FB: Chapter 12 – Using An Altar

I put the last stone blocks into place. It was my eighth real day and the altar was finally done. I had made 7 trips yesterday and today to finish it up for tomorrow. I left the stone altar and made my way back towards Murk Town.

I was just glad it was over. Now the real headache would begin. I would have to switch over to 12 hour grind sessions per day. I didn’t want to, but it was necessary. Since it took about 50 minutes to get all the way out here to the altar from the town. If I did two sessions a day, I would be losing over 100 minutes to travel time daily.

That was unacceptable. I needed to squeeze out every bit of time I could. The new title was already coming in clutch, allowing me to shard the zombie soldiers with one attack to the head. That was critical if this was going to work.

Since they were all over 10 levels higher than me, I would get the full 250 experience per kill, which would maximize my experience gain per kill. I just needed to make some changes first to my equipment and skills.

Once back in town I went to the Trader’s Union. I had been purchasing all the available junk skill shards for the skill Gamblers Commitment. A passive Luck skill that boosted the Luck stat by 10 for each rank the skill shard had. The replenishment rate of skill shards from the NPCs wasn’t that quick, which was why I had kept checking in order to purchase any that became available. I had just enough experience to get four soul bound shards up to the third rank of Uncommon, boosting my Luck stat by 30 for each skill shard for a total of 120.

That meant that I was getting an ear from every kill now. Since the 80% drop chance was multiplied by 2.2. Drop chances didn’t go over 100%. Also, the increased Luck stat helped ensure that my head strikes were always super critical, dealing 100% total damage to the zombie soldiers.

Monsters and people were like onions. Different layers had different critical strike rates. Luck expanded those layers outwards when I struck a target, while a target’s Luck contracted those layers. It basically created a bigger hitbox to deal critical hits and super critical hits and shrunk them for yourself.

A decapitation was still super critical, but my spear thrust could be aimed through the head of a zombie, with the mouth as a weak point to land a super critical hit. I couldn’t let the corpses pile up with my grinding strategy.

Even the lesser injuries would have a higher chance of being critical. Normally a scratch had a 0.1% chance of being a critical hit. But with 127 Luck, that would now be 0.227%. A light or minor wound would have a critical hit chance of 2.27% instead of 1%. I had 127 Luck, since I had 1 Luck from level 1 and then the 5% stat boost from my title on top of the skill shards.

The real power of the Luck stat came when it was absurdly high. If Luck was raised to a 1,000 then a scratch would have a 1.1% chance of being a critical hit, while a minor or light wound had an 11% of being a critical hit. This disregarded the target’s Luck and some other factors, but the important thing was understanding how the mechanics worked, not calculating out every single hit. But the most important thing about critical hits was that they ignored the defense that was given from the absolute level advantage.

With poison that had a base chance of 1% for critical hits and did damage per second, this would become absurdly powerful. Critical damage would also make a resistance count at half while also ignoring the absolute level difference. Even if someone went full anti-poison against me and got 70% max resistance and chugged high rank antidotes that cost a gold coin each for 30% more resistance to be fully protected, their resistance would be countered by poison critical attacks, which partially ignored resistance.

It was horrendous even if you had a build and skills specifically tailored to counter a poison and Luck combination. Also, this wasn’t taking into account the Luck or skills an enemy might have, but people rarely went for defensive focused builds, since they were of limited use and would mess up their fighting style. Changing large number of skill shards to counter a specific build was a massive headache and expense. For now though, I needed Luck to increase the drop rate. I wanted to increase the drop rate of skill shards.

With my build I had no doubt that demand for poison related skills would spike once I made my public move. There was also the chance to use such skill shards as quest payments to find out how to get a special legendary skill based off of that shard.

I had no idea if there was a special legendary poison resistance skill, but if there was one, I wanted it. Since the biggest risk of poison was getting hit with your own poison and dying. That was why this build concept had been very unpopular for a long time until the combination with Luck and breaking past 100% resistance was discovered. Even then it was a very specialized build that took a lot of work to get to the level where it was useful.

Getting back to Murk Town, I made my way to the inn to log out. I noted a group of three people sitting at a table in the center of the inn. Other people were trying to survive the Murk Swamp. I got my usual bread and water and made my way to a corner table. The vomit inducing smell of the Murk Swamp was strong in the air. They glanced at me but didn’t say anything.

They would be gone in a day or two, no doubt. Or they could be the rare super hardcore people who wanted to stick around and tough it out. I wasn’t worried about them starting anything in town either, with the Eye of Vigilance effect currently active.

It just wasn’t possible to start off doing assassinations in town. You needed the skills, and anything less than Epic rank wasn’t worth the hassle from what I remembered. When I had returned back in time a decade from now, that was when the assassinations were really picking up since people could negate the Eye of Vigilance effect and had worked out how the NPCs worked for the most part.

The people went back to talking, quite loudly as I had my bread and water. At least I was able to get some entertainment. “We should leave,” one of the guys said.

“We just got here and weren’t you the one saying we needed to pick the hardest starting location to find all the good loot,” a woman complained.

“Hey, there has to be something good here, there is another person,” he gestured at me, and the group looked over. I just munched on my shit tasting bread.

“Then you go into the swamp!” the woman complained.

“Well, uh, I tried, but the bugs, were quite bad,” the man nervously said. The third man let out a sigh and got up.

“Where are you going?” the first man asked.

“If I listen to you two argue anymore, I am going to say something rude.” He picked up his drink and walked over to my table.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked me.

