Unchosen Champion

Coop sat on the dunes, watching the golden sunset reflect on the calm waters around Ghost Reef. A great white heron was walking along the beach, and Coop admired its silhouette as the last of the light faded away. Earlier, one of the new foragers, an ape-like alien, waded out of the water and headed back inside the fort, but there had been no one else. The new residents were still making themselves comfortable inside their new home. Coop was alone, outside the safety of the walls.

Once night fell, the Ancient Prowlers finally joined him, so he started his hunt.

With his ethereal armor and his summoned glaive he casually dodged and defeated the aggressive monsters one after another. He didn’t take damage from their ambushes anymore. Coop’s Agility had risen beyond the Prowlers’ to the point that he didn’t need to dodge by guessing at what direction they would come from. Instead, he was able to wait for their attack to begin before he slid out of the way. It made the entire process of fighting pack after pack of Ancient Prowlers significantly smoother. He didn’t need breaks to allow the Vulnerable debuffs to expire and he was much slower to fatigue. He didn’t need to waste any movement getting out of the way or repositioning anymore.

Camila and Charlie joined him a few hours into his hunt. They killed a few of their own packs but mostly watched Coop as he drove his glaive through the air. He let them know he was going to pull an all-nighter in order to complete his quest before they left the next day. Camila said he was nuts and Charlie wished him luck before they hunted a few more packs and both retired for the night.

As Coop killed the Ancient Prowlers he wondered if there was anything the settlement could do to manipulate which monsters appeared within its territory. There was probably another expensive service he would need to invest in that would give him some influence over them. They hadn’t seen any elites inside the settlement’s territory since they had the small raid of Ancient Defenders. He thought it must be due to the expansion of the territory. The elites were pushed further away each time they upgraded the settlement.

Coop personally wanted to have access to more elites to fight. His experience with the zombies was that they were significantly more rewarding, but he didn’t want the settlement’s residents to be in even more danger than they already were.

It would be nice if they could set up designated areas for monsters to spawn. Coop could create various zones based on his own experience with each monster to guide others on a smoother path for progression. He didn’t want people wandering into the Primal Kites unprepared for their movement, or engaging with the Ancient Prowlers thinking they were weak just because they were right outside of the fort when they were actually fast, tricky, and aggressive.

As the city grew, he might need to set up a system with his army to warn residents of the dangers of each area. It was only a matter of time before new residents took professions that had them exploring the rest of the island chain. He’d have to discuss it with Arthur and Gideon when he got the chance. For now, he’d probably need to focus on conquering the entire territory himself. He hadn’t even finished with the main island yet. He knew at least two more monster types were waiting inside of the mangrove forest and the Primal Kites were just offshore.

Coop kept grinding, letting his thoughts wander to both the immediate and the long term tasks he wanted to work on. Halfway through the night he realized an audience had gathered on the ramparts. It seemed like the army of phantoms were already on a schedule with guards posted even in the middle of the night. Dozens of them were watching his grind session from the top of the walls.

He ignored them for the time being, preferring to make sure he would finish his quest before dawn came. He was making good time, steadily cleaving the monsters with his glaive, he had already defeated more than 4,000 of the Ancient Prowlers.

Eventually, he received a notification that his profession had leveled up to 32. He put his unallocated points into Mind and replaced his glaive with his sword and shield. He’d spend the last few hours of his grind using his close quarters mistjumps to fight the monsters, practicing his ethereal swordsmanship. It was the tactic he developed while fighting the agility based elite zombies to counter their speed and the Prowlers were a natural analog for the quick monsters. He could make some progress reducing the cost of his mistjumps by practicing with the ability and he wasn’t as worried about running out of mana thanks to his upgraded Reaper title. He would gain a bit of mana from every kill.

Coop had to admit, he was starting to have fun again. Grinding monsters was his own personal therapy. The giddiness he felt when successfully outmaneuvering the monsters was hard to deny. It was like a shot of happiness injected straight into his brain whenever he landed a combo or perfectly executed a strike. He strongly suspected that the reaction to proper technique was the result of his Haunted title, but he had no idea how to confirm it. Perhaps he would find the answers as he leveled up and received more skills.

