The Systemic Lands

Chapter 44: Day 91 – Boss Wolves

“Acid Shot.” Another scorpion died just like that. That was it for the day. I had managed to kill 81 as I left the shadowlands and returned to the grasslands. I killed off the nearby small wolves and set my campsite on a small hill.

I was not about to spend the night in the shadowlands. The entire place was dead, creepy, and it was a higher danger zone. I had decided to grind monsters and then return to the city for more upgrades. My pattern was the reverse of before. Where I took deeper curves into the scorpion shadowlands before heading back to the small wolf grasslands to regenerate my energy and grind out what I could from the small wolves.

I had killed 359 small wolves and with the 80 scorpions, which put me at 5,845 points in a single day. Multiply that by 20 days, which would put me at 115,000 or just about. That in turn was enough for another 80 upgrades.

The next 30 upgrades were going into Regeneration and then 10 more upgrades into Mind, Perception, Aura, Endurance, and finally Body. That would put me at 300 upgrades total. I looked at the setting sun, and still felt full of vigor. I mentally used that term instead of energy since that was what the mental download called magic juice.

It wasn’t just from being well rested. Normally I would be a lot more tired right about now, as it began to get dark. I liked to joke back on Earth that I was solar powered. It true to a certain extent, I had my window in my apartment facing East, so I would get hit by the rising sun, much better than any alarm clock.

I considered each stat. I suspected this was the result of Endurance, an elimination of sleep, or less sleep required, maybe. It was hard to tell and be sure. Regardless, I was done for the day. I sat with my back against the cart, looking out over the grasslands and at the setting sun. I munched down on an apple as I thought about my future path.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this. Think, think, think. It felt like that was all I did. I would kill for a word document or excel sheet. Give me some pencil and paper at least.

Once I got the next round of upgrades, I could make a deep push… maybe. It was scary, the fear was getting to me. I tossed the apple core to the side and began peeling an orange. My thoughts then drifted to the wolf ruins.

I… I couldn’t let fear control me. The reason for my hesitation was that the scaling of the monsters was brutal, and I kept thinking what the next level after the scorpions and large slimes would be. If I ran into something that strong, I did not give myself that great a chance.

The wolf ruin, I needed to do it. Skills were key. Just barrel through the place with Acid Shot. The problem was the fog impacting visibility. It was just so much easier to fall into a rut of grinding what I knew to be safe.

Wolf dungeon tomorrow night, I would sleep in tomorrow and take a later afternoon slash evening nap. Large wolves, shadow frost wolves, and then boss monster or two. It just hit me, that the boss might appear after the area was cleared out, as an event.

I would need to go in after the small wolves respawned in the surrounding area. No need to get trapped or have things come back in the middle of the night. The more I thought on the idea, the more convinced I was, that it was a good idea.

With my mind made up, I settled in for the night.

I woke up to a beep. I quickly became alert and sat up. Leather armor was okay, but still not the most comfortable to sleep in. There was no way I was taking it off either. Garbage still there from last night. Just double checked to confirm what I had seen the past.

Even with things I knew but were different from Earth, I didn’t mind checking them more than once. It was a good reminder that this place wasn’t like Earth and not to accept things without question. Everything was a clue, well maybe not everything, but I would still pay attention and take note.

I stretched a bit in the dark. I looked up at the stary sky. No change from the star patterns there either. Wait… I looked at the night sky. The stars didn’t move at all. It was like a painting that was static, not the constellations that swept through the sky on Earth.

That meant this world wasn’t rotating, but then that raised questions on how the position of the sun was changing? Unless it wasn’t the world that was moving but the source of day light. It was a Minecraft world, maybe. The sun is moving not the world. Another guess with no easy way for me to figure out the right answer.

I got out a carrot and munched on it for breakfast as I considered this place. It was far worse than I thought. The shortening days couldn’t be caused by seasonality based on the static night sky, it was a direct change in the light source pretending to be a star.

I looked at the watch I had set at sunset last evening. It was still ticking away. Were the days and nights getting shorter together, or was it just the day? I wasn’t sure but I was going to find out. I set off toward the wolf ruins.

When dawn hit, I reset the watch. The night was getting shorter as well. The day was slowly getting closer to an Earth day. It was longer than 24 hours initially, but if both day and night were getting shorter, that meant the entire time of this area was adjusting.

“Are you a self-correcting system? Administrator. Console. Root user. Code zero.” There was no response. But the fact that the day and night were moving towards human norms or Earth norms, when they weren’t that way initially was a huge clue.

I just didn’t know what that new bit of information told me. Everything was monitored constantly, that was how trash was vanished and things reset when no was around. Oh, the observation reached a wrong initial conclusion, implying that whatever was running this place had faults of some kind.

The observation and the macro-environment were connected in some way, with Occam’s Razor implying it was all a singular system, rather than multiple systems working together. “Almighty System, what are you up to?”

Since the days were longer than 24 hours to start with, it appeared it was moving towards Earth norms. I couldn’t tell if this was a good or bad thing. No need for an astronomer or mathematician. Just needed a couple of watches, getting up early, and paying attention to details. The main concern was if the time correction overshot and kept contracting. Only thing I could do was keep an eye on the situation, since I couldn’t exactly graph out the temporal changes with precision.

Nothing for it but to get on with the push and the grind. I shook my head at my internal complaining. I made my way over to the wolf ruins, killing the small wolves and scorpions as I traveled at the edge between zones.

I reached the location in the afternoon and decided to take a nap on a hill next to the ruins where I had camped previously.

When I woke up, I checked my watches. I had woken up before my alarm had gone off. I relieved myself and had a snack. The small wolves came back into existence, and I began cleaning them all up once more around the ruins.

