Each night for the past three cycles, the Old One had sent him into this alternate world's Arcane Realm.

  Old age and death had not yet touched this younger dimension. Thus, each night he was surrounded by true life and power.

  What a world of difference it was standing here, in a healthy and living realm. Compared to the ossified corpse of Azdrial's. Long dead and dreaming now.

  But it still whispered to him. And one day, it would be brought back to life.

  It only needed new blood to flow through the dried up veins.

  You need to snowball.

  "You mentioned that already." Wade had, of course, already had a plan in mind on where he'd spend that extra point. But he did want to run it through Play first, just in case she had a good counter argument. And she did.

  You can't rely on good boons each day, you'll eventually run into one that won't work for you. Getting a build you can always reliably bring as backup with you is key.

  "That's what I'm saying, intelligence is a late game build that'll pay dividends. It'll let me cover any future boon weaknesses or at least give me enough options to cover a lot more problems. Adaptability is the name of the game when we keep getting random boons each day."

  Yeah but that isn't going to pay off until you start learning how to use magic. And during all those days you're going to be walking around with those points functionally unused.

  "But it could speed up my learning speed, get me to that point faster. I'm already slowly building points into it."

  It could also make you completely dependent on that crutch to use magic.

  "So can putting points elsewhere. If I get too used to having perfect dexterity or mega strength, I'm not going to function well when they're gone."

  You asked for my advice Michael, the main one is that you can pay coins to reset your stats. So imo put points into things that will help you immediately snowball, and once you're swimming in coins, respec your stats as needed. If you get boons that pair well with intelligence, you can swap around then.

  Wade sighed, "What about luck? It's been really paying off right now, we could go full tilt into it."

  It was quite the oddball for a stat. Less direct improvements and more offering him more opportunities to pull something good.

  You already got ten from Market, more points there won't be a huge difference. Other stats would give you more bang for your buck imo

  Which meant either Agility, Vitality, Stamina or Strength. All of them could help in different directions, with different breakpoints. He'd already gotten a point into Stamina and one into Intellect so far, so both directions were slightly less pressing.

  His main source of damage was Eri and the gun-grenade combo paired with the dodge roll. Water mastery allowed him to make more than a single attack with his gun during the fight and let him keep a distance while Eri served as his tank.

  Given his current build, strength wasn't quite as useful as it was the last few rounds. Guns and grenades did fixed damage, strength wasn't going to increase anything there. And Eri wouldn't gain any more killing potential either. The only main use would be increasing his overall burst of speed. That and letting him handle recoil better.

  Vitality would probably cover his limp, which would eliminate some pain and give him a bigger healthbar to work with. Plus it would pair well with the three points he'd already spent into intelligence right this moment. If he got back home, he'd be able to do some more practice for a longer amount of time.

  First round Vitality had been critical to surviving the mimic poison. But here? If he got infected by blackrot, he was functionally immortal so long as he wasn't one-shot. And his current build wasn't going down the route of being an unkillable tank.

  So Vitality would ultimately let him outlast more encounters and not end up limping everywhere.

  That was partially covered by his bastardized seven league boots letting him jog and hike forever without ever feeling tired.

  Stamina was the obvious contender given his dodge roll, and it already had an extra point that he could feel. It made walking already effortless with his water mastery boots paired up. But his dodge roll worked off maximum stamina. Which means even if he had a million and one on the stamina bar, each dodge would still take fifty percent. Given max stamina didn't help, it was all about getting that stamina recovery speed up.

  Stamina did seem to help him recover it faster, at least from what he felt in difference between walking before his extra point, compared to after. But would it be enough to make a difference in a full fight? Stamina was a gamble on that, and best case he'd be able to shoot a lightning bullet one or two more times per fight. More depending on if they lasted longer.

  He put it down as a maybe. Above Strength, and Vitality.

  The last option was Agility. And that would ironically do what Strength was supposed to do: Increase his damage.

  Specifically: Aim with more accuracy. Which meant possibly hitting headshots. And that meant dealing fatal damage to blackrot. It could outheal non-fatal wounds, but the moment they were insta-killed, that's that. The dead boar here proved it.

  A health bar was a double-edged sword in this world. And to something with a stupid amount of regeneration power, it was rope to be hanged with.

  Agility also had a few other uses: Faster reloading, more awareness of what was around him, better coordination when running all over this rocky terrain and it could also help him throw his grenades with more accuracy when the time came to actually use them. Not to mention better and quicker pin control with them. All of this wouldn't be a gamble either, unlike Stamina.

  "Agility or Stamina." Wade muttered, debating down to the last two options.

  Stamina would help if Eri got knocked out, letting him keep running for a longer time against blackrot and possibly buy himself a few more seconds to do something - but if Eri was knocked out, Wade's run was basically over anyhow. Even if he won that fight, the next one would be at significant disadvantages.

  He needed to kill things faster to help pull pressure off Eri. Faster things died, the less damage they could do to Eri. Or possibly support the skeleton by helping with crowd control using a well thrown grenade. The gamble with stamina could pay off and let him shoot more than three lightning bullets, which could be the difference between a fight continuing on for a while, or being finished by sheer damage dealt upfront.

