Sunset was rapidly approaching when Coop left the safety of the fort, crossing the wooden bridge and following the sandy trail where they had claimed the civilization shard. Instead of looking like a zombie apocalypse survivor with his machete and duct tape armor, he thought he looked a lot more like a legitimate warrior. He had changed his color scheme to what he had christened ‘beach camo’ and was wielding a six foot spear with a round shield the size of his entire torso.

He planned to do some initial testing on the familiar Ancient Defenders along the western beach before retiring for the night. He’d even get to enjoy another sunset over the ocean like the before times.

Coop didn’t have to waste any time finding a target, as the mechanical monsters were all over the sandy dunes. It was lucky they didn’t seem to ever become aggressive. He supposed it was due to still being within the settlement territory. They were like starter mobs outside of a noob town. It meant there was a relatively controlled environment for the residents of the settlement to get some levels.

He wasn’t sure if there were diminishing returns on experience, as there was no experience bar or notifications indicating that he received experience at all. Without diminishing returns, he could imagine an overly cautious hero defeating millions of the weak mobs to continue leveling in relative safety.

[Ancient Defender (Level 3)]

Coop jogged toward his target. Once he was about 20 yards away he threw his spear as an opening attack and kept running toward the creature. He planned to force it off balance with his thrown spear, then use his set bonus to summon the spear back to his hand before it could recover and finish it off with a thrust to the red light.

His spear flew through the air like a missile. When it landed it did devastating damage… to the sand a few yards behind the creature.

Returning it to his hand worked flawlessly though, so he followed through with his assault. Keeping his shield ready, he thrust the spear at the creature. The creature raised its leg in time to block the attack.

When the spear tip collided with the shin guard the shin guard was smashed, splintering into several pieces. Coop repeated the spear attack blasting the leg out of the way for a third, final attack to the red light of the creature.

The Ancient Defender evaporated into smoke that rapidly dispersed as it rose toward the sky. Coop felt incredible while he was disabling the monster’s defense, and it wasn’t because he had defeated yet another simple enemy. He couldn’t really understand why, but it was like his brain had been flooded with endorphins as he fought. Could he be turning into some kind of battle junkie? Was it yet another mana phenomenon? Maybe his ethereal set rewarded him for proper technique? His throw was bad, but the spear thrusts felt right.

Whatever it was, it might be addicting. He already wanted to find the next monster to fight, but first, he checked his notifications.

[You defeated Ancient Defender (Level 3)]

[+3 Basic Credits]

[Quest Complete! Defeat Ancient Defenders II]

[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]

[You have a new quest!]

[Scavenge Defeated Enemies II (19/50)]

He was surprised that he leveled up as well. This was the first monster he killed since leveling to five, and now he was already level six. The level came from completing the second stage of the Defeat Ancient Defenders quest chain. He thought there might be an exploit there, timing the completion of that quest with a level up to get another full level right away. Then again he didn’t see any reason to assume it wasted experience. If it completed when he was halfway through a level it would make sense for it to add the excess to the next level.

The third Ancient Defender quest multiplied the total to defeat by 10 times, now asking for 250 kills. Coop thought these quests would get out of hand really quickly if they kept escalating like that. Hopefully, it would at least give him a level upon completion as well. He wondered how many quests could be in the chain and if the rewards at the end would be worth the grind.

His stat increase was also ridiculous. The first time he hit one of these creatures it felt like he slammed his machete into a solid metal tank. Now, between his weapon and his 60 strength, he completely destroyed it. He quickly added his five unallocated attribute points to his Mind stat. His Agility and Body stats only went up two points from 35 to 37 each, but his Strength went to 65. Maybe someday his Identify skill would be able to tell him the stats of his targets. He bet the stats of the monsters would be scaling linearly with levels.

Coop was convinced that his build was really, really strong. Wasn’t he tripling his attribute points with his passive skills? Was his level effectively tripled because of that? He hadn’t discovered anything else that levels provided, other than attribute points. He hoped that it would be enough to stay ahead of the monster tide that was slowly rising outside of the settlement areas.

Jones’s faction had been pretty clear it would be exceedingly difficult to keep pace with the monsters, but Coop was at least going to give it his best shot. He didn’t think they would last very long in their isolated settlement if he couldn’t. He glanced toward the sinkhole that was still leaving waterfalls in the ocean, only now it looked like a canyon, and the mountain, looming on the horizon.

