Carly was utterly amazed at the potency of the spider venom. Repeating her attack, she observed the effectiveness of the poison. It took until the fifth locust before the venom lost sufficient potency, that it did not kill the insect with a single strike. A second strike on the locust's other leg joint was still more than enough to finish it off, however.

On the sixth locust, the venom proved ineffective, starting at 24-damage for the seventh attack with the punch dagger and dropping to half that on the eighth attack. The ninth had no venom effect applied, and Carly was forced to relentlessly pound the punch dagger into the insect's soft joints, eyes and head until it died. It was not a hard fight even one-handed, so Carly was happy at the result. It seemed the locusts were more a one trick mob that was pretty easy to dispatch. The insect was quite durable, with its exoskeleton reducing Carly's punch effectiveness by 36-damage. Fortunately, the joints were unprotected, this vulnerable area reduced her attacks by a mere 6-damage.

She tried out her left arm, and it was already much improved. Carly reapplied the venom to her push dagger, just dipping the tip into the liquid and retying the bottle before continuing. She did not know it, but while Carly had been working on her shoulder, the event clocked over 12-hours since the event started. She had traveled 40-kilometers within that time.

Early during the second lap, Carly's left shoulder was completely healed and could once again fight and move without restriction. Not that she needed to worry much, only a single strike required most of the time. That, along with Carly's ever-increasing [Constitution] stat, she was able to progress very efficiently. By conserving her endurance, Carly was able to reach lap-50 without taking a break, though only just. It was a nice change of pace and Carly finally felt things were starting to go her way in the event.

She took a break to reduce her thirst, hunger, and fatigue while also gaining back her endurance and mana. She was slightly annoyed the next mob she had to fight was another insect. The foraging ants where considerably more robust than the locusts, less vulnerable and more agile. Defeating them required more maneuverability and patients before Carly was able to strike with the envenomed push dagger. The result was, fortunately, the same. A single strike enough to kill. It allowed Carly to make substantial gains against the elimination boundary. She continued to boost her [Constition] with any spare DP while upgrading her skills whenever they leveled.

With so much [Constitution], and the spell [Regen] doubling its bonus, Carly could see a substantial reduction in the time it took to reduce her [Fatigue]. She knew that she was going to continue to improve as she plowed more and more points into both whenever possible.

It was more of the same for the next mob. However, the one after Carly felt was quite ridiculous.

The Whipping Cutter was a plant, and since the loop was made of perfectly formed flooring and walls where no dust and dirt accumulated, these things were sitting in large pots. They had a dozen fronds that would attack from various angles. Carly went back to using her mana blade which easily sliced through the thin vines of the plant in seconds. The easiest way to defeat these was just to cut through the central stork before ripping the roots out of the pot. She assumed the effect from doing this was accelerated since she received the death message about a minute later. Carly took some damage with each plant, but it was all minor cuts. With her hit points and regeneration boosted so much, such things were a minor annoyance and did not overly slow her progress. The plants were clearly not equipped to deal with anything that had a modicum of defense and turned out to be easy prey with the mana blade.

One of the things Carly noticed at this point was that the new mob groups were increasing in experience rewarded by half as much as previous. Secondly, there was a massive exodus of competitors during this period. She assumed the pressure applied from some of the mobs, especially those spiders dramatically impacted peoples fighting capability. One bite from a spider would be enough to ruin most competitors chances, Carly believed. Also, if someone was too slow to avoid a locust attack, all sorts of problems could arise. Add in need for fluids and food plus the ever-mounting pressure of fatigue piling onto each individual and no support. It was a harsh environment to get by in, where a single mistake could be devastating.

It was a testament to Carly's single-minded focus that on Lap-76, her [Constitution] stat reached 400. It provided significant gains for her health and endurance, along with their regeneration rates. More importantly, however, increased her [Fatigue] recovery rate from 1-point for every 10-minutes of rest, down to 6-minutes for the equivalent. This was a good thing because with increased endurance meant she required far fewer rest periods if she was conservative with her movement speed and minimal with her combat actions, though that was thanks to the spider venom.

It was quite a remarkable achievement that by this stage, going for 18-hours and 16-minutes, Carly had only accumulated 23-percent fatigue.

She left [Constition] at 400 and began acquiring enough movement skills to enable Carly to get [Movement Forte]. This happened on lap-88, with the idea that with all jogging and dodging she could steadily level it up and enhance her speed while lessening her endurance usage even more.

Shortly after on lap-91, around 21-hours and 11-minutes along in the loop challenge Carly finally purchased her mana regeneration enhancement spell she had long ago labeled [Mana Double Dip Plus] for the cost of 640-minutes. It left her with just 107 minutes ahead of the elimination boundary. Carly obviously felt quite vulnerable for a while after but continued to complete laps far quicker than the boundary time thanks to the spider venom.

