Chapter 6: Day 4 – Upgrading Costs

Chapter 6: Day 4 – Upgrading Costs

We got to the plaza before dawn. Only one or two people were up keeping watch, but they ignored us since we went straight to the pillars and avoided their groups. I put my pack on the pillar while my teammates stood around me like we had done the first time.

A restoration cost 109 points. I winced at that but spent the points. My body immediately felt better. Next, I bought a Body upgrade. I didn’t feel anything, and I noted that the costs of all upgrades had increased to 105 after the first purchase. That was unfortunate and partially unexpected. I had thought the upgrade cost would scale with the individual stat, rather than across all of them.

I quickly spent a total of 550 points on five upgrades, one in each stat. I didn’t feel any different, but I would have to wait and see. I then spent 40 points on a new club, two watermelons, and a lot more fruit.

I put everything away while explaining what I had discovered about the upgrades and how I didn’t feel any different.

Frank went next and bought five body upgrades, food, and a new weapon as well. He said he felt a bit stronger and able to breathe easier, but by a very small amount. I mentally cursed. The scaling was terrible for personal power. This made being in a competent group until I could get 100 upgrades or so even more important.

Jim put five purchases into Mind and Jesus put five purchases into Body. I didn’t say anything about their choices. A good leader will only say something, when they know it will be obeyed. Trying to micromanage their purchases for testing and knowledge wasn’t going to happen.

The restoration costs for the others ranged from 50 to 80 points, when I asked. I winced at that. I was the worst off, but I could already feel the fat leaving my body and being able to breathe more easily. The intense daily exercise, combined with a full body restoration was the perfect weight loss combination. At least the restoration wasn’t taking away my gains, which was something that had worried me. I still had a lot to go unfortunately. With our purchases done we all left the plaza.

We had an advantage for now. While I didn’t kill my teammates, I wasn’t about to blindly trust them either. I was most concerned about Jesus, since he could have friends here in the plaza I didn’t know about. I wasn’t about to let him wander off. Both Frank and Jim, I had picked up on the first day, so I was less concerned.

I noted Jesus looking around and trying to walk more slowly. “Maybe we should recruit some more people,” he suggested. It was an okay idea, but if he brought in people he preferred, that would threaten me and our current group dynamic. Three other people was the limit that I thought I could handle with confidence.

One thing I was sure on, was that I needed to control information about the slimes and who was brought into the group. Jesus on his own was a threat, but not a huge threat. Also, the more people we brought in, the harder it would be to get crystals.

“Maybe next time, we need more upgrades. There is no rush for us. That way we can vote on it as a group and talk it out, this isn’t really the time or place. We don’t want to be caught up in a fight. We should leave now to be safe, right Jim?” By phrasing my response as a question to someone I knew who would agree with me on this issue, it would be an easy verbal victory without an argument. At least that was the hope.

“Uh, yeah, we should get going.” Jim was the most agreeable. I was tempted to ask Frank since he didn’t like Jesus based on the stares he gave the guy, but that would just lead to more hostility between the two. I didn’t want to start a fight. This interpersonal drama gave me a headache.

Jesus didn’t object and we left the plaza without an internal or external fight. I let out a sigh of relief. We had stocked up enough to last 3 or 4 days this time. My idea was to let the violence in the plaza burn itself out. This would be the critical time as people got desperate. It cost 10 points for a weapon, so that left 90 points left for food. Assuming 10 points a day, people would only have about 10 points left on the morning we returned.

“Jim, how many points do you think a healthy person needs to eat a day?” I asked.

“Well, if we assume standard calorie and a 2,000-calorie diet. Probably around 20 points. There is no meat or nuts. Just fruit, so there will be vitamin deficiencies long term.”

“No tomatoes, guess they really are a vegetable,” Frank added.

“Tomatoes are a fruit, what do you think Jesus?” I asked with a smile.

“Don’t know.” There was a bit of silence before I spoke up again.

