The Systemic Lands (Dark Progressive LITRPG)

After reading the letter from my mother, I felt tired, and incredibly grateful to Michelle. She had mentioned things only I could know, so she truly was related to me. I carefully put it away to read later. My emotions were already quite raw. I sat down and wrote a letter myself. One to Michelle and one to my mother.

Mom,

I am glad that you are alive. The difficulties of the Systemic Lands are immense and Michelle is one of the few people who has my trust. Listen to her and work to get more stats. I want you to know that I love you. I am taking care of myself, but it has been stressful.

Everyone always has demands and building is much harder than destroying. Once I kill Qi Ji Long, I will look into giving you some points so you can buy enough stats to fix whatever was done. The fact he didn't kill you remotely or track you down yet is a good sign.

If you are in a situation you or Michelle can't get out of and it makes sense, you can use my name as leverage and offer up to a billion points in compensation. Do not do this lightly and only as an absolute last resort. But if you need to, you can trust me to fulfill my end of any agreement you make in this regard.

I love you, thinking about you.

Your Son,
Michael

There wasn't much more I wanted to say in a letter. I hesitated and then let out a sigh. This was proof she was my mother. If Qi Ji Long was observing her at a distance, he would instantly know he had leverage on me. I pocketed it and began writing one for Michelle.

Michelle,

There is a chance my mother is being observed remotely. Do not let her read this and don't let her know that I know she is my mother. I will be including a separate letter for you to you read this letter and expose in a way that makes it look like you are trying to hide it.

Michael

I then wrote a second letter.

Michelle,

The woman with you is not my mother. But pretend she is to lure in Qi Ji Long. I will keep watch from a distance using that skill. Hopefully he shows up to track you down or make a move. Keep her around until he does and then bring her to me, so I can deal with the last of his legacy. Show her the following letter.

Michael

I then wrote a third letter, asking Michelle to protect my mother and included a portion to her asking her to stay well until the current crisis was over. No promises or anything else was included in the third letter. Once Michelle came back here, she would have to do some slight of hand, but she would have options.

That should keep them both safe. I left all three letters for Michelle behind in the underground bunker. It hurt to make such a move, but I couldn't afford to estimate my newest and most annoying enemy Qi Ji Long.

With Michelle guarding my mother and the name of my enemy, I felt like I was winning for the first time in a long time against my opponent. Having a name and a face to match up with the string of disasters that had occurred was exactly what I wanted.

Now the question became was what move I should make to draw him out and target him. There were still no good answers. That was why I had gone back to grinding. That was the challenge of this kind of battle. In a game, the boss or opponent would just naturally show up. But what about an enemy that would constantly run away and with no infrastructure to attack. It would be maddening.

I used to dislike terrorism before and understood what I had done to the Divine Empress was annoying. But having the same thing done to me, with no way to locate my enemy, was beyond frustrating. No wonder why she had just rampaged around killing people to try and track me down. While it might have appeared stupid, I had a lot more respect for that kind of strategy now.

Unfortunately, there was no rebel force I could target. There was just Qi Ji Long. My mother had mentioned only seeing Jacob and him while she was prisoner. The rest were either golems or monsters. He didn't have a following or helpers. He had minions and slaves to obey his orders. No proxies or other teammates. Also, he had lost his airship and had to crawl back to civilization.

Now that I knew his identity, I could really appreciate how we were mirrors of each other. I had ruined his mother's empire, he had ruined mine. I had killed his mother, he had captured and tortured mine. His mother had left me crippled and I had to crawl back to civilization. Now he had been crippled and would have to make his way back to fix his feet. I hope he had to crawl back the entire way. There is nothing more miserable than having to drag your body across the ground like a slug.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Losing a hand might be annoying, but losing a foot was a disaster. Walking and moving about using one's feet was invaluable. Something most people probably didn't realize until they lost their feet and had to experience life as a slug.

I took the emergency wilderness enchanting equipment that had been stored in the bunker. I noted that two of the other five packs had already been taken. One by Michelle and my Mom and another by whichever spy Clarissa had using this base most likely. I wasn't going to worry that much about a missing pack that was meant to heat up and cook stuff in the wilderness.

