The Systemic Lands

Chapter 322: Day 729 (5) – Cleaning Up And Plotting

Chapter 322: Day 729 (5) – Cleaning Up And Plotting

It had been a long day and once we were at the edge of the level 4 zone, I began grinding on the Bulwark Shields. I needed to get those crystals as quickly as possible to meet the deadline. I had enough time for sure, but I wanted to get back a bit early just in case people thought about setting up a trap.

The possibility of a trap was remote, but it was still there. Once I was done grinding and back at camp, Bao Wang was there as well.

“So, he was truthful?” I asked him.

“I think so. But it is hard to say. His manner of speech was very guarded but that is common. Saying the wrong thing can get you killed or tortured.” I nodded at that and then kicked myself. I had forgotten to focus with my Sense stat during the fight.

It was still too new, and I wasn’t used to using it. That was the trouble with new abilities. If you weren’t used to using them all the time it was easy to overlook them. I would have to work on that. I had forgotten to use it during grinding as well.

I had been too focused on the fight and winning as quickly as possible. After that I had been focused on observing the Chief Diviner and Bao Wang closely. Then I had been mentally caught up with thinking over the entire situation and grinding. All thoughts of the new stat had left my head. That was foolish of me.

I paused and looked at the two bloody wrapped up blankets we had tossed out of the cart once we reached our camping spot. Well time to get the bloody work over with. I wrapped one of the blankets. I sat on the ground next to the corpse and began to separate out the pieces of armor from the burst remains.

It was incredibly nasty. I had been tempted to order Bao Wang to do it, but he was my translator and not my slave. Also, he was only getting ten percent from the planned heist. That meant pushing for him to do more would be difficult.

I also needed him to translate accurately and be on my side. I could endure doing this horrible work to increase his loyalty by a few percentage points. I knew it wasn’t black and white like in a game, but I also knew that this was nasty. And ordering someone to do this would only build resentment.

“I can’t believe the Envoy is dead. You killed him,” Bao Wang spoke up. Normally he wasn’t the one to initiate a conversation.

“He had not improved since we last met or thought about our fight as much as I had. That was why he lost.” The power structure of the Divine Empress worked since there was no one stronger than the Envoy.

She could let him manage things. He might not instantly win like she would, but it was enough. Now that I could beat him, he would be forced back anywhere we fought. Well almost anywhere. I was still unsure if the Chief Diviner had really tripped him somehow or was taking advantage of an opportunity that had come up and was bluffing me.

It didn’t matter in the end. I had the confidence to beat the Envoy now. Our score was 1 to 0 and 1 draw. I wondered how many times I would have to kill him? That was really pissing me off. If I killed someone and melted them, they should stay dead.

At least the Ritualist was dead and not coming back. If he ever came back, I would just quit life. No need for fancy plots or skills. Just bring back the Ritualist and I would just give up and call it quits. I didn’t mind fighting, but I liked my victories to counter for something. I felt like the Chief Diviner had yanked my feet out from under me.

The worst part was I couldn’t even betray the Chief Diviner. Get the information, then kill him for the airboat. Since Bao Wang would be watching and realize what I had planned for him if we pulled off the heist.

I would take the short-term loss, even if it felt massive, for the much greater gain in the future. Now that I was on the backfoot, and my teammate had the critical non-combat skills that were needed, I had to make him feel safe in his position. That I would keep my word to him.

Well with the possibility of a billion points on the line, Bao Wang wasn’t going to last a moment once we escaped the Forbidden City. I was going to push him off whatever airboat or airship we took.

Just like in real life. When there are billions on the line, it was just business, not personnel. The number of points was non-trivial and could represent hundreds or possibly thousands of days’ worth of grinding. So, investing the points into his stats and cleaning this armor myself, was all leading up to that moment.

The fact I was doing the work and not telling him to do it should have made him suspicious, but humans didn’t think like that. So, Bao Wang would be content, until the moment I killed him and took everything for myself.

I really wanted that airboat though. It would make the heist so much easier. It was also a shame to let this Chief Diviner escape his responsibility for the evil empire. But that was a minor concern. He would eventually turn up and be killed. Also, he would be a good decoy for the Divine Empress when she returned.

The big question now was to move up the heist or not? The Divine Empress was missing which meant that tribute was piling up. Also, this grinding location had been found out by the Envoy, so we needed to move on.