He sliced through one monster and let go of his sword while it was still extended, then mistjumped, allowing the next monster to sail straight through his position. He cut the ambusher in half and readied himself for the next. Every movement felt good, even after hours and hours of grinding. He finished the pack and after one last monster he lit up with the radiance of another level.

He walked to the edge of the Ancient Prowler’s zone and sat down on a small dune to check his notifications. As he left the battlefield some of the phantoms on the wall clapped. Coop shook his head in embarrassment, realizing he had been the early morning’s entertainment for another shift of the new ghostly guards.

[You defeated Ancient Prowler (Level 11)]

[+7 Basic Credits]

[Quest Complete! Defeat Ancient Prowlers V]

[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]

[Slayer title upgraded!]

Coop smiled to himself in satisfaction. It felt good to be done with another major quest chain. The surge in his stats was impossible to ignore and he had to consciously stop himself from getting back up, hopping around, and flexing to test his Agility and Strength. The upgraded Slayer title added another 100 Mind to his total which trickled into the rest of his stats thanks to his passive skills. He checked his status.

[Status]

HP - 3150/3150

MP - 3115/5700

Class - Revenant (Level 36)

Profession - Basic Scavenging (Level 32)

Affinity - Spectral

Race - Human (Rank 1)

Faction - None

Strength - 30 (+570)

Agility - 30 (+285)

Body - 30 (+285)

Mind - 570

Intelligence - 30

Acumen - 30

Unallocated - 0

Titles - Champion III, Haunted, Ethereal, Reaper, Slayer II

Skills (Active) - Retribution, Salvation, Presence of Mind

Skills (Passive) - Common Language, Mind Over Matter, Adamance, Practical Application

Quests - Defeat Primal Kites II (21/25), Upgrade Village to Town

Basic Credits - 63,222

Coop felt good. His stats were shooting up, his quests were getting knocked out, and he was already accumulating another pile of credits. From what he had learned thanks to the various Chosen of the Empire that had defected to his settlement, most of their stats were still in the double digits.

Coop hadn’t had a real chance to explore his attributes outside of combat, so he wasn’t sure how to translate his stats to reality. He wanted a bench press and a squat rack so he could set some new PRs. Obviously, it wasn’t a linear progression when it came to the physical traits, and he imagined the magical ones would be the same, but he was confident that he was multiple times stronger than he had been before the assimilation began.

He headed back to the fort to take a quick shower and see if he could make some last minute purchases for the settlement. He should have gathered enough to get his army started on their training. He checked the leaderboards on his way even though it had only been a couple days since he made his debut in the top 10.

Day 24

Banshee (Level 46)

The Lich (Level 45)

Coop (Level 36)

Platinum (Level 33)

Reina Kitawa (Level 32)

Akari Kitawa (Level 32)

Safiri (Level 31)

Santiago Torres (Level 31)

Hai Yun (Level 31)

Tzultacaj (Level 31)

It hadn’t been long enough for much to change. Banshee finally surpassed the static first place holder of The Lich who had leveled only a single time in two weeks. Coop wondered if The Lich was stuck on some other oil rig somewhere without any fresh victims to level off of. Other than that small change, only Hai Yun and Tzultacaj had leveled with the new addition of Santiago Torres beating them to level 31.

The common sentiment among the faction’s Chosen was that all of these people were leveling with groups inside of special regions. The ones in the lead had simply monopolized Mana Wells early.

Coop wasn’t so sure, since he was a living example of an alternative strategy that involved a lot of grinding to complete as many quest chains as possible. He had to concede that he only jumped out ahead because he reaped the rewards of hunting on the oil rig, which would be considered a special region full of elite monsters. But still, if that was the only thing he had done he wouldn’t have been able to close the gap between himself and the top rankers, and he believed it was only a matter of time before he snowballed ahead.

In fact it would have been impossible to do anything on the rig at all if he was as weak as the Empire’s Chosen. Eric and Richard had struggled with the regular zombies; they would have been annihilated by the elites if Coop hadn’t already cleared them out.

Coop scrolled all the way down the list of the top 1,000 and found that they were all at least level 29. It seemed like the rate of leveling had slowed down quite a bit after level 25. When the factions started sending their Chosen back on Day 10 they were already 25, and now, on Day 24 the top tier was still only level 29.

