Unchosen Champion-Chapter 333: Algae Bog
As Coop descended from the upper levels of the Coral Forest, through dense shapeless clouds of mana, the visibility of his surroundings was severely reduced. Before long, he could only see the individuals on his immediate right and left, but the ropes they held onto extended into a washed out void of vague shapes and undecipherable features, above and below. The shroud of mana created a whiteout condition that they had to pass through before they reached the third layer of the mana well, some distance beneath the coral stages.
Hai Yun and her entourage stayed quiet, moving charily, not wanting to attract the attention of monsters before they could stand on their feet once again, and Coop followed suit. He was left with nothing but the ambient noise of the bizarre environment clicking, dripping, and shifting, the subtle sounds of boots finding traction on the coral rock edifice, suppressed breaths, and the friction of leather sliding on ropes, along with his own overactive imagination. Coop tried to focus on rappelling alongside grim-faced bodyguards, unable to detect where they would end up, but envisioning the type of horrors reserved for an odyssey. The next level could have been 10 feet or 10 miles away, for all he could see.
It didn’t take long before Coop was bombarded with a powerful smell wafting up through the damp fog, causing him to wrinkle his nose and check on the reactions of the others. The air was thick with the scent of soggy vegetation, but his companions seemed to expect the stench, not pausing in their descent whatsoever. It was an aroma somewhere between drying seaweed and damp piles of leaves: not exactly rotten, but clearly meant to be submerged.
While they descended further, the fumes of mana started to reflect a miniscule amount of color. A nearly imperceptible green reflected on the bottom of their feet, as if the edge of the domain was nearly at hand. No matter how hard Coop stared down through the vapors, it still seemed like hanging off the side of a natural limestone skyscraper in the aftermath of a damp blizzard. He found himself feeling thankful for the solid coral as it was the only anchor for his senses while they traversed between levels.
The third layer of the mana well represented a massive departure from the majestic coral structures up top. They bloomed and spread, building upon each other to create imposing configurations and epic towers, covered by other natural growth. The mana clouds seemed to have stripped the surfaces of the stacked coral, and as a result, the forms reflected a desire to quickly emerge from the top. The corals transformed themselves into pillars that climbed beyond the third layer with urgency.
Coop hadn’t been anticipating such variety within the strange domain, believing that they would simply be fighting on more coral platforms all the way down the mana well. Apparently, the dominant characteristics of the Coral Forest were drastically different as the elevations changed and they moved further away from the entrance and therefore the surface. His imagination drew a picture of an inverted mountain, leaning far to one side, and the hanging mana represented the end of the tree line. Depth and elevation were intertwined considering the mana well was essentially a deep sea environment, with vaporous mana replacing liquid ocean, but the variation still came as a surprise.
He glanced back up, feeling thankful for the lack of actual water and the pressure that would have come with it. A haze of light struggled to pierce the thick canopy of low-hanging mana clouds, refracting throughout, bright enough to make him squint if he took his eyes away from where his fingers slid down his rope. It was like a fog bank formed on the third level, floating up into the second where it drifted between corals and was caught among the stronger currents of the uppermost level.
Giant pillars loomed among the clouds, a lingering feature from the platforms up top where the corals had raced back toward the surface as the mana well dragged them down. Coop could catch glimpses of the neighboring columns if the fog shifted just right, making it seem like they were midway through a city built atop the clouds. Before Coop even put his feet down, he was already in awe toward the distinct habitats of the Coral Forest.
Hai Yun had led him to a series of ropes that allowed them to repel down the exterior of one of the coral pillars that climbed straight through the mana well. While they descended through the mana, Coop hadn’t been able to see much beyond his own nose, but it cleared up once they were a dozen feet from the ground.
Despite the vast open air, interrupted by nothing but sporadic coral columns, the fog made it seem like the level had a very low ceiling, merely eight feet above the surface. He felt like he needed to apologize to Derek and the other Adventurers even though he had never actually complained about the limited progress they had in conquering the mana well. The place was not exactly conducive to straightforward exploration and mapping. He shook his head as he glanced over his shoulder and took in the scenes.
