Chương 111: Farming Prison

Meno went back to the storm center because there was nothing else to do. The process became ugly and repeatable: bait javelin into tree, grab fruit, climb the Second Dream Incarnate, strike, Break, move, bite, strike again. Around an hour later, he had three more Essence. Meno returned to the green-leaved safe spot, opened the Essence menu, and selected Storm Infusion. [Storm Infusion] Required Essence: 3 Unlock one new storm-infused ability or passive. Maximum Storm Infusions: 3. A second prompt appeared.

[Choose Infusion Type] [Passive] [Active Ability]"I think these Storm Infusions are definitely not class-specific. If they were, it would say add an additional class ability or passive." storm passive passive safe coward if passive"Passive is bait," Meno said.

"It is definitely something useless like 'while in Naraltan, become happier while standing still.' No thanks." He checked for the line that promised three options and found nothing. Unlike Modification or Replacement, Storm Infusion did not offer a choice after the type. It was going to be random, and an active ability at least had a better chance to become useful in some strange way. Meno selected Active Ability. [Storm Infusion Acquired: Stormpath] Teleport to Naraltan.

While there, activate Stormpath again to return to the location of its initial activation. Cast Time: 30 seconds. Taking damage interrupts the cast. Cooldown: 1 day, beginning upon initial activation. The return effect remains available while Stormpath is on cooldown. rip Essence scammed travel skill home button? useless here"I knew it." He closed and reopened the tooltip as if the wording might change under pressure.

"Gaining real combat abilities would have been too good," Meno said." Stormpath is currently one hundred percent useless. It does not help me leave at all." Chat laughed harder, because Meno had just spent an hour of suffering on a teleport that worked best for people not already stranded in Naraltan. Beautiful.

"No more Storm Infusions," he said.

"This is the point where I commit and grind Essence until I get forcibly logged out or evicted from my apartment. Whichever happens first." evicted??? rich btw he forgot rent classic"GraveMistake, any progress on that boat? Anyone online who actually knows?" Five overlapping answers arrived from people Meno barely recognized. The boat was ready. The boat needed nails. Ships apparently needed faction flags from Eastveil, which sounded invented. Then a name he knew appeared: the tank woman from his Wurm Express raid.

[Guild] Sabra: Yes. We are almost done with the quest chain to unlock the smallest guild ship. We need to clear the dungeon in Starfall Crown. Haven't done it before. Then probably Templefall Hollow once. We will have it in a day, I think. He had not cleared those dungeons either, but a few GraveMistake players were past fifty now. They could handle it or die enough times to learn. Meno had Essence to farm, and being rescued too soon would only give him an excuse to do something less efficient.

[Guild] Sabra: Getting to Naraltan from Westmarket is another problem. We have to sail all around the continent because Naraltan is past Eastveil, and Eastveil is hostile now.

"Thanks for the update," Meno said.

"Sounds good." He gritted his teeth and went back to farming prison. An hour later, something new came in from the outer storm, and Meno nearly slipped off the calamity's shoulder when he saw it. A figure rode toward the fight on a floating disk mount. It stood tall and broad, but not in any way that resembled normal flesh, and the system prompt appeared as it closed in. [Torno — Level 112 — Thornado Champion — Bard] Solar had taken a very liberal interpretation of his design seed.

Torno was not a weird little humanoid at all. It was a bulky elemental made of air, dust, and rock, taller than a Korka, with a tiny floating square head and enormous cyclone arms where pebbles spun together into ridiculous biceps. It had no visible legs, and its stomach was a twenty-four-pack mosaic of stone plates. It actually looked cool, which made Meno feel cheated. thornado THORNADO small brain rock bard??? Stormhold clip tiny head yes"I wanted it more ridiculous," Meno muttered.

He had no time to judge the design properly. He had a fruit in one hand, a sword in the other, and five champions harassing his route across the Second Dream Incarnate's upper back. The calamity rolled, and Meno struck its wing joint, triggered Break, and used the two-second speed window to cross between the wings before the spike circles finished forming below. Torno stepped off the floating disk and drifted toward a pink-skinned, red-striped female Lonachi archer with the confidence of a cinematic walk.

The Thornado lifted both massive cyclone arms, flexed at its rock-stomach, and taunted her while closing in slowly. The archer shot it four times. Torno shrugged off the arrows. Once it reached medium range, it equipped a long flute and began channeling wind through its own swirling body. The music was terrible enough that Meno took a wrong step on the calamity's back and dropped below the wing just as the boss's golden eyes flared.

