The mithril mist barrier at the very base of the demon city was just ahead. The path these demons would take to escape. He would take it downwards to hunt after his prey.

  Three days had passed since the start of this blessing. And already there were only sixty two rats left for him to eliminate before he ascended as the sole remaining champion of the old one.

  The slave weaklings on the other side had barely culled their ranks by a single one in comparison, according to the Old One's talley. Three days, and only one eliminated. Weaklings. He knew they had the same quests, the rules were the same for them both. How they had failed to make any significant progress, he'd never understand.

  If they were not up to the mettle of eradicating themselves, he would gladly do it for them. The fight would soon happen, and the Nathir would sweep through their world with all the power of a god behind them. He'd lead his people into that world as the chosen one.

  Because the Old One was feeding them power directly.

  Each night, he'd break into the old expedition ships and go straight for the pods. Unsealing the old Nathir within and slaughtering them.

  Those had been the easiest, the fools still weak upon waking. Barely able to lift a finger. Free experience bags, if he could get to them first before the others did.

  He'd gained an entire three levels after killing nearly a hundred of these half-alive soldiers who'd managed to crawl into their stasis pods and survive until now.

  Might was the only rule of power that mattered and all Nathir knew this by instinct. Every other rat out there was doing the same thing he was.

  He would earn the power of the Old One, and he would do so by killing everything that got in his way.

  "Why isn't killing things giving us levels??" Wade asked, looking down at the phone. "That thing was over a hundred, and we're like, 8. Not to sound ungrateful, but what gives?"

  You did get a level thou

  "We got one. A single level. From all that." He had gotten a lucky roll with the +2 to intelligence, the exact stat he was praying for. So that was a huge win, but this thing was still way way above his current level.

  If he'd gotten three levels off killing Lapushka, but a single one from this now that he was slightly higher level, then the leveling curve was incredibly steep. He should be getting more level ups than this. "It just doesn't make sense why there's almost no levels gained on killing things in general! All video games get some kind of grinding in place, why would the System decide on these rules at all?"

  I've still got my bets that there's something more going on in the background here imo. How many actual quests have you completed that weren't kill oriented anyhow? Most quests you got done were challenge gauntlets iirc, and the System's been plowing you with quest after quest this entire time.

  "You think the questline we bought is where the levels come in?"

  Maybe? That one didn't have any level requirements, so it's a base storefront option to buy a quest from it. We haven't completed a single one of those yet.

  "Well, this run is a little scuffed for that. We'd need to find a way to Medy's lab on the floating city somehow, and right now I'm not even sure I'll get past the mithril sea back on a safe side."

  Yeh, but if you do, you got Medy right here to guide you. Feels a little… lucky, don't you think?

  Wade could just picture her doing air drum roll at that all while giving him a shit-eating grin. The little twerp.

  So, where's the stat point going to? (??? )

  "Intelligence would be the most reasonable stat to triple down on."

  The System had handed him three extra points into it, plus his original dump of points from Lapushka, so if he added another point he'd probably go up to having the same experience as someone who'd been practicing magic for a year now. Given each point felt like two months worth of practice.

  He had magic items and tools now. With some basic learning, and soon he'd have Bael and Medy back with him to teach him further.

  While both didn't mention being proficient spellcasters, just knowing the basics of mana manipulation was something that seemed common to most professions.

  Magic unlocked so many options in the future.

  "Physical stats will improve over time once I heal up my debuffs, especially vitality which lets me do more overall magic, and I plan to have more points start showing up there to compliment the intelligence gains. Plus, there might be other ways to improve those base stats."

  Like doing cardio and workouts, and then applying healing magic to heal the muscle damage. He might be able to fast-forward an entire year's worth of training in a few days doing some insane hell-training montage. He'd crank out Eye of the Tiger and just murder himself a few hundred times over in the name of gains.

  Agility was good… but it had already served him. He could already land his shots, and shoot two glocks in his hands akimbo without missing at close enough range. Did he really need more?

