We came to a stop for the night at our grinding spot and I began clearing out the flying and level 6 monsters nearby. My mind was focused on that last fight and if I should respond in any way and the implications of what just happened.

Once could be a coincidence, no matter how unlikely that the airship had been struck by a super attack at that precise point in time. I didn't believe it was an accident, but I wasn't about to get worked up when I didn't know where the Sword was.

This time, it had just run across me at the precise day I went to turn in my points from grinding. I didn't believe that for a moment. Just happening to show up at the right time and place just wasn't a possibility in my mind.

There were other abilities in play. That Sword was powerful, insanely powerful. I would say it was weaker than the Sphere only because it seemed to require a human to hold it. The human was the weak link in the pair. It would be more accurate to say the Sword was wielding a human to leverage its full abilities, or it could be under some kind of restriction.

The Sword was going to show up again. That was going to happen without a doubt. As I killed another level 6 monster, my anger slowly drained out of me. I had used the same strategy against the Divine Empress, but I was still going to complain. Running away from stronger threats and annoying them was my strategy.

The Sword had just been smoking slightly after that final attack. No visible damage. That had been the single strongest attack I had ever unleashed. I had been increasing my energy for just this purpose, but even with such a super attack, it was unphased. The Sphere would have taken damage from such a blast. I had tried to concentrate it as much as possible, but the Sword had remained unharmed.

I needed to think about upgrading my skills even more, but I was hesitant in that regard. I had won the fight, by being smart and overwhelming attacks timed well. My skills were decent enough in my mind. It was a question of unleashing more attacks. If I had three or four follow up attacks at the level of power of my first two, the Sword might have been permanently damaged.

The fact it was smoking, steaming, or releasing some kind of visible gas, was a sign it was struggling. If one attack didn't work, add on more attacks. If I could keep up the pressure, it wouldn't be able to counterattack either. Annihilation blasts disrupted energy. Small scale tests of enchantments had revealed this.

Normally the destruction effect was more powerful, and it didn't matter. Kind of like how a nuclear bomb would generate an electric magnetic pulse. You would be more worried about the actual nuclear explosion than side effects. But in this case the side effect was quite useful for destroying something like the Sword.

Just hit it over and over again with annihilation attacks, and eventually it would break apart. Which meant, my strategy was the same. Just get stronger by grinding up more stats. All my problems and enemies could be solved with enough power. Well maybe not all my problems, since Qi Ji Long had discovered the wonders of terrorism.

I could never let that Sword get an attack off. The power of its shield and that cutting slice were immense. One hit and I would be vaporized or take severe damage. The fact that the energy of its moves were golden in color was a bad sign.

Just a random fight out of nowhere. Completely and utterly pointless in my mind, but I guess the Sword might be gathering knowledge about me. It didn't seem very smart, since it just kept sending people to die against the Monster I had personally finished off. While insanely strong, it didn't have a wielder capable of surviving long enough.

The human wielding the weapon was not just a liability, but a crippling weakness. The real problem was once someone actually strong picked it up. If I had a weapon like that, I would instantly win against everything. But once again, no one was willing to work togeather or at the very least tolerate each other.

"Pointless, utterly pointless," I muttered. At least I got to go all out and carve out pieces of the plaza with my attacks, glad I had maneuvered away from the store pillars. That could have been an utter disaster. I let out a sigh.

Being at the top wasn't easy. Everyone was always trying to take you down in one way or another. It was funny that I thought I would have peace and an easy life if I just got enough power. Now I was scrambling to get even more power to stay ahead of all the threats. Put without all of that, I wouldn't have been able to locate my mother.

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Out of all the failures, and other aspects of running an Empire, which was the one thing that had worked out. Sure, it was messed up later by Qi Ji Long, but the process had worked. Now it was all wrecked.

I knocked on the cabin door, and I heard Dylan wake up. He came outside as I leapt off the air boat. I then made a fairly large loop around the airboat while clearing out the monsters. Dylan followed behind me grabbing up the crystals that didn't disappear into the lava, leaping from chunk of rock to chunk of rock.

One the surrounding area was clear, I waited for a little bit, but no more monsters showed up. Sometimes one would show up a bit after clearing the ones that had spawned around the air boat. Better to wait an extra minute to make sure there were no surprises before going to sleep. As I lay down in bed, I couldn't help but feel tired.

