Unchosen Champion-Chapter 320: First Phaste

“You know what?” Coop spoke to himself as he cast Retribution and his spear manifested from a swirl of mists that seemingly appeared out of nowhere, solidifying at the exact moment that his hand snapped shut. “Let’s just say I gave everyone else an extra week, just as a little favor.”

He stared at his spear with a determined look as he watched abyssal mana leak between his fingers. Both of his affinities were comfortably in equilibrium as he prepared for the grind. He firmly nodded to himself, silently reiterating his assertion as he stepped off the stoop of Ghost Reef’s lighthouse.

Six months into the assimilation, and he was essentially redoing day one. He couldn’t help but chuckle cynically at his current state of affairs.

The fine sand of Ghost Reef’s western beach greeted him like a long-lost friend. As he gazed upon the scenery, he couldn’t help but smile at the palm trees that had regrown in bunches, creating pockets of shade along the crisp white beach. It was nice to have an excuse to be back, no matter the circumstances. His first targets were all along the smooth stone path that weaved through the sparsely vegetated dunes. It was something like a reunion between old rivals.

Ancient Defenders had become the starter enemy for anyone initiating their leveling journey on Ghost Reef, as infrequently as that happened these days. Coop had carefully reviewed the leveling guides created by the Adventurer Guild, including the color coded map overview that indicated the expected levels of monsters in each of the various zones. It was a detailed accounting that he would adapt for himself. There were certain monsters he intended to save for later as they still held Slayer quests for him to complete. Instead, he would start by focusing on the ones that he had already defeated thousands of times.

He rotated his shoulder, glancing at the small audience that was in attendance to see him off. They supported him in their own ways, with a shy thumbs up, wagging tail, or a sly smirk.

Coop had spent the night meeting with different residents of Ghost Reef, making sure that he was taking advantage of every possible benefit as he restarted his leveling journey. It would have been easy to feel discouraged, but even a passing analysis would reveal that this was turning into an opportunity. The fact that he would be getting twice as many stats per level should have been enough incentive, but adding on the possibility to even partially correct any perceived deficiencies in experience was icing on the cake.

The first time he leveled in the earliest days of the assimilation, he was stumbling through the process, clueless as to what the system had in store for humanity. There was no guidance for someone like him. Aside from knowing that he needed to get stronger, he had no idea how he was meant to do so.

This time, he had the entire infrastructure of a well-organized and rapidly growing settlement available to back him up. That wasn’t just a small benefit. To put it in perspective, Ghost Reef was the hub of a true galactic faction, fledgling as it was, and factions were meant to be the ultimate authority on individual advancement. Chosen relying on their sponsors were thought to be the most advantaged individuals within an assimilation, for example.

Through Coop, the Lighthouse sought to prove its advantages. At the moment, Coop had nearly 20 different buffs, whether granted from edible consumables, well-rested bonuses, or individual abilities of support-based residents. They would obviously benefit his journey in ways he hadn’t been able to enjoy the first time around.

He had over 100 different elixirs, phials, potions, flasks, and tinctures crafted by Elder Olani and Sojjah the Alchemist stored in his inventory. The consumables weren’t only meant for emergencies either. They expected Coop to be chugging the expensive resources at every opportunity, maintaining special limited-time bonuses as much as possible.

He had all the stacking perks for being within the settlement’s territory after completing every bonus objective he had ever been offered while collecting city titles earned by the residents. Collectively, they added more bonuses than he cared to account for, but they would do everything from improve his combat efficiency to increase the capacity for experience gains.

Then, he had the entire contingent of skills that made him a Mistwalker. If nothing else, this would be a demonstration of the collection of skills he had accumulated as a Revenant as he walked the Path of the Mistwalker.

And most importantly, he had his own personal combat experience, an asset that was unrivaled among the humans of planet Earth. If the Ancient Defenders had been an appropriate challenge for himself and Jones back in the first days, they were going to be a simple launchpad this time around.

A discordant strum of a guitar broke his focus and he turned to Derek to see what he wanted. He was leaning against the outer wall of the tall structure of the lighthouse, making sure to be in the shade.

“You sure you don’t want me to bring everyone else out?” The slowly reforming Bard questioned. The guild had established a robust system of support, including healers, buffers, and guides that could escort new members through the various monster zones, effectively powerleveling when necessary.

“I’m sure.” Coop answered, not for the first time. “This won’t take long.” He concluded, trying not to be offended. How could he possibly need help with the first monster variant? Ghost Reef had successfully stifled their progress so that every single one was below level 10 and many never exceeded level 1.

“Usually takes new recruits a few weeks to get into the swing of things.” Derek suggested, plucking a few more strings.