I closed up the hidden bunker and checked to make sure no one had spotted it. Clarissa really had come up with great designs for secret locations and then built loads of them all over the place. The trauma of the Divine Empress had clearly lingered in her heart, and I didn't blame her. Also, this was the kind of stuff that was a massive hassle to make if you didn't have an Empire and a dedicated team to building them.

Plus, all the enchanted blankets needed to conceal the location were not something any city could make either. That kind of preparation was why I liked Clarissa. Qi Ji Long would pay for ruining all her hard work. Also, for kidnapping my mother.

As I made my way back to the plaza, I considered how I would track him down. Offering a bounty came to mind, but I had no doubt he would be able to disguise himself. It wasn't like I had a photograph to spread everywhere. Even if I offered an absurd amount of points, it would still be a struggle to track him down.

I needed a spy network. But that was in Clarissa's wheelhouse and she was gone now. Starting up my own spy network would be a hassle. My time was better spent grinding instead. Wasting my time looking for Qi Ji Long was what he wanted. If he did find out I had a spy network, I was sure he would try and lure me into a trap. It was what I would have done. I really hated intelligent opponents.

I had only faced strong opponents or intelligent opponents, none of them had been stronger than me and intelligent. The strong ones just wanted to win and dominate. But I suppose I was the same. Against weaker people, there was no need to strategize. Just employ force and crush them. You had to be intelligent against people stronger than you. Losing the advantage, I had in personal strength would be a huge mistake. Getting more stats was never the wrong answer. It might not be the best answer, but it was also the least risky answer as well.

Well, let him stew in rage. I would focus on getting stronger and clearing towers. He might catch up with me one day, but I doubted he had the patience for that much grinding. If he did, then he would have already done it, instead of attacking right away. And the higher up one went, the less grinding zones there were.

I had the best spot at the North end of the Rift, but there was another to the South. I might have to finish my exploration some time later, but for now, it wasn't a huge concern. Also, the people in the various cities would get stronger and warlords would emerge, declaring their own tiny kingdoms or councils.

Once that happened, his location would eventually be revealed, or he would get allies. The situation would settle down. Once the chaos was over, I would have the advantage. Before I had been the juggernaut, incapable of agile moves. Now I had cast almost everything off, allowing me more freedom in my actions.

I felt vindicated the more I thought about what I had done so far. Leaving the airship had been high risk, but it had worked out. If I had been around, he might have detected me and not attacked. I would not discount his skills with direct energy manipulation. The Astrologer had been a nightmare for that very reason.

Returning to the plaza, Dylan had finished loading up on supplies and there was space given to the area around the airboat. No one stopped me as I got on board. "Any problems?" I asked him.

"None, ser," he replied.

"Alright, then back to grinding. I am going to drop you off in a level 4 zone with the airship, and then go grind level 7 zones for a couple of days at a time," I replied.

"I am not sure I am capable of handling a level 4 zone, without support," Dylan said nervously.

"There is no other option. You need points and I need points. The best option is for you to grind up points for yourself," I replied.

"Um, there is another option," he said. I gestured at him to go on. "Well, there is a large cache of crystals that were saved when the Crystal Vortex went down. The stuff Michelle, the other soldiers, and I had collected."

"It didn't disappear, and you didn't tell me about this earlier, why?" I asked.

"The chests are made of tiny carts for just that reason." I frowned since I hadn't heard about this.

"Is that new?" I asked.

"Not really. It was something that happened in the war with the Dragon Empress, if we had to leave stuff and didn't have time to make a base. I remember the chests were in the same style on board the airship as I was loading everything up and remembered they looked different," Dylan explained. That did make sense. While I did pay attention to things, minor details did get by like cart chests.

"So, they are still there in the shattered lands. They would have sunk through the gravel," I replied.

"Maybe, but there is a chance they are still there. We stop by, and there would be free points. With those I could fight in a level 4 zone without too much worry," Dylan replied.

"Well we are headed back that way so we can check. Good thinking," I said.

"Thank you, sir. Glad I can help out," Dylan replied. My estimation of him went up several notches. Finding those chests of points would be a huge help to getting him enough strength that I could leave him to grind on his own. I could also easily rush to get him some skills as well.

I would have to consider what zones we would pass through and when they would reset.