Since I got my new quest and realized that you could stack the bonuses for having no weapon equipped, I’d been considering what exactly counted as a weapon. So far, my fists didn’t seem to count. It was possible there was a point where I beca skilled enough in pugilism that they did, but for the mont, I was going to operate under the idea that weapons were only things that were primarily used as such. What would that an if I started getting myself a nice tool belt full of useful things? As an engineer, I’d used all kinds of implents that were never designed for or ant to harm anyone, but I had certainly maid myself by accident many tis. So my current plan, after I ran this by l for his opinion, was to get a nice craftsman’s mallet and see how the System treated it.
“Afternoon, Dave. Ya look a lot better today than ya did yesterday; that an you're healing up well then?” l asked the mont I stepped into the room.
“More or less, gave myself a mana backlash headache last night, at least I think I did. I only learned they existed this morning from the brothers,” I responded. The pain was finally gone, and I had a pleasantly full stomach after breakfast. Maybe I could consider branching out a little on my routine.
“Ah, so that special skill of yers was useful then?” l asked, his voice dropping to a whisper.
I looked side to side and didn’t see anyone in the room, but followed suit anyway. “Yeah, hit level fifty-seven in a single night. Probably going to play around with it again tonight. This ti, though, I’ll be a bit more careful at how much I push myself, but I’m actually here for a different reason. The System is knowingly pushing towards cheating, or as the description said, exploiting reality. What’s your thoughts on that?”
“I’m going to talk to ya as plainly as I can for a minute. I like ya a lot, Dave, especially the way you’ve been looking after those two kids. If they’d gone to the Arena instead of with ya, I think they’d already be dead. Yer walking a mighty dangerous path here, not that I'm saying ya have much of a choice in it. The System seems to want sothing changed, and fer better or worse yer the one it’s expecting to make those changes. This is gonna make ya a giant fucking target one day, not that the whole Sanquar shit wasn’t already going to, but ta put all this on a newbie, well, it ain’t right. So what I’m trying to say here is yeah, do what the System suggests and push yourself as hard and as fast as ya can because bad shit is coming yer way, and yer going to need to be as prepared as possible.” The speech had been the sternest Dave had ever heard l’s voice beco, and his color had shifted into a deep, almost blue shade of green.
“Well then, I’m going to need a craftsman’s mallet and maybe a few other tools if you have them, and I need to stress this. I don’t want any weapons, only so tools and possibly a belt to put them in. And who knows what kind of slting I may have to do? Got any fla retardant gear to go with it?” I asked, figuring I may as well try to cheat the armor modifier as well.
“I think I see where yer going with this, and yes, I have everything,” l said, giving what I was pretty much sure was his nod of approval.
“Oh, almost forgot, why are so dungeons persistent? Elicec thought you might know, and I was curious. I think one of my goals is to take out the desert one, is that even possible, though?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s possible, and maybe you’ll even be able to knock it out in a year or two, but it still won’t be easy without a full-sized raid party with you. The problem with persistent dungeons is that unless you kill everything in them, things start to respawn, so there’s no going back for supplies in between sub-bosses. Yer stuck taking them all out, including the big one, all at once. I don’t know exactly how they form in the first place, but once they’re there, they’re crazy dangerous, so please don’t go running into that one thinking yer ready to take it on anyti soon,” l explained.
“Don’t worry, wasn’t planning to. I’ve got a bunch of stuff to experint with tonight anyway,” I answered. I still wanted to take on the dungeon, just not yet.
“Good, now co get yer stuff,” l said with another nod.
An hour later, I was standing back in my room, looking like I was ready to play around in a crucible. I had to spend ten points moving my Body Temperature Regulation up to twelve to handle how fast this outfit was making overheat. Wrapped around my waist was a tool belt loaded with a few different items. I’d gotten the mallet as I’d originally intended, but I’d also decided to add in a prybar and a couple of screwdrivers. I sat down in front of my interface and checked what the new modifier I had received was.