Ambiguous light filtered through the haze, reflecting with an emerald green underlight that was unique to the algae that defined the third level. He had been briefed on the variety of habitats, but he still hadn’t been mentally prepared for how distinct they were. Corals no longer dominated the skyline. Shadows danced across the writhing surface as Hai Yun’s bodyguards detached themselves from their ropes, hopping off the coral, revealing the treacherous nature of the algal mats existing at this particular depth, and apparently nowhere else.
Coop let himself drop as well, and he nearly collapsed as soon as the floor flexed beneath his weight. What seemed like liquid mana sloshed just below the surface. Thin streaks of bright green and yellow mana smoke leaked from between the algae weave that formed the top layer, absorbing into the cloudy ceiling and dispersing into the white clouds further above, giving the white haze the minimal green and yellow color he had noticed on the way down.
Coop felt like he was a relatively seasoned explorer, happy to navigate the unknown with his own brand of excitement, but the treacherous terrain had him stumbling with his arms out, struggling to maintain his balance in spite of any perceived experience. Each footfall sent ripples across the spongy surface, the silence broken by the squelch of air leaking through the mats and a distant hissing that made him subconsciously nervous for what might lurk below. If he tried to stay still, the floor just kept sinking, and he wasn’t brave enough to let himself descend past his own knees for fear of being unable to get back out. The third level of the mana well was like walking on top of an enormous underfilled waterbed, with a surface that threatened to break beneath his weight.
The knotted algae formed a surreal bog of shifting islands and sudden quagmires, pulsating with the unseen monsters that inhabited the region. It was dominated by different shades of green, ranging from yellowish to brownish, with a few pops of dark red phyllophora mixed within. The Ones That Graze, or the Gulpers as the Adventurer Guild called them, claimed their nests within the algae, letting themselves sink until they were flush with the shifting surface. The distinct but subtle hissing, resembling that of a tiny leak in a car tire, was actually the monsters as they doused themselves in the available mana, seeking to gain levels.
They weren’t invisible, but they were a challenge to see, having a scaly camouflage that would have been at home in the swampiest sections of the Everglades. Algae draped from their armored skin folds, finding the living surface to be a suitable substrate for further growth. Hai Yun kindly took the time to reveal her method of finding them, which involved a combination of creating turbulence in the bog and triangulating the subtle hissing. Her bodyguards shifted their weight in unison, like a synchronized gymnastic routine, sending waves across the algae bogs that exposed the waiting monsters by bouncing up and down with the rhythm of the viscous mana beneath.
The Gulpers, like the Ones That Hunt, were viciously territorial, and when it came time to fight, they galloped on top of the bog-like algae mats, creating their own massive waves with their heavy bodies and thick legs. Rather than keep their feet beneath their fat bulbous bodies, their legs were splayed out slightly, giving them an amusing bow-legged appearance that forced them to drag their bellies through the algae. It seemed like the perfect adaptation to prevent themselves from sinking straight down, turning them into boats on a grassy sea.
But the monsters didn’t necessarily charge directly into melee. The aggressive rushes were mostly feints designed to force their opponents to think twice about closing the distance. It was a difficult choice for their challengers to make, given how challenging it was to build momentum while lacking a rigid surface beneath their feet.
Gulpers were more interested in spitting nasty projectiles of balled-up chewed algae than skirmishing with their opponents. Rather than the distinct green that permeated the layer, their attacks were bleached a sickly yellow and the first time Coop blocked one with his shield, he found that they were shockingly corrosive.
The Gulper’s ranged attacks were like softball-sized spitballs of algae drenched in a super potent acid. Blocking them was almost useless as they ate straight through even Coop’s ethereal shield and when they connected, they splashed such that it was difficult to avoid being affected by the corrosive spit anywhere else.
Obviously, they needed to be dodged, but the flexible floor made it extremely difficult to change directions. Hai Yun’s entourage compensated with numbers. Those who were targeted did everything they could to avoid being struck, and in doing so, completely lost any momentum they could have used to reach the monster. Meanwhile, those who weren’t targeted were free to continue forward and force the monster onto the defensive. The carefully arranged teams had to be increased in order to compensate for the inevitable failure of every individual to reach their target.
