The Systemic Lands
Chapter 648: Day 5,237 – Rebuilding And Stats

The Crystal Vortex took a long loop over Purgatory so we could all look at the changes. I noted that there were tunnels leading up from the gates through the ground. There were also several cranes and towers built up around the outside, reinforcing the ground around the outside of the city.

I couldn’t help up think that if there was ever a rainstorm, then Purgatory would become a mud pit. Thankfully, each day was as sunny as the previous one. We reached the airship port. Clarissa hadn’t shown up, but she was probably busy with something else. I also had errands I wanted to take care of. My soldiers lifted up several chests full of crystals I had collected.

I had about two billion worth of points with me. Thankfully they were all level 6 and level 7 crystals for the most part. The level 8 boss crystals I had left in the care of Michelle. While valuable, they were a trump card in the event of a high level battle. Getting the 3,024,000 points from them wasn’t worth as much as having a level 8 monster appear to lay down some damage or cover. Even if monsters level 7 and above suffered power penalties from summoning, I was the only person able to deal with such a threat.

I cashed in my points which took time as soldiers moved chest after chest. There were other people watching from the other pillars and standing in lines waiting to use them. That was one of the benefits of being in charge, I got to skip the line to use the System store.

After cashing in the points, I purchased a restoration. There was a slight twinge of pain in my arm and chest, but nothing serious. I patted myself down and there didn’t appear to be any physical problems. I had left the restoration off this long so things would settle better. It had been a risk if I had taken damage, but I was confident in my combat abilities and defenses.

Thankfully it had all worked out. I left half a billion points to refill my health insurance and general usage points. I had eaten into my reserves by a bit, and one thing I had learned and wasn’t about to forget, was always keep enough on hand for an emergency restoration no matter what. While the damage was getting more severe, where this had less of an impact, that didn’t mean I could take the risk and forget the lessons I had learned through a lot of pain and suffering in the past.

I then spent around 1.5 billion points to purchase 1,000 stat points. The price just kept going up. Each stat point cost around 1.4 million points now. To put that in perspective, for someone with no stat points, that was enough to purchase their first 730 stat points. A massive amount for the Michael who had first shown up way back, but now it was pocket change. In time that 1.4 million would be seen as pocket change as the price just kept increasing.

All those stat points went into Spirit. I needed as much energy as possible to overcharge my skills. Every time I looked at how many stat points I needed, it was depressing. Even with the meta-point changing those thousand stat points into three thousand, it was a massive amount.

If I could clear two level 7 zones in a single day, that would be around 300 million points per day. It would be back breaking and incredibly exhausting, but it was possible if I really pushed myself and the monsters weren’t overly difficult. Spend 100 days doing that, I would have 30 billion points. That would be around 20 thousand base stat points, or 60 thousand after my meta-point was taken into account.

That was enough to double my current energy to 120,000. Well a bit less than double now, since the Spirit was now 63 thousand. The biggest issue was just the time it took to get so many stat points. While tempting to focus on this, I would do my circuit around the Systemic Lands first. We had stopped just before checking North of the Rift where I suspected there to be several high-level zones, just like the South end.

We needed to resupply, and soldiers needed to be rotated out. Also cashing out the points we had collected while checking in. My focus went back to all the stat points I needed and if there was anything I could do to speed things up.

I wasn’t about to go into a level 8 zone. I had thought about that issue, but the risk was just too high. I could handle one level 8 monster at a time, not a swarm. Working to clear out level 7 zones was more efficient in terms of energy usage and terrain. While level 7 zones were cold, they weren’t a struggle like level 6 zones that were hell.

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At least I had stable ground to stand on and fight monsters. The flesh terrain would burn through my boots and feet. The red rain in the level 8 zones was probably acid or something equally horrible. And the tentacles in the distance were not something I wanted to get close to.

