Chapter 325: Midnight Sun
Coop made use of the central teleportation hub beneath Balor’s Tower to travel down to the sixth level of Ghost Reef, skipping a short hike in favor of instantaneous traversal. The runed portals really felt like the first pieces of proper ‘manatech’ seen by humanity. Everything else, like the various notification displays, the fort’s giant defensive shields, and all of the contracted resource production buildings were distinguished by the authority of the system. The portals were created by Balor with the help of Jones and other humans, all residents of Ghost Reef.
Prior to the portals, mana was mostly being utilized through the research of the Cleary Brothers and their assistants to recreate what humanity had lost. Everyday conveniences provided by electricity, like refrigeration, air conditioning, and light were substituted with equivalent inventions that were instead powered by mana. But teleportation was something genuinely new.
Coop supposed he should have given more credit to Garod and the other crafters. They had developed suits of armor and weapons with the kind of features previously only imagined by humans. The sleek almost sci-fi equipment had blended genuine tech advancements through the use of mana, but still, for Coop the teleporters represented a significant step forward. The difference between reactive displays and automatic countermeasures compared to actual teleportation was immense.
As he selected his destination, he mentally prepared himself for the temporary suspension of his senses, focusing on where he would end up instead of imagining the existential horrors that magical teleportation actually symbolized. Coop took a deep breath and closed his eyes before the runes circling his feet fully activated.
The sparsely populated layer of the settlement that would be his destination had become home to the group that was surviving in Iceland without a civilization shard before the Underlayer Event. Since they were among the first to settle in the underground layers of Ghost Reef, they had already been developing the pearlescent chambers into a proper municipality, starting with the section they had decided to share among themselves. Only a few other scattered smaller groups had joined them in the other three chambers so far because most larger groups were granted their own layer, at least as long as Ghost Reef had the space to spare.
According to his companions, the new Icelandic recruits were proving themselves to be valuable members of the faction. Each and every one of them were fierce survivors who had refused to die, despite the assimilation insisting that they were hopeless. Lacking a civilization shard and having minimal sponsorships due to their relative isolation hadn’t been enough to throw them into despair. They were a reserved bunch when the residents of Ghost Reef introduced them to the island, but as soon as they were comfortable, they proved to be genuinely friendly.
When it came to settlement missions, they were already matching the prior residents in participation, enthusiastic as they were to contribute to the community. If a request to defeat a certain number of elites in a specific zone was posted, they were always willing to take part, joining the residents to secure the island. As the settlement expanded downwards, more and more subjugations were necessary, but new residents were stepping up. It was a rule that was especially true for those making their home on the sixth level.
Their experience in combat was extensive and they weren’t afraid to make contributions toward difficult vanquishing efforts in either the underground or the mana well. The fact that the settlement itself was peaceful had been a major change for them, but the tropical island wasn’t lacking in action to keep them busy.
The Icelanders had been under challenging conditions before, lacking the taming effect of any official territory, but the chance encounter with Coop had presented them with an opportunity to survive that they wouldn’t let pass them by. If that meant fighting for their new home, then that’s what they clearly intended to do.
The past experiences kept them combat ready while their willingness to contribute prevented them from growing stagnant in the more comfortable atmosphere. Their levels were lower than the previous residents of Ghost Reef on average, but their actual battle experience was comparable. They simply lacked the structured leveling paths that had formed around the tropical settlement as well as the major settlement event opportunities that had boosted Coop’s companions to the forefront of the assimilation.
Instead, the Icelanders were forced into erratic battles as waves of Primal Construct variants formed and spread across their home territory, seeking to turn the remote island into another alien domain while evolving into higher ranking invaders. The thought made Coop a bit wistful for another settlement event, as that would be an even more efficient way to boost his levels compared to grinding mere normal monsters: the lowest on the proverbial mana-food chain: though that might make his competition with the other heroes of Earth a bit too easy. At least he could be confident that Ghost Reef would benefit in that scenario.
The new recruits were battle-hardened in ways that were comparable to the Jaguar Sun. The main difference was that their opponents had been primarily alien, rather than human, and that had engendered a certain level of cooperation that had worked out in Ghost Reef’s favor. If there were still groups around Earth that weren’t entirely on team Humanity, preferring to work for their own benefit, the group from Iceland was not among them. They had been forced into fighting the alien invaders exclusively and they had never experienced the type of human conflict that tainted much of the rest of the world. Like Coop and Ghost Reef, their isolation had benefited them in unpredictable ways.