The Systemic Lands (Dark Progressive LITRPG)

"Sir!" one of my soldiers saluted in surprise as I landed on the deck of the airboat. It was standard procedure to keep one person on the airboat while the rest cleared the level 4 zone. The other soldiers nearby who had just gotten off while finishing the last of the flying monsters, stopped and spun around.

"At ease. We are making a detour," I explained. It had taken a lot of preparation on my own to get to this point. I had moved all my point crystals onboard last night, after clearing the bridge to take a watch myself. I had done this several times in the past 40 days so as to not create suspicion. I argued that I needed less sleep and that I wanted to think in peace and quiet. I was just viewed as being eccentric at worst.

Then there had been the casual chats with the soldiers to understanding exactly where they were grinding and how the location was chosen. I had also been leaving earlier and earlier each morning ahead of the airboat's departure. I was carefully watching everyone the moment I landed on the deck of the airship.

"Acid Shot," I used my skill off to the side. "Radiant Beam. Void Beam." One skill after another I used in quick succession to prove my identity. "Everyone get on board, there is a change of plans," everyone got back on board the airboat without any fuss. I had them stand at the front while I stood at the back and another soldier flew the airship.

"Where are we going?" the soldier at the helm asked me. That was a very good question. I had originally decided on Meesh. There was no way my enemy would set up there, but they might realize that I might think that and set up there. It all came down to how many levels we were thinking at. I had also left a letter behind in my room detailing my plan to head to Meesh with the airboat. "Southwest, to Meesh," I declared. Captain Francis would find that once I didn't return along with the airboat as it got dark. I had delayed my returns more and more, citing exhaustion from grinding.

While there might not be a spy, it was the same mindset why we had passwords and challenges for people returning to the Crystal Vortex. It was to make any attempt at spying as difficult as possible. We weren't going to Meech, that was for sure, but we did need to go Southwest regardless.

As the airboat set off with myself and six of my soldiers, they were giving me worried looks. "I will handle the flying monsters, max speed," I said.

"Yes sir," was the reply while I kept my eye on the soldiers in front of me. Nothing out of the ordinary. I had noticed some people talking about going back to New Kochi to rearm and resupply at one of my former cities. I knew it had fallen but didn't say anything.

I definitely wasn't going there. I was going to a place no one would think of. Even if it took a while, the Crystal Vortex was told to hold position and would be fine with Michelle on board. There was also a secret fallback position listed for Captain Francis in the letter I had left him. Misdirection piled on misdirection.

I would have killed these soldiers if they weren't sworn to me. As it was, I was tempted to drop them off somewhere, but having minions was useful. "Um, Emperor sir, what is going on?" one of them asked. I smiled at them.

"We are taking a detour to Meech for reasons," I replied. I wasn't about to reveal I had 25 billion points stored in the hull of the airboat right beneath their feet. We were going to a nice out of the way city that I hadn't made up my mind yet. It would be too easy to intercept me while I was cashing in all those points.

It was an obvious target once I ran away to grind. Take away the fruits of my labor to set me back massively. Well, I had been robbed before and it was never, ever ever ever happening again. I mentally added extra 'evers' to that clarification because there was nothing that made me more enraged than stealing from me.

Burn my Empire down, that's just a Tuesday. Attempts on my life, I have those with tea and biscuits. But stealing from me, that got under my skin like nothing else. Even though I considered all my actions excessive, I was going to mitigate every risk possible. I didn't want to look back and have any regret if things became crazy and I lost those points for whatever reason.

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It was a huge gamble going to cash my points in without the backup Crystal Vortex, but my opponent seemed to struggle when I acted unexpectedly with decisiveness. Surprise was too potent an advantage to give up.

Whoever was out to get me, should not have given me time to think. That was their biggest mistake. They should have kept up the pressure to maximum. Attack the Crystal Vortex, attack me, and don't let up for a single day. Their long range attacks would have been perfect for a battle of attrition. But the cost was probably too high, or at least the wasted time.

Even airboats were wildly expensive. To build and to run. The fact they had lost two and were probably flying around on one of their own, was a huge amount of points to be consuming without a nation providing passive tax revenue.

Perhaps they came from a completely separate area of the Systemic Lands and were some sort of minion for a super emperor, paving the way for invasion. At the end of the day, I needed to be focused on my strength. Once I cashed in these points and purchased stats, I would be getting around 16,000 base stat points, or 48,000 stat points after my meta-point was taken into account.

The real challenge was trying to decide what stat to invest into besides Body. Most likely it would be Spirit in order to have a larger energy tank for my skills. With all the upgrades that had happened so far, I wanted to be able to unleash super attacks, to blow away any one single enemy.

It would also give me a much bigger safety net while grinding. To clear two level 7 zones in a single day, I would get lower on energy than I would prefer. It would be better to have a larger emergency reserve. As long as I had energy, it would be near impossible to defeat me in any kind of drawn-out combat.

Mind was also a good choice for reaction speed. I was struggling in that area to some extent. It was one stat that would have to be upgraded before facing higher level monsters. Perception was also an option to try and spot whatever method my opponent was using to control things at such a distance.

For now, my mind was pretty much set on Spirit. It had been a long time since I had upgraded my stats. Then I would repeat this process over and over again. If whoever was after me wanted to wait and try and ambush me, they needed all the luck they could get. I wasn't going to fight in a situation that I didn't have the upper hand in, if I didn't need to. I had no doubt there would be multiple traps and back up plans.

When you could attack from a distance, that was how a battle would be carried out. I had enough of that nonsense from the Ritualist and the Astrologer. I was not going to participate in another battle of wits. In a battle of wits, the one who overturns the table and walks away is the winner. With more energy I could grind level 7 zones faster.

If I had about 300,000 Spirit, then I would have enough energy to clear 3 level 7 zones in a single day. It would be from right after before the light source rose until after it set, but it would be possible to grind that long and get 450 million points per day. It would be a long-term race and actually made me feel pumped up about grinding for days on end.

It would be impossible to catch up easily and it would become a long-term battle of patience, one that I was confident in winning. All the earlier attacks pointed to a lack of patience. Even the lull in attacks right now pointed to an individual who was willing to wait. While they might be able to wait for 100 days, could they wait for 1,000 days, 10,000? I didn't believe so.

That was why cashing in on these points was so important. It would deal a massive psychological blow to my opponent. They would realize that they didn't have the ability to stop me and would become desperate. Desperate people tended to make mistakes more easily. You will eventually have to commit more forces or come to me yourself if you wanted to end me, and once that happened you would be dragged out of hiding.

That's why leaving on a day like this, with no forewarning to anyone, was the perfect test of their ability to track me. If they could track me, I would expect to be intercepted at my destination, which I still hadn't decided yet, then that meant they could track me directly in some way.

There were ways around such tracking. But I wanted to force my opponent to make a sub-optimal move or to be stuck making no move at all. If they didn't react, then that meant I had won our little back and forth, and they would be forced to move onto other plans. A plan like taking over cities for passive income.

Then all it would take to track them down would be to follow the points to their location, since they had to cash them into the store in person. If they couldn't track me, that also meant I could go undercover and kill them once they revealed themselves.

The simple fact was that by making a move like this I would force a response that was to my advantage. If whoever was behind all these attacks could be everywhere at once, they would have already won. They might have long range capabilities, but there had to be limits. The real trick would be exploiting those limits to create an advantage for myself while not losing my hard work.

I had considered not bringing along all the point crystals I had grinded, but I couldn't keep saving them up. I needed to cash them in. Once that was done, I would feel a lot less worried.