We landed in the plaza New Delhi once again to turn in the points during the day. "We need showers," Dylan said as he began unloading the chests of points for me to cash in. There were some groups lingering around the edges of the plaza, but none of them came over as we began cashing in points.
"Back in my day, we didn't have showers. We had shit rivers filled with monsters. And swamps, I had to fight in."
"You avoided swamps," Dylan countered. Drat, I shouldn't have shared that much of my history with him.
"I still went through several of them. One time without working legs. GFL," I countered.
"GFL?" he asked as I cashed in another chest.
"Grinding For Life," I replied.
"Our clothes are enchanted. We can't just buy new ones like you did when you were new and clearing out level 2 zones. A shower and the airship needs to be cleaned out," Dylan said.
A smell was starting to develop. "Just think of our ancestors as sailors on wooden boats. They were packed in tightly and smelled."
"And if you want to run about in a loin cloth, pillage, and enslave the local women, you can regress in that direction. I prefer showers and a touch of civilization." He really had lost all respect for me after living in close quarters for so long.
Suddenly there were people all over the plaza. Oh, it was arrival day. I knew that, but hadn't really thought about it. This would get annoying. We had only unloaded half the chests. Well no matter. It wasn't like these people were any kind of threat. At best they could do is annoy me.
The groups around the edges were giving my group looks, while also looking at the people in the plaza. Ah, they were going to take the good looking people for horrible reasons. Dylan handed me another chest and he came to the same realization as well.
Someone came over and began to speak another language. "I speak only English. This is your only warning, to all of you. Stay out of my way." I cashed in another chest and set it to the side to stock up on food after cashing in all the points.
"Excuse me," a young Indian man came over. I noticed many other people listening in. "What is going on?"
"You were transported here by the System. No idea why. There are monsters outside the city, you can kill for crystals to get points, to trade in here at the store. Unfortunately other people arrived before you and once I leave they are going to most likely enslave all of you," I replied.
The young man looked at the edges of the plaza where other less savory groups were waiting like sharks. I noticed other people looking as well. "Don't interfere with me, or I will kill you." The people stopped inching closer towards me and then looked at the young man.
"Um, can you help me? I would be grateful," the young man asked.
"And then it never ends. There are loads of cities and people arriving every ten days. I am focused on getting stronger and am the strongest. But I can't bring you with me, you would die where I travel to. Your best bet is to run to those groups around the edges of the plaza and try and cut a deal. Work as a cart puller in exchange for living or something. Not my problem," I replied.
Several people listening in quickly left. "Can you help us?" the young man asked Dylan who let out a sigh as he handed me another chest.
"We don't have the time. And even if we did, there would be another group, and then another group. It doesn't end. You need a government to manage this kind of thing. The last government was brought down by terrorism," Dylan replied.
"Fine, you want a chance?" I asked.
"Yes, please." I opened the chest I was about to cash in and pulled out a level 7 crystal. I tossed it over to the young man who struggled to catch it.
"That crystal is about 750 thousand points. Consider it fate that you ran into me hear today. You can buy about 500 stat points with that. Enough to get you started and make you interesting enough to recruit and not enslave or kill. I recommend you split it half between Body and Mind," I said.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
"Sir can I have a-" Another man came up to me and put their hand on my shoulder. I spun and punched them. Their chest caved in and their spine exploded out the back of their body. The freshly made corpse separated into two portions and went flying away into another two people who had been approaching.
There were screams and panic. "Don't interfere with me. I already warned you all."
"You just punched that person in half," the young man said.
"Yes. They didn't listen." The young man became silent before going over to the pillars and it took him a moment to figure out what to do after observing me. He kept both hands on the pillar as I continued to cash in my points.
"That was nice of you," Dylan said.
"He was brave and polite. I was willing to part with a single crystal to give him a chance. Who knows, he might become super strong one day and not want to kill me," I replied. Dylan chuckled at that as he unloaded the last chest.
I cashed it in and then made my purchase of stats. Fifty days of grinding at 450 million points per day, was about 22.5 billion points. That translated into 13 thousand stat points, while building up my reserves a little bit.
