The Systemic Lands

Chapter 81: Day 204 (2) – The Map Key

“There has to be more?” Ruth asked.

“You know me too well. This is big. Each area is a square about the same size with four monster types in each zone. One terrain feature with a dungeon, with the exception of the city zones, which have two dungeons.”

“We are at the Southeast corner of the Truth city zone. Just to the East of here there is an unknown monster in the shadowlands there. Same to the South as well.”

I held up my notebook with the map I had drawn out and the grid. “So we are at 0,0, then Truth is at 0,2, New Brasilia is at -1,-2.”

“You sound sure there is only one dungeon in areas without a city,” Ruth pointed out.

“I would have expected to run across another one by now in certain areas. Also, they tend to be by obvious terrain features for the most part. There are exceptions like that ruined dervish town, which is its own feature. But the amount we have explored area 1,0, the one with the meerkats, scorpions, venom flies, and black snakes makes me think that.”

“Impressive, but I am missing the point of this?” Tom asked.

“Only two areas we have explored have not been city adjacent as far as we know. The one with the salt lake at -2,0 and the summoner ants at 2,0. We need to explore more around these areas. If there is a city, that confirms that difficulty is based on distance to the city. If there is no city, then the level of monsters is based on some other factor.” I smiled, quite proud of my research. I really deserved a PhD for figuring this out.

“If it is city based, you can pinpoint where cities are by mapping the difficulty,” Ruth said.

“Exactly. We could predict when an area would go up in difficulty. Still the areas might go level 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, and so on for all I know. Still there is a grid layout and four monster types per area, not counting dungeons. Within the area, the areas for each monster aren’t as clear cut. But between areas it is all North, South and East, West hard divisions.”

“So, the plan after this city is to push East or West?” Ruth asked.

“Yes, I want to confirm my suspicions. If I am right, it will be huge and this is all top secret, extra classified, not even joking about with other people. Got it?” I was not worried about sharing this with Ruth and Tom. It was useful, but I had no doubt other people with a modicum of sense would figure it out. I also didn’t want her to suspect I knew anything. After sharing this information, any poor acting on my part could be overlooked as stress.

“Got it,” Tom said.

“Not going to share?” Ruth asked.

“No. The nearby areas are mapped out except for the swamps. This is too big to just give up.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Ruth promised. I looked at for an extra couple of seconds before speaking. I just couldn’t help myself. It just wasn’t the right moment to act yet. In fact there was no good moment, I was hoping to let the issue go away on its own after this trip.

“Good. Still, I am tempted to grind a lot more, to be able to clear any dungeon we run across,” I said.

“This is really a lifestyle and not even a job with all the energy you put into it,” Tom said.

“Now you are getting it. Well time for rest, I need to think where we should check due East from the corner of the forest after this place.”

The next day we pushed to the Northwest and after some walking around we found the slime pit dungeon I had been told about from the assassin. Inside were yellow super slimes that fired even more light balls and had a light sphere to defend themselves.

The other level two monster was a large blue slime, similar to the one I had run into my first dungeon. The layout was simple as well. Just two chambers with the super blue slime being in the boss room. No skill crystal unfortunately. It had already been claimed this cycle like I expected.

Once I cleared it, we retreated to the East. There I ran into summoner red ant queens in the shadowlands. That was way too annoying.

We tried the swamp to the South next and there were large yellow slimes that electrified the swamp water. They weren’t that bad if they weren’t in the swamp, but the swamp was terrible, and the yellow super slimes made it worse.

I only went to the edge of the swamp. I didn’t want to get my feet wet with muck. There was also a smell. Everything else had tended to not have any smell, but the smell of the swamp hit quite hard. I hadn’t noticed it before, since we didn’t get close to the terrain while coming here. Yeah, not going through a swamp ever, if I could help it.

I didn’t want to trek through muck and Tom and Ruth were in agreement. We ended up going to our old campsite in the corner of the forest area, which was Southeast of Truth.

“Summoning ants that summon little ants that burst into fireballs when killed, impossible.” I let out a long sigh.

“So, we wait, what three days for the reset?” Ruth asked.

“Grind the black floating crystals or the large yellow slimes in the swamp to the South. Or…”

“Or?” Ruth asked.

“We push far East through the floating black rocks and check out the two areas beyond by checking the corner of the areas.”

“Alright, I am for it, you?” Ruth asked Tom.

“The cart is getting worn. If an axel goes, don’t look at me, that is all I am going to say.”

“Perfect.”

We set out the next morning to the East. The black floating crystals came to an end. There were more shadowlands to the East. To the Northeast, there was a land completely covered in a thick mist. That would be area 2,2 according to my positional notation for the Systemic Lands.