Before he moved on, he noted his Basic Credits increased by another 500 thanks to completing the Ancient Defenders quest. He was well on his way to affording the 1,000 he needed to upgrade the settlement to an outpost, though he also needed to purchase a building. He would only need a few hundred extra. He would have enough after scavenging 250 more Ancient Defenders and receiving the quest reward for defeating them.

He rushed toward another Ancient Defender and whiffed his opening spear throw once again. The following attacks excited him all the same and the creature was defeated in a matter of seconds after he reached it. Without pausing he moved to the next monster, leaving behind some ghostly wisps as he went.

Coop continued fighting in this manner until the sun fully set. He even managed to connect with his spear throw a few times. He had added some more weight to the base of the spear shaft, which led to slightly more success. He still needed to practice.

His triple spear thrust continued to delight Coop the entire time, to the point that he caught himself grinning like a fool after defeating some of the monsters with it. It wasn’t only fun and games either, his attacks were more quick and precise the more he practiced them. He was able to judge the follow through better as he adjusted to the length of the spear. He concentrated on properly planting his feet while minimizing excess movement. He tried to keep his shield engaged as well, but it was hard to see any progress with it when the enemies had no chance to fight back. He wasn’t willing to actually let them hit him either.

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It had only been around 45 minutes and he managed to defeat 31 more Ancient Defenders, completing his Basic Scavenger quest. It awarded him with ‘Increased Yield’ and started a new quest to scavenge 200 defeated enemies.

He watched as one of the burrowing owls hopped nonchalantly out of its underground home toward an Ancient Defender. Coop got worried and started to make for the monster, to protect the tiny owl, but he didn’t need to bother. Before he could take more than two steps the owl launched several arcing blades of wind, each one severing a leg of the monster with one final blade slicing the shell in half, eliminating the creature. Coop was shocked at seeing an animal use magic and quickly identified the owl.

[Burrowing Owl (Level 10)]

He shook his head in disbelief. Even the dang wildlife was leveling? And that quickly? He hadn’t even realized they were allowed to use skills. He watched as the owl casually returned to its burrow.

He headed back to the fort while looking at his status, worried that he had a very slow start. He was looking forward to completing quests tomorrow. He was going to push his level as well.

[Status]

HP - 370/370

MP - 550/550

Class - Revenant (Level 6)

Profession - Basic Scavenging (Level 3)

Affinity - Spectral

Race - Human (Rank 1)

Faction - None

Strength - 10 (+55)

Agility - 10 (+27)

Body - 10 (+27)

Mind - 55

Intelligence - 10

Acumen - 10

Unallocated - 0

Titles - Champion, Haunted, Ethereal

Skills (Active) - Identify, Retribution, Salvation

Skills (Passive) - Common Language, Mind Over Matter, Adamance, Practical Application

Quests - Defeat Ancient Defenders III (31/250), Scavenge Defeated Enemies III (0/200), Upgrade Camp to Outpost

Basic Credits - 785

Jones was somewhere else in the fort, so Coop took the time to take a shower and get ready for bed. It had only been a week and he was already used to the cold showers. They had mostly tried to keep a normal sleeping schedule, although Coop had missed a few nights already. Jones wasn’t sure if they could go completely without sleep, but Coop was already confirming that they could get by with sleeping much less than normal. He seemed to consistently wake before dawn without any effort on his part. It wasn’t like they had clocks or alarms anymore. Even on the days that he skipped sleep completely, he didn’t seem to have any sleep debt the following day.

It was too early to sleep and he wondered what they should build to upgrade the settlement from a camp to an outpost while he showered.

Feeling fresh, he ventured out into the moonlit courtyard and accessed the civilization shard to review the construction options for the settlement.

He could afford quite a few of the options now, but he didn’t think most of them would be useful. It was a bit like selecting his profession. They were almost all basic gathering options that might help start a village from scratch, but weren’t immediately useful with the presence of the fort and minimal population.

A Lumberjack was only 100 Basic Credits, but they had no forest on the island. Coop didn’t think the mangroves would work, even if many of them were now oversized. None of the three residents could make use of any of the various smiths, and there were a dozen of them.

