SL: Chapter 736 – Day 6,138 – Tower Test

“Dammit!” I cursed as twirled through the air unleashing beam attacks in every direction. The floating diamonds had two layers to them and were constantly rotating to hide damaged sections while unleashing beam attacks in return.

I had gone over the top, blowing the monsters apart at the start. Now I was trying with less power and more precision. Unfortunately, I was struggling. The level 7 monsters were that fast and annoying to deal with. I landed at the base of the tower and began retreating from it, while firing off more beam attacks.

My energy wasn’t low, but I had lost more than two thirds of my reserves, going a bit too low more my liking. As I retreated from the tower, I noted the flying monsters had stopped spawning, but they kept chasing me. I quickly finished off the remaining 37 in a series of annihilation explosions. Just enough to kill the monsters, but not enough to destroy the point crystals.

I was breathing heavily as I returned towards the tower and began locating the point crystals and putting them into an empty pack. I found 348. There should have been around 370, but some might have bounced off the massive stone steps of the tower. I returned to the airship.

“So? How was it?” Young Michael asked me. I gave him the pack to look at as I took a seat.

“Running low on energy. It will take 12 hours to recharge,” I replied.

“And you only got 348 point crystals,” he replied.

“My efficiency is too low. Even if I have 2 sessions a day, it is a third less efficient than the previous grinding strategy,” I replied.

“But it offers unlimited points. What about a tower in a level 5 zone and killing level 6 monsters?” he asked.

“Then I would need to kill 5,000 instead of 1,000. There is a constant drain on my energy since I have to keep moving. My stats need to be higher before I attempt tower grinding. Specifically Regeneration. If I get it high enough then this idea has a chance of working,” I replied.

“At a million stat points the Regeneration should be 10,000 every minute. You spent an hour fighting,” Young Michael said.

“I used up around 820,000 energy in that hour, not counting I got back during the time. If I did get my Regeneration stat up to a million stat points and got 10,000 energy per minute, then I would be losing around 200,000 every hour. I could grind for four hours, or about 1,400 level 7 point crystals.”

Making this idea would take a bit of work, but it was definitely feasible. I just needed to get around 92,000 more base stat points in Regeneration to bring it up to a million after my meta-points multiplier of 9. I had 20,000 in Regeneration currently.

That basically meant another 2 more full grinding sessions before I could switch over to tower grinding. That would take my daily grinding up to around 1 billion points per day. If Regeneration could be pushed higher, then eventually I could grind out 12 hours a day.

That would mean around 4,200 point crystals, or around 3.175 billion points per day. Now that was efficient. Young Micheal really had out done himself with this idea. I was going to milk the towers for everything they were worth. The thought created a very disturbing image that the towers were somehow the teats of this place, like an udder on a cow.

Regardless, I would be getting a lot more points and speeding things up by a factor of 4. It was tempting to go to a level 7 zone and test out a tower there, fighting against level 8 monsters, but it wouldn’t be worthwhile until my Regeneration stat was much higher.

Long ago, I had thought about getting Regeneration high enough as part of my combat strategy. But it was limited by lower ranked zones and having a bigger tank seemed more important. Regeneration had been devalued as a stat. But with the second meta-point and this new tower strategy, it had risen way up.

Two more regular grinding sessions and then I would have the points needed to boost Regeneration high enough.

“So, a good idea?” Young Michael asked, breaking me from my thoughts.

“A very good idea. I can’t believe I didn’t think about the towers. I swear after the useless vote, I didn’t think they had any use,” I replied and he grinned.

“Well, you are getting old. I understand, you might be hurting in your joints,” Young Michael joked.

“Shut up and start flying us towards Purgatory, Youngest Michael,” I said.

“Aye, aye Captain Emperor Michael,” he said, giving me some more sass, which was fine. I actually enjoyed the sass he sent in my direction.

We set off and he got us to cruising speed and height, before turning the airship around. While it might have seemed simple, it took a lot of knowledge and understanding to do everything perfectly. The flying monsters slowly accumulated behind us as we flew towards Purgatory. Well in front of us, but behind our flight path, since airships retained their velocity.

“So, why Purgatory? I thought you would want to see Clarissa?” Young Michael asked.

