guys aren’t that far off.” He said optimistically, before he quickly refreshed his memory of their levels, gently shifting his aura to inspect theirs. They were between levels 57 and 66, which actually was depressingly far off. Their melancholy was a little more understandable given the disparity.
He tried offering an alternative anyway. “I’ll check it out myself. Depending on how I match up with the monsters, maybe I’ll be able to escort parties through portions of it.”
Arthur leaned forward to join the conversation. “Mana Wells introduce significant variability to power, it isn’t recommended to simply compare levels.” He warned rather pessimistically. “They won’t be bound by the rules the system imposes on the planetary sponsor. It is a pure reaction from mana densities that establishes the well.”
“I’ll wait for a few more levels first.” Coop reassured him with a smile, though it still seemed like the entire party lacked confidence in him. He waved a hand at them. “How many bosses do I need to smack around before I can handle some non-Primal Construct monsters?”
“You’ll probably be fine.” Arthur finally conceded. “We’ll need to hunt the local invaders more seriously and perhaps even wait for another settlement event to push us beyond the minimum threshold.”
“We’ll figure it out.” Coop promised. He didn’t want his residents running into roadblocks in any case. “We didn’t get any warning for when the next events will arrive either.” He noted.
“It will most likely be triggered by some discovery soon enough.” Shane stated wearily. “According to our orientations, the majority of them appear randomly, but they can’t overlap.”
“Something else to look forward to, then.” Coop opined, not really appreciating the unpredictable nature of the future challenges. He’d rather have them scheduled so that he could plan around their starts.
Coop shrugged, he could only plan for so much anyway. “Let’s have a round of drinks and keep our heads up.” Coop flagged down Jonah and ordered for the table. When he turned back to the group, their moods hadn’t improved, so he kept distracting them with questions. “What kind of discoveries might trigger an event?”
“It could be anything really.” Shane admitted, recalling what the Empire had taught them. “It’s usually some threshold being reached, like an individual faction gathering a certain number of civilization shards or a sufficient number of individuals climbing beyond a certain level.”
“Volume of territory for an individual settlement.” The Dragon Knight added after she swiftly finished her drink, letting the empty cup knock against the table.
“A settlement hitting a certain level of development.” The Tomb Blade contributed before he sipped from his own mug.
“So, pretty much anything, and we’ll inevitably trigger them as long as we keep pushing forward.” Coop observed to the agreement of the table. “Do you think we should be pushing to trigger the next one as soon as possible?” He didn’t think so, but maybe they could press some advantage while they had it over the rest of the settlements.
Shane shook his head. “Ah, probably not until we’ve recovered the army or otherwise refreshed our troops, not to mention the fort’s repairs…”
“Hmm…” Coop was finding reasons to be worried about progression, and he didn’t like it, but he pushed the fear aside. Maybe it was selfish, but he didn’t think there was anything that would deter him from pushing himself forward. He wasn’t exactly trying to save the world, just make Ghost Reef a place that was safe for anyone, and as the Champion, he needed to keep pushing himself to make it a reality. “Well, I’m not going to hold off on getting more levels or upgrading Ghost Reef.” He affirmed.
“No, you shouldn’t hold back.” Shane reassured him. “There’s really no way to know what will trigger an event and it’s predetermined by the planetary sponsor before the initiation of the assimilation. They can’t mess with us after the fact, to punish us or game the process or anything else beyond what they chose at the start.”
Arthur concurred. “Strategically, our best bet continues to lie with gathering as much power as possible in order to be prepared for future challenges. To hold back for others would be a detriment to everyone, including the ones it would be meant to benefit.”
Coop was just glad he wouldn’t need to start sandbagging, but he still played the devil’s advocate. “What if we waited until everyone was level 99 before hitting 100?”
Arthur chuckled. “It would certainly require patience and coordination. Unfortunately, the threshold is just as likely to be at level 99 instead, or at 1,1111, or not on any level at all. It’s not worth trying to work around all of the possibilities.”
“Fair enough.” Coop was ready to accept any reason not to add to his slowly shrinking list of concerns.
After finishing a few more drinks, the group decided to head back to their shared apartment and Coop made his way back to the lighthouse to get some shuteye. He walked along the new trail and noted that the smooth stepping stones were still warm from the day’s sunlight despite sunset finishing hours before. He wondered if that was magic too.
A handful of residents were fighting along the freshly repaired dunes, defeating Ancient Defenders under the light of the moon. They gave him a friendly wave as he walked by. A pair of phantoms also waved at Coop while they lingered near the edge of the scrubland making sure the Prowlers didn’t catch anyone by surprise. Coop waved back, glad to avoid a salute from the soldiers.
Despite the hardships, Coop couldn’t help but feel Ghost Reef was already coming out from the threat of destruction better than ever. He fell asleep with even less worries than the day before.
