Unchosen Champion

The first day of Coop’s grind was coming to a rapid close, but he had no intention of pausing just because the sun was setting. He wasn’t ready to rest after such a brief 12 hour grind.

As time passed, Coop’s companions rotated in and out, leaving him with a series of new people waiting to record his rank after Camila and Charlie. First, Tiny Cleary hung out with a handful of wraiths for a few hours, discussing mana affinities, then Jonah from the Clumsy Shark brought a library tablet to read in the shade. Afterwards, Gibson reviewed his own future hunting plans with his party while they shared an early lunch together. They were replaced by Maeve, who carefully assessed Coop as he came and went, better able to track his actions and status than most, eventually approving after a few rotations. Next, Fred Brown the architect sat with Balor, discussing one of the more complicated construction projects they were undertaking on the lower levels before Amanda and Mikey B took over, sharing a hammock to take a break from all the travel they had done in the Underlayer, and later, Laurie brought a pair of the other new mothers and had a playdate in the sand with their young children while she held the clipboard. They all spared a few hours of their day, taking a break from their normal responsibilities to keep an eye on Coop.

The information revealed through climbing the ranks on the leaderboards wasn’t really that interesting or important, especially not so much as to include so many important members of the Ghost Reef community, but they were showing up almost like they intended to chaperone Coop while his level was low. They didn’t admit it, but they were all just a little worried that he was more vulnerable than usual. The fact that he had started with the most basic of monsters was some consolation, but like Lyriel, even the people who knew him the most wanted to make sure nothing catastrophic happened while he pushed himself to catch back up. Everyone was just a bit overprotective of the Champion as if they were returning the favor for all of his previous efforts. He was probably still the strongest person on the planet, but even he couldn’t escape his babysitters.

Mixed in with the familiar faces that came and went were residents who Coop didn’t personally know, though he recognized that they had been around for a while and had become trusted members of the faction. They made themselves comfortable in the shade near the lighthouse, relaxing in hammocks or sitting on the steps, listening to the waves until Coop reappeared. Each resident understood that he was hyper focused on his hunt, so Coop made peace with his lack of manners when he didn’t stop to get to know each and every person who was supervising his progress.

Recording his ranks wasn’t exactly exciting work, because even at Coop’s extraordinary speed, he was contending with monsters that were at an appropriately low level relative to his status. The levels tapered off as the day went on and by the time the red sunset took hold, he could already feel the ceiling for experience gained from Ancient Defenders approaching. He wasn’t exactly power leveling himself so much as he was speed running. That meant that his opponents only provided the limited experience of beginner monsters.

The way he saw it, there was a window where specific hunting targets were the most efficient. If he sought targets that were too advanced, he wouldn’t be able to take advantage of all the experience earned despite the theoretical challenge. If he sought targets that were too weak, he wouldn’t be rewarded enough to make progress. The limitations imposed by the system and the real physical constraints toward absorption of mana combined with escalating requirements per level meant that level gaps in both directions were an impediment to efficient progress.

Even in the hypothetical scenario where he could hunt individual level 10,000 monsters, assuming he would succeed in defeating them, he wouldn’t leap so far ahead in levels due to the restrictions placed by the system smoothing out the rewards and the physical limitations of mana absorption, transference, and integration. On the other hand, if he could instantly kill 10,000 level one monsters, he also wouldn’t make significant progress after climbing enough ranks beyond them as they provided what might have been exponentially less experience. The sweet spot was somewhere in the middle, leaning in the direction of slightly higher level monsters that more closely matched his own capacity for combat.

Humans and other assimilated beings could only integrate so much mana at a time, and while normal monsters never exceeded the bare minimum, even defeating the Lich had shown a hard cap even with thousands of levels in difference of raw mana. While the optimal window widened with increases in rank such that Elites, Field Bosses, and Siege Bosses were more rewarding to a larger range as he went up the stack, the system maintained some video game logic that prevented a proper twinked out experience, but that was all fine and dandy with Coop.

Theoretically, he could hunt down boss monsters specifically, and forge his level ahead by multiples at a time by virtue of their advanced rank relative to his own, but it was much more his style to find a steady beat and march to it. Why not enjoy himself while he blasted through the leaderboards? He was already imposing limitations on his target choices in the name of efficiency, sticking to the monsters he already had Slayer titles for defeating to improve his experience rate later. If he was looking at a pure time investment, he thought it made sense for him to stick with what he had on hand rather than to move further afield and explore the unknown on the hunt for specific boss rank opportunities. The trade off in travel times would swing the efficiency gauge back to his current strategy.

The ultimate authority with regard to experience gains was his personal class level as opposed to the level of his opponents. Ideally, he would always be fighting monsters that were exactly one or two levels above his current position. Unfortunately, that level of fidelity was impossible without wasting significant time picking and choosing fights. He wasn’t willing to be that exact. Coop compromised by sticking to the brackets established by Ghost Reef’s Adventurer Guild.