Unchosen Champion

Ultimately, Coop decided to circle back to the Placid Lake Outpost after taking a quick survey deeper into the occupied territory. The reptilian sentries of the region were too adept for him to avoid with his limited stealth abilities, so he leaned on the other advantages baked into his kit. In this case, his speed.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that this particular Infestation was less of an invasion on Earth and more of a stronghold of native fauna. In fact, their claim was so strong, he felt like he was the one invading as he mistjumped in a wide semicircle away from the local alligator minions. He had never really been motivated to conquer new lands from others, and it was pretty clear that this land was already occupied. His actions would definitely be in line with conquest if he chose to open up with violence while intruding on their territory.

Coop didn’t need to defeat one of the creatures to recognize that they were almost certainly the reason for the system-created Infestation. The initial quest objective to settle the Infestation was to defeat 6,000 minions, and if he stopped to count his splashing pursuers, he expected the number to get pretty close to the total requirement. There were no other alternative minions, especially with these specimens actively maintaining their territory. It seemed like they were doing a good enough job to completely suppress the untamed Primal Constructs, unlike other wild areas that Coop had visited. The reptiles dominated the environment.

The alligators may have been particularly suited to the Everglades, even able to climb trees, but they had no chance of matching the speed of Coop’s unrestrained movement skill. He planned to lead them deeper into their own territory while he took a circuitous route back to the Outpost, using the opportunity to check for any other points of interest before he returned. It wasn’t like he expected to find a corrupted Mayan pyramid being used as the home base for a High Priest, but it wouldn’t hurt to check for other landmarks. If there was some other cult forming in the swamps, it would be better to discover it sooner rather than later.

Coop didn’t want to go directly back to his own claim either, just in case he would accidentally lead a wave of Elite Alligators to the small refuge and handful of guards. He suspected that if he did accidentally lead the mob to the doorstep of the Outpost, the Lighthouse territory would be subdued by the greater Infestation territory and one of his first Mana Pylons would be lost.

Instead, he continued to mistjump deeper into the unexplored swamps, avoiding the minions as much as he could. If it came down to it and he still wanted to avoid confronting the animals, he thought they might need to fight a sort of cold war border battle, where the two territories competed with each other at the edges by pushing territory rather than actual physical combat. It seemed as though the alligators had already been engaging in that sort of passive competition, growing their Infestation one pool at a time, adding alligators to their assemblage as they went.

Coop had experienced enough settlement territory, witnessing how it formed, expanded, contracted, and was destroyed to have some ideas for how it might work. His quick thought was that the Outpost needed to increase its population enough to encourage territorial expansion. As it stood, the Placid Lake lodge only ever had a handful of guards, but the Infestation was obviously raising its population. The difference in population trajectories put pressure on their perimeter, preventing the Mana Pylon from expanding its reach.

Mr. Gibson had witnessed the quest requiring 5,000 defeats for its objective, but Coop could clearly see that it now asked for 6,000, and he was sure Gibson wouldn’t have made such an elementary mistake like misremembering the most important detail of the quest. That meant the population of alligator minions had increased by 1,000 in three weeks while the Outpost remained static. While there was definitely some natural expansion of territory, the primary driver had always been the number of residents representing a specific territory.

Coop understood the growth by looking at it in the context of Ghost Reef’s population increases. 1,000 new residents was only impressive if ignoring the possibility of immigration. Certainly, there were more than a few thousand alligators in Florida before the assimilation, probably closer to one or two million, but they were typically solitary reptiles. Even the golf course near Empress City was home to at least one well-established individual. If there was some way to get some of them to work together, he didn’t see why they couldn’t actively recruit more, especially if the individuals had a chance to grow accustomed to the uplifting power of the first few skills granted by mana.

