NOVPUBCoop was deep within the Australian Outback, relishing the crisp night air as it soothed his slightly sunburnt skin. The upcoming day was bound to be another hot one, so he savoured the nightly reprieve, knowing that it was a fleeting comfort. Leaning his back against the lone tree within eyeshot, he was a silent sentinel, stoically anticipating daybreak.
Despite the relaxed posture, his senses were alert, both natural and unnatural. He was ready for the moment that he was needed, if that moment would come at all. In the meantime, he waited.
The frequency of Field Bosses and other Elite Primal Constructs had rapidly diminished over the course of his stay. At first, they represented a massive surge of aggression comparable to the relentless frenzies normally reserved for special events. He had to utilize almost every skill just to prevent them from reaching the collapsed domain that he protected, but once he wiped them out, respawns were a relatively rare occurrence. They came in waves that he easily dispatched when they came at all. It simply took too long for the regular variants to evolve for them to provide useful reinforcements to the Region Boss hidden within the core of the besieged Fallen Zone.
Instead, Coop was mostly left alone with the unique landscape of Central Australia while his local companions tested their limits in seeking to conquer the most hazardous of the Primal Construct formations, knowing that the Unchosen Champion had their backs. Coop bided his time, always willing to take an opportunity to catalogue an environment that he had yet to explore. He gazed up at the tree that sheltered his campsite, just reminiscing about all the amazing places he had seen before turning his attention toward his more immediate surroundings.
Ghost gum trees were just about the only shade providers within what he guessed was a thousand mile radius, but to describe their canopy coverage as sufficient would have been an unfair exaggeration. The tufts of leaves at the end of each branch hardly made an effort. Still, he consistently returned to the one tree that could give him any valuable relief from the sun, even if it was only partial, while remaining in proximity to the contested core of the Fallen Zone. The space beneath its branches had become his temporary headquarters.
Looking at the ghost gum trees had him convinced they were a species that shared his original spectral affinity. At night, with their leaves hidden in the darkness, their exposed trunks made them seem particularly macabre. Solitary individuals sprouted among the low grasses or rocky orange ground, looking like skeletal totems that had been scattered sparingly across the mostly flat landscape.
As Coop looked up toward the branches of his tree, the crimson light from the Milky Way was bright enough to reflect off the smooth ivory bark and not much else. He listened, hoping to add to the image that he would remember, but aside from the occasional rustle of leaves caused by the weak wind, there was nothing in his vicinity. Presence of Mind revealed no birds or mammals sleeping through the night, and there weren’t even the types of buzzing insects he thought belonged in the area. The impact of the alien invaders hadn’t quite faded from the region.
The natural landscape may have been oddly still, but the night was not actually silent. The sounds of battle had been roaring since before Coop selected his encampment. He could make out the distinct sounds of metal clangs and the roaring explosions of magical fires even as dawn approached.
A pocket of dense mana had formed, congealing upon his aggressive companions after retreating from the broader landscape. He recalled his first experience with an Omega Construct Region Boss and recognized that he was beholding the same scenario, except from the outside instead of within. The powerful boss intended to confine its opponents to the darkness and overwhelm them with the minions it had formed across the landscape, but Coop was at least partially stymieing that strategy by wiping out every construct left on the outside. Whether the Region Boss liked it or not, it was on its own against the motivated human challengers.
When Coop explored the nearby environment, hiking across the miles of open wilderness all the way around the compressed domain, he made sure to stay close enough to be summoned himself, and always ended up back in the same place. The turbulent mana contained the war as much as it could, but he was there just in case his allies decided it was time for him to step in. A Region Boss was a legitimate threat, though he had already proven strong enough to overwhelm them on multiple occasions, he knew better than to underestimate their potential.
Coop had been camping with this particular wizened gum tree for almost seven days. There were only a few locations on the planet that had felt more isolating than the middle of Australia, in an 800 million year old sedimentary basin that had been subsumed by a Fallen Zone for nearly a year prior to his arrival.
He was reminded of the exposed sand bars within the Sahara Sea, still lacking the natural flora and fauna that would inevitably turn the shallow waters into a habitat, or the Manaus settlement in the Amazon rainforest with hardly a connection to the rest of the world even before the assimilation severed what remained. There was also the South Pole of Antarctica and the ice formed from such extreme weather even the ocean was shoved away, the salt flats in Bolivia where the sky and ground united into one singular plane, or the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan surrounded by mountains that appeared to scrape the clouds. The ecology of each location was dramatically different, but the seclusion he sensed in each place was something of a parallel.
This time, though he was in the middle of untamed wilderness, he was escorting an army of displaced Australian rangers reinforced by their Kiwi allies. Even though Coop was only meant to be their backup, he was ready to jump in at any time. His spear hadn’t left his side, even during the downtime. He reached for where it leaned against the tree and yawned as if to prove his vigilance.
Few if any animals accompanied them into the Outback, having not yet returned after being chased away by the Primal Constructs in the first place. Coop was confident they would reclaim their territory once the Fallen Zone fell, just as they had whenever the opportunity arose elsewhere. Wisely, they seemed to be waiting until a victor was decided before making any commitments.
