Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 75: Gaming the System

The demons were aware of Zac’s quest and started discussing various means of defense. They soon came to an agreement that it wouldn’t be possible to complete an outer wall in the duration that remained until the first horde arrived, and would have to focus on the inner wall instead.

Zac was a bit skeptical, as he knew the whole wall around their own town was erected in just a few days’ time. Were they holding back on him? However, it was soon explained that the whole force came together and immediately fortified their position when they arrived at the island. Now they were left with only a tenth of their force, and almost all the earth mages that had been instrumental to the construction were either dead or back in their home world.

“What is the point of the wall anyhow? I could easily scale your wall in seconds. I can just buy a defensive array instead” Zac probed, wondering if all the work of erecting walls were even worth it.

“Defensive arrays need power to run. If no one, or just a few assailants are attacking the ambient energy is enough. But as soon as it comes under attack either cultivators or crystals are needed to provide energy to keep the shield active. Imagine ten thousand beasts simultaneously clawing and ramming their bodies into the shield. The energy consumption would be terrifying, and you’d become broke after a few weeks of maintaining it.” Ogras replied. “Walls are cheap and effective below E-rank. They are the first line of defense that is easily replaceable and provides a vantage where we can grind down the enemy forces before even wasting a single crystal on maintaining an array. Only if they break through the walls will we need to spend resources on maintaining the arrays.”

“What about the merchant headquarters? According to the blueprint the compound will be placed outside the inner wall.” While Zac was no angel he didn’t want to summon the poor traders just to be eaten by monsters in a month, he wasn’t that cruel.

“Many structures provided by The Ruthless Heavens have certain protections in place. It will automatically be protected like the Tree of Ascension was.” Ogras explained, which reminded Zac about the impenetrable shield that covered the tree while the fruits were ripening.

“Can’t we just hide inside there then?” Zac asked. Having a safe spot where nothing could harm him would be extremely convenient while assaulted by a sea of monsters.

“We can enter and leave, but only during business hours if we’re not members. And no, we can’t just become temporary members during the beast horde attacks.” Ogras ruthlessly crushed Zac’s hopes. “Also, that protection only applies to buildings connected to the Mercantile System, so nothing else you build will be safe. The horde’s main targets will be you and the Nexus Node, and everything impeding its path will be destroyed. Trying to exploit various loopholes such as surrounding your camp with protected merchant shops won’t work either. Everything has been tested over time, and the loopholes have been fixed by the Ruthless Heavens millions of years ago. ”

In the end they decided to focus on erecting a wall around Zac’s camp. The radius of the wall was to be five hundred meters, giving Zac a huge personal area to build a proper home in the future. Medium Scale Arrays would also fit properly inside a fortification of that size.

Parts of the wall were only temporary, since the main plan was for the walls to go all the way down to the water in the future. For specific arrays they held off for the moment since they didn’t know the amount of Nexus coins they’d be able to scrounge together before the first wave appeared.

Content with the results, Ogras dismissed the others to speak to Zac privately. They decided that Ogras would travel between Demon Town and Port Atwood to keep both the mining efforts going and oversee the construction of the wall. Zac would head to the mines to try and restore his pathways and excavate as many crystals as possible.

Before they left Zac showed Ogras the screen for the Forester’s Constitution skill after some hesitation. It was still stuck on (8/30), and Zac explained the situation.

Foresterʼs Constitution (Class): Fight in the forests, be one with nature. Reward: Foresterʼs Constitution Skill. (8/30).

Yesterday Ogras told him how he managed to speak to Zac on the mountain top. He also explained how Zac had finished the quest, even though Ogras as the general was still alive. Before the completion of the incursion quest Ogras wouldn’t be able to speak to Zac even if he had the translation skill. The System wouldn’t let communication happen between natives and invaders until one side was defeated, as it didn’t want to see any peaceful solution. Therefore the completion of the quest was necessary.

It was the first pill the demon swallowed right after killing Rydel that made it happen. The pill was actually called [The Coward’s Escape], and truly killed the user for a short duration. It was a tool for escaping various situations that would only end with either death or success, such as inheritance sites or being the target of a quest.

It would complete any quests that demanded his death and often even teleport him, the “corpse”, out of the inheritance site. The downside of the pill was that all active quests were considered forfeited upon death, so using it could be extremely detrimental if you had an important quest active. It was also the reason Zac didn’t get 100% contribution on finishing his quest, as the last target killed himself.

Obviously Ogras had some experience in exploiting the rigid system, and Zac needed some of that ingenuity. He was strapped for time but wanted to complete his constitution quest before the beast horde arrived. But he also needed to stay in the mines with its high concentration of energy in order to heal his body broken by the Cosmic Water.

