SL: Chapter 740 –– Day 6,141 – Long Term Plans

“Here. I will be holding onto the other one,” Clarissa handed me a metal sphere. I could see energy layered in it.

“A change from the usual design,” I replied.

“It works better in high energy areas and is more durable. I have the other one. You know how to use something like this to send a message long distance,” she said, and I nodded.

“I do. I doubt I will use it though. I prefer meeting face to face,” I replied.

“I understand, I am the same way. There is less chance of being tricked. So back to grinding?” she asked me.

“I want to see what the limit of grinding actually is. How many points can I get up to, before the returns are minimal. I always knew that Regeneration would be key for long term grinding, but it just took me a lot longer to get there than I realized,” I replied.

“Only you. So many people don’t have the right mindset to constantly fight,” Clarissa said.

“It does get boring after a while. I will admit. But I have put too much into becoming the strongest to give up now. Any news about the sword?”

“I am sorry, I haven’t heard anything about the sword. It is on the short list of things my people know to look out for. But it appears to be hiding quite well,” Clarissa replied.

“That is annoying. An intelligent item, I am concerned. Whatever its thought process is, it isn’t human. Better to get rid of it. Please follow up on this,” I asked.

“I know and I will. I would say don’t worry, but I know you. The sword is indeed a massive headache. I also have my people looking out for any other calamities or things of interest. As soon as I know, I will let you know. Going to stop any problems right away,” she said, and I nodded at this.

That was why I liked Clarissa. We were on the same wavelength about existential threats. There was no need to scheme or plot, just wipe them out. Even if it seemed minor, she knew the headaches we had gone through in the past. Better to just kill things that looked like they would cause trouble long term.

Even if I had to spend a couple of days, it was worth it in my mind. Like tending a garden. One didn’t let things grow out of control. Now that the initial pests had been mostly dealt with, long term stability was key. The Empire of Purgatory had tried to take a more direct approach and it had failed.

While we could retry again, there were critical issues. Specifically, the people running it would cause issues and it created a society that was too structured. Better to allow for chaos and wars between cities. And if someone started rising up like the Divine Empress, they would be wiped out. And the other powerful and determined grinders would join up with Clarissa.

Quality, not quantity was key going forward. Taxes no longer mattered. It was funny to think that. But they truly didn’t matter to me or Clarissa anymore. We had grown beyond such things.

Even a person clearing 2 level 5 zones would only earn around 50 million points per day. If I got 10% of that, it would only be 5 million points. I would need around 1,000 people, earning me around 5 billion per day to even get excited. And wrangling so many stubborn personalities definitely wasn’t worth the headache or effort.

Heck, even someone grinding 2 level 7 zones a day would only earn around 300 million points per day. I would need 10 people like me before my second meta-point to earn 3 billion per day, if I got 10% of their earnings as a tax.

Suppressing 10 people like me was asking for betrayal and rebellion. While I had faith in Clarissa’s plans and personnel management, I didn’t want to deal with such things. She could raise up such grinders and work with them long term. But ultimately, it would be the work of decades to carefully find people. And there were limited level 7 zones that were conveniently placed next to each other as well.

She would never be able to surpass me. She might get a strong team of people eventually. But it would be like herding cats. But if anyone could do it, it would be Clarissa. After dealing with me, her people handling skills had reached legendary levels.

If Young Michael hadn’t come up with the tower idea, I might be more concerned, but now there was nothing to worry about. The stats needed to implement such a strategy were immense. Without two meta-points focused on increasing all stats, it wouldn’t be possible.

Another benefit of Clarissa’s plan was having replacements for Young Michael. Eventually he would get tired of picking up crystals. He would want to grind on his own. It might not happen soon, but eventually. And when it did, I could use one of Clarissa’s people as a replacement.

Well, he did have to clear out the base of the tower to pick up points. So, he was getting a chance to fight. And eventually we would go to higher level towers, in level 7 zones. Based on the towers I had cleared and found, there were 2 level 8 towers. I had talked with Clarissa about this and we had looked over our maps, to seriously consider the last couple of towers that hadn’t been found.

One was at the South end of the Rift that split the Systemic Lands in two. The other was in the Northwest on what was most likely a peninsula. I would get around to checking them eventually.