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The Gulpers seemed vulnerable to being outnumbered, but they didn’t completely lack countermeasures. Once in melee range, they continued their hissing, sending lines of spittle erratically from their open mouths. It was essentially a point blank area attack that forced all of Hai Yun’s tanks to take defensive postures until one of her elemental dragons swooped from the clouds of fog and scorched or shocked their target. Compared to the Ones That Wait, the fights were shorter, but far less controlled. The chaos meant that it was necessary for the bodyguards to rotate at a higher rate and they were essentially anchored to a central location where the majority of the entourage congregated and recovered. Luckily, the coral column they had climbed down was decorated with hanging benches, providing a staging area for the third layer of the Coral Forest.
Since the density of monsters was deceptively high, with one or two floating within the bog every 20 yards or so, Coop started his own grind beyond the pillar. Hai Yun and her entourage claimed one small section where they had landed while Coop roamed into the distance, exploring the extent of the algae mats. He was pretty sure they extended for miles, but they were deceptively dangerous to cross.
Vast gulfs randomly appeared between islands of algae, and narrow rivers of a seemingly bottomless soup of mana led to the lower levels. Both hazards were nearly impossible to discern from eye level, hidden as they were by algae growths that flowed in waves wherever he explored. He had to be careful not to go too fast lest he prematurely send himself into uncharted waters within the layers below.
He only encountered a handful of the enormous columns of coral, but he really couldn’t move as freely as anywhere else he had explored. Each of the pillars was covered in thousands of smaller growths, providing a habitat that reminded him of epiphytes in the rainforest. The underwater equivalent of ferns, orchids, and bromeliads, which attached themselves to the exterior of tree trunks, absolutely blanketed the calcium carbonate columns. They were trapped between the algae layer and the scouring mana clouds above, but they made the best of their relatively narrow habitat.
In order to hunt the Gulpers, Coop had to adapt the way he physically moved through the domain. He literally couldn’t run due to the liquid characteristics of the bog, and mistjumping into range left him overly exposed to the spitball projectiles without the ability to adjust. Dodging was out of the question and blocking was too inefficient for the type of grind he wanted. Instead, he had to traverse the environment in a completely novel way. He sort of galloped across the mats, taking heavy steps that waited for the pushback of liquid resistance before launching him forward. It was almost like running on a loose trampoline, but one that lacked any proper bounce.
By manipulating the mats with his own strength, he created a large wave to follow, momentarily exposing the Gulpers to attack as it passed them by. Coop couldn’t get into melee range himself due to how dependent he was on the momentum of his artificial waves, so he relied on his own ranged attacks. Drawing a phantasm from the mists to surprise the Gulpers became his method of engagement.
Coop settled into a pattern where he established a wave, springing in a single direction with just his short sword. When a Gulper was dislodged by his forward wave, angry and hissing in his direction, a phantasm would leap from the mists, catching them by surprise with a swift strike from behind that sent them back into the mana pools in silence.
Once he determined the weaknesses in their scaled armor, it only took a single phantasm to defeat one monster. Coop would push a wave across miles of bog, maintaining his trajectory the entire way. Phantasmal swordsman would burst from the clouds, catching any monsters within his narrow sweep of the environment until he reached an obstacle that forced him off track and ruined the wave. It was a bit like a farming simulator, where he had to drive a tractor across misshapen fields. Any enemies with a straight path that was as wide as his phantasm range would be harvested for their experience.
When he lost his wave, he had to slowly build another and start again. He really felt the challenge in his quads more than in the combat. After hours of the dramatic bounding, his legs were burning with a fierceness that made him worried he would collapse and be dragged below. The experience he was gaining motivated his effort, and he dug deep, but in the end, the bog defeated his stamina.
He only lasted half a day. If he didn’t take a break, he would be reduced to crawling across the soggy fields of algae. At the end of one of his long rotations, he sat on the hanging benches that decorated the main pillar back up to the second level and massaged his own legs.
