Unchosen Champion-Chapter 363: Leveling Guides
As soon as Coop reached the outlying settlements of the European Community, he was spotted by the operatives that maintained control of the continent. They gave him a professional rundown of his exact location, on a ridge that traced the North African coast, separating the former Mediterranean from the new Saharan Sea.
They let him know the specific details of monster developments throughout the region, correctly identifying what would interest the Unchosen Champion the most. They outlined his most efficient route to the interior of the continent, having anticipated his arrival and purpose. Word had spread throughout the Lighthouse ever since he decided to continue beyond South America that his adventures would continue. They recommended he head for Sicily where he would certainly be clocked by more of their operatives for additional guidance.
While portions of the population had already left Europe, relocating to Ghost Reef along with non-combat administrative officials, it was significantly less than he would have expected. Every civilization shard was maintained by a contingent of elite warriors who intended to stay and fight through the Eradication Protocol. Their cities were fully transformed into fortresses even before he arrived.
The majority of the residents, when offered the choice to evacuate to the safety of his island settlement, had opted to join the fight instead, even when many of them hadn’t been involved in any conflict leading up to and through the Underlayer Event. They underwent rapid training programs, following in Coop’s path back in Ghost Reef before returning to their homes ready to continue grinding locally.
The whole continent of Europe was bristling in anticipation of total war, with the entirety of its landmass completely tamed by their expeditionary forces and training runs. If Coop wanted to unravel nests of Primal Constructs, he wouldn’t find them anywhere within the European Emergency Community. They may have seemed slow to adjust, but that was only because they had been comprehensive with their plans, refusing to leap to conclusions without gathering and sharing information among themselves, then debating the best way forward. They took the threats seriously, and had done more than anyone else in redirecting their objectives once they were determined to be legitimate.
At first, Coop mistakenly concluded the civilian population was gone because he misunderstood their structure before the Underlayer Event had exposed them to the full reality of the assimilation. Originally, they had minimal people engaged in keeping their population centers safe. They had been doing their best to maintain a normal, pre-mana way of life, but that was before being briefed on the Eradication Protocol and having the means to gather intelligence on the rest of the world. Afterwards, with the potential for existential threats in the near future, the civilians had effectively transformed themselves into warriors rather than continue pretending like society could go back to normal. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
Coop’s perspective was shaped by his experience with Ghost Reef and other struggling settlements in the early days, where virtually every resident was absolutely forced into fighting for their lives and the survival of the civilization shards. Europe had been different, coordinated enough to distribute their forces without sacrificing the admittedly altered lives of most of the surviving residents.
Holding onto a high quality of life for their residents had been a priority that virtually no one else in the world could afford without making significant sacrifices. With news of the Eradication Protocol percolating through their societies and the acceptance that there was no way to fully go back, volunteers to help outnumbered the number of evacuees by a significant margin.
Coop once again had a guided tour provided by the EEC, this time even more organized than within the Underlayer. Each settlement even allotted two or three cultural stops, just to satisfy Coop’s curiosity, and they did so without him making the request. They simply anticipated what he would have liked that much, allowing for a short pause before presenting him with monsters.
It helped that virtually all of the surviving civilization shards had been anchored in protected natural environments, exactly the type of place that Coop would have been interested in visiting. The second largest settlement within the continent was Ordesa, located in the Pyrenees mountain range. People from cities across the southwest of Europe had taken refuge in the protected valleys tamed by its territory and lived among an absurd collection of massive birds. Golden eagles, bone-eating ossifrages, and griffon vultures all made their homes among the cliffs and none of them had wingspans less than maybe 10 feet by his measure. Then there were the mammals, including the previously thought to be extinct pyrenean ibex and some fat little ground squirrels that identified as alpine marmots and alerted the residents whenever danger was near the burrows they established around the perimeters.
Even the urban settlements had their cores located within parks. The largest territory was controlled by Englischer Garten, which was centered in Munich, Germany and had somehow avoided falling into ruins like the rest of the world thanks to their efforts in the first weeks of the assimilation.
It seemed like every other settlement had incorporated actual medieval strongholds into bastions of safety or durable outposts, putting Ghost Reef’s brick fort into perspective, and honestly making it a bit embarrassing. They had actual castles set up with all the bells and whistles, though if they intended to boast, Coop didn’t notice as it flew right over his head.