He would have used the mountain valley for both purposes if it wasn’t turned into a poisoned hellhole after the forest fires and poison clouds made it uninhabitable. Ogras had explained with some embarrassment that it could take months before it was possible to get back up there.

“From the description it is either a Seed-quest that gives you a vision for a Dao seed, or it requires a Dao Seed connected to nature. Perhaps Seed of Grass or Seed of Trees.”

“Not Seed of Nature or Seed of Earth?” Zac asked skeptically. Seed of Trees did not seem very impressive.

“The Dao of Nature and Earth are high tiered Daos, and not something you can touch.” Ogras sneered derisively. “I’ve never heard of this skill, what class did you say you had?”

Zac ignored him and waited for the demon to provide some solution instead.

Seeing that Zac wasn’t intending on answering, Ogras could only mutter something and continue. “Fight in the forest is very vague, and you can probably exploit it. What constitutes a forest, and what constitutes fight? If you want to complete it without wasting too much time we need to do two things. First, find the spot closest to the mines that The Ruthless Heavens considers forest. Second, find out how often you need to kill something to be considered in battle.” He said as he was tapping the table with his hand.

“You said you were steadily gaining progression when you fought the Barghest even though you instantly killed the barghest, so there is an allowed downtime. Find how long it is, and if it is long enough you can easily exploit it. Simply have someone drag a Barghest to the forest-spot, and run out of the mine and kill it. Then run back in and continue mining. If you’re lucky you will only need something like 5-10 minutes on travel time per kill and can spend the rest on mining and focusing on recuperation.”

Zac was stunned. He would never have thought of that method, and was glad he confided in the demon. He was a shady character but could also be very useful. And Ogras didn’t know it, but his solution would also help him progress his other Class skill for [Loamwalker] through all the running.

There was only one thing more to do before he headed toward the caves, and that was to buy the [Thayer Consortia Headquarters] and have them start buying his crystals. It was obvious that they were desperate to be bought, as they cost a fraction compared to most others for buying the building in the Town Shop, and Zac didn’t want anyone else snatching the building up before he did.

Zac and Ogras moved toward where the large merchant compound was to be located. It was quite far from both his camp and the shipyard, with only trees and stones around. After a double-check, Zac opened up the Town Shop and bought the headquarters.

Soon changes to the area started appearing just as with the creation of the shipyard. Trees and rocks disappeared, and replacing them were gravel and cobblestones. Soon structures appeared as well, one by one sprouting up like mushrooms out of the ground. But that was where the similarities with the shipyard ended.

The Creator structures were crafted with meticulous care, looking pristine with mighty fractals covering every inch. But what appeared in front of the duo could almost be called a ghetto. The buildings were a mix of stone and wood structures that once might have been proper structures. But the houses looked like they had been abandoned and then put through decades of harsh weather.

There were broken windows, mold, tiles missing, and they could even spot a few buildings where a wall had simply collapsed. No fractals covered anything, and Zac was actually loath to enter most of the buildings from safety concerns. The only building that looked to be in decent order was also the largest one. It was a three-story building where each floor should have an area of roughly a thousand square meters, and if Zac had to guess it was the actual store for the Thayer Consortia. The other structures should be warehouses, support buildings, and homes for the employees.

“What is this shanty town?” Ogras asked in shock. “You might just have enlisted the worst merchants in the multi-verse, I can’t believe how poor they look.”

Zac was very much inclined to agree. The goal of merchants was to amass wealth, just like the goal of a cultivator was to get stronger. Judging by the state of disrepair of the structures he could only assume the Thayer Consortia was really incompetent at their job.

But there was nothing to do, there was no refund button in the Town Shop, and they could only suppress their misgivings and enter the shop. The inside was slightly better than the outside, and at least everything was spotlessly clean. It was the store as Zac expected, but it reminded him of a struggling convenience store with mostly empty shelves.

There were a few pieces of equipment at various racks, but they looked worse compared to the ones the demons used. There also were a few information crystals behind glass displays, but the displays weren’t even a quarter full. In some corners various materials were sold, and there also were some herbs and plants, though they all looked a bit dried out.

Manning the disk were a few humanoids that somewhat reminded Zac of gnomes. They were less than a meter tall but didn’t have the stockiness, or beardiness, of dwarves. Their skin was also light blue and they had deep sapphire-colored eyes, with pointed ears like elves. Perhaps they were genies?

Before Zac and Ogras could approach the clerks another genie came running toward the two. He looked much like the others, with the blue skin and no hair. He wore what looked like an old-fashioned suit, and had an ascot tied around his neck.

“Greetings honored customers, I am Calrin Thayer, Chairman of the Thayer Consortia. Excuse the slight disarray, we are currently setting everything up. Can I presume one of you is the distinguished Lord?”