It was a shame, but that was the way things had fallen out. I still wanted more Body stat though. If the Empress left the Forbidden City, say 670, since she showed up in Purgatory on day 676, that meant it had been about 60 days.

Going straight for the heist might put the treasury at a minimum of 70 days’ worth of revenue. At my estimate of 90 million points per day that was 6.3 billion points worth of crystals. If I did another 40 days’ worth of grinding to get my stat points up a bit more before going, then there would be almost 10 billion points worth of crystals.

It would also give me time to assess the information that the Chief Diviner would be giving up in more depth. If the Divine Empress returned in that time, she returned. We could hide in the mistlands easily enough.

My Sense stat was quite limited in range since there was more energy in the air. It also matched what the Astrologer had said about hiding out in level 3 or 4 zones while the astrolabes created disturbances in lower-level zones.

Hopefully the Chief Diviner’s answers would be worthwhile. At ten million points I considered it a bargain. All my questions finally answered. Well not all of them, but the easy questions at least.

The real issue was remaining here, but I didn’t have time to look for another level 4 monster that I could easily grind. Once we got the points, we wouldn’t be going back to Neo Brasilia. While I would lose out on upgrading my Sense stat past a thousand, it was too big of a risk.

I would assault Esperanza or Purgatory and cash in my points at one of those locations. After that we would head West into the evil empire and for the greatest heist ever.

It would have been nice to wait longer, but I didn’t want to push things. When the Divine Empress returned, I had no doubt she would be out for blood. Taking her treasury, well her name translated to Black Dragon. And the one thing dragons were famous for was how enraged they became when their horde was stolen.

Also, I was going to wreck the Forbidden City if possible after all the crystals had been loaded up in an airship. The one thing I had to watch out for was Bao Wang betrayal of me. I had no doubt he was planning to try and steal the airship once it was loaded up, leaving me behind.

I knew he was planning that, since I would do the exact same thing in his position. It was tempting to try and leave him behind, but I didn’t want people to know about me and all the information I had gathered. Bao Wang would know far too much to be allowed to live.

Initially I had thought about using him to replace the Divine Empress, but she was never going to die. The weaknesses I asked for were just a long shot.

With those billions of points, I should be able to hide out in level 4 and maybe level 5 zones. I could build up my skills and then head into the tower after all of that.

The biggest risk was the assault itself and my lower stats. But getting everything up to a thousand beforehand wasn’t necessary. The stat points for Body were, however. I wanted an advantage over other people like the Envoy, not just matching them.

I continued to scoop and scrape out the bits of flesh and various body parts out of the armor and clothing, trying to preserve them as best as I could. This was really nasty. While I had killed before and order people tortured, there was a big difference between that and digging through their guts piece by piece.

It was the fall that really messed them up. Since they had been decapitated beforehand, they had likely lost all stats. So, when they hit the ground, it was their corpses with no stats to save them.

They just went splat inside their armor. A lot had squirted out the neck, but the various limbs had broken and made a mess. It was all a mess and nasty. I could sense energy inside the pieces of clothing and equipment, which was why I was trying to save all of them.

If it was just equipment, I could easily buy some replacements from the store. But unique enchantments, they were things I had neither the time nor the expertise to recreate.

It was fairly late, and Bao Wang had gone to sleep when I finished. Two stacks of armor and bloody clothing. Two piles of nastiness. I dragged the piles out of the campsite in the blankets and left them a good distance away.

I then came back to the cart and began to work on cleaning the armor and clothing while it was still wet. I knew if it dried it would be much harder to get them clean. Without the showers or water sources in a building, I would have to buy a lot of water from the store to do a deep clean, some fruit as well to hopefully mask the smell. Lemons and limes would probably be good choices.

The disposable supplies in the cart were getting used up, but I didn’t mind. We could get more supplies when we returned for the information and the equipment was far too important to take half measures with.

My main concern was if the white armor meant super elite troops or airship troops. Those people probably all knew each other and with the open helmets I would have a hard time passing myself off as Asian or Chinese. Why couldn’t the evil empire have face concealing helmets?

The Divine Empress needed to work on her villainy and evil if she wanted to do it right. She was already most of the way there with a subordinate who would keep coming back, a mad scientist, and people defecting left and right. Were face concealing helmets too much to ask for?