Still, that was not a guarantee of anything. It was all just guess work. I had been wrong about the upgrade costs as well. I didn’t think the costs would go up across all upgrades. That meant each investment into upgrades was increasingly prohibitive and it would be harder to change focus later on.

That depended on the point scaling. If I was by myself, I could probably earn 100 crystals each day, or 500 points, pushing myself. That was nowhere close to what I needed to earn.

Doing some more mental math, the cost of the next 100 upgrades cost around 40,000 points or 80 days without spending on anything else. Call it 100 days. If each upgrade improved things by 1%, then that would be double my base abilities.

Future upgrades would be incredibly hard and even more time consuming unless I found higher point monsters or could kill slimes more quickly.

Looking around I could probably guess what each of my teammates was thinking. Frank was probably thinking about his family and past life, and how to take control of his situation. He was the type of person who wanted to control everything in their life.

Jim was also thinking about his family. Possibly how he could use his medical knowledge in some way. That was the problem with most people. They aren’t focused on what is, but on what they want it to be. That was why I had power right now, they had stopped worrying about their situation and left the thinking to me for the most part.

Jesus was a bit more complicated. He was probably thinking about when he could leave my fat ass behind and use my knowledge to create a group of his own. Probably as some kind of gang lord or something equally annoying and aggravating. With how shifty he was this morning, that all but confirmed my guess in my mind.

I was probably wrong about the details, where the devil hid, but felt confident on my guesses overall. We had talked enough that I had a sense of their personalities. It was hard and annoying to think through each and every interaction, but it was important. I had to force myself to think and not just zone out and go with the flow.

Important enough that my life was in their hands. Still, this group wasn’t stable. We were together out of mutual interest and inertia. There were no fond feelings or personal relationships to smooth things out.

The more I thought about this fact, the more concerned I became about the future. Once the plaza erupted in violence, what use did they have for me? I knew I pointed things out and realized the game mechanics, but it wasn’t critical anymore. Useful yes, critical to survival no.

I had no doubt that Frank and Jesus were thinking how to turn the situation to their advantage in some way. Still, not having teammates would limit my options. It wasn’t like I could kill Frank and Jesus without Jim panicking in some way.

It was an all or nothing move, which made it all the more difficult to decide. Hesitation was also a choice and the worst one in my opinion. Make a decision, you can change your mind, but make a decision. For now, I would keep with my original decision, I would wait. Hopefully we could get four days’ worth of hunting before we returned to the plaza.

It would push our supplies to the limit, but that just meant more crystals for me at the end. A lot of crystals. The trip to and from the plaza to outside the wall wasn’t short, so it was good to maximize the usefulness of each trip. I wasn’t going to do any more mental math, since it was exhausting.

It also wouldn’t add any value. My time thinking was a resource and I had to ration it carefully. It was tempting to aim for Mind upgrades, but Body had to be the priority.

I made a decision. I had to keep putting points into that metric or upgrade until I could move easily and without pain accumulating from my weight. That was the most important thing. It didn’t matter how smart you are in prison, just the size of your biceps.

At least this wasn’t prison, but the same concept applied. Personal strength mattered. While there was the game logic of exponential fighters and quadratic wizards, I couldn’t afford to take the long path. The idea was that while warriors were stronger at the start, wizard type builds would out pace them towards the mid and end game.

That was the D&D logic at least, I wasn’t sure how well it would hold up here. If a person could move fast enough, then aiming and hitting a person with an ability would become increasingly difficult.

Still, that type of situation was very far away. That meant I had to invest into my Body and restoration. The scaling was...glacial. It was so slow that it concerned me how much good items would have to cost once the upgrade to the Store was purchased.

Currently the most expensive non-upgrade option were clothes. My pants were getting worn, with the crotch wearing out. Another fat person problem, fat thighs rubbing against each other wears out the cloth in the crotch area more quickly. Being fat just made everything more expensive and troublesome.