SL: Chapter 716 – Day 5,836 – Easy Tower Climb

I looked up at the tower that was Southwest of New Kochi. Not that far from Clarissa’s secret base. It was a level 5 zone that had a tower. Looking up at it, I wasn’t looking forward to the climb. The airship was parked safely a distance away from the tower, near the ground, to avoid the flying monsters. I had cleared out the monsters nearby so it would be left alone. New monsters wouldn’t target the airship directly.

“You look like a real tall tower,” I muttered. There would be a level 8 boss at the top. The monsters all over it were level 6, the bosses inside level 7, and the final boss level 8. Three additional levels on top of the zone.

Before I wouldn’t have even considered something this risky, but with another meta-point, it was something I had been going back and forth on. While I felt confident, once I started climbing, I would be swarmed by flying monsters.

That was why my preferred tactic was to buy a disposable air boat and fly it into the top of the tower, crashing it, not having to worry about its survival. Now airships were highly valuable again with all the cities reset. One could say they were priceless.

“Maybe I should just go upgrade a city and pay for all the stuff needed for an airboat,” I muttered. The higher the level of the zone, the bigger and taller the tower. The towers in the level 7 zones were massive.

After my first time climbing up inside one, I was never going in one again, no matter what. They were the most miserable things in existence. I wasn’t about to deal with all the nonsense inside. Fighting my way up through the swarms of flying monsters with beam attacks was much simpler, but also more dangerous.

Well I had energy to spare now. With my Spirit at 900,000 I could spam my skills without having to worry about the cost. Three times the energy I had when facing the sphere. “Once more, Michael, once more,” I muttered. Air Burst.

I kept using the skill to increase my speed, zipping over the giant steps at the base of the tower that were set up in a pyramid like structure. I reached the base of the tower and saw the entrance door. Yeah, not going in there and dying horribly to whatever nonsense was inside. Air Burst.

Using the skill over and over, I flew directly up the side of the tower as quickly as possible while juking side to side. Beam attacks slammed into the tower. The monsters below level 7 were still terrible at tracking a target.

Damn, it was a tall tower. It was the zone level times 10 plus 30. That meant in this level 5 zone, the tower was 80 floors tall. More level 6 flying diamonds emerged from the tower firing beam attacks at me. It was like a light show, but I kept close to the tower as I shot upwards.

They could only fire at me from so many directions and they weren’t appearing above me in great enough numbers to concern me. I saw the top of the tower coming up. The moment I cleared the edge, I used Air Burst multiple times to slow myself down and send me sideways, across the top of the tower. There was a level 8 giant knight at the top with a sword and a shield.

Focusing, I brought my hands togeather as I flew over the top of the tower and unleashed an overpowered Radiant Beam and Void Beam. They combined togeather on the chest of the level 8 monster, creating an annhilation effect. Killing it instantly and dusting it. A point crystal dropped as I skidded to a halt.

That was when the horde of flying monsters rose up around the tower as the golden pillar appeared. I spun around, unleashing constant beam attacks, killing all the flying monsters. When I was done after ten seconds, I brought both of my hands up in a mock gun pose. I then blew on the tip of each index finger like some gunslinger.

“And that people, is how you deal with a tower. No climbing necessary. Just skip to the end. Thank you, thank you!” I said to no one as I made my way to the golden pillar. Compared to the headaches of previous towers, not counting the first, this had gone incredibly smoothly.

I claimed the tower and it began to sink into the ground. “Maybe we will be having that vote sooner than I had thought,” I muttered to myself as I enjoyed the view as the tower sank into the ground. I missed my companions and soldiers.

There would have been a round of applause at the very least for accomplishing the task so quickly. Then there were the super skill points from level 7 and higher zones I needed to get. It didn’t seem that important right now, but if I had to face a level 10 monster, I wanted to be sure I was fully upgraded.

I was confident in facing a level 9 monster after this easy win. But a level 10 meant the difficulty would jump once again. Any tower in a level 7 zone was completely off limits for now. I figured the sphere was a greater challenge than a level 10 monster, but no need to push things that far when I didn’t need to.

