Chapter 532: Day 4,935 – Crushing Bugs And Hell Lords

Chapter 532: Day 4,935 – Crushing Bugs And Hell Lords

“Die!” I yelled out as I kicked off an exploding chunk of ground, twirling through the air, like a sub-sonic missile, and kicked open the Giant Centipede’s head. I snatched the crystal out of the air, before it fell into the churning terrain of the moltenlands as I continued to constantly move.

Shouting out ‘die’ was a way for me to alleviate my frustration. I didn’t mind grinding, I had done it a lot in the past, but fighting these monsters in this terrain was frustrating. I had to constantly pay attention to my movements, or I would be forced to use an Air Burst to recover.

I had a stroke of luck that I had found Radiant Beam with another monster, since I couldn’t get the same skill point twice. That luck hadn’t stuck around unfortunately. Now everything was moving to a head rapidly.

The fact that the city upgrades were done, pissed me off quite a bit. It was aggravating to a large degree. “Die!” I crushed another bug’s head with my fist. I resisted the curse damage and general energy the monsters were giving off. I hated fighting in melee, but I couldn’t afford to run out of energy just in case I needed to recover my positioning, or the level 7 showed up.

Even with my limited Mind stat, it was easy to crush the monsters with my fist or foot. I was only willing to do this, since I knew I could beat them with my Body stat alone and not with my skills. “Die!” I killed another one and collected the crystal and put it in my enchanted pack.

So many little things that were a headache about grinding in a level 6 zone. Collecting the crystals without the pack being destroyed was a headache. These little things that people normally wouldn’t think about as an issue were made obvious when fighting in a level 6 zone.

Still, my speed was impressive and I had a routine fairly well worked out. I would zig zag across the entire zone from East to West. Sure it took me from the Giant Centipedes to the Hell Lords, but it was quite efficient, since I didn’t want to go deeper into the zone and risk the boss.

The monsters were thankfully pulled across the zone. “Die!” I killed another monster and collected its crystal. Air Burst. I had to use my skill so I didn’t fall into the molten exploding terrain. There was no good rock for me to land on. This was also practice for movement.

I needed to be able to plan out my moves and attacks. I couldn’t overly rely on Air Burst. It was energy hungry, even at 50 energy per use. I had fought enough to know that every bit of energy mattered. Especially when there was a need for some overwhelming attacks.

Worst case, I could beat the boss of this zone and get cursed again, but I wasn’t too worried. I had seen it once and while impressive, it had weaknesses. Not that I wanted another fight any time soon. Its point crystal would be useful, but not that useful at the moment. Michelle could manage with her two level 6 monsters, grinding out other level 5 monsters.

The skill was interesting, even if it was insanely expensive. I wanted to try the skill at least once. Empowered Destruction Beam, just sounded like a skill I would love. Long range, powerful, and a single screw you attack. The cost of 50,000 energy was annoying, but not insurmountable.

With 100 days of grinding, I would get another 15 billion points. That was a drop in the bucket, but in 500 days, that would be 75 billion points or 100 thousand stat points. I wasn’t planning to share with the others. I needed about 700 billion more points to hit a million total stat points.

That would take about another 5,000 days, unless my passive income increased. There were efforts to bring it up, since that meant more overall tax revenue, but things were pretty tapped out right now. I knew people were looking into grinding the bad type zones to not have to deal with other people. Find a swamp or mistlands and get killing a couple monster types down. Just repeat that every day.

The people who retired, I thought they were the most useless pieces of garbage around. Your points would run out eventually. I know some cities were trying to set themselves up as retirement destinations, I was glad Clarissa didn’t do that for Purgatory.

That was a place for people who wanted to progress, not sit around all day. Sure, there were restaurants, and craftspeople. But the city was humming. It had energy and excitement. Before I left, people were already gossiping about the trillion point options and how much of a scam they were and if the government would actually invest in any of them.

That was never going to happen. A trillion points was way too much. If they had been 10 billion points, or even a 100 billion points, I might have said sure. But a trillion points was way too much. “Die!” I killed another Hell Lord, got its crystal, and moved towards the next one.

Going to another level 6 zone, just wasn’t worth it until I had increased my stats by quite a bit. Also, I wanted to get better at fighting. The one thing I had to learn was not just the attack, but where I would end up.

Air Burst. I needed to recover from falling into the absurdly hot and molten ground. Another thing was the difficulty breathing. While it was slight, it was there. I didn’t have any serious issues, but it was concerning. We knew plants didn’t produce oxygen, so something else was maintaining life.

Just one more bit of proof of the Almighty System. We had a candle lit under a glass jar inside the Power Church as proof of the Almighty System’s power and divinity. It was a pain to make candles and very expensive, but a useful expense to convince people of the Almighty System and how it was everywhere.

The church was growing. XLR8 was doing a great job in his new position. Really getting the populace to convert. Clarissa had announced that while it was the official state religion and only religion to be allowed to actively proselytize, the Power Church was not a requirement for the Imperial Government and could not be made into a requirement for people.

Keeping religion separated from the state and aspects of government was important and I agreed with this. We needed the populace to convert, but we needed the bureaucrats to be more rational. There would be no litmus test of faith for soldiers or hiring, only competency of the person being placed in the role.

But not dealing with spiritual aspects of the population could lead to cults forming and other headaches, better to get them all praising things that wouldn’t get them into trouble, like the Almighty System and myself.

I felt a wave of danger wash over me and turned my head slightly. The Molten Millipede of Fear And Destruction was back for round 2. It was massive, but I beat it once, I could beat it again.