300,000 (+0); Mind-60,000 (+0); Spirit-186,000 (+13,000x3); Perception-60,000 (+0); Aura-60,000 (0); Regeneration-60,000 (+0); Endurance-60,000 (+0); Absorption-60,000 (+0); Sense-60,000 (+0); Channel-60,000 (+0) for a total of 322,000 total stat upgrades, or 966,000 after my meta-point.
That was another drop in the bucket. Slowly bringing up my total number of stat points. I was getting closer to that total million-point mark. I was confident nothing would happen at that benchmark, but it was more of a mental thing, going from a total of six digits to seven digits for my total number of stat points.
It took around 80 billion points to go from 300,000 to 400,000 stat points. To get to a base of one million before my meta-point was counted, would take about 650 billion points. That was about 1,500 days worth of grinding, or five years.
Dylan was purchasing food supplies while I watched the chaos at the edge of the plaza. None of the groups dared interfere with me. But they weren't willing to let their prey go. I was already hearing the screams and cries for mercy coming from the nearby buildings.
The young man who had I given a crystal to before tested moving about with his new stats for a bit. Then he purchased armor, sword, shield, and pack of supplies. Someone wasn't completely stupid. He might have a chance.
"Thanks for your help and advice," he said. I gave him a nod and he ran off, running past the groups surrounding the plaza. None of them bothered to go after him when they had easier prey. There were still people stuck in the middle between me and the groups, not sure what to do, hoping someone would save them.
They were all going to suffer horrible fates. But I couldn't save everyone. It was depressing, but there was nothing I could do.
"Why?" Dylan asked as I loaded up the chests of food onto the air boat.
"It is too easy for base human natures to take over. Eventually there will be a more powerful ruling class who might impose laws and a system to the suffering, but without rules imposed from the top, there is nothing that can be done. Unless you want to intervene?" I asked Dylan, curious to how he would handle this situation.
"No. No, I don't want to intervene. It won't accomplish anything," he said heavily.
"I could try and put someone in charge, but that has its own set of problems. Then I have to monitor their behavior. Just more wasted time from what is really important. Getting stronger and eventually getting out of this place," I replied.
"One day, after years of grinding," Dylan said morosely.
"Decades would be more appropriate. I don't think I will be able to increase my speed any more than what it currently is, unless I find a larger clump of level 7 zones. I don't want to fight in the level 8 zones with how my footing would behave either."
"Decades more like. Decades upon decades," I replied.
"Well, we are going to get a shower," Dylan countered.
"You can buy a building and a shower," I said. He paused as he realized he could do just that. "You can get a shower first, just be mindful of your surroundings. Get a building facing the plaza. I will work in doing a first clean through of the air boat. Then you can come give it a pass through while I get a shower," I said. Dylan agreed and I began cleaning everything out.
I purchased large barrels of water, lemons, limes, a knife, and lots of rags. I then filled the barrels of water with chopped fruit and began dunking our spare clothes and sheets into the barrels. They were enchanted to last longer, and not easily replaceable.
After that, I began rub down of the airship while the clothing soaked. After all the surfaces were wiped down and had a fruity smell, Dylan came back in newly purchased clothes. He took over for me in cleaning things, and I got a shower.
When I got back, the clothing and bedding were hanging on the railing of the air boat to dry out. "Did you really have to use fruit like that?" he asked.
"It isn't that strong. I only added a couple limes and lemons to each barrel," I replied.
"That smell is going to linger," he replied.
"Better than the stench from before. You wanted a cleaning. You got a cleaning," I countered.
"The bottom is getting more worn down. We will need to replace the air boat," Dylan pointed out. I checked the bottom again and it was slightly pitted and worn down, but it wasn't that bad.
"It is kind of bad, but not that much. Should last a couple hundred more days without issue," I said with confidence. I wasn't that worried about the air boat. It was fine and would hold up going forward. Most of the damage actually came before I had taken it for my own purposes.
I guess there was still some lingering trauma that Dylan had from crashing in the Crystal Vortex. That was understandable, but I wasn't just about to waste money on a new air boat. This was had a full tank of energy and worked just fine. It would be like getting rid of a car that only had 40,000 miles. Sure there was some wear and tear, but it could easily go for a lot longer.
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