Four levels over two weeks was not much when considering someone could hunt a mere 25 Ancient Defenders and 25 Ancient Prowlers and gain four levels from the quest completions alone. Coop was averaging closer to two levels a day during that same 14 day period. At this point, the only reasonable explanation was that most settlements only had, at most, a single monster type nearby and Ghost Reef was truly special.

The level 25 Chosen returned to Earth and had two easy levels from killing 5 and 25 of the local monsters and the truly dedicated would get at least one more level after killing 250 of the monsters. Coop guessed most would give up on the strategy of grinding at seeing the next requirement in the chain. Defeating 5,000 more monsters was a daunting task. Coop had to remember that he had also specifically selected his class and skills with the purpose of being capable of such a grind. The factions didn’t prioritize sustainable combat the same way he did, so their Chosen wouldn’t even be equipped to kill that many monsters without significant breaks.

In the end Coop had to credit a combination of factors for his current successes. His initial mentality when it came to the system was the start, his selection of class and skills was the next major factor, and the final key element was in Ghost Reef’s monster diversity. Without any one of those components he might already be hitting a ceiling.

It was still only the beginning. Coop’s primary responsibility to maintain his plan would be to continue grinding monsters. He wouldn’t take his foot off the pedal just because the plan had already started paying off.

After he had rinsed off with a cold shower, he moved to the civilization shard and accessed the menus. He considered all of the different construction options before he purchased three more services to start with. First was a Training Yard which he placed on the opposite side of the canal despite not having a bridge yet. Then he purchased a Carpenter and a Quarry. The Carpenter went next to Balor’s Stonemason and the Quarry went directly behind, similar to the Herbalist’s set up with the Herb Garden in the back.

The Training Yard had a single barracks style building inside of a walled area that was probably large enough to fit half of his army at once. Coop could see training dummies and targets set up along the walls from the civilization shard’s top down perspective. It had been the most expensive of the three purchases at 50,000 basic credits, but that wasn’t too bad. It would at least get the phantoms started on their training, once the bridge was ready. There were plenty of other martial buildings that would be needed to unlock their combat potential. He would make those purchases later.

The carpenter would be building all of the furnishings necessary for the fort, which Coop was sure would keep him busy for the foreseeable future. The building for the carpenter was the same size as Balor’s workshop, with two stories and an angled roof. It was constructed entirely of wood.

The quarry on the other hand had an even smaller building, not much more than a hut. The area around the hut had large square blocks of stone stacked along the edges. Coop had only gone through with the purchase when he saw it wouldn’t actually become a mine in the middle of his settlement. There were other purchases that would create mines themselves. For now he didn’t see the need for getting them.

Coop visited the carpenter first, another insectoid that reminded him of a beetle. Coop let him know what he needed of him and the iridescent beetleman gratefully accepted his task. He would work hard to provide the bare necessities when it came to furnishing the fort. Without wasting any time, he returned to his workshop. Before Coop walked away the sounds of sawing were emanating from the interior.

The quarry was next, and Coop found a rock golem staring at the fort walls nearest to the hut. Coop greeted it and let it know what the immediate masonry plans were, to build a bridge and roads followed by even more repairs for the fort. The golem was excited to be involved with the fort sharing an enthusiasm that contrasted with Coop’s expectations. It was made of rocks but it seemed giddy anyway. It was apparently just as impressed as Balor had been by the old stone construction of the fort. It promised to have the best stone made available to the stonemasons. While more stone could be made available with the addition of mines, it wouldn’t be necessary without recruiting even more masons.

Coop crossed the canal, with a long spear throw and mistjump, as the sunrise began, and met with the trainer. His name was Ledwidge and he was a seven foot tall tree of a man that was armored similarly to a knight. He revealed that he was actually a treant, not a man at all. His plate armor shone with gold filigree and wasn’t actually worn so much as embedded in strategic locations inside his bark. He wielded a smooth bo staff that was even taller than he was and was as thick as one Coop’s legs.

