Infinite Farmer-Chapter 143: Stat Potion

A day later, Tulland walked down the very center of a road. Once he was out of the underwater cave, he had swum in a chimera-augmented way until he found another bridge stretched across the river that had also been destroyed, and the corpse of one of the few people he didn’t know that well stretched across a rock that jutted up from the water. There could be more besides him who fell, died, and drifted off during his time in the cave. He tried not to think about that.

The important thing is that wherever your friends are, they are somewhere back the way you came.

The System had said that then in what it figured was an attempt to keep Tulland calm. He appreciated it, to the extent he could. He even resolved to keep his spirits up and to make smart choices, avoiding every patrol he could. There were more of them to avoid now, too. Word of their weakness had apparently got around, emboldening the dirt warriors to pull guard forces from their installments and send them hunting for Tulland’s people. Even without the elite team, that might have been enough to do it.

Then something had changed. Tulland had run into his first patrol, a group of three dirt men. Rather than run, he had covered their heads with his now-healed Chimera sleeves, taken them down one by one, and then found himself cornered by a much larger force the noise drew in. He had run, as shocked as anyone to find that he now could escape easily, so long as he had his weapon out. Apparently, at some point, the pitchfork had gotten so strong that its enhancement of his fighting footwork had leeched into his overall running speed, allowing him to move a bit faster and change directions a bit better. He had led that group on a wild goose chase, eventually losing them after they had run into several other groups and he had better than a hundred of them in tow.

This idea is stupid, you know. If you run into the elites…

There are hundreds of these groups. If I run into the elites, I run into the elites. I’ll still get to the canyon cliffs, and we know I can survive that fall.

Can and will are very different things.

It’s a risk. And the size of the reward modifies the risk. You’ve always told me that.

Of course.

If I can keep even a single patrol of Necia’s back, it’s worth it then.

Tulland moved as a group turned the corner of the forest path, saw him, and gave chase. Things were immediately tricky. He still wasn’t much faster than the group on straightaways, if he was at all. Arrow fire from the archers in the squad slowed him down every time he got hit, jolting him out of a perfect stride and costing precious fractions of a second every time. Given enough time, he’d get fatigued and they’d make up the gap.

To keep things going at a pace he could maintain, he had to improvise. He could take corners slightly faster than any of the warriors could, and the fact that they had to take corners together as a group added a bit more of a premium onto that gain. He tried to run them into places the trees grew close and gain time that way as well. Every little bit added up to him being able to slack his pace that much more, reaching a point where if it wasn’t quite an indefinitely sustainable thing, he could at least get several hours out of it.

Several hours was what he needed. Every several minutes, he’d find another patrol or pass another compound that would disgorge a unit of troops to join the hunt. He’d maneuver his run so that the two groups collided and had to sort themselves out, taking a few quick extra breaths as they did, and the go hunting for the next group. The System wasn’t wrong that he’d be in terrible trouble if the elites found him, but he had to bet that in a space this big, they just might not be in the area he was in. He kept the ravine close as a last-ditch escape route in any case.

Finally, he had a group of what he felt must be thousands of them in tow. It would have to be enough, he felt. He was getting mentally tired as well as physically worn out, and twice in the last hour he had made minor mistakes that he could have fallen to. By the time he made it to the canyon a few minutes later, he made another two. He had to end this now, or he’d be dead in the next five minutes.

Floating down the body of water had confirmed that there were bridges on it every so often, bridges that were fully intact and ready to be used. Some of them were larger, wider versions of the one they had initially used, suitable for bigger troop crossings. He had already been shown the best way to use them in combat, courtesy of Potter’s killer. Now he just had to make that happen.

Tulland crossed the bridge, absorbing damage from enemy arrows the whole way, turtled up as much into his plate mail as he could manage. By the time he reached the end, he had about half a minute to saw through the ropes and only needed about ten seconds of it. He let the bridge load up while still hanging by a couple of strands, only taking out that last bit of support once the closest grasping dirt warrior was inches from reaching him.