As Coop scrolled through the options he dismissed them one after another. The Mine wouldn’t work, as it would probably fill with ocean water. They didn’t need Housing or Walls due to the fort and there were only two of them and a cat anyway. He wasn’t sure if they had enough room for any types of Farm or Ranch. Although he hesitated looking at some of the types of Groves and Plantations. Couldn’t they produce coffee or sugar here? Coop didn’t know to what end. Maybe in the future they would trade with other settlements or something.

After a while, Jones joined him by the civilization shard. He had been inspecting the fort to see if there were any urgent repairs. Apparently, there were several unfinished maintenance projects that he was worried about. Jones wanted to make sure they were taken care of before next year’s hurricane season. They had plenty of time, but it wouldn’t be a good idea for the issues to accumulate when they wouldn’t be getting any ferries.

Coop went through the list with Jones who also rejected many of the options for the same issues as Coop. He also wasn’t sure about getting into agriculture given how limited space was on a tiny island chain. Coop didn’t like the idea of disturbing the local environment anyway.

Jones had a bunch of ideas for how to establish a town in the courtyard. He had already done the city planning, more or less, after Coop made the flippant suggestion that they make a bridge and use spokes from either side. They just needed to do the construction. Normally, that would be the hard part, but they wanted to recruit some aliens to do it for them. Unfortunately, it seemed like most of the expert buildings were locked behind specific settlement requirements. They needed to meet certain thresholds, like having at least a Town, a population over 1,000, and certain prerequisite services.

Coop also wasn’t sure about certain aspects of their hypothetical city. Didn’t they need some sort of industry? Trading partners? And what would the population be? They wouldn’t be able to house more than 10 people in their limited barracks. They didn’t have room for suburbs at all, not that suburbs would be feasible without cars. They would need to have mixed zoning instead of purely residential neighborhoods, and the city would need to be designed around walkability instead of what they were used to.

Jones actually had the planning well in hand though, having spent a minimal amount of his life in car centric cities and mostly studying historical examples from before cars even existed. Jones assured Coop that they would be able to comfortably expand a city as the population grew with people seeking shelter from the monsters. They continued shopping for buildings, trying to plan for the long term with their limited resources.

Eventually, they found a solid prospect for their first building construction. The Stonemason. It was one that Coop hadn’t looked at previously due to the cost. It would be 750 Basic Credits, which would clear Coop out. But Jones predicted that it would be more than worth it. They could have them take care of the maintenance and repairs of the fort, as well as the roads that Jones had planned. Depending on his skill, he could also take care of the bridge across the chasm and reconnect the back half of the courtyard and fort.

The Basic Credits wouldn’t be that hard to recoup, as Coop planned on grinding mobs and clearing quests starting tomorrow. He would make plenty before they were eligible to upgrade the settlement on Day 13.

Of all of the options, it seemed like the Stonemason would be by far the most valuable. They decided they didn’t need to wait and Coop went to purchase the construction. He scrolled through dozens of variants, finding that the main difference was usually just which faction the proprietor was a part of. He settled on one that was independent for no reason other than he didn’t want any faction gaining too much influence. Maybe Coop still held a small grudge against the factions of the universe for not sponsoring him.

As Coop entered the top down view of the territory of the settlement, Jones pointed out the specific area he thought would be best. It was near the entrance of the fort in case they needed to supplement the Stonemason building with stone from a Quarry elsewhere. The interface that Coop was using was exactly what a real-time strategy game would provide with a holographic representation of the building to be constructed. He placed the Stonemason and it immediately consumed 750 Basic Credits and began spontaneously constructing itself.

They watched as the foundations dug themselves into the courtyard and sprouted supports, floors, walls, ceilings, and a roof topped with a large stone chimney. It was a modest two-story stone building, with green shingles on a gable roof. It had dark brown fencing surrounding an outdoor area on one side that wrapped around to the back. A wooden sign hung from one of the awnings was swinging in the breeze. It read ‘Stonemason’ and had a squat man with what Coop assumed was a chisel and a large block of stone. The entire thing only took about 30 seconds to finish constructing.

As they approached the building they heard deep bellowing laughter that echoed in the courtyard.