“Do I seem like a new recruit?” Coop wondered, raising an eyebrow.

“Your level sure does.” Derek pointed out.

Coop sighed. “Alright, dude.” He shook his head, not letting his buttons be pushed.

Charlie and Camila were sitting on the steps with Sunny, taking a break from grinding deeper in the underground to watch the start of Coop’s race, but the rest of the burgeoning city had barely heard the rumors that the Unchosen Champion was back. That he would be releveling among them was the expected gossip of the day. It was only a matter of time before everyone knew, and he intended to be well onto his journey before that happened.

While Charlie seemed to be her usual self, Camila was in a unique outfit, looking like she belonged in a cubicle-filled office instead of a monster ornamented beach. She had a pair of glasses perched on the tip of her nose, causing her to tilt her head forward to watch Coop from above the edge of the frames. Her jacket was already off while her collared dress shirt was actually fastened by small black ribbons instead of buttons, and tucked into her knee-length pencil skirt. Her legs were crossed and the high heel shoe on her elevated foot was hanging from her toes as if she already regretted the fashion choice.

She had her hair pinned in a tight bun instead of her usual ponytail and she tapped a pencil against her cheek, waiting for Coop to give her a number to write onto her clipboard of paper. She was acting as the first official record keeper for Coop’s rank as he leveled up. They thought it might be vaguely useful information, but she had really just taken the role to try a new custom outfit crafted by Erasimus Doomthread.

Before Coop stepped forward, she had been giggling at Charlie’s interpretation of Coop’s plan. She shook her head back and forth, unable to fully contain herself as she remembered her companion’s words, causing her hooped earrings to bounce against her neck before bringing it back up. “Never thought I’d hear Charlie call Coop a twink.” She commented, reigniting the Aeromancer’s flustered embarrassment.

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“B-but that’s what he is, if this was a video game…” Charlie kept trying to explain the niche terminology to Camila.

“I dunno, he’s got way too much definition in his abs, and his shoulders are too broad. Look at him Charlie, he’s more of a hunk right?” Camila teased her friend. “Give us a flex, Coop.”

“No! I mean stop!” Charlie cried, averting her eyes and putting a hand across her face, though Coop accepted the confidence boost regardless.

Coop chuckled. “Okay, that’s enough of that, I’m gonna get started.”

“Don’t forget to shout your rank.” Camila reminded him with a jab of her pencil.

“I’ll try, Miss Alvarez.” He responded, though if he got into the zone, he thought he might forget.

Charlie spoke up as well. “Don’t worry, Coop. I’ll make sure to hit 500 first, if you can’t do it again.”

Though she meant to reassure him, Coop couldn’t help but feel like he had another serious rival to watch out for. He checked the leaderboards one more time before he started.

Day 185

Charlie Seraphin (Level 333) Camila Alvarez (Level 327) Gibson (Level 307) Platinum (Level 306) Buck Cleary (Level 301) Imara (Level 298) Emmanuel Seraphin (Level 295) Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ Simpson (Level 294) Junior Cleary (Level 292) Sila Tupua (Level 292)432,448,550. Coop (Level 0)

Coop called the number out to Camila as his ethereal armor manifested across his chest, wrapping him in a swirl of mists to match his spear. He stared at the first Ancient Defender, skipping forward before planting his foot into the ground with a heaviness that substantiated his assertions regarding his stats.

The spear glided off the tips of his fingers, flying true while immediately sending a shot of satisfaction through his brain as his Haunted title approved of his form. Despite being the first attack of his restarted grind, he hadn’t forgotten what to do.

It wasn’t his hardest throw, as he was pacing himself in a way that was designed to be sustainable for literally millions of repetitions. Still, the spear blasted through the tropical morning, shooting through the air like a rocket, displacing loose grains of sand as if a hurricane gust was following its path.

The Ancient Defender had no reaction. It simply evaporated as the spear annihilated its core and continued across the shallows without losing speed, sending a rooster tail of water high into the air. Coop recalled the spear to his hand as he flashed with his first level, already checking his notifications and rank to give to Camila.

[You defeated Ancient Defender (Level 4)]

[+5 Basic Credits]

[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]

Adding 10 free attributes to his Mind stat instantly drew a smile to his face. He was excited about the potential growth that was about to begin.

“Oh, this’ll be good.” Coop spoke under his breath, feeling the fire ignite within him.

“What the hell?” Derek muttered at the same time, looking at Coop like he had been lying to all of his friends about his status change. “How can you be that strong?”

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Coop looked back over his shoulder and shrugged. “3,000 Strength?” He offered, causing all the eyebrows present to rise up.

