”What doesn’t?” Issi asked with a confused expression.

”The monster upgrades. I had only been thinking about the monster level previous because that took my eyes, but I should have been looking at the spawn interval instead,” Ning said.

”I don’t get what you’re trying to get at, leader,” Drake said.

Ning turned towards him and asked, “How do we get points?”

”Uh… by killing the monsters?” Drake asked with a confused look.

”And what determines how many points we get?” he asked.

”By who finishes first. Where are you getting at?” Drake asked impatiently.

”If the monster spawn interval could be abused to improve the speed at which the monsters spawned. Then the top 5 people from the very start of the match would have a constant way to keep earning the points to increase their own points,” Ning said.

”That sort of unfairness is not something I would expect out of genesis,” Ning said.

”What do you think will happen then?” Derel asked.

Ning thought for a moment and said, “I have an idea. We will need to experiment with that though. We will need to kill the next beast within the top 3.”

”Okay, leave that to me,” Derel said and walked away from her spot.

”Where are you going?” Ning asked.

”Isn’t it better to go sit right by where the beast spawns to kill it fast?” she asked.

”Yes,” Ning nodded. “But we have some time. Look.”

He pointed at the clock that hung in the sky. They now had about 25 minutes remaining. Ning opened up the upgrades and pressed on the Reduce Monster Rate option, immediately spending 10 of the 14 points he had.

Then, he waited. As the timer slowly wound down, he saw that people had noticed what his team had done and sent their own fighters next to where the monster appeared to fight it.

Ning watched the timer high in the sky, not removing his eyes from it even as it got down to the last 5 seconds.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

He heard a bang in the distance, but his eyes didn’t move from the timer. As soon as the timer had reached 0, it immediately restarted.

Only, this time instead of starting at 30:00, which was the time remaining before the next monster spawned. The timer actually started at 29:30.

Ning’s suspicions came true.

”I was right,” he said solemnly, but loud enough that the returning Derel could hear him.

”What were you right about?” Issi asked curiously.

”The Tower upgrades, it most definitely improves this tower behind us and only this,” Ning said. “But the monster upgrades seem to work for every single monster that spawns for every group.”

”Oh,” Derel gave a surprised look too. “So you mean to say that if you press that monster improvement button, it will bring out a stronger monster just for us, but all the others as well?”

”Yes, that is what I suspect,” Ning said. “The spawn rate already works like that, I don’t see what the level shouldn’t.”

”That means you can either make the game easy for yourselves by improving the tower, or make it hard for others by improving the monster,” Drake said.

”Yes,” Ning said. “If we’re confident that we can beat every monster that comes our way, going for the monster upgrades is the way to go.”𝗈𝚟𝐿xt.𝗇𝓔t

”But if only we go for monsters and other end up strengthening their own towers, we might end up regretting it,” Ning said.

”What should we do then?” Drake asked.

”I… I can’t tell which is better,” Issi said.

Ning found benefits in both of those choices, but there were also drawbacks. ‘I should be one of the strongest person here, but I can’t discount the fact that there might be someone stronger than me too,’ he thought.

Derel looked at the 3 with a slightly confused look. “What’s the problem then?” she asked. “Can you little worms not come up with such an obvious answer that you need me to give it to you?”

”Oh? You have a suggestion?” Ning asked.

”Of course, the answer is obvious,” the dark-skinned girl said. “You hoard the points.”

”It’s fair and simple right?” she asked. “You just keep your points until you really need it. If the monsters get hard, you invest everything into the tower.”

”If others start suffering from the monsters, you add a bunch of levels to just get rid of them at once. There is nothing that says you should be using your points at all here,” she explained.

”Right,” Ning said with a surprised expression. “I can’t believe I didn’t see the third option.”

”It’s no matter. I’m used to hoarding stuff, so it comes easily to me,” she said.

Ning nodded and looked back at the upgrades. The cost of reducing spawn rate of monsters had jumped to 15 now. That was probably to stop them all from reducing it to nothing very quickly.

Ning looked at the top and saw the number 22. “We were second this time?” he asked.

”Yes,” Derel said with a frown. “Someone was faster than me.”

”It’s understandable, I guess,” Ning said. “They were all waiting for the monsters to spawn. Just the fact that we got second place is good enough.”

Derel nodded, but she still couldn’t keep the disappointment away from her face when she remembered the 18 points that floated afterwards.

”Right, I didn’t watch you kill the monster. Was it a rabbit again?” he asked.

”Yes, the same as the first time,” Derel said.

”Hmm… so no one must have improved the monsters,” Ning said with some thought.

”Alright, since we are going to horde points, we are going to do it the best way possible,” Ning said.

”We will try to get every single 20 points we can,” Ning said.

Derel and Issi nodded, while Drake gave a slight chuckle. He was no longer ‘dying’, but he still looked dead.

’I can wait until the sun goes down to see how he is,’ Ning thought.

Then, he turned and focused back on the time that said there was about 25 more minutes to go.