SL: Chapter 775 – Day 28,401 – No New Arrivals

1. End Arrivals
2. End Environment
3. Create Exit Portal
4. Create Public Ranking
5. Contact Support

I picked option one. There was no fanfare or anything else. The vote just went through. I checked the options again and the first one had changed.

1. Re-Start Arrivals
2. End Environment
3. Create Exit Portal
4. Create Public Ranking
5. Contact Support

“And done,” I said as Clarissa watched. No new arrivals would be showing up.

“That was a lot simpler than I thought it would be,” Clarissa said.

“I know. I expected something to break. I am tempted by the second option,” I replied.

“Don’t. This environment is what is keeping us alive. We need air to breathe,” Clarissa said.

“I know. Just thinking about it,” I said as I turned away from the golden pillar and walked back towards the waiting airship with Clarissa.

“Going to train some more?” she asked me.

“Yes. This has been enough of a break,” I replied.

“A few days?” Clarissa asked me.

“I like to stay busy. And alive. Alive is important. If I have to fight, might as well make sure I am the best at it,” I replied.

“Well hopefully this buys us some goodwill with our new overlord,” Clarissa said.

“Some. Your people are ready when no new arrivals show up?” I asked.

“They are. Already people are being moved. It is a complicated process,” Clarissa said.

“If you say so,” I replied, not that interested in all the plans she was making.

“What about the sword? You still going after it?” Clarissa asked me.

“I am thinking about it. It is an unknown variable. Your thoughts?” I asked her.

“Anything that can give you an edge is useful. A sword, a knife, no matter what it is,” she replied.

“Well, my sparring is helping out quite a bit. See you in a hundred days,” I told Clarissa as we reached the airship.

“Take care,” she said as I took off.

It was tempting to go looking for the sword now, but the sparring I was doing was making progress. Slow progress, but there was progress. I was getting better at controlling energy.

I had a long way to go to match Artifex, but each step forward in my combat ability was important. Resisting hostile effects was key. That way I couldn’t be instantly countered.

The sword was something I had been going back and forth about. It had sentience and a lot of power. I landed in the current zone I was flying over. I needed a moment to think about this some more. While training was useful, a weapon like the sword could elevate my power to the next level. If I was going to use it in combat, I would need to train with it.

The nearby people grinding had quickly ran away the moment I landed. I didn’t care about them, I was thinking about the headaches with the sword. Artifex had given me a compass for its location, which also doubled as a compass that would lead me into the fight with the Ancient.

Taking a look at the compass, I let out a sigh. I really didn’t want to use something like the sword, I wanted to increase my own power. But winning was more important than anything, even my pride.

If a literal alien god said this fight would be tough, it would do me a lot of good not to underestimate how difficult it would be. I took to the sky once more, flying in the direction of the sword.

Flying was an interesting experience. From my years of grinding, I had mastered three dimensional combat, or at least was highly comfortable with it. For fun, I rotated around in the air as I flew close to the ground to avoid having flying monsters spawn.

While I could defeat them, it was more annoying than anything else. As I flew through the air towards the sword, I considered my approach. It would all come down to if it could communicate or not. If it refused to obey, I would crush it into submission or destroy it.

It was best to get rid of a variable like this right away. That was what had convinced me to take action now, instead of going back to training. There was no need to wait. Better to get this problem taken care of now. That way it wouldn’t be a mental distraction going forward. I would need to devote myself fully to this battle coming up.

Artifex didn’t seem to care either way. It was all about results with that alien. They weren’t apathetic, but their priorities were clearly different. I didn’t believe everything they had told me, but I hadn’t worked out where I was being cheated.

I guess the trick was that I had to engage with their enemy and they could abandon me during that time period if things went poorly. That was the trick. Being abandoned to the whims of fate and when this place collapsed.

No matter what, I had to win, and win quickly in the battle to come. It felt weird, having time to plan and prepare. All my previous battles felt rushed and that I had to scrap a win to come out on top.

Checking the compass Artifex had given me, I adjusted my course to head towards the sword.

Before, I would have been worried about face planting into the ground. Now I had more than enough confidence flying in any position, balancing out gravity and Air Burst to maintain my position in the air.

As for making portals to the rainbow dimension, or the astral plane, I didn’t have the skill yet like the Astrologer. Specific techniques took very specific thoughts and methods of manipulating energy. Artifex was a good sparring partner, but they weren’t a good teacher.

How they thought was completely different than how I thought. There was no way to download this kind of information into my head. I had asked, and the risk of my head exploding or having a brain hemorrhage was incredibly high. What I needed to do was constantly practice as much as possible, trying out different things.

Some techniques came easier to certain individuals. The Astrologer was a genius in such techniques apparently, while I was an idiot comparatively. Even with decades of practice and stats, it wasn’t as simple as waving my hand and shooting out energy to make something happen like with a skill.

As I flew through a level 7 zone, the monsters swarmed towards me. I focused and instantly killed them all. I ignored the point crystals. They weren’t worth anything to me anymore. Points might be useful to others, but I had too many stats and too many saved up points as my health insurance.

I probably wouldn’t spend them all before we left. Getting a couple of extra stat points wasn’t worth it. That brought my mind to the issue of increasing my stats myself. Making permanent changes to the energy inside of my body to increase my stats.

Seeing the changes the stats had made over the decades had clued me into how they worked, but the precision and persistence, wasn’t something I was sure I could ever replicate. Whatever the Almighty System was doing, made it subconscious for my stats to be effective.

There was no conscious thought to keep my stats in place. Like breathing, it was automatic, but I could affect them slightly. But not enough to stop breathing or adjust the breathing process to a large degree. But with stats I needed to be able to do that long term if I wanted to get stronger.

I knew it would always be a race for more strength, more power. This was the path I had chosen for myself and the only value I had left. My ability to fight. As I flew into another zone, I adjusted the amount of energy I used for each annihilation attack, spun the energy around, and tried to attack at a distance.

My improvement was small, but it was there. I needed to keep honing my abilities going forward, no matter what. There was no such thing as perfect control, but I had set Artifex as my goal.

If an alien could command energy to such a degree with a single thought, then I needed to get that good as well. While Artifex might talk about different thought patterns, I knew I had the determination and focus to compete against it.

I didn’t think I could beat Artifex, but the gap wasn’t so big as to appear insurmountable. While our relationship hadn’t soured, a true relationship could only progress between equals. Right now our power dynamic was heavily skewed in Artifex’s favor.

That needed to be corrected if we were going to continue to working together without mistrust and fear accumulating. The sword would hopefully help correct this imbalance as well.

I knew it was powerful, my hope was that with its help, I would be able to compete against these stronger beings and have a chance at coming out on top. I checked the compass again and adjusted my course.

The fact that Artifex could create such an item showed how powerful it truly was. Its utility abilities were far more impressive than its combat abilities. I feared those much more than its direct fighting abilities, even if its direct fighting abilities were formidable as well.

Being able to find something and create an item to lead me to it, showed that Artifex had a range of options that I couldn’t even begin to fathom. It wasn’t the abilities I knew of, but what it was keeping secret and could surprise me with. Fighting I knew, but crazy esoteric abilities, I would struggle a lot with.

I saw the sword floating in the air above a crack in the void. I easily wiped out the nearby monsters as I flew towards it. The sword wasn’t moving or reacting as I created a platform for me to stand on in front of the weapon.

I tilted my head to the side, considering it and how to deal with it. Well time to try the most basic methods of communication first.