The Systemic Lands

Chapter 68: Day 158 – Skill Points

“Well, that was easy enough.” The place was on the same timer as the dungeons near Purgatory. Reset with the arrival. I looked over at Ruth and Tom. “The other location?” I asked.

“On the opposite side of the city to the Northeast in the butterfly forest,” Estevo said.

“Hmmm, lots of people grind the butterflies?” I saw his look of confusion at the correct terminology. “Kill them for crystals?”

“Uh, yes. The brown butterflies to the South are the easiest. Then you have the green butterflies to the East which make people sick. Then the blue butterflies to the North which melt clothes and flesh if they land on you,” Estevo explained.

“So brown and green are the most popular?”

“Yes.”

“Hmmm, it is day 158. We will swing West and North. Kill some of those white crabs, reach the dungeon the night of day 159. Hang out there half a day and then you can get a shot Ruth. Then we can loop back here.” I saw the surprise on her face. The dungeon should reset with the arrival, but the mental download was a bit unclear. It wouldn’t hurt to check and try and get Ruth a skill point.

“I think of my teammates occasionally. Anyways, you get skills from dungeons, which is their purpose. They also have a cooldown timer,” I said. Estevo had a look of surprise and then resignation. “Let’s go.”

We traveled West. I wanted to avoid people for now. While it was tempting to stir up more trouble, I had gotten the information I wanted. Also, I was pretty much done with wanting to explore for now. With one more skill point on the horizon I was in a good mood.

With the 20 upgrades into Regeneration and the skill point used to increase the size of Acid Shot there was the possibility of clearing the bulbs. I had the additional choices of trajectory and shape. Trajectory was immediately thrown out since my aim was decent enough. Shape was more tempting since I could create a wall shape instead of a sphere.

In the end size was the best option in my mind. For monsters that required more than one use of the skill, this would offset that issue. I thought about the venom flies and the black oil pit. I could easily see myself grinding that dungeon to the bedrock.

I would also be able to push past the stupid ants to the East if I wanted to explore in that direction. There was a lot I could explore now that I had an improved skill, it almost felt like too much. Still the swampland was a no go. Since it would be a pain to bring a cart and my mobility and visibility would be hindered.

There was the salt river and the blue floating rocks as well. The real value was in finding and clearing dungeons. If I could also find an easy to kill level 3 monster in large numbers that would be huge as well. That was what I really needed to start raking in the points.

We left the grasslands and started running into the white crabs. The monsters were definitely color coded to a certain extent. White meant mind attacks, blue meant acid most likely, green poison, and red fire. Still wasn’t sure about black, brown, or non-colored or monsters with different colors like the striped meerkats.

I was able to easily wipe out the white crabs in a single attack. I had my group turn North and kept killing them. It was almost night when we began to run into axe dervishes. We had back tracked a bit and then went East into the grasslands.

“You sleep outside…of course you do.” Estevo muttered. I didn’t know what he had been thinking. Probably something useless or pointless. Probably both if I had to guess.

“It isn’t that dangerous if you know what you are doing,” Ruth said.

“Honestly, the lack of a proper night’s sleep is the hardest thing,” Tom grumbled. I gave him a stare. “Not that I am complaining or anything. Nope.”

“The monsters re-spawn in the middle of the night, just need to wake up and clear the nearby area in the middle of the night,” I explained. I got to work on a pack and divided up crystals as people got out food.

“Here, your cut as promised, 3,000 points in 50-point crystals.” I handed Estevo the pack.

“I asked for too little.”

“Hmm, well you do get to travel with us, and I am sharing my supplies since you forgot to bring any. If I really was an asshole, I would charge you for that.”

“He’s right,” Ruth added.

“He wouldn’t hesitate if you were annoying,” Tom said.

“You both shut up and eat.” I was in a good mood for getting a skill point and being about to grab another.

“So, the plan?” Ruth asked.

“Spend half the day killing crabs, then we will head East to the second dungeon. You and Tom can kill things, Estevo can be on cart duty.”

“What?” Estevo asked.

“Consider it payment for food and Tom needs to get in more fighting practice and get some crystals. We find the dungeon that evening, and I will clear it with Ruth. The next day we can relax until mid-day and then we will clear it again. After that we will swing back quickly to the grass elemental pit and might give either Ruth or Tom the clear.”

Ruth looked up at me. “Him, really?”

“I am considering it. He has been doing alright so far besides the occasional gripe.”

“Ah, thanks,” Tom said.

“I haven’t made up my mind. You can either get Grass Blade or Imbue Fire from that dungeon. Not that great in my opinion, but Grass Blade has some interesting projectile possibilities if I had to guess.”

“After that?” Ruth asked.

“After that, well, I want to go back to the salt river and explore to the South. I am confident we can push past the blue rocks with decent speed. After that, probably the cliffs to take out the bulbs. Then we can make our way back to Purgatory and go on a grinding expedition. You and Tom can do the meerkats while I go to the boom boom pit.” Name was still pending.

“Is that what you are calling it now?” Ruth asked.

“Not really, but I just wanted to say that. Boom boom pit.” She let out a sigh and rolled her eyes. She made it too easy. “Estevo can be dropped off in Purgatory when we pass through.”