During this nervous period immediately after adding the enhancement spell, Carly upgraded [Strength], [Speed], [Agility], and [Reaction]. It was an attempt to feel out what would give Carly the best boost for the DP outlay. After upgrading each one twice, Carly was in more of a conundrum that when she started. The [Strength] stat helped considerably for the obvious damage boost on physical damage. While [Agility] helped to avoid damage and gain advantageous positions for her attacks. The problem Carly discovered, was [Strength] was influenced by [Frame]. If Carly increased her [Strength] by more than 20-percent above her [Frame] stat, she ran the risk of injury. Most likely tearing tendon from bone if overexerting during an attack. Despite the obvious benefits from stats in the long run. Carly generally found the physical stats underwhelming when she had access to skills and spells. Especially after investing so much into the mana regeneration enhancement. With a few upgrades on it, she was sure she could turn her summoned mana construct [Melee] spell into a thing of utter devastation.

During lap-106, Carly reached the 24-hour milestone. Despite competing non-stop, her high [Constitution] and regular breaks to drink and eat allowed her to keep moving forward.

The venom ran out eventually on lap-118. It lasted so long simply because it was so very effective. Carly could only congratulate herself for taking the risk to milk the spider venom. It had paid off immensely. She considered doing the same with a snake when she came across, but it turned out to be a constricting type rather than venomous. A quick jab made with the envenomed push dagger turned them into an easy win.

At the point the venom ran out, Carly's lap times jumped from 14-minutes per kilometer to just over 20-minutes. She further saw a doubling of fatigue accumulating since she had to defeat the mobs in much more physically exerting martial assault.

To alleviate this Carly could only take more regular breaks to recover.

This went on for a long time, and while Carly made gains in her time against the loop elimination boundary, it was countered by these rest periods.

During this time, the only mob of note was the slightly disturbing Mousekin Child Skeletons. They were not particularly dangerous but did take quite a beating to their skulls before they ceased moving. The fact that it was a young child between four and six if it was human, just felt weird and kind of wrong to be fighting. It was a psychological thing since their small size and skeleton slow speed made it incredibly easy to put them down. Disturbed as Carly felt, she did not let them hold her back, relentlessly putting them into prone positions while pounding on their skull until it broke.

* * *

< Your [Fatigue] is currently at 32%, resulting in 1% reduced damage >

< Your [Mental Exhaustion] is at 35% reducing your ability to perform tasks >

It was at this point that Carly chose to sleep and recover from her fatigue accumulations. She had a stockpile of 449-minutes and so could afford some time to rest rather than suffer additional penalties from her mental exhaustion level. She could feel it, while her stats had increased she felt like she was starting to get slower in the fights. Not wanting to make mistakes that would result in her getting injured and perhaps eliminated, Carly elected to rest impressed by her effort of looping for 32-hours and almost 20-minutes by the time she completed the lap.

Despite the hard concrete surface of the safe room, she rolled up her backpack, resting her head on it like a pillow and almost immediately fell asleep. About 4-hours later she startled awake, feeling near to fully refreshed. It was as though she had slept for triple the time, of course, this was the result of her high [Constitution]. Taking in some water and food, Carly wasted no time getting back out onto the loop and continued to boost her skills. In between, she improved her physical stats with a particular emphasis on boosting her mana pool and regeneration.

Carly did have the odd moment of concentration lapse along the way, where she would make a mistake while fighting a mob, though these were few and far between. The laborious process became blurred in routine, yet with absolute determination, she kept progressing mob after mob, lap after lap.

* * *

It was right at the start of the eleventh day of the Loop Elimination Event. Carly woke up from her seventh sleep. After performing some dynamic movements, she exited the safe room to do a slow warm-up lap and grab some fresh breakfast.

Carly, now with [Basic Ground Movement Forte], [Gymnastic Movement Forte], and [Parkour Forte] combining them into [(Uncommon) General Ground Movement Forte]. Whenever Carly could she upgraded the [Basic Ground Movement Forte], and [(Uncommon) General Ground Movement Forte], this allowed Carly to run and move more explosively and yet conserve endurance at the same time. It also combined with her martial fortes to gain advantageous positioning for attacks and greatly assist defensively. This was such a vital foundation for her progress through the loop. Carly fought with the conservative mindset, avoiding damage at all cost and take opportunities to attack when they arose.

That is not to say she was only defensive, to the contrary, Carly also combined [Boxing Forte], [Kickboxing Forte], [Muai Thai Forte], and [Unarmed Defensive Forte]. These fortes accessed many of the same skills. This saved on development points invested by using the majority of the same skills to complete the requirements for them. They combined into [(Uncommon) General Unarmed Martial Forte]. This uncommon forte she invested in whenever she could, enhancing the damage, accuracy, and efficiency of her attacks.