I would be stuck on level 7 zones for a long time. Even if I could handle level 8 zones, it wasn’t worth the hassle of long-term grinding. It was frustrating, but stat points had always been a point of frustration. The meta-point I had gotten helped deal with that issue, but even with the meta-point, the climb upwards was massive.

There was also the possibility that there wouldn’t be enough monsters. The number of monsters in the higher level zones kept decreasing as the points went up. So while the point values for level 7 monsters were five times higher than level 6 monsters, the total point value was only 2.5 times higher in a level 7 zone, since there were half as many monsters. Around 200 in a level 7 zone to 400 in a level 6 zone.

If that trend continued and there were only 100 level 8 monsters in a level 8 zone, the total points would only double from 150 million to around 300 million. That was another reason why the headache of grinding in a higher level zone wasn’t worth it.

Maybe if I could go fast enough to clear a level 8 zone at the same speed as a level 7 zone, would it be worth considering, but that would be very far in the future. There was a very small part of me that was tempted by the towers. But flying monsters were the worst and the tower monsters had range attacks and would attack from a distance.

They were designed to be as annoying as possible. There was no good way to grind them. I had considered that for a long period of time, but the monsters the System generated on the spot from the sky and the towers were just too difficult to grind properly with how they fought. The biggest issues were dealing enough damage at range and then collecting the crystal it dropped.

There was no good answer on how to easily grind such monsters. Only thing that would change this was time and a lot more stat points. My skills were improving, but there was still a lot more upgrades to go. I had gotten seven so far and needed seventeen for each skill for a total of thirty four. That left 27 more level 7 zones I needed to find.

Both Force Shot and Acid Shot had upgrades for power, nullification, and cohesion. Acid Shot also was upgraded with shape. I could now combine both attacks for easily. Make Acid Shot a hollow sphere and then Force Shot inside of it. Much bigger annihilation effect all at once. Once I got the shape upgrade for Force Shot, I could look at layering the two skills much more closely togeather.

Or even develop the skill to work as a drill or go off in layers. There was a lot of possibilities that were opening up on the skill front. It would take time and a lot more upgrades, but I was hopeful. The goal was to get as much bang as possible with as little energy as possible.

While tempting to put all the upgrades into Acid Shot first, the skills worked best in combination with each other. The annihilation effect allowed me to hit above my weight class, which was a key part of fighting high level monsters and would give me an edge against the sphere if it showed up again.

Time to see how far Jacob was in terms of completing all the preparations. I was a bit surprised Clarissa hadn’t sent anyone out to grab me, but I would just go see her instead. It wasn’t that late and she was probably up working regardless.

I appreciated all the hard work she did, so I could focus on grinding, exploring, and other things besides administrating all the people. I left the store and made my way into the palace. I made my way to Clarissa’s office. I knocked on the door before entering, but no one was there.

I turned to the guard standing outside her office. “Where is Clarissa?”

“Emperor Michael, I don’t know,” he said, and I frowned. I made my way to the message hub, which wasn’t far away. Messengers were dispatched from here and they had to know where important people were.

“Emperor Michael, how can I help you?” the soldier on duty asked me once I entered the room.

“Clarissa, where is she?” I asked.

“She is traveling to other cities. Her return is expected seven days from now,” he replied, and I frowned at this. Clarissa almost never left the capital.

“Jacob, is he here or expected to return?” I asked.

“No time frame has been given on his expected return,” the soldier answered. I left and made my way to my personal apartments. Before entering I turned to one of my personal guards.

“We are leaving the day after tomorrow. No change. Also arrange for Samantha to have breakfast with me. Something seems off,” I said.

“Yes sir, will pass along your message,” they replied and rushed off back to the messaging room. I should have thought of what I wanted before I left, but it wasn’t a big deal. I entered my personal apartments and got a shower. Once that was done, I settled in at my desk and comfortable chair to look over reports that had been left here.

There was a lot of information to look through. I could just move it all to my outbox, where it would be stored or destroyed afterwards, but it was important that I at least review things to know what was going on.