She gave the man a long look and then looked back at me. “You aren’t worried about what he knows?”

“Not really. He doesn’t know anything important,” I gave a shrug. “Also, I am sure you will tell him the story about that one woman who gossiped a bit too much about me.”

“Really, you want to scare the living shit out of him?” Ruth asked.

“Uh, I don’t need to-“

“It isn’t that long of a story. I used to work with a woman called Evaline who kept me up to date when I was out of the city. She then started to sell information on me, so I put a bounty on her literal head. I killed her assassins that she sent after me, and her pickled head was delivered to me. Lesson of the story, you talk shit, you just might lose your head.” Estevo looked distinctly more worried.

“My advice is to not cause trouble or talk nonsense. Freedom to talk about things is a luxury of strength,” Ruth added. That was true.

“Well said. Well said.” I noticed Tom listening, but he had become fairly used to my brand of insanity. I knew that he knew that it just wasn’t worth the headache to talk smack.

After that we went to sleep. I stayed awake until I was sure Estevo was asleep. We cleared the monsters in the middle of the night, and he didn’t wake up.

After waking up at dawn we began grinding away at the monsters. Around mid-day we switched over journeying to the East. We went across the grass elemental grasslands and then to the forest. We ran into the dreaded butterflies.

I had to break out the cheap wood club since I didn’t want to wreck my swords. They were just like slimes, only faster, flying, smaller, weaker, and with less acid juice. They were easy enough to kill in my opinion. Still incredibly dangerous though. One mistake could lead to crippling and most likely death.

We ran into some large empty patches where other groups had passed through, but I didn’t mind or care really. We reached the pit, and it reminded me of the slime pit. Ruth took a stack of torches, lit one, and we entered the pit.

There were a lot of brown butterflies, it was a swarm. “Acid Shot.” My improved skill was able to take out several at the same time, which made it a lot easier. We came to a three-way intersection and I look the left route.

We came to a chamber. Now came green, blue, and brown butterflies. There was a large white one in the back. I began to feel tired, and it was hard to keep my eyes open. I unleashed three Acid Shots on the large white butterfly, killing it and ending the mind effect.

That was it for the left chamber. I went back to the intersection and chose the right path next. No boss doors, but a dead end with the same large white butterfly and several minions. I killed that one off as well and poked around the dead end. There was nothing there, like the slime dungeon. A random dead end just seemed unreasonable, still I couldn’t find anything, and the torches were burning up. We took the middle path next.

More butterflies and then the boss doors. I pushed them open. It was another butterfly swam. I swung with my club in my offhand and used Acid Shot with my other hand. I wiped out the swarm and had Ruth throw in a torch and look around.

Just a large blue butterfly left near the ceiling, out of range from the doorway. We entered the chamber so I could finish it off. The doors closed and the large blue butterfly unleashed an acid ball at me. I had to quickly dodge. How dare it! “Acid Shot. Acid Shot. Acid Shot. Acid Shot.” I finished it off with overkill. No kill like overkill.

The skill crystal appeared, and I checked the options. There was Stick Shot. Sounded like a trap skill. The problem was strength. Large monsters would probably ignore it, while fast monsters would avoid it. Too situational.

The other option was Sleep. Now that was an interesting skill, very interesting. The problem was that it wasn’t defensive, movement, or healing. It might be considered utility, but in my mind, it was an attack skill.

After playing the Final Fantasy games, I didn’t hold out much hope of a skill like this working on a key monster like a boss. If the monster was strong enough to warrant using it on them, it was probably strong enough to resist. It would be useful in messing with weaker people, but I had no doubt the Mind stat would counter this skill, like it did with monsters that had mental attacks.

No, another upgrade was the way to go. I looked over my options. Multi-cast, prep and hold, and minor effect. Each of these choices was quite good in my mind. My focus with an attack skill was damage, the more the better. I chose minor effect, partly out of curiosity, and was presented with another four options.

Cold, air, death, or metal. No explanations given either which was annoying. I would note this information in my notebook later to think over. Still, one of those options was superior in my mind, so superior it wasn’t even a contest. I chose death of course.

“Acid Shot.” Instead of a lighter bluish green, the color of the skill had become much darker. The wall where the skill impacted wasn’t damaged more, but the wall wasn’t doing well either. I would have to do a lot more tests.

“Upgrade?” Ruth asked.

“Yes, my skill now has an extra effect. The skills were Stick Shot and Sleep,” I said and began to walk out. No teleport to the exit, unfortunately. Where were the convenient boss exits or teleport platforms to the outside?

We set up camp a short distance from the dungeon as I made notes in my notebook. I had learned quite a bit and needed time to think it over. I had three upgrades so far and a skill could have a total of ten. It was a huge investment into one skill, but I felt that it was the best skill so far. Even if it was horrifying.

It was a direct attack and destroyed physical properties of objects. Everything else was sub-par in terms of attack or anything else in my opinion. That didn’t mean those skills wouldn’t be more useful in certain situations, but that was the key thing, situations not consistently like Acid Shot had proven to be.

With a limited number of skill slots, anything I picked would need to be good. I guess that was another bit of luck that came my way. I got a very good first skill, almost too good. Well, I wouldn’t be complaining about that.