We checked the shadowlands to the East first and ran into the cousin of the striped meerkat, the striped cat. The stupid things would keep pouncing down from the sky instead of the ground like the meerkats. They would leap really high up and then they were above your head. They also liked to teleport up or down depending on how utterly aggravating they wanted to be.

If it wasn’t for my helmet, I would have been a lot worse off. The striped cats were frankly too annoying, with their jumping and blinking. You blocked low then the cats went high. You blocked high they just came in low.

A short retreat back West to the black floating crystal shadowlands and I looked at the thick mist to the Northeast. “I don’t like it. If there are level three monsters out there, the visibility is terrible,” Ruth said.

“I know, which is why I haven’t gone, but I need to know. It is the first bit of new terrain we have seen in a long time.” But the concern about visibility was real. I walked up to the edge of the mist, my shield at the ready.

There! “Acid Shot!”

“Michael!” I heard my name called and spun around. The mist was flowing all around me. I looked up and couldn’t see the sun, the light source. “Air Burst.” A large portion the mist was pushed away. I checked the ground and carefully followed my foot imprints in the soggy dirt back out of the mist.

“Are you okay?” Ruth asked.

“Yes, why, I just stepped in for a moment.”

“You were there for half an hour when I called out.” I frowned and checked my watch. It had been an hour. That was scary. I looked at the mist and shuddered. How had that happened? I didn’t notice anything. I thought my Mind stat was high enough for me to notice that type of effect. That area was being classified as forbidden, very forbidden.

“Well, that is a big no for sure. Can’t tell if it was the terrain or a monster. Luckily, I didn’t go that far in. Let’s go back to the yellow slime forest.”

“Level 3 you think?” Tom asked.

“Maybe, probably, but the terrain. It is like the swamp but only worse with that kind of visibility.”

“So, what is the plan now fearless leader?” Tom asked.

“Go back and think. It is day 206. Urg. We need to be at the dungeon the moment it resets possibly the day before to lay an ambush.”

“To take out their top team, which would carry someone through the dungeon,” Ruth said. I nodded at that. She didn’t miss anything and could keep up. Damn you Ruth for putting me in this position. Damn you. I still held out a hope she would come forward on her own.

“Exactly. If several of their skill users are wiped out, the fight for the city will be much easier. Still, don’t know what to do with the time until then. Can’t really farm the five pointers, since I want to avoid other people. I guess, we could go West along the border between the swamp of 0,1 and the forest of 0,2.”

“I can’t stress enough the cart is getting worn down,” Tom said as he pulled said cart.

“Let’s pause and I will take a look.” We came to stop, and I inspected the cart. He was right, the axel between the wheels had worn down where it was connected to the cart itself, having lost about a fifth of its thickness.

“That isn’t good,” I muttered.

“Yeah. We need a new cart,” Tom said.

“And a cart butler,” I added.

“I will find one, don’t worry.” It isn’t that simple Tom, it isn’t that simple.

“I guess farming, black crystals it is, but neither of you can do much. Explore a bit more maybe? Hmmm.”

“We can wait. I can take out the black floating crystals, just will be slow,” Ruth said.

“Tom?” I asked.

“Might try the yellow super slimes. I can throw grass blades at them.” Good, you are working to learn how to use your skill, not just lean on it. That was key. Just having a skill was nice, but learning to aim my Acid Shot and the precise timing for Air Shot was key for me being able to use them in combat.

“Alright, we can split up. If there is any trouble, the cart will be the rally point. Don’t get seen,” I replied. Good that Tom was finding a way forward and I didn’t have to hand hold him. Since he had chosen that skill, he needed to work on it to make it his own. That meant developing a personal skill for throwing, not an Almighty System given skill.

I could see it in the future, imbue the weapon, and throwing said weapon. I didn’t have any evidence, but I suspected the imbue skills were stronger than similar skills. The simple fact was that they required a weapon to be used, reduced their range of use, and the corresponding portion of the skill to increase was their damage.

That was true for most games, which is why I preferred that as my guess. I had gotten enough wrong or been slightly off enough times, I wasn’t about to assume anything. The main limitation of such a combat style would be energy needed for both the grass weapon and the imbue skill. The second would be good throwing skills.

My mind leapt to Naruto style weapons, shuriken, kunai, and senbon. Throwing stars, thick short knives, and pointy needles respectively. If an imbue skill only needed to touch a target to do full or the majority of its possible damage, then what weapon would be the best?

Probably the one that Tom was the most comfortable throwing. The auto fire function of Acid Shot was a huge help but limited the versatility. Tom was finally thinking and willing to push himself. At least one person in this team had the right focus.