  He also needed to make sure he never tripped on the ground. That would also finish the fight, but not in his favor.

  And in the event Eri did die, Agility gave him the means to keep fighting. Nailing headshots and ending a fight would be more useful than being able to run for twenty seconds more before getting bit, if Stamina didn't improve recovery rate and just increased overall amount.

  Wade debated, and then decided predictability was more important. Agility returned the most consistent benefits for one stat point compared to all the other options. Damage wise, he already had a lot of options to work with that would escalate how much he could deal. There could be a fight up ahead that would be won or lost by a single extra dodge roll.

  On the other hand, every fight will rely on him being able to aim and run well.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Both options work if you plan for it and lean into what options they open up, but agility does arguably give the best bang. (??ヮ?)?

  Wade took a breath, and then locked in the agility point.

  The world sharpened around him. He felt suddenly far more connected to his body than before. Aware of his fingers, of the terrain under him. How his feet squashed down into the sponges, and further past that, how the ground itself felt under his boot.

  And the important parts: He felt more intuitively where his gun and grenades were.

  His hand shot out, pulled the Glock and took aim. It felt faster. More practiced. Like muscle memory. He could actually use his strength in moving fast because he didn't fear grabbing something other than the pistol grip. His fingers stayed in his awareness, and he found himself perfectly able to keep them in mind. Specifically his trigger finger.

  He released the magazine under, grabbed it out of the air as it fell, and easily slipped it back into his ammunition belt, fingers equally pulling out the next magazine in almost the same motion. The Glock was reloaded smoothly.

  "Wow that's overpowered as hell. All this for one point?" Wade muttered, looking over his Glock.

  Even the weight of the Glock felt present in his mind. And he had the odd feeling that a single more point in Agility would let him guestimate how many bullets he had left by the sheer weight difference.

  He'd only learned how to use this Glock a few hours ago, and now a single point made him feel like he'd been practicing with that Glock for the past month.

  Meanwhile, the demons had politely let Wade talk to himself in english this whole time, because they were busy in a debate with one another instead as the group made their way to Eri's recent kill.

  "How is it dead?" Bael asked. "The body's still in one piece, the minion wasn't cutting deep enough to sever the neck before the Blackrot healed it back. It shouldn't be dead."

  "Probably hit a critical bone." Medy said, "Rot's excellent with non-skeletal parts of the body, bones are the few weaknesses it can't outheal. Not quite alive, not quite dead, you know? They've always had a funny middle ground position when it comes to their essence. It's fascinating the amount of uses bones have in Alchemy alone as an emulsifier."

  "Still seems unnatural to me." Bael insisted. "Where is the rest of the herd?"

  "Don't think it needed one." Medy said as the group approached the flat field. "Look at the size of that thing."

  Blackrot had already tried to escape outwards for anything, and retreated fully back inside the dead beast. Medy had been correct, this thing was massive.

  Eri must have had an easy time cutting off the legs in his first surprise attack, he didn't need to be perfectly accurate.

  It was certainly the largest boar Wade had seen in his life so far.

  "See, it's not going to have troubles surviving out here without a herd. A pack of wolves or deer would avoid it by instinct." Medy said, keeping a safe distance from it along with Bael. "Maybe the bigger monsters would see it as a good snack. Blackrot has a fascinating lifecycle since it can't starve."

  "Blackrot is a parasite that pretends to mimic the natural order." Bael answered, already moving past, so he could look down the valley. "I see very little about it to praise. Or did you forget your time spent with it in your head?"

  "Oh I didn't say it wasn't completely horrifying, only that its lifecycle is fascinating from a science point of view. I was quite bored trapped down here, I found joy wherever I could."

  "The centerline's in view." Bael said as he stepped near the ridge, pointing further down. That seemed far more important to him than whatever this topic was about.

  Medy did seem like the type that would talk about anything and everything if given even half a chance.

  Wade followed behind and saw what they meant. Like a lazy river by the bottom of the valley, was a large stone path. Clearly of better quality.

  And a little bit further out, he could see one object sticking out like a sore thumb.

  A giant harpoon embedded into the gravel, upright.

  It had a red flag at the very top, flapping from the wind tunnel that was forming at the bottom of the trail. And nearby the trail looked to be an overturned metal cage, a few shrubs holding it in place.

  "Wait, we're in the Range?!" Medy started jumping up and down. "Oh! Oh! Lucky, lucky~ Spent a lot of time in Dalrithi, I really loved that city. It'll be nice to get back to it for a few years."

  "Let's focus on making it above the sea before we celebrate." Bael said.

  "You already have a home there?" Wade asked.

  Medy laughed, "Probably not anymore. It's like any other city with space issues. If people aren't home for more than 10 days without a notice or someone else to vouch, you get the boot. I'll figure something out, I always do."

  "Where were you before?" Bael asked, looking down at the smaller demoness.

  "The Core." She said.

  "Rough."