Was this going to be the rest of my life? Grinding and fighting. As I lay there in the darkness with my eyes closed, it was hard to go to sleep. I knew this was what I signed up for, and I had doubts in the past. But they never truly went away. They were just pushed to the side or buried. Also, if I hadn't become strong, I would have become just one more person who had died with no one to mourn them. I had to become strong, but I just seemed to accumulate enemies one after another that I couldn't defeat.

At least I had someone keeping me company while I cleared out monsters' day after day, earning billions of points. Dreams weren't all they were cracked up to be unfortunately. I pushed the thoughts to the side, like I did countless times before and drifted off to sleep.

"Wake up, breakfast," Dylan said, and I instantly woke up. He handed me a bowl of chopped fruit. I took it and began eating.

"Ready for another fun day of grinding?" I asked as I ate my fruit.

"Yep. It really is like a job," Dylan said.

"It is. Too bad there is no music, but being distracted is not a good idea," I replied.

"Don't try singing again. Please. You are good at many things, but not singing," Dyland said.

"I have a great singing voice. I will let you know. The monsters are huge fans," I countered with a smile.

"You are trying to weaponize your voice, aren't you?" Dylan asked and I nodded.

"It needs work and I need to train the talent more to get it just right while fighting and breathing. I rush in and unleash an overpowered scream that sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Its like a free skill," I replied.

"Why didn't you use it on your last opponent?" Dylan asked.

"Timing and practice. Using something half baked is worse than not using anything at all. I need the shriek to be perfectly ear splitting. Body stat is useful for strengthening those vocal cords. Also, it is a great way to draw in monsters, so I don't have to chase them down," I added.

Dylan brought up a fork with a piece of strawberry at the end and pointed it at me before shrugging and eating it. "That Sword, that's what destroyed the Crystal Vortex the previous time?"

"Yes, actually. Super long ranged attack. Why?" I asked.

"I had friends on board," he replied.

"My condolences," I replied.

"We all knew that we were going to die. It was a question of when, not if. I am the last one left of your personal guard," Dylan said.

"Well, once you pay back your debt to me with another 250 days of picking up crystals, you will be in a very good position after that. You can handle high level 4 combat, possibly low level 5 combat. You can easily grind up more points if you wish or keep working for me to earn more points."

"You really are going to do this for a long time?" Dylan asked.

"Just realizing that?" I asked back.

"Well, I came onboard after the Sword took out the last Crystal Vortex. You spent years grinding before that, right?" I asked.

"Yes. But it was more exploration and grinding at the same time. I should probably look for the last of the level 7 zones around the West half of the Systemic Lands. But that can come after I get enough stats. Exploring like that really requires a much larger airship due to the risks of crossing void zones and damage," I replied.

We finished off breakfast, just as the light source was coming up over the horizon. I got up and stretched a bit and rolled out my neck. Another day of grinding, the start of another session. My mind went back to the first monsters I had faced. The slimes and the wolves. Now I didn't much care for the type of monster. I just blasted away.

It wasn't anything against the monsters, just that they were all defeated by blasting them. The stronger the attack power, the less worried I had to be about anything weird they might try and attempt. The real limit while grinding wasn't my energy reserves, but my energy regeneration.

I regenerated 10 energy per second, with my 60,000 Regeneration stat. It would need to be much higher to be useful in combat. As it was, it was good enough for the grinding I had to do. If I could get it high enough to be useful in combat, that would be insane. But that would take a lot more stat points.

With how I could adjust the various aspects of my skills with the advanced skill upgrades, it made more sense to have a larger tank to spam super powerful attacks over and over in a short period of time to kill whatever was threatening me.

Mind would probably be the next stat I would increase after Spirit. To be able to react more quickly. It would allow me to take my time to aim better with my skills. More high damage precision attacks, to reduce the cost. Right now I had to go with fairly wide area attacks to make sure I hit what I was aiming for.

I could move faster than I could think, which made aiming difficult. I had to plan out set attack patterns in my mind and commit to them, like I had when the Sword had turtled up. Well something to think about as I started up another long grinding session.

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