That would imply level 9 flying monsters and a level 11 boss monster at the top. I was curious what such a monster would look like and the number of points it would give. It was a minor mystery, which I wasn’t overly concerned with. Grinding up points for stats was far more important. I would eventually go to those towers in time to grind on their level 9 flying monsters.

Who knows, a trillion points might not be that much once I reached such heights. Even knowing about the endless monsters in the tower that came out of it when trying to go through the air, I had never considered properly farming them to this degree. It was too easy to overlook simple things when combined togeather.

Maybe the Almighty System would break if I collected enough points, have an overflow error of some kind. That would be interesting and horrible at the same time. I couldn’t imagine how long I would need to grind and then losing all those points.

That was what was in my future a lot of grinding to raise up my Regeneration stat so I could grind even faster. Eventually I would have to upgrade my other stats, but for now they were more than enough to handle level 8 monsters in a large group. It just wasn’t economical yet.

It was tempting to get lost plotting out charts and plans, but I knew that wasn’t the right mindset to have. I just needed to go slowly and carefully. Fighting large groups, meant I was in a large amount of danger. One slip up and I would be dogpiled by the monsters and killed.

What this meant was that while I felt confident beating a level 9 boss monster, I wasn’t about to go fighting level 9 monsters in a group any time soon and that my other stats like Body and Mind might not be enough. I wasn’t going to take any chances by rushing and being stupid.

While I wasn’t going to be slow, trying to speed up my grinding wasn’t worth the risk or the headache. I wasn’t going to retire, but it was like car racing. At the start I was fighting just for even the smallest win, competing in what could be considered drag races, where there was a high degree of danger.

Now that I was going faster than ever, I was a professional, a true professional. So, while there were risks, I couldn’t take the insane risks I had done previously, where every bit of power mattered. Just like Clarissa was going for stability with her organization, I needed to go for stability with my mindset.

It would be too easy to get discouraged or frustrated. There was always the drive to grind more and keep pushing myself, but I was never going to let my energy dip below a third of my total amount. I wasn’t going to grind up to the point of risking death every day. I needed to be able to respond to unexpected situations, not exhaust myself trying to squeeze out some more points.

It was day 6,141. While that number might not seem large, that was almost 17 years. The word years had a much more profound impact on me mentally than just listing off the count of days. For this place, and the number of people on Earth in relation to the arrivals, that might be a drop in the bucket. I would need to be ready to keep going for around 60,000 and 600,000 days, or 170 years or 1,700 years.

Just thinking about those kinds of numbers was soul crushing. Grinding year after year was far different than day after day. Progress and information would be slow to come in the future. That was what stability meant, nothing new, just doing the same thing over and over again.

Unless one of those 2 unknown towers was in a level 9 zone, I knew what the peak grinding speed would be. Grinding on a tower in a level 8 zone, killing level 9 monsters. Once I got to that point, any further improvements in grinding speed would be limited. It would just be a question of time spent with only marginal improvements based on speed. And going slightly faster wouldn’t make a huge difference once I was already grinding at that level.

It would be interesting to see how many level 9 monsters I would be able to kill in a single day and how high the eventual cap on my grinding speed would be. The theoretical maximum for the Systemic Lands. Since towers spawned monsters, there was very little travel time, just fighting and killing. That was all that would matter. Could I outkill the spawn speed of a tower?

There seemed to be a cap on the number of flying monsters spawned, but not on the total number that could spawn. A small exploit, but a critical one. If I could kill level 9 monsters as fast as they appeared, then that would be the ultimate cap on grinding. Since there would be no more limit based on skill or stats, but on the environment itself.

While it was tempting to go into a tower once I got a portable store, that was the way of nightmares. I didn’t mind grinding, but living inside a tower was too high of a risk. If someone cleared it I had no idea what would happen if I was inside. And I was never going in another one ever again, not after the Divine Empress had chased me into one.

I shuddered thinking about all those traps and endless corridors and mazes. It was not a good place, even if the possible points with a portable store were immense. The flying monsters were far more annoying than the ground based monsters in a tower, with their ranged attacks and quick movement.

But someone else could try that grinding strategy. I would also need to consider if I wanted to clear the towers in the level 6 zones. For now there wasn’t a need or a rush. I had a majority of the votes and the only way there would be more votes was if a city upgraded enough. I would need to give it some thought, but there was no rush. Another thing for long term consideration.