In the meantime, as Day 500 approached, Coop checked out his status and waited to be called up to bat, or whatever the rugby or cricket equivalent was for his local friends. He was pretty sure they would know what he meant.
[Status]
HP - 252027/252027
MP - 1000110/1000110
Class - Revenant (Level 1091)
Profession - Expert Scavenging (Level 1208)
Affinity - Spectral, Abyssal
Race - Human (Icon)
Faction - The Lighthouse
Strength - 200 (+50005)
Agility - 200 (+25002)
Body - 200 (+25002)
Mind - 27030 (+22975)
Intelligence - 200 (+50005)
Acumen - 200 (25002)
Unallocated - 0
Titles - Champion V, Haunted, Ethereal, Reaper V, Slayer XCIX, Dauntless, Defiant, Stalwart, Reckless, Stacked, Valor XXIV, Siegebreaker, Underking, Mindbender, Insane
Skills (Active) - Mistwalking, Depth Charge, Sunken Grasp, Call of the Void
Skills (Passive) - Depths of Madness, Lucid Dreaming
Quests - Upgrade Metropolis to Global Capital
Basic Credits - 1,863,919,026
Coop couldn’t help but crack a smile, acknowledging his progress with a little giggle, despite trying to act cool for an audience of silent stars. It was the same reaction he had every time he took a peek at the ridiculous numbers revealed by the system to enumerate his progress.
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If his ultimate goal had been to reach the power level necessary to stand up to the potential monsters that had existed in the galactic community for eons, he could honestly say he was actually on his way to succeeding. There was nothing about his current status that made him seem like the fresh meat that would have been acceptable for an integrating species, barely in their second year of activated mana. Instead, he represented the momentum of a rising faction that would carve its place in the galactic community, whether the community itself liked it or not.
250,000 HP was amazing, but 1,000,000 MP was insane. He couldn’t help but silently admire the excessive amounts of health and mana he had collected. Depths of Madness doubling his already inflated quantity of mana really put him over the top and well into absurd territory.
His mana pool reflected 20,000 levels worth of normal unmanipulated investment. In the entire galactic community, only those abusing multipliers in similar fashion to himself would approach such quantities unless the absolute strongest of them invested upwards of a quarter of their entire progression toward Mind. He supposed it wasn’t outside the realm of possibilities, but he was already isolating examples toward the extreme end of things. That both of his resource pools had developed in parallel to his physical and magical defenses was the cherry on top that had him kissing his fingers. He was both well-rounded and ridiculous.
Coop viewed his class level as proof that he had plenty of room to grow, especially compared to the imagined outliers he would be compared to. He had broken the 1,000 level threshold, but if things could have gone the way he dreamed, he would only be 1% of the way to the end. Being trapped within an assimilation only bolstered his growth, completely failing to hold him back.
He had defeated an astronomical number of invaders, much of the time for mere scraps of experience that left his level progress unchanged, but if necessary, he had it in him to hunt billions more to keep Ghost Reef safe and secure. As long as there was a beach at the end of his journey, he believed he could do anything. The fatigue that had weighed him down on other grinds was nowhere to be found. Making sure to take the scenic route was a prudent choice.
His total stats were only 45,000 levels worth, but to be fair to himself, it was literally just the start of day 500. If his wildest dreams only put him at 1% of his level goal, he was actually only 1% of the way through a standard assimilation. In other words, he was exactly on track to becoming a force that even the old monsters of the universe would need to respect. Of course, he was working to kill their version of god, in the form of the Icons of Mana, so he would either rise to the occasion or die trying.
There had been no shortcuts in his journey. Just simple, steady, forward progress. The defeated invaders had been fought, one after the other, with none of the circumventions that might have inflated his numbers. He was grinding for levels with the type of single-minded focus that had his own friends worried about his state of mind, but he was fully in control of his faculties, and determined to make the most of his time.
The whole planet would become his personal hunting ground. After just one cycle, he had every intention of establishing a proper circuit, just like he had countless times on much smaller scales. In the first days, on the beach, in the shadow of his lighthouse, he had connected a series of Ancient Defenders with his spear. He would do the same with all the Primal Constructs on the planet if left to his own devices for any longer.
Slayer XCIX meant he had completed 99 unique quest chains. Though they only amounted to a fraction of his overall adventure, they were the catalyst for taking the first steps. He was really looking forward to finding one more unencountered variant to achieve a clean 100. The Cleary Brothers were already calling him Big C, but he felt the nickname would only work if the system applied the roman numeral for 100 to his total.
He had found 21 Slayer titles in North America, including those found in Ghost Reef territory, 17 in South America, 1 in Antarctica, 23 in Africa, 8 in Europe, 25 in Asia, and 4 in Australia. Crazily enough, Earth still held many frontiers he had not yet visited, having mostly stuck to locations that other humans had already confirmed the presence of Primal Constructs. Places like the Outback, where Fallen Zones had taken over, could easily reveal normal variants after being reset, and if it was simple experience he was after, he had skipped over almost every mana well aside from his own and the one on Mt. Fuji. There were underground regions like the tunnels beneath Ghost Reef that would inevitably be discovered, and only the phantom pirates had ventured to any portion of the bottom of the oceans, and that was only within their territory. It seemed like the grind would never have to stop without the system equivalent of divine intervention.