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The next day, Coop went through his routine with Jett, Sunny, Maeve, and Marcus, then headed for the training yard while the day was still young. He was excited to find out how some of the residents were training, but also what Emmanuel had set up to claim as a gym.
Emmanuel was already outside, next door to the training yard. He had claimed a small lot next to the yard, erecting a makeshift fence in a square shape that bordered the service building, and to Coop’s surprise, arranged various pieces of equipment along the perimeter. A handful of simple stakes marked the boundaries and a simple mat at the edge of the future road indicated the entrance.
Coop’s anticipation grew as he spotted a flat bench, pull up bar, squat rack, and several barbells lined up together, shining like they were brand new in the morning sunlight, but there were no weights. It was a bit of a letdown, especially compared to his initial burst of excitement at seeing the equipment.
Emmanuel was bench pressing an empty bar on the flat bench and was straining to get the last few reps out, so Coop moved to spot him. The big man must have done an incredible amount of volume to struggle as hard as he was with a standard looking 45 pound barbell. Anyone that looked at Emmanuel could tell that he was strong. He had an intimidating build that he had clearly cultivated over decades of effort and self-control.
On the last rep, Emmanuel nodded and grunted for a spot and Coop grabbed the bar to put it on the rack. Coop almost fell over in surprise when the bar barely moved. It was incredibly heavy, weighing far more than he expected. He planted his feet and got it onto the rack with a struggle and looked closer at the metal bar wondering what the heck it was made out of.
“Damn, how much does that thing weigh?” Coop muttered, but Emmanuel didn’t respond right away. Coop hadn’t expected the empty barbell to be twice as heavy as his heaviest spears because a barbell was familiar and his weapons had long ago escaped logical observations and firmly embedded themselves in his mind as magic.
The big man sat up on the bench, breathing deep. When he caught his breath he turned to Coop and grinned. “Hope you’re ready to get a workout in!”
Emmanuel stood up and got behind the bar himself. “You’re up, my man. How much do you wanna warmup with?”
“135.” Coop answered automatically. He’d spent four years hitting the gym while he was in college, plus all of the time in high school getting ready in the first place, so he immediately defaulted to what he remembered.
“Let’s make it 150.” Emmanuel cheerily suggested. “Easier for me to do the math starting from 50.”
Coop waited for Emmanuel to reveal the weights, but when he didn’t move, Coop figured they were already set, so Coop just went with the flow. He rotated his shoulders, getting his rotator cuffs warm before he sat down and got underneath the bar, a bit scared of its previous weight. He gripped the knurling and rotated the bar a few times inside the rack, testing it and finding it suitable, then lifted the bar to begin.
The bar almost flew out of his hands; it was so shockingly light. He did a few reps and put it back, sitting up with a sour face having achieved nothing.
Emmanuel guffawed. “I was waiting for you to notice! We’re a lot stronger now!”
“How much were you doing before?” Coop wondered, still remembering how heavy the bar seemed.
“2,500.” Emmanuel grinned. “New world record! And it was for reps.”
Coop just gawked at him. Emmanuel was a big guy, but Coop had him pegged as a bodybuilder. He was too thin and lean to have been a proper powerlifter, though he was much bigger than Coop.
“How strong are we?” Coop murmured, half in awe and half curious.
“Let’s find out!” Emmanuel suggested as Coop got back underneath the bar. “Let’s warm you up at 1,000 pounds.”
Coop was game. “I thought we’d use the training yard’s magic. Where’d you find the equipment?” Coop wondered, now recognizing it as somehow special.
“I commissioned it from the smiths after we received our rewards from the event. It’s basic stuff, but they work fast.” He beamed. “I can customize the weights with my abilities. I simply multiply their gravity.” He placed his hand on the center of the bar for a moment and nodded at Coop.
Coop went through the motions, adjusted his grip, and gave it a shot. The bar glided through the air, moving easily. Coop could feel that it was absurdly heavy, far beyond anything he would have even thought of attempting before, but he was also strong enough to do it. The resistance felt good and Coop kept the reps smooth.
The realization of his new strength was more strange than empowering. It was a completely different scenario than when he was smashing things with his ethereal weapons and pushing himself beyond his limits. Coop had been underneath weight he couldn’t move, and that’s what this felt like, except he was moving it easily. He couldn’t argue that the weight was inaccurate, because he could feel that it really was ridiculously heavy. It made him wonder about the mechanics of mana and whether or not it was even him lifting or if mana was doing all the work. What were their actual limits? Did they have any, or was it all mental?
Emmanuel pulled the bar into the rack, interrupting Coop’s musings. “Alright, you don’t need to do a hundred, it’s just a warmup.” He chuckled.
They swapped positions and Emmanuel did his last set, getting two reps in at 2,500 pounds again. When he was finished he rested his elbows on his knees while he sat on the end of the bench. “That’s it for me.”
“That’s it?” Coop joked. “Just a small car for a couple reps?”
“Let’s see how far you get!” Emmanuel challenged Coop.