Lose 5 Levels Per Modifer
That had so potential, but first, I wanted to run the dungeon with no modifiers for a simple test. As soon as I spawned in, I grabbed my mallet and made short work of all the enemies. The experience window had both a positive and a negative. The suit counted as armor, which I had been worried about as it did protect from environntal hazards. On the other hand, though, and the far more important one, is that the mallet did not register as a weapon at all. As long as I stuck to using my new tools in combat, I could always gain no weapon bonuses. As the cherry on top, I picked up a new skill to go along with it: Malleting.
I stripped off the suit, thankful it wasn’t a complete waste. I’d give it a try with so of the lava options another ti, but I was going to go for one massive power level again and see if that single one gave the backlash or if it was the number of simulations I had run the night before. It was a rare mont for since arriving here. I felt in my elent, running experints and testing just how far I could push sothing. I put my last twenty free skill points into malleting to get that rank up, and then I selected all the modifiers I wanted.
Remove Weapon
Remove Armor
Randomize Starting Locations
x2 Opponents
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Remove Sense: Auditory
Random Mutation
Lose 5 Levels Per Modifer
I entered the dungeon, dropping a couple of feet to the ground. The pain wasn’t great, but I could handle it at this point. To my disappointnt, I hadn’t gained another lobster claw; instead, I had a pair of antennae sticking out of my head, and I could feel a weird sense of energy in the room. To make it worse, I hadn’t thought about how my loss of levels would hurt all the points I had just put into my skills. I had barely realized how much more confident I had felt about swinging a mallet until the skills ranks were suddenly gone. Ignoring the weird energy buzzing as I didn’t have the ti to figure out exactly how that worked, I scanned the room, quickly getting my bearings. This was going to be a harder fight than I had planned.
Everything had survived the randomized spawn as well, which made things even worse. I spun behind and quickly took out three of the approaching slugs with my trusty mallet, scooped up a handful of rocks, and pelted several more as I moved in on the bitey worms before they could attack . They went down easily enough with a few heavy stomps.
I then ran around the room as best I could, dodging the various attacks from the electric slugs and the rock snails, both of which had revealed themselves, hamring blows into each of the slugs as I passed. I only took a couple of direct hits before they were all down. The snails proved to be a tougher challenge. Every ti I got near one, the other attempted to hit from behind. Finally fed up with the ga, I ran at one, screaming, “Die snail!” and hit its shell as hard as I could with my mallet, cracking it down the center.
I spun catching the second snail by surprise as it had lunged in for a bite, and I brought my mallet down onto its head, nearly as hard as the last hit. Which, in hindsight, had been far too strong of a hit as the impact obliterated the head, sending its remains all over . At least the fight was over before I threw up.
I managed to catch a slight glimpse of the experience screen before my vision went black.
Monsters Defeated
Giant Slug x6
5 Experience
Giant Slug, Electric x2
20 Experience
Bitey Worm Swarm x2
10 Experience
Rock Snail x2
30 Experience
Experience Gained
150 Points
Multipliers Applied
No Armor
x1.1
No Weapon
x1.1
No Magic
x1.1
I Stand Alone
x1.5
All At Once
x1.5
5 or More Modifiers
x5
Total Experience Gained
2,246 Points
Modifiers In Effect
Remove Weapon
x1.1
Remove Armor
x1.1
Randomize Starting Locations
x1.5
x2 Opponents
x1.5
Remove Sense: Auditory
x1.5
Random Mutation
x2
Lose 5 Levels Per Modifier
x7
Modified Total Experience Gained
128,409 points
System exploitation is a tried-and-true thod of maximizing your gains while minimizing your losses. One must be careful on how far they are willing to push it in combat, though. There have been many lives lost to soone trying to fight a dungeon core boss without using their mana orbs or setting aside their weapon to wrestle a simple squirrel. It’s important to rember that experience is worthless if you're dead, and it’s pretty unlikely you have the connections to make death nothing but an inconvenience.
Grom’s Musings
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