Chapter 172 - Departure
The wave the other day went smoothly, like the previous four had, and now I was back to managing our growing populous. Honestly, it was a bit of a shame the waves only came once a month to break up the monotony of governing.
It gave everyone a chance to get real experience fighting and gave me the chance to hone my battlefield commanding. Not all who wished to be guards were as combat-experienced as others.
The waves were a stark difference from how I remembered them. Instead of the heralds of death I knew them as, they were just another thing to manage among my list of growing responsibilities.
The frequency with which they arrived varied compared to before. They used to be like Swiss clockwork with their consistency, right at noon every three days, but that didn't hold true anymore. I supposed the regularly scheduled and curated tutorial waves had different requirements to the ones we now faced.
The waves, as our tutorial was meant to show if it wasn't a death trap, were there to test cities. Or pylons, as one went with the other now. They kept the 'unworthy' from controlling pylons, as one information book pretentiously stated.
They were designed to make sure whoever owned one had the strength required to defend it. I wasn't sure what the 'Great System' needed these tests for, but it seemed to be a requirement for a lot of things.
Tests to evolve, tests for pylon ownership, tests for everything.
What dictated the strength of the waves sent, or 'tests', was the grade of the Planet and the tier of the pylon. On higher-tiered planets where land was more valuable due to higher mana density, the tests were harder.
Our planet being on the lower end of the Grades, as it was newly integrated, didn't have that hard of waves. As it increased in grade, that would change but so would our preparedness to face them.
The second reason our waves were... so tame, was because we were still only at the outpost level. Being on a lower-grade planet with the lowest-tier pylon resulted in facing waves with the average level in the 30s.
When Tracy detailed the wave they faced when placing their pylon, she said they faced level 20 monsters, which told me the increase was slow but consistent.
It was hard to tell with only a few waves as data points, but an increase of 10 levels over 9 months didn't sound all that bad right now. That equated to about a dozen a year.