Coop was among a hundred other exhausted bodyguards, some looking slightly better than others as they waited for their turn in Hai Yun’s rotation. Coop may have defeated the Gulpers at a rate that was hardly comparable to the large entourage, as it was many multiples more, but to Hai Yun’s credit, she hadn’t stopped when he had. She may have defeated fewer monsters overall, and she had to share the experience with all of the bodyguards that contributed to each of the kills, but her determination wasn’t inferior to Coop’s. There was good reason she had been a dominant figure on the leaderboards, and it would be a mistake to disrespect her capability. He inspected her aura, almost as curious toward her progress as his own.
[Human (Level 265)]
[Eternal Empress (Intelligence)]
[Initiate of the Lighthouse]
[Chaos, Order (Celestial Duality)]
Coop huffed, impressed by her growth. Though they had spent more than a full day together in the mana well at this point, they had really only been on the hunt for half the time. She had managed 12 levels in that period. He shook his head, realizing that even compared to those subjugating the Fallen Zone, she was growing at an amazing rate.
Even her henchmen had gained around five or six levels each, which put them shoulder to shoulder with Platinum and the others in terms of progress. Putting the right people in the mana well really created amazing results. He checked his own status, wondering how he compared.
[Status]
HP - 40508/40508
MP - 154035/154035
Class - Revenant (Level 234)
Profession - Scavenging (Level 417)
Affinity - Spectral, Abyssal
Race - Human (Icon)
Faction - The Lighthouse
Strength - 200 (+7701)
Agility - 200 (+3850)
Body - 200 (+3850)
Mind - 5280 (+1996)
Intelligence - 200 (+7701)
Acumen - 200 (+3850)
Unallocated - 0
Titles - Champion V, Haunted, Ethereal, Reaper II, Slayer XI, Dauntless, Defiant, Stalwart, Reckless, Stacked, Valor XXIV, Siegebreaker, Underking, Mindbender, Insane
Skills (Active) - Mistwalking
Skills (Passive) - Depths of Madness
Quests - Fortune Seeker (24/50), Upgrade Metropolis to Global Capital
Basic Credits - 58,422,843
Coop nodded his head, happy to see that he had blasted off with yet another explosive number of levels. 34 was massive, especially when considering it hadn’t even been a full day of active combat. The Gulpers’ pseudo Elite status more than made up for the slightly reduced speed that he could clear them out when compared to the normal monsters he had been hunting during phase one of his plan.
The algae mats of the third level in the Coral Forest were definitely an excellent grind zone. Derek had been right to send him down rather than keeping him up top. It was just too bad his legs weren’t quite ready for the unique type of exertion. Then again, there were more depths to explore.
The new rank of the Champion title rounded out his base stats nicely, two new varieties of monster added two more tags to Fortune Seeker, and he gained almost 20,000,000 Basic Credits defeating mana well monsters. It was a good start to the second phase of ‘operation reclaim first place’ on the leaderboards. He checked to see how his competition was doing.
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Day 195
Charlie Seraphin (Level 353) Camila Alvarez (Level 344) Platinum (Level 344) Imara (Level 334) Sila Tupua (Level 332) Sefu (Level 326) Gibson (Level 321) Shane Peters (Level 320) Alex Nova (Level 318) Tzultacaj (Level 318)71,914,911. Coop (Level 234)
Everyone was making insane progress. It had only been around a day and a half since he last checked, but people had gained 5, 6, 7, even 8 levels. Coop really had lit a fire beneath the warriors of humanity, and all he had to do was disappear from the leaderboards. He was climbing his way back, and it was all going so much faster than he imagined, it actually made his head swirl as he considered his trajectory.
If he had done as he planned, keeping the grinds more casual so that he could properly enjoy his home on Ghost Reef while exploring all the new venues and layers, he wouldn’t be catching up at all. The progress of all the others was too much to have been taken so lightly.
It was the end of the 10th day of his grind and it had been less than 3 weeks since his level reset. He wondered how much longer it would take before he was back at the top. It certainly wouldn’t take the months he had originally envisioned. If there was any doubt lingering in the back of his head whether or not he could catch up at all, it was long gone, especially now that he was in the mana well.
He let himself take a breather to get his legs back before he coaxed Hai Yun to lead him to the next layer of the Coral Forest. He couldn’t wait to see what else was hidden in the abyssal depths of their local mana well.