“That will be our second stop, but I want to see how my old city is doing. And we might not go back to Clarissa,” I replied.

“What? But I thought she needed points,” he asked.

“She does, but there is no rush. I don’t want to deal with that drama,” I replied.

“With Doctor Katz?” he asked.

“The good doctor doesn’t need me around at the moment. I don’t want to deal with that kind of thing. It is too depressing and isn’t good for my mentality. Grinding requires stability, focus, and determination. All things Doctor Katz has lost,” I explained.

“A shame. At least he fixed my eyes,” Young Michael said.

“A rare talent and a compassionate heart. But I really don’t want my first interaction back being something to do with him. We go to Purgatory, see what is going on, then visit Clarissa’s secret base, I suppose,” I replied.

“At least you two get along really well,” Young Michael said. He didn’t want mommy and daddy fighting, I thought. While we weren’t his parents, if Clarissa and I argued, it created an unpleasant atmosphere. And he clearly looked up to both of us.

“Its about respect. We respect each other, despite our disagreements. What about you? Thinking about finding someone?” I asked.

“You mean a girlfriend?” he asked me, and I shrugged. “I want strength like you.”

“Hmmm. If you say so. Just don’t let yourself be led around by a woman. It is too easy to be manipulated or be put in a bad situation,” I replied.

“I know enough, you don’t need to worry,” he said, clearly embarrassed.

“Ah, to be young and foolish again,” I replied.

“What about you, your Imperial Majesty?” he asked back.

“My wife is power, and my child is victory,” I joked. He let out a scoff. “What? Too much?”

“A bit. But I get it. Being weak, means death,” he replied.

“True, very true. The question is, how strong is strong enough?” I asked.

“Well, just got to keep increasing the grinding speed. Getting over 3 billion points is a good start. But if you can handle a tower in a level 7 zone, then that could easily hit over 10 billion points per day,” he replied.

“I would have to be putting in work, but it is possible. The towers are useful. I wonder if the Almighty System realized this,” I said while thinking about such a high grinding speed. I would need a lot more Regeneration in terms of stats, but it could work.

I wasn’t that pressured in the fight in terms of being attacked. Using the side of the tower as a floor, I had reoriented myself. I just used Air Burst once a second, to remain on the side of the tower, while moving about rapidly.

With half the battlefield blocked by the tower, I didn’t have an entire sphere around me to deal with. That was something I had learned extensively in the level 8 zone. Zipping over the flesh and tentacle covered ground. Going into the air, invited attacks from too many angles. The flying slimes were annoying, but ultimately just another monster I had to kill.

There was nothing special about them, just like there was nothing that special about the monsters in the tower. While I had been hoping for something unique and new, I was unsurprisingly disappointed in the results.

My thoughts returned to the possibility of 10 billion points per day. That was an immense amount of points, if I could get my grinding speed up that high. The level 8 tower monsters would be even more annoying, but they wouldn’t be a qualitative leap that came every 3 levels.

It was a shame there wasn’t a tower in a level 6 zone near where my favorite grinding area was. While this tower was close, we had to go around an empty zone. Otherwise I could have cleared the nearby zones and then got to work on the tower. Unfortunately, the layout of the Systemic Lands didn’t make this kind of strategy possible.

With 10 billion points per day, I would be able to rapidly improve my stats. And a portable store would only take 100 days of grinding. I would need a bigger airship to fit all the points, but instead of taking over a 1,000 days, it would only take 100 days.

My grinding speed was now constrained by my energy, specifically my Regeneration. Since towers were the fastest option for points now and they had unlimited monsters that spawned from them. It was a shame I had cleared the lower level towers, but this kind of strategy only worked on the higher levels, when there were less high level monsters in high level zones.

It only became economically feasible at this point, not before. Since the tower monsters were so annoying to fight compared to regular monsters. And I had two meta-points boosting my stats and I still didn’t have enough stats to make it worthwhile. It would be a long time before anyone would be capable of tower grinding.

Young Michael would get there eventually. Even with his one meta-points, it would take time. His base stats weren’t high enough. While he could go off and grind on his own, teaming up with me was still more beneficial at this point. Once I started doing the tower grinding strategy, he could clear out a neighboring zone of level 6 monsters to supplement his income while working on his fighting ability.