The only negative mark for his trip throughout Europe was that the continent was too small to rival South America or Africa in terms of distinct variations on the Primal Constructs. He wished they had more, simply because the locals made his life so easy. It was like following the Adventurer Guild’s hunting zones back home, except on a much grander scale.
The commissioners even improved on his overall plan, anticipating that he had only decided to keep going and hadn’t thought about the most efficient routes. Coop would have obtained every Slayer title available in Europe in one week, compared to the actual months it had taken him to weave through each of South America and Africa, if they hadn’t thought ahead on his behalf. Thankfully, they were not only focused on his regional progress, planning on further bolstering their most powerful ally for the benefit of everyone.
To his surprise, after he went through Scandinavia, they sent him even further north, to a Norwegian archipelago dominated by polar bears. They were sending him abroad before they let him visit Great Britain and Ireland as he expected. Both were places he knew he would find monsters, having cleared their settlements in the Underlayer, but they weren’t on his new itinerary just yet. It wasn’t that they were trying to get rid of him prematurely, but that they had calculated that the most efficient route to visit the maximum number of Primal Construct variants as soon as possible would have him roaming North America, then returning to Europe on more or less the same route he had used in the Underlayer. They wanted to frontload his gains, just in case something unexpected occurred, so that his progress would be maximized.
Coop went through Greenland, into Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon before skimming Alaska and blasting down the west coast of North America. Cascadia and the Pacific Republic picked up where the Europeans left off, seemingly not wanting to fall behind when it came to coordination.
General McCallister had his people in a similar holding pattern to Europe, where they were transforming their settlements into purely military bases rather than residential cities. The people who weren’t ready to fight had shipped off to Ghost Reef for the leveling guidance it was best at. Many returned with the levels and experience necessary to join the ranks of soldiers, but others remained on the island, becoming custodians of the levels that the soldiers intended to occupy as the fighting evolved in a potential infinite battle.
Instead of well-dressed operatives, he got the gruff guidance of no-nonsense military men and civilians imitating the culture like they were extras in a Hollywood movie. They lacked the personal touch and nuanced etiquette of the European operatives, but they made up for it with just as efficient and more straightforward assistance. The west coast of the United States had a whole series of civilization shards situated in the most amazing national parks, from Tahoe, to Yosemite, and Sequoia, all along a ridge that had become the pacific coast.
Even though the soldiers hadn’t allotted him the same cultural stops as in Europe, he still had moments to stop and enjoy the trees, mountains, and lakes. Frankly, it was amazing that the Pacific Republic had been so successful considering the unbelievable challenge of reorganizing after so much of the west coast was swallowed up by the ocean. The central valley was a bay, and many of the most famous coastal cities were, at best, islands, if they weren’t completely submerged. Coop realized he hadn’t given McCallister and all the other residents that made their survival possible the credit that they deserved.
He only made it halfway down Mexico before the the northernmost fringes of the Jaguar Sun guided him into switching to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and heading back to the states. North America and Europe were, by far, the most secure of the places he had visited, only comparable to Patagonia in terms of monster control. The Mayan and Central American warriors had become an extension to the rest of the North American coalition that he already knew reached all the way into South America.
While the strongest of the soldiers who had cleaned up the Fallen Zone had ended up in Ghost Reef to pursue more progression, the broader armies had spread throughout the rest of the land. They roamed into Canada and down to Mexico, refusing to give the Primal Constructs an opportunity to reestablish themselves anywhere on the enormous landmass. As a result, Coop had an easy time picking out the locations of new variants.
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Coop only had to complete Slayer quest chains, as they had already taken care of the easily found Hives and Infestations. Any that remained were so well-hidden, they had remained undiscovered, and even with Coop’s Expert Scavenging and Soul Shroud enhanced mana sight, he failed to uncover any more in the places he passed. North America wasn’t quite as methodically cleared as Europe, but it was close enough for a much larger geographic area.
Somewhere in the midwest, the guides transitioned into members of The Family. Somehow, they were all cousins of Camila and they knew all about Coop, down to the unnecessary personal details that made it seem like there was a newsletter being passed around that detailed his daily life. As far as they were concerned, Coop was a part of the family and they treated him like the patriarch of another branch, promising to take care of anything he needed while he was with them. They proved to be as well-connected as expected, providing for his stops around the Great Lakes and back into New England before sending him back into Canada, through Vermont and into Montreal.