Once that was done, I parked my cart in front of the entrance and went in again. I began a clockwise circuit around the outer wall. I used a shield and magic. One Acid Shot was enough to kill the large wolves instantly. They did react to pain, at least initially, which was more than enough time for the spell to kill them in seconds.

I did a second circuit making a lot more noise and finished off a couple more large wolves. After that I began going into the buildings. Two Acid Shots were enough to kill the shadow frost wolves. After the eighth one I killed I heard a large howl. I checked out an upper floor window.

I don’t know whether it was my gut instinct or one of the stats, but I quickly moved away. A wolf’s head appeared out of the mist and bit where my head had been, sticking out the window.

Stumbling back, I moved away from the window and looked out again, just a lot more mist. I checked above me, still nothing. Another howl rang out. It was creepy since everything had been so silent before. The monsters didn’t make animal noises, but this was different.

I went back to the first floor and the mist was rising and growing thicker. I entered the mist and felt a cold dampness reach me, through my black leather armor. My right hand was ready to cast as I moved towards the doorway. My left hand had my shield up, ready to defend.

The mist suddenly billowed away from in front of me and there was a large shadow wolf. “Acid Shot.” The spell just grazed its flank as it dodged to the side, the mist moving away from the monster as it moved through the thick billows of fog.

While it made it hard to tell exactly where it was, I knew its position at least. The wolf darted in, and I blocked with my shield. The impact sent me stumbling back and chill went up my shield arm. “Acid Shot.” This time I managed to hit the monster on the leg. It collapsed to the ground.

“Acid Shot.” I aimed at its head, and it let out a pitiful moan just before it turned to dust and a crystal. I didn’t pick the crystal up but kept looking around. Nothing, but I wasn’t so sure. After a minute or so I picked up the crystal and put it in my pack.

I checked another building, but no wolf inside on the second floor. No wolves anywhere. The last spot was the well in the center of the ruin. I made my way there.

I spun around, nothing, and I was sure there had been something moving behind me. I reached the well and mist was pouring out of it like a geyser. “Acid Shot.” I cast the spell down the well and nothing. There was frustration on what to do next, but I forced that away to focus on the here and now.

Think, I needed to think. Night, mist, well, wolves, cold, ruined town, what was the key? The wolf that tried to bite off my head on the second floor. How did it get up there? I spun and looked around. The mist swirled as it poured out of the well.

“Sneaky,” I muttered. I checked higher up as well. A monster that only attacks when my guard is lowered. That was incredibly troublesome.

I lowered my shield and listened. A swish there. A swirl of mist there. Danger! “Acid Shot!” A wolf head burst out of the mist in front of me as my spell went off. The monster collided with me, and we went tumbling on the ground, my shield lost in the assault.

I pulled out my dagger and began stabbing. I felt a strong pressure on my left arm and a chill invading my body. I stabbed at the wolf’s head biting down on me, thrusting my dagger deep into its skull. It collapsed and turned to dust. I was bleeding and my bracer was mangled. I winced at the pain as it hit me.

My left arm hung at my side, dripping blood and I held a knife in my right. The mist faded away. Above the well was a diamond crystal. I picked up the wolf’s crystal first and then slowly made my way over.

That was a stupid boss. I looked at my left arm, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. I poked the crystal. I had three options this time. Upgrade Acid Shot with power, speed, or cohesion. Or I could get Imbue Cold, which added cold energy to a weapon, a utility type skill or Shadow Concealment, which was a hiding skill to blend in with the shadows, more utility.

Since skill slots were tied to the city, I only had 2 skill slots. I already had an attack skill and neither of the two new skills had the type of utility I wanted. Shadow Concealment wasn’t a good defensive skill in my mind either. I wanted something that could make a wall, block, or deflect magic.

That meant an upgrade. The mental download didn’t give hard numbers, but power increased the speed of damage a skill did, so damage over time. Speed was how fast it traveled once cast. Cohesion was how well it maintained its form over long distances. I chose power, since I wanted even a glancing blow to be deadly. It was best as a midrange skill, not long range, so speed and cohesion weren’t as useful in my opinion.

With my selection done I noted the mist fading away. I looked up at the sky, it wasn’t dawn. So, the dungeon effects ended with the boss, good to know. The boss and sub-boss were most likely triggered from killing the shadow frost wolves. I thought on a name, mist wolf seemed about right.

I looked at my left arm. No heal after a boss like in Zelda unfortunately. I clenched my hand into a fist a couple of times, it felt weak. At least the bleeding had mostly stopped. I let out a sigh. I put away my dagger and went and picked up my shield.

I left the wolf ruins, returning to my cart. I was really glad I had killed the little wolves beforehand. How stupid would it have been if I was killed off by a little wolf after dealing with the boss? It was time to put my first aid skills to the test.

I carefully unstrapped the bracer and pulled it off, tossing it into the cart. I then got a flask of water and poured it all over arm, washing off the blood. The bracer had prevented the worst of the damage, but there were still a number of puncture marks. The bone was fine thankfully.

I held my arm up in front of my face and carefully inspected it. I then checked my left arm. The scar I had gotten from accidentally ramming my arm through some glass was gone. So was the scar from a knife cut on my middle finger on my right-hand.

The store restoration was quite powerful to remove such old injuries. I chose to sit on my cart and let my arm bleed. I didn’t have any bandages or spare clothing. “Acid Shot.” I used my left hand and it was a tad slower than normal. No other visible changes.

I would have to test it on a scorpion to see what the exact difference was. I watched the sun, or light source, slowly rise above the horizon. How a sun worked on a flat world was a rabbit hole I didn’t want to think of at the moment.

The bleeding had finally stopped. I moved my arm and clenched my hand. Weak, but still usable. Armor had definitely been useful apart from posturing and looking like an edge lord.