Exploring each section of the world had been accompanied by a different aspect of his evolving build. He had practiced most of his skills millions of times, first as he collected the active skills granted by the Path of the Abyss, then the Principles of the Path of Aloneness. He had learned the Calm of patient countering, turning the movements and attacks of an opponent against them, and experienced the furious empowerment of Rage while wielding a two-handed blade. Dozens of other techniques were hidden in his swords, adding to the already ridiculous adaptability of his ethereal foundation.
Like with the heavy blunt weapons, he had experimented with every variation his imagination could conjure and the mists could manifest. Subtle differences in blades yielded entirely new methodologies that he could barely articulate. From the cutlass to the claymore, his familiar shortsword to the ridiculous zweihander, single-edged longswords, double-edged greatswords, rapiers, and broadswords, he had added them all to Retribution. Coop had conquered half the world with swords alone.
Whenever he earned the right to move on to the next path, he anticipated the ability to apply all the lessons learnt in order to enhance his development. He hoped to expand the utilization of his shield, whether in the form of active skills or evolutions of his current set of abilities. Otherwise, he wasn’t sure if he would get a better option for his spear and glaive than he already had with the mists, but he wouldn’t say no to a path that granted him the same level of growth to his polearms as he had added with the Path of the Abyss and Path of Aloneness. The possibilities actually seemed endless. His experience led him to feel greedy for more, matching the adaptability of humanity with the flexibility of mana itself.
He felt like he was finally growing into the Icon rank that had been granted him when he opted to cancel his personal evolution in favor of maintaining his status as a human, but it had only occurred after he had trekked across the planet. He had practically become obsessed with establishing foundations so that other future aspects could flourish. Whether it was for his build or for his settlement, he naturally slipped into a line of thought that looked forward to bigger and better things.
In a way, he was becoming the foundation for humanity itself, should they succeed in carving a place for themselves in the broader galaxy. By taking things one step at a time and making incremental progress with driven persistence, he was setting the stage for others to blossom. Hopefully, the long term effect would be a positive one, but by the time it was at hand, he doubted he would be around to judge it.
In the meantime, he had made his own mark on the planet, exploring more than any other could claim, relieving the pressure created by the alien invasion. As he did so, the world indelibly left an impression on him in return.
His personal memorial was interrupted when his current location took its turn etching itself onto his soul. The sun poked above the horizon and Coop straightened up so that he wouldn’t miss the incredible moments as the first light of dawn did something amazing that he thought was completely unique to this particular place in the Outback. He had been waiting for the sunrise to take it all in.
Instead of gradually brightening, the light struck the rounded sedimentary domes known as Kata Tjuta directly, like a switch had flipped. As soon as the light breached the horizon it caused the giant stone formations that formed monolithic caps on the mostly flat region to glow with a vibrant, fiery red. The large rocks were the nearest landmark to the core of the Fallen Zone, and Coop had been admiring the way they captured the change of day to night every morning and evening.
The color was surprisingly intense. It was in complete contrast to the dark shadowed plains surrounding the unique formations. The sun hadn’t risen high enough to illuminate the world, just the elevated rocks, making it seem like they themselves were igniting. In the distance, Uluru experienced the same breathtaking phenomenon while Coop and the rest of the world remained in the lingering night.
The shadows shifted as the sun climbed, but the deep clefts and valleys between rock domes remained in darkness. The contrast of fiery red and shadowy blacks made the peaks stand out, revealing the contours of the textured rock even from his camp beneath the gum tree. Coop practically held his breath as he watched, completely engrossed in the progress of the light.
Before long, streaks finally touched the surface around the domes, ending the effect, but leaving him with the impression that the earth itself was awakening for the new day. Coop stood next to his tree, hands on hips, with his spear leaning against its trunk, just shaking his head in awe at the profound scene. Sometimes the spectacles of nature hit just right. Planet Earth never failed to provide moving experiences, no matter where he was. The genuine smile on his face said more than words ever could.
A few more seconds of silence, with Coop admiring the freshly lit scenery, and a desert bird unexpectedly broke the stillness. Coop gasped as something other than himself interrupted the morning outside of the Fallen Zone. It was the first birdsong he had heard since clearing the way into the broader region for his companions.
“Amazing.” He whispered to himself, feeling more like he was witnessing the rebirth of the land than the simple start of another day.
He felt privileged to have been able to experience not just these moments, but a million others as he trekked across the world. Overall, for him, it was an undeniably beautiful journey filled with an incredible variety of landscapes and natural habitats. That almost every second of his journey had been filled with combat barely crossed his mind. The grind had become as natural as eating or breathing before the assimilation began, more so after both essential functions were no longer necessary to survival.
After the Fallen Zone was clear, the Primal Constructs would hold approximately 0% of the surface thanks to the efforts of not just Coop but a few hundred million other people and countless species of wildlife. In just 500 days, humans and animals were on the verge of reclaiming everything. He hoped it would stay that way well into the future.
