The Systemic Lands

Chapter 601: Day 5,081 – A Doorway

I landed back on the airship just as it was getting dark. “Welcome back Emperor Michael,” one of my personnel guards said and saluted.

“At ease, any incidents?” I asked.

“All is calm sir,” he replied.

“Keep doing your duty,” I said as the soldier saluted me again. I gave him a salute back and went down into the kitchen. The chef had prepared bread bowls today with clam chowder. It was quickly becoming my favorite comfort food and after the freezing of a level 7 zone, it would hopefully warm me up. I got my large bread bowl and made my way to the bridge.

“Emperor Michael, welcome back,” Captain Francis said as I collapsed into my chair.

“Thanks,” I replied while looking out at the vast desert beneath the airship.

“Problem?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied and explained the situation. Michelle came in mid-way through my explanation and I started over again for her. After explaining the doorway, there was silence.

“Slightly smaller than the airship, which isn’t a lot of space,” Captain Francis said with a frown.

“Maybe spatial manipulation. There hasn’t been any skills like that, but with the Almighty System, who knows?” Michelle asked.

“It was pitch black. I threw stones in and a crystal. I even prepped a summon and sent it in. They all disappeared after crossing the darkness of the threshold. I then grabbed a long piece of stone and test it, but it was pulled right out of my hand.”

“Well, see if it is there tomorrow. If it remains, then check every day. It might also not be related to the zone, but to something else like the meta-point. There might be no skills upgrades past level 6 zones,” Captain Francis explained.

“Perhaps. There are more tests, but regardless, I can’t and won’t enter,” I replied with a sigh. The risk was just too much. There was silence at that.

“The connection to your summon was cut?” Michelle asked.

“Yes. The tether was severed instantly. While I would like your support, you wouldn’t survive the environment,” I added. If I went through the doorway, I would be doing it alone, without backup. It wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

“Just blackness, no ripples, or lights?” Captain Francis asked.

“It doesn’t trigger my danger sense like the void either. And things are sucked in,” I replied.

“We could try and use a rope, or several ropes,” Michelle suggested.

“When the rock was pulled out of my hand, the pulling force was immense. I would bet that any robe would break, and poking the door like that will just test the pulling strength. No get us much information on what is through it,” I replied.

“Thinking about the level 8 zone?” Michelle asked. I knew she was curious about the level 8 monsters. I shook my head at that.

“My skills are struggling to do damage to a level 7 monster. Going after a group of level 8 monsters would be too risky. I need to upgrade my skills, and the lack of level 6 zones is concerning. We need to get a final count, but unless more zones are discovered, then there will be serious issues, going forward in terms of skills,” I explained. I finished off my bread bowl. The chef had gotten the crunch on the outside just right.

A far cry from vegetables and fruits while out in the wilderness with just a cart. The next day, I got up and went to the level 7 zone bright and early once more. The gray cube and doorway were still present and the zone monsters had come back as well. I killed them all off once more but no change.

The following day, I went to the level 7 zone with the golems. They sent piles of rocks flying up to try and crush me and trying to smash me while unleashing beam attacks from an orifice near the top of their body. While they were humanoid shaped, it was more accurate to say they were piles of rocks moving about. They were also surprisingly fast, but not enough as I melted them one after another.

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After clearing the golems out from the zone another gray cube appeared with another door in a flash of golden light. So not something special like a meta-point, and clearly tied to clearing out a level 7 zone. I kept clearing out the two zones, each one taking a day as the rest of the deek continued. When the arrival took place on day 5,090 the gray cubes with doors had disappeared.

Once I cleared out the zones the cubes with doors came back. While that was enough confirmation these doorways were related to the boss of the zones and skill points, they were still too dangerous to risk entering, without any kind of guarantee of a return path.

The good news was that I could clear level 7 zones with some difficulty. It was time consuming, but I could clear one zone in a full day and earn around 150,000,000 points worth of crystals. There were only around 200 level 7 monsters in a level 7 zone.