“Seats not taken,” I replied, and he sat down.

“Names Carl Hawthorn,” he introduced himself.

“Foxy Blight,” I replied. I had to remind myself not to become anti-social, but I had to keep my guard up. I couldn’t afford complications right now. And everyone was trying to gain an advantage over everyone else.

“We just showed up today, but this place, and this smell. It is awful. Any suggestions on how to deal with the smell?” he asked me.

“Nope. Just have to tough it out,” I replied. I held up the last piece of bread. “Even if it tastes foul.”

“That must suck. Have my filter at fifty percent, but it is still annoying.” That was weak. I had my immersion filter at the full hundred percent. Rich people who had more money than sense. I considered mentioning I had full immersion, but I didn’t want that kind of attention. “Any suggestions for this place?” he asked.

“Don’t drink the swamp water. You will get poisoned if you do,” I told him, and he gave me a look as I finished up my bread. I paused for a moment. “You need to purchase pest repellent to keep the bugs away. I am only here since I don’t want to deal with other people. The skill shards are all poison based.” Some basic asking around with the NPCs would work out the problem. Hiding this kind of basic information was pointless. They would be leaving regardless. That was the true power of the Murk Swamp.

“Thanks for letting me know that. You are welcome to join me Foxy,” Carl suggested. I drank the rest of my water and got up. I was going to keep playing solo for now.

“Nope, I am a one woman show. Have fun exploring the town and the Murk Swamp, Carl,” I said to him and left for my room. When I got to my room, I saw there was a friend request, which I accepted. He had been polite enough. I included a note about where I had met the man and his personality. That way if I had to look back at my friends list, I would know who this person was.

I logged out and got out of the capsule. I got cleaned up, ate, and then checked my messages. Bethany had written back to me.

Come on. I am dying here. Let me stay with you. I can’t believe you got your own place.

She had been begging to come stay with me, but that wasn’t going to happen. Bethany was a great party girl and person to hang out with, but her room and house were a mess. If she came here to my sanctum, it would be a disaster. I had lived alone before and wasn’t in the mood to handle extra drama.

Sorry Beth. But I can’t have or handle houseguests. I need to focus on my routine and schedule. My job is very important. Perhaps we can get together for a coffee sometime.

Trying not to be an anti-social shut-in was hard. I went to bed after that.

The next morning my alarm went off. I let out a groan, but my alarm was five feet from my bed. So, I had to get out of bed to turn it off. Even with eight hours of sleep I wanted more. I just needed to adapt to my new schedule.

Becoming rich and famous required hard work. I wish I had remembered the lotto numbers instead. But who remembers lotto numbers? I also didn’t follow sports. If my brother had come back in time, he would have made a killing betting on football games. Since I was in Exponential and QAI was adaptive, various things would change. It meant I couldn’t place bets on specific outcomes I didn’t have a direct hand in controlling, since things could and would change. Also, my memory wasn’t that good for things I could make money off of. I only got lucky about the stock price, since it was a common topic of conversation.

I got into the capsule and logged back into Exponential. Waking up in the same inn, I was excited a bit. First day of super grinding. I retrieved my cursed blood flowers and put all 24 of them into my inventory. After that I left Murk Town and made my way to my altar. I also saw I had a message from Carl.

Left the Murk. Good luck out there Foxy Blight.

I considered for a moment if I should reply and what I should say.

Well congrats for trying. The Murk isn’t for everyone.

The nice thing about coming into the game at this point, was that people didn’t have the skills or the money to try and follow me. I guess some rich person could pay an NPC quite a bit, but that was why I was staying out of the way as much as I could. Not rude, but not memorable.

I made it to the altar and climbed up to the second level in the middle. Any type of structure used for luring was called an altar. Even if there was no ritual or magic being done. “Command remove cursed blood flower.” It was removed from my inventory and I carefully put it down on the center of the structure I had built.

A cursed blood flower was a low level undead lure. It would only last so long outside of my inventory before decaying. The best part about undead was that a large trigger would trigger more of them due to the movement and noise from the first monsters being lured, compounding the luring effect.

It was a common tactic to use this kind of luring effect to ambush people by luring monsters into them if they weren’t ready. As a grinding strategy, most groups didn’t use it, since it would leave the group on the altar exposed to other groups. It also wasn’t as efficient as a large group just sweeping an area. I wasn’t interested in fighting other players right now, since everyone was incredibly poor. If I did kill someone rich, it would just piss them off and bring attention to me.

That was why the Murk Swamp was the best place for me to grind up experience and money at the moment on my own. There was no one to upset or contest my grinding strategy. Often if one person lured monsters other people nearby would kill steal the monsters. That was why luring, while highly effective, was only done by individuals in isolated areas for the most part.

The horde of zombie soldiers began to arrive. BLARRG! They unleashed their vomit attacks, but they only splattered right below the top of the second platform I was on. Then they began to climb up. I waited since these monsters couldn’t spam their barf attacks. Once the zombie soldiers began reaching the first platform, I stabbed down at them with a wood spear. Aiming directly for their heads.

It was incredibly easy since they didn’t dodge and kept their faces pointed up towards me, instead of lowering their heads so their helmets could take the blows. This was so they could use their vomit skill. Low level monsters weren’t very adaptive, which made them perfect for luring in large numbers to an altar. I killed one after the other racking up that experience at 250 per kill, since the monsters had more than ten levels compared to me.