Somehow, after just a month, he was back in Europe, passing through a different portion of the glacier-clad Greenland and angling for Iceland. Residents of Ghost Reef used the Underlayer to meet him on the volcanic island, revealing locations that were shockingly familiar until he realized it was because he had visited the Icelanders’ layer in the underground of his own settlement. The sky, the clouds, and the mountains matched the magical projections that had introduced him to the method that people were using to decorate the landscapes of their new homes.
Then, he was in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and England, visiting Loch’s Bridge, Glenveagh, River Shannon, Gwydir Forest, and Chee Dale. He finally completed what would have been a rapid jaunt across Europe and was on his way to the gateway to the Middle East and the rest of Asia. Coop’s grind was unending, but as he met with others who were working just as hard as he was, he easily found the motivation to keep going.
The Grand Horde took over operating as guides, or more specifically, the Scout-General Wangmo Thaye and her saker falcon companion became responsible for his itinerary. Coop did not understand her skills at all. She was never in a real hurry, just steadily striding across deserts and mountains on foot, but she always managed to catch up with him in time to direct him to the next place he should visit. He had a sneaking suspicion that she was able to step through a different plane almost the same way as he applied his mistjumps, using the monochromatic world of mists as a real world short cut. He wondered what the world looked like through her and her falcon’s eyes.
Bands of horsemen would periodically meet with them, roaming the massive continent in search of threats while keeping the Abundant Grasp from getting any ideas about expansion. Coop grew to look forward to the rumbling as particularly large groups made their presence known from far in the distance, arriving like a thunderstorm, and sharing unique meals from all across the continent.
Toward the end of his journey with Miss Wangmo Thaye, in the Pamir Mountains where there was nothing but rock and sky, they were discussing the source of their new found powers, the system, and mana itself. He was reevaluating the Path of Aloneness that had been with him across almost three full continents. It was quite a bit different from all the other paths he had taken, offering few skills in comparison. Instead, the focus was on enhancing the primary skill the path started with and apparently nothing more.
With his first choice on his new path, he had selected Lucid Dreaming, concluding that of the six rather esoteric eldritch options offered, it was the one that made the most sense. The description had evoked his experience with his most powerful Spectral skill, Inheritance of the Mists, by insinuating that under the right conditions, his will could command reality. The Path of Aloneness was far more steeped in the Mind portion of the Abyss than his first foray with the affinity, but in a way that had him turning inward, faithful to its description that true strength came from within.
After eight more skill selections, Lucid Dreaming remained as the solitary ability he had gained from the path, but even as the primary skill, it was merely a passive that he could only trigger through rigorous conditions. It took some practice, but he gradually came to terms with the skill as he mastered new aspects of himself that he previously never thought to address.
Lucid Dreaming, by itself, was basically the system’s replication of being in the zone, but that was just scratching the surface of the overall kit it established. It required a level of self-discipline to activate that Coop had to build up before he was capable of taking that first step. Lucid Dreaming was the physical half that paved the way for the mental half of the whole package, priming him to wield his own power.
Each selection after his first choice offered what the path described as Principles. They were essentially individual upgrades that he could only tap into while Lucid Dreaming, assuming he had sufficient regulation over his body and mind. Each was a sword style in a way that he didn’t really understand at first, but in practice, had his Haunted title absolutely salivating. When he unlocked moments of lucidity and properly fused his mana with his physical attributes the union elevated his martial prowess beyond normal levels.
After collecting a few Principles and successfully activating them, he started to see clear differences between his normal combat ability and his enhanced potential that motivated him to seek more control. Before, wielding his sword had been technically sound, like he was playing simple scales on an instrument with proper form, tone, and rhythm, but after, he was composing a solo symphony with actual themes, emotion, and grandeur. A little taste was all it took to have him hooked. He was essentially teaching himself an internal mana discipline one fight at a time, over the course of millions of individual bouts, but every success had both of his affinities singing in harmony.
So far, he had collected Calm, Rage, Doubt, Grace, Spite, Dread, Faith, and Fear as potential Principles. They were like battle stances, in a way, except the power they harnessed was drawn from within himself and expressed through his sword. Rather than do anything on their own, he was the catalyst that empowered them to represent a technique. If he succeeded in the holistic fusion of body and mind, they imbued his blade with a fighting style instantiated by the Principle.