Sleepless Grip saved him from the kneel effect, and he kicked off the air with False Wings, catching the lower ridge of the boss's back before the monk champion could punch him. The flute released a concentrated blast of air along with the awful sound. The Lonachi tried to dodge, but it was not a projectile. Air swallowed her into a bubble, lifting her helplessly above the ground while she kept shooting at Torno. The Thornado kept playing, unbothered, holding the channel like this was the highest form of art.

terrible flute bard grief friendly? delete this race And that was it. Torno seemed perfectly happy to hold the annoying ability forever. It did help by controlling the Lonachi, but the sound made Meno's farm harder to execute. He had created a champion that supported players by ruining everyone's concentration equally. The bubble ended as Meno consumed the fruit. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

[Essence Acquired] He angled toward the next tree to bait another javelin, but Torno stopped playing flute and summoned an instrument shaped like some ancient guitar. Meno did not know the name, and he had no time to look it up. The Thornado began drifting toward the Smovo monk currently punching the calamity. It strummed, and the sound that came out did not belong to strings. Thunder rolled through the air without Naraltan's permission.

The ground started quaking in medium range around the raid boss, catching champions, summons, and Meno just as he kicked toward a tree. The effect hit him even in the air and knocked him out of the sky while several champions fell on their backs. The calamity turned, charged Torno with a lightning punch, and punted the Thornado across the battlefield, canceling the performance.

bonked support tank music wipe Thorn diss track Meno landed hard, struck the boss's ankle, broke Chain, and used the speed burst to get away from the follow-up.

"Definitely as annoying as Thorn," he said.

"At least that's accurate." He regretted creating it completely, especially when Torno started floating back toward the fight in the distance with no urgency at all. The next hour passed in equal mystery. Meno learned to work around the Thornado because he had no better option. The flute could remove a ranged champion from the fight, which helped. The thunder instrument could ruin his route, which did not. Meno kept farming until time lost shape. Grab Essencefruit. Survive. Consume. Spawn another. Repeat.

He stopped reading chat. He stopped thinking about Oxy, Morlando, rent, Phantom frames, Kestrel's mythic scroll, and whether he had crossed some invisible line in his own life. Only the next second mattered, then the next strike, then the next break. Five hours in, the view count began dipping hard. At the start of the grind, more than six million viewers had been watching him. Now it sat a little above four million. The novelty was wearing thin, which was fair.

Boring farms had been part of MMOs forever, and most people liked the results more than watching the hours that made them possible. Meno did not care, because four million was still absurd, and Essence kept entering his status. At hour six, Torno got him killed. The Thornado lifted the Smovo monk in a wind bubble, drifted too close to the calamity's back, and popped the bubble directly beside Meno. The level one hundred twenty monk took the opportunity to punch him once. Meno died instantly.

[Death Penalty Applied: -400g] bard diff ban design credit small brain achieved Meno logged out long enough to shower. The water helped reset his skin, but not his mood. He drank from the sink, looked at his tired face, and decided that was enough real-world maintenance for someone who had already done too much real world today. Then he climbed back into the X7, summoned the Gravewurm, and rushed back to the center. By hour eight, everything blurred in a way he enjoyed.

Not blurry like sleep, but blurry like clean repetition. His hands knew when to strike. His feet knew when to kick. The two-second Break Infernal V window gave him room to breathe between choices, and movement-impairing immunity saved him from slows, roots, and nasty champion ground effects that would have killed him before the upgrade. The stream watched in long stretches of near-silence, broken only by chat rolling past and occasional ability names in the UI. By hour twelve, he was woozy.

He had died three more times, mostly to champions rather than the calamity. The deaths cost gold, but the Essence count kept climbing, so the exchange stayed acceptable. One death came from Raku's lightning net returning at the exact moment the calamity rolled. Another came from a Korka warrior hitting him with a thrown anchor-looking weapon that counted as movement impairment until the follow-up stun landed. The third was simply fatigue: a mistimed Break, a falling spike, and black screen. Meno returned each time.

At hour fifteen, capsule warnings began stacking again. He ignored them. Viewers: 2, 947, 008 People wanted fresh content. They liked first discoveries, insane plays, world announcements, arguments, and boss deaths. They liked the clip called "can't touch this," but fewer of them wanted to watch the cost of making that clip repeatable. That was fine. Practice was never glamorous while it was happening. Meno was sure Kestrel had hit sixty by now. His rank one might even be gone by the time this farm ended.

That was part of the cost too. The upgraded Break Infernal V kept proving itself. Two seconds changed the class, letting him attack, break, reposition, bite, and still have enough time to choose a route instead of panic-snapping into the nearest surface. Movement impairment immunity let him ignore several champion tricks that had previously forced emergency releases. The upgrade was worth every fruit. By hour eighteen, he had died five more times.