Ledwidge was extremely excited about training an army. Apparently, training for settlements was very rarely done by independent services. Usually settlements stuck to their faction’s services when it came to martial agencies in particular. If, by happenstance, a settlement was owned by a non martial faction at the point of needing training, it was rarely for armies and more often for small groups of powerful elites. Ledwidge was motivated to help a factionless settlement stand tall with an entire army and encouraged Coop to explain his tactical philosophy.

It wasn’t like Coop had any experience with military tactics, but he did want Ledwidge to foster individual durability and personalized classes instead of forcing people into glass cannon positions and party roles the way the factions had been. He’d rather they be flexible enough to both survive on their own and cooperate with each other on the fly. Coop couldn’t imagine battles being so orderly as to not require some improvisation.

Ledwidge was practically vibrating with excitement when Coop talked about his personal combat ideology. The gnarled branches at the top of his head seemed to even start sprouting leaves. Coop thought it was pretty funny for this real life battle expert to be so eager to hear his literal video game strategies. It wouldn’t surprise him that the treant was simply placating the obviously amateur ideals Coop was presenting, since it was coming from the settlement’s Champion. Either way, no one in Coop’s settlement would be pigeonholed into a role they didn’t have an appetite for.

Coop left the armored treant with a promise to train with him in the future and crossed the canal back to the tavern. He was going to try some of the new food before he left, since all the settlement upgrades unlocked more of the demon’s menu.

The Clumsy Shark was more full than Coop had ever seen despite it being so early in the morning. The cozy atmosphere was still present, but there was the addition of a festive cheer brought by the two dozen off-duty phantoms who were excited about being back with the living.

Coop took a seat at the bar and Desmond served Coop a plate of steaming biscuits and gravy. He tactfully explained to Coop that a Grove and a Butcher would extend the menu even further should the opportunity arise. Coop took one bite and immediately thought about what a good idea purchasing the additional services would be. Desmond promised the investment would pay for itself with all of the new residents spending their credits on the drinks and the meals.

Desmond was particularly excited about how well-received his menu had been because most species never explored the culinary arts and had no appreciation for taste. They only cared about buffs, if they ate at all. But humans were something completely different, with a varied palate and an enthusiasm for eating that was unusual even on a galactic scale. Not even the demons had such an appetite for food.

Maeve flitted around the room serving other guests before she came to a rest at Coop’s side. She had already learned of his plan to take another trip so she wanted to give him her best wishes.

Coop enjoyed his meal even more than the atmosphere of the tavern. With food that good it would be easy to remember to eat.

Arthur and Shane joined him as he was finishing up. He briefly talked about his idea for zones within the territory based on monsters, idly wishing for that level of mana control in the future.

Arthur updated Coop on bits of information that he had gathered from the phantoms and the library. Unfortunately, Arthur’s research amounted to almost nothing. He could at least confirm that they wouldn’t present a threat to the settlement, but the phantoms didn’t know much beyond their own personal histories and their new loyalties. The library had too much information to the point that it was impossible to conclude what would be an analogous situation and what was inapplicable. His conclusion was that they were a completely unique creation, specific to humans and spectral mana, and therefore Ghost Reef.

Coop had already decided to treat them as regular people, and given the unknowns, his mind wasn’t changed, but it got him thinking about minions and himself. They definitely weren’t minions, like the ones Coop had encountered on the oil rig or the Primal Construct’s invaders, and Arthur didn’t think they were undead like the librarians either. Coop thought the phantoms matched up nicely with himself, living, but with an undead flavor, though they were obviously at least one step beyond the edge, having actually died previously.

Coop dropped his spoon into the empty bowl with a clatter as he felt a moment of existential dread. He considered how his whole adventure had started, getting knocked out on the beach when the meteors fell. Was it possible he had died at that point and didn’t even know it?

A quick look at his hands, then his status, confirming he was just a ‘Human’ put him at ease and he awkwardly laughed it off. The phantoms absolutely knew their situation at least. He shook his head at the weird thoughts and concluded that, if anything, he needed a nap.

When he left the tavern, he was greeted by the bright morning sun and a bustling town with groups of phantoms walking up and down the street, stopping and leaving the bakery or idling around the town circle. The scorch marks and cracked ground were a small blemish that would soon be gone with the development of the city.

Hopefully, they’d all get to see how it progressed.