That was a lot of points, but not a huge increase from a level 6 zone, which had 400 monsters of two different types, totaling 800 monsters, or around 120,000,000 points. If there were 100 level 8 monsters in a level 8 zone, that would be around 300,000,000 points. Cut that in half again to 50 monsters in a level 9 zone, which would be around 450,000,000 points. If there even was a level 9 zone.

If I could defeat one monster, it wouldn’t be a huge headache to defeat more of the same type. With my energy reserves as large as they were, spamming wide scale attacks was quite simple and my preferred method. Level 7 monsters were too adept in terms of moving about and defending themselves.

The real issue at the moment was the strength of my skills. I could test myself against a level 8 monster by getting to the top of a tower in a level 5 zone theoretically. I did need to cheese the towers and explore and look at redoing my skills.

But that still left open the question, of what I needed before entering the doorways that formed after clearing a level 7 zone. There was no time pressure like with the Astrologer and the tower, but there needed to be a limit of some kind that I needed to set for myself. If I didn’t then I would never go through doors with no escape route worked out, unless there was another Divine Empress chasing me.

Hitting the million mark in my Body stat, and half a million in the rest seemed like a reasonable goal. That would be 4.66 million more stat points, or with my meta-point, another 1.55 million stat points. The math was rather complicated and headache inducing with my meta-point, but I put it at around another trillion points.

My tax income would be messed up for a while, but I could earn 150 million points per day clearing a level 7 zone. That would mean 6,666 days, call it 7,000 days for rest days and traveling to cash in the crystals, to get enough. That felt like a reasonable benchmark for my stats to reach before entering one of these gray cubes and being able to come out alive.

Unlike a game, if I could cheese something by becoming over powered, I was more than happy to take my time and get stronger. I could clear towers as well in level 3 and level 4 zones. No point in risking a level 8 monster at the top of a tower until I sorted out the skill situation.

I could even look at attempting to clear two level 7 zones in a single day. That would speed things up, but I just didn’t have the energy for that, even if I didn’t leave myself any kind of safety margin. I needed more stats, a lot more stats. I also needed to work with my beam skills more or replace them. They were useful in a pinch and did produce an annihilation effect.

After I went through all the level 6 and level 7 zones, then I would think on my skills very heavily. There were options for more utility-oriented skills, or even imbue type skills to give my attacks a bigger impact. It was just unfortunate that I wasn’t able to find out how to improve my skills right now, but I would have more than enough time to sort things out.

Perhaps I would even get lucky, and someone would gift me a meta-point. I doubted that would happen, but I could hope. It was a longshot, since the Almighty System seemed to pick independent minded individuals, but I could hope.

Once my tests were done with the two level 7 zones, I had the airship, move back around, and then Southwest of New Kochi, spending a day on each level 6 and level 7 zone I came across, clearing them out. The level 7 zones all had a cube with doors appear, once the zone was cleared of all monsters. I checked a couple of times to be sure, and they were all dead. The trigger for the mysterious cube and door was no longer in question.

What was in question was the lack of zones. There were very few level 7 zones. While I had known that the number of zones were declining and there were more void zones, it took a steep nose dive after level 6 zones. That would be a concern for however the skills worked, once I risked entering the doors. If they just gave an upgrade, there wouldn’t be enough upgrades. I was also worried about level 6 zones as well.

There was a very valid concern, it would not be possible to level up six complete skills all the way through level 7 bosses. It was very possible there was a skill cap. Any progress would have to be determined by energy mastery.

Two steps forward, one step back. But after doing a full loop of exploration, I would be sorting out the towers and seeing if getting a quorum would do anything. I had very low expectations about this voting system, but any information would be nice to deal with the mental anguish of the immense grind ahead of me.

I had no idea how anyone was supposed to get enough stats without meta-points, or if they spent their meta-point on stupid things. But I was used to it. After all these years, fighting monsters had gone from soul crushing terror to an almost zen like experience. I knew my combat abilities and skills inside and out. The constant fighting and refined an unpolished gem, into something quite amazing. While I was no Divine Empress or Astrologer, I wasn’t worried about level 7 monsters anymore. I was just too strong.