Coop had already touched upon the idea of stance dancing in his own techniques, alternating between aggression and patience as he tried to feel out the momentum of battle. The Path of Aloneness took that idea and magnified it as far as his mind and body could support.
Unlike Inheritance of the Mists, which was bolstered by the weight of a collective human identity, this was a power drawn from the depths within. At times, it shocked him that it could be so potent, almost as if the Abyssal mana wouldn’t be outdone by Spectral mana since they were, in fact, operating off of the exact same energy.
Basically, from the Path of the Abyss, Coop could yoink, smash, and boom with his blunt weapons. With the Path of Aloneness, his swords became so sharp he could use them to communicate a range of emotions and carve them into himself and his targets.
He parted ways with his guide and her falcon companion, entering the territory of the Abundant Grasp openly and by himself to avoid revealing the many spies the Lighthouse had embedded in their territory. They were still hostile toward outsiders, but Coop was on his own mission to collect Slayer titles. There was no one on Earth capable of stopping him.
He easily breached their barriers, completely ignoring their massive armies and enormous walls. Coop worked his way down the eastern coast of India without any guidance, utilizing his overcharged manasight and newfound travel experience to explore the most promising areas. He crossed tremendous areas where entire populations had withdrawn, trailing a handful of sentries that could barely keep up even when he took the scenic routes. Most of the populations congregated around the shards controlled by the Abundant Grasp in rings that clearly delineated different groups who had more or less favor with the Chosen who ruled each settlement. Once he was beyond the perimeter of each city, he never found another soul, even if it was still their territory.
It wasn’t until he approached the tropical environments of Kerala before he found another loose perimeter, then communities who had successfully opposed the expansion of the Chosen humans that represented the alien faction. Jungle rivers hid enclaves of survivors who had formed a triangle of lesser-known resistance from the bottom half of South India to the Maldives and into Sri Lanka.
Coop could have spent months in the subcontinent, but he had been journeying for so long he had gradually become more efficient in his exploration. Instead, he only lingered for two and a half weeks, rushing toward the Can Gio settlement in Vietnam after collecting what Slayer titles he could uncover. There, Wangmo Thaye reconnected, leading him back to the north, looping to the areas north of the Himalayas that he had bypassed with coastal India and introducing him to the last of the Primal Constructs on the continent.
When it came to Korea, he was once again on his own, at least temporarily. The Knights of Time may have been an aggressive group, but the pirates of Ghost Reef had already reached them before Coop arrived. There had been no open hostilities, though that was only because the Knights of Time at least recognized they would lose an actual war. A visit from one phantom battleship was enough for them to start singing the praises of their ‘guests.’
The Knights played along with the diplomats of the Lighthouse, listening to the warnings, though it seemed like a poorly maintained secret that both sides knew the Knights were gauging for opportunities to take the upperhand. They didn’t know that the population of Gangcheon had resettled in Ghost Reef and were evidently seeking to conduct a similarly underhanded operation on Coop’s settlement.
They were offering various deals that seemed reasonable, like becoming an official subordinate or even handing over shard control as long as they could move a portion of their Chosen to Ghost Reef. The only caveat was that they intended to keep their faction and even demanded the right to recruit from within the Lighthouse. It was never going to happen, but Coop’s companions were giving them every opportunity to face the Eradication Protocol together.
Coop didn’t stick around for the ongoing political games, moving to another difficult settlement in Japan. Where the Abundant Grasp was openly hostile toward outsiders and the Knights of Time were superficially cooperative, the remnants of the Shinjuku Gardens super settlement were passively adversarial.
They tolerated the Lighthouse only because they had to. They had no interest in cooperation. The Kitawa sisters had led a delegation to meet with their family, but it seemed like the more reasonable members of the settlement had already joined Ghost Reef at the end of the Underlayer Event. What remained was a settlement that was without direction, with infighting kept hidden behind closed doors.
He kept his grind in their shrinking territory short, taking a brief recess to visit the famous Sacred Mana Well on Mt Fuji to see if the mana creatures had developed enough to give him a boost in levels. They hadn’t, but it was worth a shot, and he went ahead and added his name to the mana seed just for fun.
As he started island hopping across the Pacific, he had to laugh at himself. Amazingly, he was running out of new places to grind.