  "Yeah, you're telling me! Went from the hardest possible region to escape into the easiest." She put her hands on her hips, looking real smug. "And I ran into an actual group! Do you know what the chances are of running into non-blackrotten survivors are? Really really bad!"

  "How did you know you were in the Core and now in the Range?" Wade asked. It had to be something to do with the signpost there. She'd only figured it out after they saw it.

  "See that flag on top?" She asked, one hand pointing right down. "Red means the Stone Peaks. The other two are black and white colored flags. Eventually you catch sight of a signpost or another as you're shambling around. Or you spot other clues in the area, whichever."

  She looked down the valley and pointed to the discarded cage further down the path. It looked a little dented up. "Think we should just hunker there for a few days and wait for a rescue?"

  Bael shook his head. "There's three of us. Too much space."

  "What's the cage about?"

  "Mithril cage." Bael said. "For those who are infected and still conscious, like I am for example. If they decide pressing forward isn't likely, we can lock ourselves inside, and then eventually turn feral. When Dalrithi passes over this roadway, they'll send a rescue to harpoon you to death, and then drop down a ladder when you restore yourself. It's a more guaranteed way to escape. Not particularly pleasant, you may be waiting a month or two before the city passes by. A very very long time to spend in a locked cage. However, it's safe and reliable. Part of the reason this region is the easiest to escape, the other regions don't have this."

  Well. That explained why they called it a floating city. It quite literally floated over the mithril sea and moved by the centerline. He wondered how that would work given those giant wave walls passing around.

  "You can also use it to hide from a predator for a bit." Medy said next to them. "The bars push them away, so you go in and wait for them to get bored. Doesn't really work all too well for something bigger, they can knock the cage around. Mithril pushes Blackrot away, but there's an equal and opposite push back from the cage, you know? The sea's got enough combined mass to prevent anything from passing, but a cage like that doesn't weigh much."

  That would explain the dents. And why it was far off the beaten path, overturned.

  "What we're looking for are supply caches." Bael said. "If we're in luck, a fresh one was dropped down here the last time the city passed over. Might find it unopened."

  Identify.

  Unfortunately, Wade was too far away to spot anything nearby the signpost. Even the mithril cage off the side of the road was way too distant to have anything floating over it from the System.

  What was more interesting was Bael.

  His level had increased by three. And as Wade watched the demon, it jumped another one level.

  Maybe the demon was getting more adjusted with moving around, so becoming a better fighter by default?

  He wasn't certain, but his instincts as a gamer were twitching. Something about this was off.

  "We should make haste, the centerline is exposed in every direction, the longer we're traveling by it, the faster trouble will find us." Bael said, longsword pointing down the trail that eventually fed into the main roadway. "We get to the signpost, orient ourselves, and then keep to the mountain sides to travel in parallel to the centerline."

  His phone buzzed right that moment.

  Tell him you want to take your time traveling directly down the center of that road. There's a lot of flowers to stop and smell down here (ˉ︶ˉ)

  "Yeah sure, that'll go over real well with both demons trying to hide from everything down here trying to eat us." Wade said in english. "Will make recruiting them both a lot easier too."

  (?_?)

  "What's more important Play, two coins we could get from them, or a few more kills under our belt?"

  Fiiiine, pick the demons. System's proven real stingy giving XP for kills, coins are more worthwhile until we figure out why the leveling is so jank. Pick fights with bigger things to get your stat points up, and then spend coin to put them in the right place. Assuming those stat points can be moved around. Might be permanently added thou

  "It does seem a little backwards for a video game." Wade said. "You think it's accidental? Like, still figuring out how to balance things?"

  The System's very deliberate about everything it does Michael, if it's picked to not reward killing as much, the question we should be thinking about is why.

  "And what's your guesses?"

  Not enough info.

  "… But you still have some guesses. Tell them."

  First thing I'd think of is balancing for the battle royal among players, but that seems like a red herring to me. Too easy.

  "So what's your second guess?"

  Hidden mechanics.

  Oh that was a good one. "Like the real way to level up is about completing quests or triggering the right ones? Or maybe buying level ups with coins?"

  Or maybe you aren't fighting the real enemies yet.

  "…You think this is the tutorial level?"

  Could be. Like I said, not enough info. You haven't unlocked the full storefront yet either.

  "Come to think of it, what do you get out of all this as a sponsor?"

  Here's a hint: Divinities all have different domains, but there is one single thing all of us want and not all of us have.

  "Followers?"

  Getting closer.

  "Power."

  There we go.

  "And how does the System give you power?"

  Directly lol

  We get a permanent boost for each coin you spend. Means the longer you mortals play the game, the more powerful we get. For gods without any power or just surviving on dredges, a single coin is enough to bring them up from minor to lesser.

  "You're doing this to get strong enough to take your personal revenge trip on Azdrial."

  Oh I'm very much strong enough to squash Azdrial by myself already Michael. But that's not a fun game, now is it? And I'd need to go back to Azdrial to do the squashing.

  I want to see you wreck everyone's plans for me~