  There might be edge cases where he was too far away and having more agility makes him a better shot, but those were edge cases.

  All he had to do was run a little closer before shooting, and his water mastery boots would cover that.

  No, he needed an increase that would be more constant benefit.

  Intelligence would help him right now with his new gear and the mana crystal, plus it'll continue to assist him on Earth while he's practicing in relative saftey.

  It's something that not only helps himself, but also helps his team and the people around him.

  Luck might do that. Intelligence was guaranteed to do that.

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  Play was not happy with that answer. She wanted luck.

  Think about it Michael~ with all these big name kills under your belt, you already got that S-tier end of round bonus on lock. Four extra coins just for that. That means you can buy your boons, a few critical upgrades like that minimap

  and then go allllll in on that extraction loot pathway

  Imagine the kind of stuff you'd get. Dovetails real well with the new challenge gauntlet rules, since we just saw luck can double dip your point gain. It's way more important than we give it credit imo now with those two added reasons.

  "It's still not worth just throwing the point into luck." Wade argued. "We already have 12 points from Market's buff, that's absurdly huge if you think about it. Imagine if I had ten strength, or ten agility?"

  Which was a disturbing thought - because if Market's blessing was this powerful, how strong would War's be for his little serial killer player running around somewhere?

  He really did need to snowball hard. Faster. Levels weren't coming out quick enough to make that much of a difference if his enemy had a blessing from the god of literal War. If he needed more stats, he'd need to hunt down big game out here.

  Although... the System had been plastering him with quests left and right. What if those were where the XP came from? Most of his completed quests weren't the ones given by the System, but rather the kill quests like the challenge gaunlets.

  What about the copper lootbox? It's out there, put a point into Luck before you open it up for best loot options. Commmmmonnnnnn

  "No, Play, Intelligence is the safer overall choice to go down."

  Fine. You leave me no choice.

  Wade felt a chill down his back.

  It's pretty clear to me mania wasn't a debuff on you, but an actual buff in disguise. You're way too levelheaded about things right now. it's BORING

  "Play, you can't just re-trigger mania in me." Wade rolled his eyes. "Plus, I can get Medy to eat it out of me now anytime. Plus-Plus, I don't feel all that much different with it gone. It did only show up in bursts-"

  Michael. There's an upgrade in this extraction loot tree that also adds monetary drops.

  "…. wait, what?"

  Yep. Says right here, adds guaranteed chances of monetary value being added to the loot pool. And it's an upgrade path so it scales up. Start by getting a free money each time you break stuff open, possibly grow that up.

  Wade stared at the phone. Something in his head was bubbling up.

  And it all starts with luck. Because luck is going to influence that money drop for suuuure. Maybe it's a flat amount, like 12% increased money drops on each guaranteed hit? It'll double dip on both loot and valuables~

  "Like, I open a drawer and twenty dollars just magically appears?"

  That'd be just the start. Think about it Michaeeeel~ in the not-too-distant-future, opening up all kinds of kitchen drawers and getting free one hundred dollar bills in every. single. draw.

  All it takes is just a few coins down the line in this treepath. Bankroll anything you want back on earth. Anything~

  Wade indeed thought about it.

  He knew it wasn't going to scale super well. Logicially, there will come a point in time where yanking a dozen drawers each night to get even twenty thousand dollars in just a few seconds wasn't where the real money was being generated anymore. The massive billionaires were making so much money every minute, it would be a waste of time to even open drawers like this anywhere.

  Stocks and compounding interest was where the real wealth got generated. He could be very rich as a person doing all this nightly extraction looting - but as a company, the monetary values were in the millions and billions, not just random thousands.

  Far, far out of reach for anything mechanical like opening lootboxes for just pure money, even if the System scaled it up with each upgrade.

  But on the other hand..

  On the other hand, getting to that point was going to require some monetary flat income. It didn't require all too much, just enough to cover some interest loans first, in order to unlock capital required for financing bigger industry.