Gold bled away, fatigue made every run sloppier, and each death stole time through respawn and the run back. Chat started spamming for him to take a break. Some pleaded, some mocked, and some did both in the same sentence. rest log out bro stop Essence greed rank one corpse Meno ignored them. He had to get this nonsense done before the Second Dream finished whatever process would bring Vervenzal back. Once that happened, the current farm might vanish.

The calamity could move, reset, explode, transform, or turn Naraltan into an unplayable god zone. This was the window, so he used it. By hour twenty, he had farmed twenty-six Essence total, which should have been more. The longer he went, the slower the routine became. Deaths wasted time. Torno's music ruined several clean javelin baits. Champions adapted in clusters, waiting near likely trees or trying to knock him away from the calamity before fruit spawned.

He considered stopping to upgrade more skills and rejected it. Most of them barely mattered to the farm right now. Sometimes he used Pump Infernal into Madness Infernal to store Detonations, but mostly for Pull Infernal releases that repositioned champions. Damage was insignificant against level one hundred-plus targets, and attempts to store enough Detonations for a kill kept ending with death and lost stacks. Releasing constantly kept him alive, which mattered more. The next three hours became mostly motion.

Meno's thinking thinned into pattern recognition until there was no grand strategy, only dodging, pulling, surviving, and turning the calamity's own attacks into fruit spawns. His hands moved before words could form. Twice he died anyway, and both times, he respawned, mounted, returned, and continued. At the twenty-four-hour mark, the capsule warning sharpened. Meno logged out for a one-hour nap to preserve his brain and set the loudest alarm possible. Without it, he would have slept through the next day.

He woke with his mouth dry, heart still faster than he liked, and the alarm screaming beside his head. For a few seconds, he did not know whether he was in his apartment, the lab, Naraltan, or the Phantom. After drinking water, he climbed back into the capsule and returned to Naraltan. The farm continued. Viewership dropped to two and a half million, then wavered there. His sister sent several texts telling him to rest.

He read one during a death run and closed the messages without answering, because any reply would either lie or invite follow-up questions. Lysa would not accept "farming fruit under a winged calamity until my life stabilizes" as a plan. At hour thirty, hunger hit hard. The nutrient paste's ten thousand calories had finally burned away. Meno logged out and walked outside like a zombie.

He bought pizza and a six-pack of energy drinks from a corner place where the cashier recognized him but wisely chose not to start a conversation. He ate two slices on the walk back and finished the first energy drink before reaching his door. The eviction deadline was coming up. They probably would not throw him out exactly at the forty-eight-hour mark. Probably. He logged in again anyway. At hour thirty-six, his phone buzzed during a return run. Chadculator. Meno did not remember giving him his number.

Maybe he had. Maybe Oxy had. Maybe Brad had sold it in a sponsorship bundle by accident. It did not matter. Chadculator: Ship unlocked. Took longer than expected. We are leaving for Naraltan soon. Meno smiled faintly and climbed back onto the calamity. At hour thirty-seven, another message arrived. Chadculator: Capsized halfway. Level 85 octopus attacked. Couldn't handle it. Paying repair cost and restarting. Meno laughed once, and it almost got him killed. At hour thirty-eight, Chad messaged again.

Chadculator: Died again. Jagged Sea route to Naraltan is horrible. Rock shelves have high level bird monsters. They attack on sight. Meno did not answer as a level one hundred eight warrior tried to hook him off the calamity's wing, and Break Infernal V let him ignore the slow field long enough to kick free. At hour thirty-nine, Chad sent one final update. Chadculator: Almost there. Meno had fifty-two Essence. The number looked fake. His body felt less fake, and that was the problem.

The capsule warning had advanced from suggestion to threat. Another extended push would trigger an eight-hour lockout, and this time he believed it. His hands were still moving, but the clean place in his head had begun to fray at the edges. After one last return to the green-leaved tree, he logged out. The X7 opened with a soft hiss, and the room tilted slightly when he sat up. His heart beat too fast from exhaustion, energy drinks, and too many hours of full-focus movement.

Fifty-two Essence should be enough for now. It had to be. He set a one-hour timer. Chadculator might actually reach Naraltan by then, and the capsule timer would ease enough for Meno to upgrade skills and leave this hell on a guild ship if the sea did not eat them first. Meno collapsed into bed, and the alarm waited beside him like a threat. He closed his eyes and fell asleep thinking of upgrade paths, fifty-two Essence, and the fact that somehow, after all that, it still might not be enough.