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The water was brown for a mile by the time the warriors stopped dying in the waters below. Tulland walked a ways away to make himself harder to find should the elites show up, and read the notifications he was always sure he’d get for the feat. He was hoping they would say he had done it, that this little parlor trick would be enough to let them out of the level. He wasn’t that lucky.

Massive Troop Depletion!

You have killed more than five hundred enemy troops in one encounter. Troops are an enemy resource, of course. In many ways, they are the main resource forts and supplies are meant to enable. Taken as a group, this mass kill counts for as much credit as a medium-sized installment, or even as much as two.

As you are not currently connected to your group, it cannot be counted towards your group’s total achievement. As such, you will be given a generic reward commensurate with the accomplishment.

You still say it’s not cheating? Tulland thought furiously.

It’s still not. It’s just not being generous. It might have been able to stretch that accomplishment to count towards your group. But group levels are meant to penalize individual action.

Except where they aren’t.

And where they aren’t, the System in charge will be obligated to make that clear. What’s more interesting, Tulland, is that you’ve just accomplished something that was two or three times what a well-coordinated group would have done on this floor, by yourself. How did The Infinite value that effort?

Whatever it is, it isn’t enough.

Keeping those troops away from Necia made it enough by itself. Whatever reward you got is a bonus. See what it is.

Tulland swallowed down bitter despair as he opened the prize notification, then gasped in spite of himself.

Stat Potion (Legendary)

This stat potion grants fifty permanent stat points, assignable in any way you desire.

I thought so. The System wasn’t smug, but seemed to have an academic interest in the way things were handled here he couldn’t just ignore. It’s treating it as if you were a top contributor to the level. Probably as a fail safe for someone like you getting kicked out of their group and succeeding beyond expectations despite the disadvantage.

Fifty points is… a lot. What do I do with it?

Whatever feels right, Tulland. This is, as they say, your last ditch. Put them wherever you think you might need that kind of effort.

Tulland looked at his status screen for a while. The temptation to put every point into force was strong, but at most that would make his plant abilities about a third stronger. In the safe zone, it would have been a no-brainer to do that. Here, he knew he’d never see the real benefits of it. He couldn’t get to his farm and overgrow it with those points, and most of the plants on the farm were already fully grown by now anyway. His vines would all be stronger, but they were already overpowered for helping him kill soil men on the one hand and nowhere near what he’d need to take out elites on the other.

He closed his eyes and dumped every single point into strength and agility in an even, fifty-fifty split. He had been thinking about that for a while, how his weapon was now so good that he no longer had the stats to make it shine. This would add raw power and speed to the control he got from his skills, and he could use that right away.

Tulland Lowstreet

Class: Chaos Farmer LV. 85

Strength: 60 (+5)

Agility: 60 (+5)

Vitality: 60 (+10)

Spirit: 110 (+5)

Mind: 70 (+10)

Force: 170

Skills: Primal Growth LV. 23, Produce Armament LV. 22, Market Wagon LV. 19

Passives: Broadcast LV. 20, Botanical Engineer LV. 21, Strong Back LV. 18, Fruits of the Field LV. 18, Farmer’s Intuition LV. 20

He gave himself another five minutes before he trotted off again. He needed to see how many more bridges there were, and how many more times he could run the same scam before he’d have to think of another way to help Necia.

The number of times he’d be able to do that little trick again, it turned out, was zero. There was one bridge left to the other side before the canyon opened out onto a deep, infinite ocean. He couldn’t risk destroying his only way back on anything but actually getting back, and he was almost completely sure he knew his friends were still on that side.

Sighing, he walked back over. He was almost zoned out by the time he reached the other end of the bridge, which meant it was a lucky stroke that the lone elite in his view seemed as surprised to see him as he was to see it when they came face to face at the edge of the tree-line.

Tulland jerked his Farmer’s Tool up to block the initial, almost immediate overhand strike from his enemy. He was surprised to his core when his block actually stopped the blow. It wasn’t just the weapon haft, which was more than up to the job of not getting cut in two, but his actual strength from his actual arms was enough to stop the attack cold.