  Which would then pay off those loans, and allow him to start doing more high-tier laundering techniques, such as using collateral for loans, allowing him to grab even larger sums of money - all beautifully tax free.

  The more he thought about it, the more it wrapped around his mind like a vice, whispering sweet nothings.

  Did you miss me?

  Caressing the hair on his head like a long-lost lover, brushing an ethereal finger over his cheek. Settling around his shoulders like the cheshire cat would. Wrapping a lock of hair around a claw, drawing closer and closer to his ear.

  I'll always be here with you Wade, deep down inside. It grinned. Not even an actual demon can get rid of me forever.

  A new debuff was applied: Mania.

  "We need to go all in on luck." Wade said, head snapping back up. "It makes perfect sense. Leveling isn't getting me up there fast enough, at least not until we figure out why the hell the System isn't working like a traditional video game would in experience and levels. But gear?" He looked down at his Glocks and his grenades. The real MVP of all this. What actually won him the fight.

  Sure that extra point in agility had helped him aim better, avoid any fumbles, and do things with far more natural grace - but none of that would have done jack squat without the actual gun and grenades in his hands.

  And those cost money.

  Levels were the sixth gear in the car. They'd be important once he'd already gotten the ball rolling downhill.

  First gear on the other hand? The thing to actually start his snowballing? It was all in gear baby.

  And that meant human gear, Azdrial gear, potions, equipment, weapons, armor, and so forth. Industry baby!

  That's where the real snowballing was going to start from, he'd already begun with just what he had on him now.

  He needed to keep going, shift up into second gear, and then floor it from there. More money paying for more gear, which would funnel more wins.

  He opened up his stats menu, and slammed down on that plus one button on luck increasing it by one.

  Nothing actually changed in him. He didn't feel any rush or physically better. But there was a gut feeling good things were going to happen.

  Or he'd given the System a little more wiggle room to help him in the future somehow.

  Assuming the System was on his side. There were 98 other players out there, why would the System be on his particular side compared to all the others from Earth out there?

  Well, he'd find out eventually.

  This round was functionally already won. Play was right, he was basically guaranteed that S-tier end-of-round score.

  All he had to do was find a way to get Medy and Bael back home and he'd be extra winning.

  Luck was going to serve him the best overall for this early-game. He already had enough intelligence to make things work well enough, one single point wasn't going to make a huge difference.

  Luck on the other hand? Well, it just might.

  There you go~

  His head snapped up, giving Eri a thumbs up as he holstered his glocks back into his belt.

  Time for the second important part of all this: Using that newly upgraded luck to go and knock that copper lootbox open.

  "Identify."

  Copper Lootbox Compass (System Quality)

  "Well, that's neat." He reached his hand down right at the base of the mud by his yellow rainboots, and pulled out the tiny thing. It pointed directly behind him.

  Back at the watchtower they'd been using as their main base.

  As it turned out, it was directly behind the watchtower.

  Copper Lootbox Chest (System Quality)

  Just as big as the silver and gold ones he'd come across. Wade rubbed his hands together, praying to the loot gods and the desire sensor out there that shined down upon all gacha games.

  Leon had pulled out a potion that would double a single stat point line for twelve hours. So that kind of reward from a copper chest would be useful, possibly change the shape of a single round, but not quite to the same level of change-the-game like Eri or Selena had been.

  He had to beat down his inner expectations from this.

  And also order Eri to beat down on the chest itself in the odd case it was a mimic happy-meal surprise.

  When he finally opened the box, it turned out to not be a mimic surprise.

  But it certainly was a happy one.

  Luck Triggered!

  There it was. There was the new point in luck already doing it's work. Wade cackled, glee in his eyes as he opened up the chest. Inside, when the light faded, he found a floating doorway key.

  Early Extraction Key - Consumable item that will end the user's round early. Can only be used in a safe location on a bed.

  Huh.

  "... Play, why exactly is the System calling this a lucky find?"

  Patreons on a poll.