What I was grateful for was my airship surviving along with all the maps. Otherwise I would have gone insane trying to remember everything. I got back to my airship and cleared out any trailing monsters. Now where to next?

There was another tower to the West in a level 6 zone. That meant a level 9 boss. My energy had only gone down two thirds during my flight up the side of the tower and the battle after that. It was annoying to skip, but there was an increased level of risk.

Well, I needed to head West regardless. The tower after that was in a level 5 zone like this one. So, it would be just the same. As I set off towards the West, I debated on what I should do. Risk or no risk? Risk meant putting my life on the line, which I didn’t want to do. But my stats gave me a lot of confidence. I had been pretty loose with my skills back at the tower. But a tower in a level 6 zone, would have level 7 flying monsters.

Yeah, that was a no for me, for now. The boss monster wasn’t the problem it was the swarm that showed up when I was flying up the side of the tower. Level 7 monsters could actually track to a decent degree unlike lower level monsters. That meant I would have a much harder time. Also the tower was taller. I suspected that the floor heights were bigger the higher the zone level, but I hadn’t gone out and measured a tower precisely like that. There was no point when I would just fly an airship at max speed towards the top.

I was skipping the towers in level 6 zones for now. I would go back for them eventually, but there was no rush. I was only doing this to make sure the sword didn’t claim any towers beyond the one it already had. With luck it would have been vaporized along with everything else that the sphere messed up, but I doubted it.

Something like that would stick around like a curse to annoy me. After fighting so much nonsense, I had a sixth sense about this type of thing. By my count, if I cleared all the towers in level 5 zones and below, I would get a total of 22 out of the 40. More than enough for a quorum and absolute control over any vote.

I swore the Almighty System better be very clear about this vote thing. Nothing vague, like ‘End The Systemic Lands’ or some other nonsense like that. I wanted a very clear description of the outcome of the vote one way or another. No timer nonsense either. While I might wish for these things, the Almighty System would do whatever it wanted to do.

During the trip I could swing by cities. Ireti and Cairo were on the way to the next tower, just had to do more of a curved path. I would go along the South and then circle back up North along the western edge of the Systemic Lands. Once I was to the North of the Rift I could spend time grinding there.

My airship should make it that far with the points it had. But refueling would need to be a priority. I also didn’t have someone to pick up the points. That would be annoying. But I would just have to deal with that. Spend around 30 days grinding to really fuel up the airship and stock up the points Clarissa needed. Then I would head East along the Northern edge checking cities and clearing towers.

Then eventually loop back to Clarissa’s hidden base with some time to spare. It sounded like an excellent plan. I got up and made my way to the back of the airship. I looked back and blasted a flying monster out of the sky chasing me. Except for these annoying things. That was what I liked about the Avatar. Her only useful property was keeping the flying monsters away from my airship as a figurehead.

Before I did any vote, I would have to get Clarissa there with me just have a second opinion. I knew she was interested in the entire thing as well. So get all the towers, go back to Clarissa, drop the points off, then go to a completed tower and see what this vote was going to do.

I also needed someone to fly my airship and man the cannons. I needed minions and fast. When I swung my Purgatory, I might do some recruiting. Or if Young Michael was still alive out there, I would pick him up if possible. I hoped he was alive. The first child born into Purgatory that had survived everything.

That was the one part of everything I was sad about. My Empire had been good for the children. If it only had been about the children, I could have kept going, but there were just too many other problems. Starting it all up again, made me just want to say no and run away. Same with Clarissa.

While it would be easier with the power I had, it would also be a lot more tedious. But it was a passive income stream. The passive income stream wasn’t that much. Even if I went full Divine Empress, grinding out high level monsters myself was far more effective to getting points than passive income. There would be massive corruption unless I routinely killed a lot of people and went full Divine Empress.

That would create rebel factions of some kind trying to resist me. Just thinking about all of that was enough to exhaust me completely. The Empire building was at an end. Someone else could build one then I would come in and take it over. That sounded like a much better idea. Very little effort for all the reward.

If that had happened to me, I might have lost my mind. I mentally apologized to whomever I was going to do this to in the future. But that was the benefit of being strong, I got to do what I wanted.