When Ghost Reef received influxes of residents, their territory was typically granted further expansion as the settlement iterations improved. Other settlements held even greater territories by virtue of their absurd populations; the Yucatan Settlement being the first, obvious example. The same principle could be applied to any kind of territory, from Settlements and Outposts, to Mana Wells, Infestations, and Hives. Whether that was because the living populations acted as conduits for their representative territory’s mana, or if the numbers were unstated objectives and meeting a certain requirement triggered the increases as a reward wasn’t exactly clear. At the moment, the end result was all that mattered anyway, and it was clear enough that territories and populations were directly correlated.

He may not have ever received an explanation for how Infestations worked, as the contracted aliens that would have been able to give him one weren’t exactly the most inquisitive by nature. They simply accepted that Infestations were a phenomenon that occurred according to the system’s authorization. Even recognizing that it was the system, and not some kind of mysterious god, was already a step beyond the typical attitude in the galactic community, so he had to give them some credit. Still, Coop could put two and two together and understand that the system was merely recognizing individual bulwarks within the assimilation, and providing quests for others to wipe them out.

The assimilation was essentially an enclosed tournament for survival, run by the system, while mana did its own thing, expanding, and judging them in the background. The conflict was primarily centered around the civilization shards, but Infestations and Hives were like unsanctioned ramparts for the defenders or staging grounds for the planetary sponsor. Coop guessed that, because of the way mana worked, the system had no choice but to allow them to exist, and by recognizing them, it could include them in the competition.

Coop shrugged, dismissing the minutiae of the system and keeping with the present as he kept mistjumping ahead of the stampeding gators. He completely eschewed his effort for subtlety while he developed some preliminary plans to bolster the Outpost. He wondered what barrier the alligators wouldn’t be able to climb. A regular fence probably wouldn’t work, but they had the kind of magic that meant he needed to use some imagination. Maybe a fence of pure electricity would be enough of a deterrent to keep them away.

After building some distance from his pursuers with a continued series of rapid mistjumps, he landed on a damp mound of discarded shells surrounded by stalks of grass that barely broke the surface of a shallow pool. While the gators chased in the distance, he took a few stutter steps before planting his foot firmly and absolutely blasting his spear up and away, trying for speed and distance instead of precision and control.

The missile shot like a rocket, erupting in a series of sonic booms before dispersing clouds high in the sky and winking out of sight.

When Coop activated his mistjump, he disappeared from the Everglades, leaving a puff of mists to drift into the surrounding sawgrass. It was almost like he hadn’t even been there in the first place. No way some basic gators kept on his trail.

Ever since completing the Path of the Mistwalker, his mistjumps skipped the sensation of being dragged through the monochromatic world of ethereal mana. Instead, he flickered in and out of the mist-painted overlay, popping back into existence with his armor and weapon reunited as if it was as simple as taking a single step. The only delay was caused by the time it took for the mists to condense and solidify into his form, and of course, the time it took for his weapon to physically reach where he wanted before he activated the bonus skill. Coop loved the improved efficiency. His skill was drawing closer to the phantoms’ default ability to teleport short distances with its latest evolution.

When he reappeared, catching up with his unrestrained spear throw, he was high enough in the sky for the distance to transform the region into a painted sea of every shade of green. He couldn’t imagine an alligator capable of tracking him when he was darting across such distances. Then again, Coop wasn’t sure how they followed his shorter mistjumps in the first place. His theory that they were actively cooperating with each other to form their own type of stronghold was the only one that made any sense to him in the moment, but after really launching his spear, it would take something special to keep track of his movement.

Coop was becoming something of a skydiver with his mistjumps. He fell with his arms spread, balancing so that he had a panoramic view of the Everglades. It had been some time since he fully flexed his Strength to test the distance he could get on a proper javelin throw. Normally, when he was throwing his spears, he had a specific target or destination in mind. The desire to avoid missing kept him from just sending it.