“Alright, but I’m gonna stick with triples when it gets heavy.” Coop rubbed his hands together as he got back on the bench. “By the way, how much Strength do you have?”
“About 500 after a doubling bonus.” Emmanuel stated with a sly grin. “You?”
Coop shrugged and couldn’t suppress his smile. “Getting close to 1500.”
Emmanuel rubbed a hand on his bald head as he nodded with his eyebrows up. “You’re a freak, huh?”
Coop grabbed the 2,500 pound barbell in response. He spun it a few times as he found his grip and started another set. The bar never changed speed as he sailed through 10 reps. It felt like he was still on warm up weights. They waited a minute and Coop did the same at 3,000 pounds. He did 7 reps at 3,500 pounds, feeling the bar slow down, and saving some fuel for even heavier weights.
While he rested, the Cleary brothers arrived with Elly in tow. “Whoa! You got the Champ here already?”
“He was easy to convince.” Emmanuel admitted with his hands out. “You squatting today, boys?”
“That’s right.” Buck confirmed as he put Elly down.
Emmanuel touched three barbells and pointed at them. “500, 1,000, 1,500.” Junior put the lightest bar on the rack and started warming up.
“How much are you lifting?” Tiny asked Coop.
Emmanuel answered for him. “This is 4,000.” Tiny whistled with surprise.
Coop began his set while the brothers quit their setup to spectate. Tiny leaned forward with his hands on his knees to get eye level with the bar and Junior put both of his hands behind his head with his cheeks puffed out. Coop pushed through 5 reps, feeling the burn in his triceps and inner chest, but barely letting the bar slow down on the way up.
“Gah damn! That looked easy as hell!” Junior exclaimed. “You got way more in ya’ huh?”
Coop sat up, catching his breath. “We’ll see, it’s getting harder fast.”
Buck nodded. “Diminishing returns. Still, you’re way out ahead. That’s quadruple what us three put up already.” He indicated his brothers with a flick of his wrist.
Elly looked back and forth from her brothers to Coop. “He’s stronger than Buck?” She asked them. “He’s not bigger.” She frowned as she tried to wrap her head around the deviation in her logic.
“He’s a lot stronger.” Buck confirmed to the visible confusion of their little sister.
Coop had to really dig deep to get through 3 smooth reps at 4,500 and they lowered the increments as he continued. He pushed through sets until he was staring at 5,000 pounds. Simple fatigue was setting in, so this was his last set, whether he was pushed to failure or not. Coop was pretty confident his one rep max would still be quite a ways higher, but he was content to let the run stop before it got out of hand. Buck was spotting him in the center, Emmanuel was on one side, and Junior and Tiny were both on the other.
Elly kept her distance, wary of the heavy weight, but she still lifted both arms and shouted, “You can do it!” As she was caught up in the enthusiasm.
Coop primed the bar and took a deep breath, planted his feet, arched his lower back and leaned his shoulder blades into the bench. He clenched his teeth as he brought the incredible weight of the bar lower until it brushed his chest, then he pushed, letting the air in his lungs escape through his teeth in a hiss.
“Up! Up! Up!” “Easy!” Tiny and Junior yelled over each other, doing their best to encourage the lift.
When Coop got the barbell all the way up, Buck announced, “That’s one.”
Coop sucked in another deep breath and repeated the motion. The burn ran through his entire body as the compound lift drove him to the limit of his stamina, if not his actual strength. He pressed his heels into the grass beneath his feet as he forced the impossibly heavy bar back up, telling himself that the only thing holding him back was himself. The shouts of encouragement were muted to his ears as his heart pounded over them.
“That’s two.” Buck counted, making the lift official. All four of the spotters kept their hands underneath the bar, ready to help.
Coop went for the third, feeling the sweat pour off his forehead. The heat that was coming off of his chest made the tropical air seem chilly. When he started pushing the bar up, the hiss of air escaping his lungs had turned into a growl. His face contorted with the struggle to keep the lift smooth, but the barbell was still moving comfortably.
“You got it!” Emmanuel shouted excitedly. “A little more!”
Tiny whispered in awe, “Too easy,” to Junior who just nodded in agreement.
As soon as Coop reached the apex, Buck yelled, “Three!” They all grabbed the bar and pulled it back onto the rack with a clang of unbelievably heavy iron colliding with a magically reinforced, sturdy stand.
Coop shot up and roared along with the Cleary brothers as they slapped his back and rubbed his head while all three jumped up and down. He pounded his chest like a gorilla while Emmanuel rattled the bar against the rack in excitement. They were hyped like they had just won a championship in the final seconds in front of a home crowd.
The celebration continued with undiminished enthusiasm until Coop noticed an actual small crowd of residents laughing at them as they gathered on the road. He paused while the brothers kept the excitement going. The commotion had drawn their attention as they headed for the training yard.
“What’s going on?” Charlie wondered, sounding left out.
“Just guys being dudes.” Camila laughed as she shook her head.