The Systemic Lands
Chapter 647: Day 5,230 – A Level 6 Tower

I looked up at the large tower in the level 6 zone as ash swirled behind me as I stepped onto the base stairs of the tower. The tower was massive, and it wasn’t just the height, but the size of the base, which was insanely huge compared to towers in lower-level zones. Like a stick on top of a pyramid, or a giant candle on top of a tiered cake.

The structure was massive. While the cities were objectively bigger in terms of footprint, this structure was massive. I guess the sphere’s construction was even bigger. But then that had to be compared to the entire Systemic Lands.

I looked up at the height and tried to estimate how tall the tower was. At least 80 floors, which was about right based on the height of towers in other zones. The level of the zone multiplied by 10, plus 20 floors. It was massive.

The entrance doors were the same size and the one facing me in the distance was opening. Ten floating silver diamond monsters exited. They were level 7 based on what I could tell based on their energy. Looking at the monsters I considered if I even wanted to take this fight. I could handle level 7 zones, but tower monsters with range attacks were annoying to deal with.

I would have to spend a lot of energy to win. And I might trigger monsters from the other entrances into the tower. I looked up at the top of the tower. There should be a level 9 boss at the top. It was tempting to think about if I could beat it, but getting through all the flying monsters to fight it, was impossible. The difference was too large and there was no need for me to clear such a difficult tower.

I still had towers in level 4 and level 5 zones to clear before I poked this one. Instead, I circled around the base of the tower. I had cleared out the edges of this zone. There were no level 7 zones next to it, which was unfortunate.

The last level 7 zone I had found was connected diagonally to the level 6 zone. That was why a full corner check was needed. And with the cracks in the terrain, the monsters, and the burning landscape of level 6 zones, that took time. Since I hadn’t run into a boss monster in this zone while checking the edges and had observed the tower, I came here to check it out to see if there was anything unique about it.

The only thing that was different was its larger size. There was no way I was climbing up a tower like that. Each level had to be around four times the area of a level 3 tower. With almost double the floors, it was not something would ever do unless there was no other way. Even then climbing up the outside was better.

I made my way back to the airship hanging out in the level 5 zone. I had been fighting and traveling for two days with the four level 6 zones all togeather, but no level 7 zones. It was frustrating. Still, there had been decent progress so far. I had found three level 7 zones and one level 8 zone, which I made sure to mark down even if I didn’t risk getting close.

Both Acid Shot and Force Shot already had the power upgrade picked from before. With the next three upgrades, I actually picked cohesion on both skills and nullification for Acid Shot. That would be the same pick for Force Shot, once I found another level 7 zone.

I had given the issue quite a bit of thought while picking the upgrades. The most important aspect of the upgrades was the ability to do damage and to hit their target. The sphere was what was on my mind when I had been thinking through all the options.

Cohesion would keep the skills togeather more. There was enough knowledge out there about skill upgrades that cohesion was a worthwhile choice for punching through defenses. An attack was less likely to fall apart. Nullification was up next since that would resist energy based defenses. Getting the upgrades, let me increase the cost of the skill by increasing these aspects.

If I ran into the sphere again, I could spend 50,000 energy in a single attack to deal considerable damage in one blow. I had almost damaged it before, but it had been too tough. That was why I was hoping the upgrades would help counter that.

Also, my next stat upgrades would be focused on Spirit. I needed as much energy as I could get. I hadn’t thought it would be a problem before, but with how tough the level 8 monsters were and the sphere, I needed to be able to do damage. That was the basic requirement for having a victory condition, being able to damage a monster.

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There had been tests done, and while exhausting a monster was technically possible, it wasn’t easy. It only happened with monsters that had super attacks that spammed them. For all practical intents and purposes, monsters had near limitless energy to use. Fights never lasted long enough where the energy of monsters was a concern.

That would only matter if I focused heavily on defense and the monsters did the same. But I focused on movement, while monsters focused on being tanks for the most part. There were exceptions to this, but that was the case for the majority of monsters I had faced so far.

Air Burst. I quickly transversed the landscape, since I didn’t want to run the whole way and the entire zone had been cleared except for the tower, which was too much of a hassle to bother with. I didn’t want to try and run over the burning hellscape when I didn’t need to conserve my energy anymore.

I had looked at the tower but decided to not bother with it in the end. At least the zone distribution meant that there were probably not going to be any towers in level 7 zones. Level 8 zones were impossible due to the level cap being ten based on the point progression from the crystals that were dropped.

Though I could see there being one level 7 tower out there somewhere just to be super annoying. That wasn’t going to happen for a very long time. A level 10 boss would be incredibly difficult. At most I put the sphere at level 9, not level 10. While it had a lot of power and abilities, I was still able to damage it comparatively to level 8 monsters, or a bit less. Which was why I put it at level 9.

Hopefully there would be more high level zones. Right now I had covered about a fifth of the edge of the Systemic Lands and had found three level 7 zones. That put the total count around fifteen upgrades. Enough to upgrade one skill completely. That might lead to a qualitative improvement in the skill or a unique evolution. Taking into account possible level 8 zones, there might be enough zones to fully upgrades two skills.

While Air Burst might be useful along with countless other skills, upgrading Acid Shot and Force Shot to produce a stronger annihilation effect seemed like the best course of action. Packing in as much energy into both skills to create a bigger explosion seemed the best way to go in terms of upgrading my skills.

But with how things were laid out, I suspected there were higher level zones over the void. There was no way this was everything. Something in my gut was telling me that there was no chance there weren’t zones that weren’t connected. The Northwest area was just too suspicious.

I put the height of the Systemic Lands around 26 zones and the width around 72 zones. It might be a bit larger than that and probably was by a zone or two, but that felt quite close to the full amount. While tempting to do a statistical analysis on zone count and try to work things out like that, it didn’t matter.

All that mattered at the moment was clearing the edges of the Systemic Lands looking for level 7 zones. It was a job only I could handle at the moment. A small island in the middle of blackness. One day we would check if there were edges to the side of this place. For now there was just a hard barrier at the top and a soft barrier at the bottom of the world.

The black void and the bedrock at the bottom of the terrain were things I didn’t want to bother trying to get through. Not when there were alternatives to be explored. That would be one of the very last things on my list to check and poke at. Even then, the inky blackness was not something I wanted to test with any number of stats.

While I could resist the erosion effect, and possibly survive getting quite close, that was asking for trouble. Something could leap out of the void to attack me. While I didn’t see monsters appearing, there was no rule that there were no void monsters. It was unlikely, but not impossible.

I was content to play it safe with things that I didn’t need to risk my life over. Each time I risked my life, that just increased the chances of me dying. Those percentages would add up over time. It was much better to take things as safely as possible and build up strength.

While there was a good chance at round two with the sphere, I would work on getting stronger until then. Risking my life pointlessly, when I didn’t need to was how other people died. They got too greedy for information or wanting to push forward. While the sphere was life or death, everything else so far could be taken at a much slower pace.

I was content to check the edges for level 7 zones and clear the bosses from them to upgrade my skills. The only other option would have been grinding for points, but upgrading my skills felt like it was more important so I could actually do damage. Also, once that was done, I could focus on grinding.

While there was a bit of concern about the level 8 boss monsters, I wasn’t overly worried. I could go into the fight with max energy. The level 7 boss monsters were much harder, since the level 6 monsters would swarm about, being annoying, and forcing me to respond to them. For now I would keep exploring and upgrading my skills for future fights and working out where all the towers were located.