FB: Chapter 11 – Being A Sneak

After the first day and two sessions arranging things, I had then spent the next two real world days and four sessions, bringing out stone blocks to build my altar. I had managed to get it up to 180 blocks out of the planned 311. It would take time but having a spot where one could just grind monsters for experience at a fast pace was huge and worth the time investment.

But today my order had finally arrived. The cursed blood flowers and my spare pack were stored for a small fee of a single copper in the town’s storage hall. It cost every time I wanted to access something, but if I died, they would still be there. I didn’t need the cursed blood flowers and I wasn’t going to be building my altar right now.

Instead, I had the 120 pouches of cleansing salt in my inventory. The stuff had not been cheap, but it was useful against one kind of high level monster in the bottom levels of Murk Tower. The rank 4 masking scent potion was so I could sneak past all the baby hydras and larger hydras to reach the tower.

If I died, I would lose all my non-soul bound items that were in my inventory, a tenth of my money in my inventory, and all of my stored experience. Death could have a huge financial impact if one wasn’t careful. If a person was truly reckless, they could lose all their skills. It wasn’t worth the risk to do this twice. Either this was possible, or it wasn’t possible. From everything I knew it should work. I just needed to be careful and stealthy.

My low level would help. Not all monsters were instantly hostile. If I stayed away from them and didn’t bother the hydras, then I would be able to slip past them without too much trouble. The biggest headache were the zombie knights and mages right before the hydras.

I went to the general store and purchased 10 basic antidotes and 10 basic healing potions for 10 copper each, which cost me 200 copper total.

With everything I needed purchased, I downed a pest repellant potion outside of the town and set off with wood spear in hand. I got past the grabbers and the zombie soldiers without too much hassle.

After that I went much slower. I had observed that one could see where the zombies were hiding underwater by where bubbles occasionally broke the surface until they were disturbed. My route was a zig zag as I made my way through the swamp, having to back track twice at dead ends where there were a lot of bubbles.

The town compass stopped working once I crossed over into hydra territory, but the direction of the tower was easily known. I could track my overall location using my mini-map and I just needed to head to the center of the Murk Swamp. I had seen full maps before with the location marked. I took the potion of scent masking now. I then carefully made my way through the mist. Occasionally I saw massive figures and dark outlines through the mist of the swamp but stayed clear of them.

I didn’t think it was possible, but the smell was getting worse. It took three hours to get to hydra territory and another hour to get to the tower. Thankfully the tower was on a small hill and the mist was cleared off from around it. The only real landmark in the Murk Swamp.

There were two zombie acolytes that were over level 60 at the main entrance. I kept looking and finally found a ruined tunnel, with an eyewatering smell and there was a flow of liquid draining out into the swamp at the back of the tower at the base of the hill. I entered the tunnel trying not to choke to death.

This should be a war crime to have a smell this bad. Thankfully there were patches of glowing fungus in the tunnel, illuminating the path. That was when I saw the first one and I smiled. A Murk Ooze was moving down the tunnel towards me.

“Command remove pouch cleansing salt,” I whispered. I quickly grabbed the pouch once it appeared in the air. The ooze kept approaching. It was about the size of one of the stone blocks I was building with, or two pillows. I pulled the string on the pouch and tossed it.

I had practiced with regular salt the day before, so it wasn’t a problem landing the throw. The cleansing salt went into the Murk Ooze. It trembled and then it sharded. While it was very resistant to most magic and almost all weapons as an ooze monster, cleansing salt was able to deal super critical damage to the monster.

Continuing up the passage I encountered more oozes. I only removed a pouch of cleansing salt when I saw one. For the very air would degrade it and I hadn’t purchased the higher rank version, which was purification salt. The purification salt was a lot more expensive and unneeded.

Making my way through the basement level of Murk Tower, I killed every Murk Ooze I came across. There were no undead acolytes down here thankfully. They only guarded the main level and upper levels of the tower with the undead Arch Mage Murk at the very top.

The vile pool wasn’t something I could interact with right now and there was nothing else of importance down here. I used up all my cleansing salt and then left the same way I entered. During the process I took an antidote potion and healing potion to stop the effects of Poison Aura from killing me. While an antidote would remove poison effects for 10 seconds it would also grant a 20% poison resistance on top of what I already had for 120 seconds, going over max resistance.

That combined with my 70% poison resistance from my four Common rank Poison Resistance skill shards was enough to allow me to survive in the basement of Murk Tower from the Poison Aura constantly effecting everything. The Murk Oozes used the skill at the Uncommon rank, which meant it would do a base of 6 damage per second. With my 90% resistance and removal of the poison effects, I was losing about one health every 2 seconds when close to a Murk Ooze.

The basic healing potions healed 100 health over 100 seconds or 1 heath per second. This amount of healing more than covered for the health loss since the poison damage didn’t stack even if there were multiple oozes. Even with the absolute level penalty, the healing was enough. Using the two potions in combination was cheaper than buying a higher rank antidote. Instead of 10 copper, I was looking at 1 silver for 25% resistance boost over 180 seconds and 15 seconds of no poison. It just wasn’t worthwhile cost wise.