Coop blew air out of his nose in surprise at the result, falling through clouds and feeling good after properly unleashing an enormous pitch. The height was far beyond what he expected. If only he had the time, he would spend a day with Emmanuel testing his limits with actual weights. For now, it was enough to observe that, even with diminishing returns applied to the bonuses of stats, he was pushing crazy levels of Strength. Even the aliens would have a hard time matching his movement ability, if they had one at all, thanks to how it was enhanced by his passive skills.

Now that the Lighthouse was official and the contracted residents could demonstrate the levels of power that Coop believed he would need to catch in the future, he had a better idea of where he stood in the galactic community. Frankly, despite needing to multiply his level by at least a hundred times just to have a fighting chance, he was feeling more confident than ever. The scaling of his attributes and the interaction his extraordinary stats had with his abilities meant that he could genuinely punch far above his weight class.

Where the Siege Event had demonstrated to the residents of Ghost Reef that they really were empowering themselves enough to stand up to the system-limited challenges presented by the Primal Constructs and their manifestations, the more recent battles had proven that the Coop’s companions were also rising beyond the Chosen humans in the assimilation. The Endless Empire, the Sapphire Armada, the Unspeakable, and even the Breathless factions had angled to have their Chosen become the most powerful on the planet, but Coop and Ghost Reef had demonstrated the potency of their paths by defeating them all. How could he not feel confidence in himself and his allies going forward?

It seemed like he was actually the last one to get onboard. His companions in Ghost Reef already understood their favorable position within the assimilation. Assuming Balor and the others could prevent any faction from superseding the Lighthouse, the only real threat that the residents of Ghost Reef hadn’t proven themselves against was mana itself. The Eradication Protocol was like the final boss in their ascent, and they would need to face it before they earned the right for humanity to continue to exist within the expanded universe. Their relationship with the factions of the galactic community would be a whole other story that only mattered if they survived the initial series of trials.

Coop let a sigh escape his lips and it was immediately lost to the wind as he fell back towards the Everglades, cushioned by buffeting air as he was pulled by gravity, probably already several miles from where he started on foot. The fact that the challenges continued escalating wasn’t missed by the Unchosen Champion. Still, they were progressing beyond the first two of the three clear barriers presented by the assimilation. “One more to go,” he told himself, but Coop wouldn’t be able to relax if he hoped to meet the forces of mana head-on. Even slowing down would open the door for either the Primal Constructs or other groups of Chosen humans representing factions to catch back up.

Coop ceased his ruminations as he was brought back down toward the Earth. If not for the hazy clouds obscuring the distant horizon, he suspected that Neptune’s Bridge might be visible beyond the last expanse of swamp to the north. As tempted as he was to pay a surprise visit, he didn’t want to be distracted from his current task. Like always, he viewed the best path to tackle future challenges to be taking things one step at a time.

He tucked his arms behind his back, streamlining his fall, and watched as he picked up speed and the features of the ground increased in resolution. He triangulated his position in anticipation of returning to the Outpost and deciding how to proceed with the Infestation. It might end up being a long campaign if he wanted to avoid direct conflict.

As he drew closer to the ground, a splash of unnatural yellow contrasted with the revitalized greens that painted the environment. At the edge of a thick island of pine trees that even had enough elevation to be home to several ancient oak trees, embedded in the loamy dirt was an old pine needle covered school bus. From ground level it would be hidden behind the outer layer of cypress trees that masked the island in the river of grass, but from above, it clearly stood out against the deep greens and tea-colored water.

Coop spread his arms again, marginally slowing himself down while holding his spear out, as he realized that the island had a larger makeshift shelter constructed on its interior, among the oaks. Rusted metal sheets were stacked and layered like a post apocalyptic fortress, hidden among the vegetation and masked by the woods. The perimeter was even camouflaged by a bold pattern of elaborate diamond shapes and contrasting colors. The interior held stained concrete pools that matched the swamp on the exterior, housing native plants in an artificial recreation of the natural habitat.

Coop shifted positions, adjusting in the air to mistjump in the direction of the shelter. It seemed like too significant of a landmark to ignore before heading back. He aimed his spear and let it fly.