432,448,550. Coop (Level 1)

“432,448,550.” He announced, realizing that his rank hadn’t changed. “I guess there are no level 0s on the leaderboards at all.” He concluded, stepping toward his next target.

It was clear he would need to adjust his strength to better match his opponents. There was no use in expending excess energy, and more importantly, he didn’t want to be running around the beach like he had back in the first days of the assimilation. He needed his spear to act as a reasonable mistjump target as well as deadly projectile.

He took a deep breath, smiling to himself as his lungs filled with the salt air. It felt good to make such minor micro adjustments to his tactics rather than stressing about more advanced enemies. Even though it seemed like he enjoyed all the grinds equally, a single kill on this one had reminded him how much more enjoyable they could be.

His spear continued to rip through the air, annihilating Ancient Defenders as the sun rose higher in the sky. The level gains came quickly at first, but they rapidly tapered off given the relative experience of his opponents, but that was all part of the design.

Coop shouted his ranks to Camila, finding the incremental changes on the leaderboard surprisingly small. He overheard Jones discussing it with the girls, theorizing that there would be a normal distribution of levels, with significantly smaller groups of people at each end of the spectrum. They would be able to plot it rather accurately, assuming Coop could outpace the entire planet enough to snapshot their levels.

Coop smiled at the thought of climbing the ranks that quickly as he skipped through the mists. His Ancient Defender grind culminated in something akin to what Camila would have accomplished with her Interceptor speed. He swept across the beach, chasing a perpetually flashing spear as it rocketed between enemy spawns. It was easier to track his progress by watching the bursts of mists than it was to strain the limits of their eyes to follow the sudden redirections of the laser-like spear.

After a single hour, Coop was throwing the spear at seemingly empty positions, timing the arrival of the missile with the exact pixelated collection of mana representing the respawn of the next Primal Construct. There was no way to go any faster without creating downtime, but Coop wasn’t anywhere close to strained.

Instead of settling on the pace dictated by the monsters within the first zone, he extended his route, incorporating the second zone into his first grind. The tamed Primal Kites had a range of levels that extended only a handful above the Ancient Defenders, from 5 to 15. While Coop wanted to limit his targets to the most level appropriate variants, his potency demanded that he cast a wider net.

Coop’s mana sight allowed him to see the minor disturbances of their electrical domes as the Kites hid beneath the sand of the shallow waters beyond the beach. That meant he could go directly to them.

Before much longer, he was launching his spear straight across the surface of the water, mistjumping as soon as the missile crossed above a Kite, and redirecting the tip of his weapon straight down at the same time that the monster attempted to initiate its ambush. The result was him impaling the invaders while they were still underground, like disarming a landmine by stabbing it in the head.

The benefit of incorporating the Primal Kites in his first grind was that their territory encompassed the entire fort, following the shallows around the whole island and beyond. There were thousands of them available to be farmed, though not all were properly domesticated by the Adventurer Guild, so he stayed close to the fort.

Through the afternoon of Day 185, Coop was flickering across the shallows, crossing the busy channels of ships as if they were stationary obstacles. Each time he teleported to a new spot and stabbed into the ground, a gout of water shot in the air, splashing from the combined force of his spear and the monster bursting toward the surface. In between his targets, the spear left a line of disturbed water, drawing strange patterns that could only be seen from the air or the walls of the fort.

He couldn’t help but make a spectacle of himself. It was an unintended side effect of his lack of hesitation in combat actions. Though the growing audience of sailors and sentries were really observing the after effects of his appearances.

Along the beach, bursts of mists would chain across the sands, then a jagged circle of watery bursts would circumnavigate the island before the cycle restarted. Word spread that Coop was home, and he was taking action.

Coop continued to acclimate to his route, increasing his efficiency in ways that seemed impossible. On the beach, he started to line up Ancient Defenders, letting his spear shoot through a target and continue, reaching a second, third, and sometimes fourth target in one line drive that spanned hundreds of yards.

The people watching from the walls of the fort cheered louder each time the number of monsters tagged by a single throw went up, but the limited patrols of the Ancient Defenders meant that it was exceedingly difficult to line too many of them up at once. The fact that he was unwilling to pause for even a quarter of a second before deciding on his next target meant that he had to be hyper aware of the entire cadre of monster spawns in order to even land a double kill, let alone a triple and beyond.

Though it seemed mentally demanding, he actually found it extraordinarily fun. It was nothing compared to keeping track of entire armies of Elite Primal Constructs as they rotated into his mists from all directions. When his spear crunched the targets, he was practically overwhelmed by the satisfaction.

Coop was making short work of the first levels, but he had a long way to go if he was going to reclaim his spot at the top. It seemed like the process would be something of an escape for the Champion of Ghost Reef.