The entire task had been decently expensive, but it had been worthwhile in my opinion. Getting a chance like this was not easy and one mistake would see me lose all my non-soul bound items which would be a disaster. Still, it was a massive opportunity and synergized well with my overall plans.

It had only taken about half an hour to kill 117 oozes. I had missed three of my throws. I was also out of healing potions and antidotes.

I quickly and quietly began to make my way back through the Murk Swamp after downing another potion of pest repellant. Thankfully I didn’t get bitten by the higher level giant leeches in the hydra section of the swamp.

While they wouldn’t move away like the pests did in the lower levels, they wouldn’t chase after me either. I got back after eleven and a half hours since I left Murk Town. After cleaning up and putting on a gray robe I entered the town.

An alert icon appeared which meant a major status update, and I smiled. “Command title screen.”

Unstoppable Slayer
Awarded for killing over 100 monsters more than 80 levels higher than your own, by yourself in one battle.
+15% Physical Damage
+5% Magical Damage
+5% Stats

I quickly equipped the title. It was the top level slayer title one could get that I knew of. The basic Slayer title only gave a five percent boost to physical damage and Great Slayer only gave a ten percent boost to physical damage without the other two boosts. They were rewarded for killing 100 monsters 40 levels higher and 60 levels higher respectively.

The hardest part of the title was the absolute level penalty of 1% per level. Killing a monster over 80 levels higher meant you were only dealing 20% damage and the monster would deal 80% more damage. It would a nightmare to do that in a single battle on your own using regular methods.

Since monsters couldn’t be repeated for the title, people had to figure out monsters they could earn this title on when it became public. I had claimed the oozes which were easy to kill with some cheap cleansing salt. Now I would be able to shard the zombie soldiers with the stat boost, which was key to my grinding strategy.

This was the kind of title that was much easier to do on level 1 with a bit of cheese, rather than a higher level. It was also the only title I could earn right away. A person could only have three titles equipped at any one time, so it was critical to pick the best ones. But titles couldn’t be lost easily, like from dying.

A noble or champion title were probably the only kinds of titles that could be taken away easily. That was what made this title so powerful. The stat boost alone would be a godsend at the higher levels, where it was a struggle to level up. The increased damage would let me hit above my level as well despite the absolute level penalty.

After checking in at the inn, I logged out. I climbed out of the pod, my body was stiff. I really disliked full 12 hour sessions in the capsule. I took a shower and then ate. I checked my phone, one missed call from my brother. It wasn’t that late, and he should still be up.

I called him back. “Sis, how are you doing?” Rodrick asked over the phone right after he picked up.

“Good. Today went really well. I earned a title that was quite a challenge. How is football?” I asked.

“Tiring, but fun. My last year, I got to make it count. But tell me, what title?” he asked.

“This kind of stuff is top secret. It is a good title.” While I trusted my brother, he would talk. That talk would eventually come back to bite me. Keeping my information secret was important. I couldn’t risk sharing anything at the moment.

“Awww, so where are you in Exponential?” I considered that question.

“This isn’t something to share. Someone could give me trouble.”

“Really, is it that big of a deal?” my brother asked.

“Yes. People could match my account up to my real-life name. I can’t take any chances right now.” There were stories of real-life assassination attempts. While most people dismissed them as rumors, when billions of dollars and national security were on the line, taking any kind of risk was unacceptable when powerful people thought they could do whatever they wanted. With Exponential taking over everything, it became the center of everything. This included international relations. The battles in game were just another way for countries to try and assert dominance over each other and those conflicts carried over into the real world. All of this would take time to occur, but it didn’t hurt to be careful at the start in my mind.

“Hmmm, you really are serious about this. Not even streaming?” my brother asked.

“No. So how are mom and dad?” I asked him.

“Worried, but you know them. You should visit, or we should visit, curious to see your new place and that capsule,” my brother said.

“Well, no surprise visits. I have a strict schedule. I can’t afford any time off,” I said. The next year would be brutal, boring, and mentally exhausting, but it was critical if I wanted to grind up an insane amount of experience and money while there was no competition.

“Well your friend Bethany stopped by. I let her know you got a job, she might reach out to you. I know you got a new phone and changed your number and a new e-mail, but I passed the e-mail onto her,” Rodrick said.

“Alright,” I replied with a sigh.

“Look at you, working hard. Alright, sis, good luck,” my brother said.

“Take care,” I replied and hung up. I checked my e-mails and there was one from my high school best friend Bethany from high school. I had forgotten about her when I had come back. Thinking back about what had happened to her, she had become a waitress after high school to save up money, since her parents refused to support her, and she didn’t have the grades for a scholarship for college. We drifted apart and I hadn’t heard anything from her after a year.

Hey!
Heard you made it big time. Congrats. Shoot me a message.

I looked at the e-mail and was about to delete it but then hesitated. Pushing everyone away wasn’t healthy, but I couldn’t let anyone match up my in game name with my real identity right now. Foxy Blight was going to make waves and keeping the identities separate was important.

Hey Beth
Got lucky with an investment. Now I am just living in upstate New York working for myself in resource acquisition. Hope you are well.

I nodded at the short message. No need to make waves. It amused me to imply my job was based in the real world. More like shit shoveling, if I had to make a claim about my current job title. But I couldn’t say that otherwise it would be too easy to work out where I was in Exponential.