With further investment, Carly had raised [Constitution] to 600-points, which further improved her fatigue recovery speed. She could now recover one point of [Fatigue] after just 4-minutes of meditative rest. There was, of course, the other benefits, her greatly enlarged health and endurance pools, regeneration rates and general resistance to various damage types that also went with this stat.

Carly had run out of food on day six and water on day four. Fortunately, water was very cheap to purchase from the Extant Upgrade Store, and since it was mostly small to medium-sized beasts she was fighting, she had no issues with food. All Carly had to do was wait until she was fighting against a mob with some decent meat on its bones. After she killed it, with a bit of mana blade butchery and an investment of flint, kindling, and firewood, along with a grill and some bricks to set it on, she now had a barbeque mealtime, every mealtime. On the other hand, there was no water in the loop, so she always had to purchase it from the store. It was very cheap though, and Carly had no issues there.

Her growth throughout the event from her use of DP, enhancing stats, skills, and her two spells kept her in positive lap time territory. This eventually accumulated finally purchasing [Elven Steel Low Heeled Plate Boots] early on the fifth day. Following that after upgrading them with runes, she did the same once more and purchased [Elven Steel Blade Gauntlets] at eight days and just over three hours along in the event. Using Elven Steel was considerably more expensive than many other alloys available, but they came with a considerable advantage in rune points. The value of runes had been thoroughly carved into Carly's heart after using the push dagger.

Immediately after the blade gauntlets purchase, Carly sold her [Iron Push Dagger] back to the store, trying to recover as many precious minutes as possible. She found the 12-minutes quite distasteful with the weapon still in perfect condition thanks to the [Full Restore] rune. It was pitiful compared to the massive outlay of 1440-minutes, which just happened to be the elimination boundaries starting value for the event. That 1440-minutes did include the cost of the blade gauntlets and the four lots of [Full Restore] rune applied while the item was still virgin new.

The elven steel items came with a whopping 855-rune points for each boot, with the mandatory 80-rune points spent for the [Perfect Fit] rune. Still, 755-rune points left many options. The boots comprised of a shin guard and boot single item. This combination reduced the minute currency cost compared to a boot and separate shin guard and increased the total rune points. Since Carly most often kicked with her right leg, on her left boot was enhanced with [Conserve Endurance] 120-rune points and [Full Restore] 120-rune points. This was to maximise her endurance use efficiency and maintain maximum effectiveness of both defense and offense of the item.

The right boot had the [Perfect Fit] and [Full Restore] rune. When she gained enough minute currency, she added two lots of [Stunning Impact] 160-rune points and three lots of [Daze] 100-rune points. Rounding the item out she finished it with an [Enhanced Crush] for 30-rune points, which left just 5-unused rune points.

The blade gauntlets were much the same as the boots, the gauntlet and bracer were considered a single armor piece with the same rune points as the boots. For those combined components, the runes she added were [Perfect Fit] and [Full Restore], leaving the armor component on both hands with 655-rune points unused. The item also came with a third component, the blade attached to the front and back parts of the bracer piece. The blade extended past the closed fist of the gauntlet by an extra 200-millimeters.

It also had [Perfect Fit] and just like the boots the first thing she added before use was [Full Restore] on both hands. When she gained enough minute currency later, she added three lots of [Corruption] to both hands leaving 10-rune points unused on each hand. Carly figured it would work as a lesser version of the spider poison from the first day. It took another 16-hours after purchasing the gauntlets, on lap-491, Carly finally finished adding in all these runes for the blade gauntlets.

To conserve mana, Carly staggered the activation of her many runes from her boots and blade gauntlets. The total cost of activating the combat beneficial runes amounted to a considerable 5,300-mana every two hours. While it was not a trivial cost, the DPs Carly invested into mana, potential, and her magic stats, 250 for each of them resulted in Carly regenerating 138-mana out of combat per minute. With her [Concentration] based permanent buff assisting, by reducing the combat regeneration penalties, across two hours she roughly regenerated 8000 mana, well positive over her expenditure. Moreover, this did not include any downtime where she would use her [Regen] spell. The benefits provided by the activated runes were quite staggeringly and worth the expense. Simply put, a fully activated boot and gauntlet rune set, massively enhanced Carly's combat potential.

Carly held off on purchasing the final two arcane spells until after her sixth, four-hour sleep. It was most definitely a testament to how remarkable having a high [Constitution] stat really was. She built her minute reserve up to ensure after purchase she still had plenty of time before finally going back to the checkout in the store. On lap-526, with 448-minutes accumulated, Carly mentally completing the purchase of both the [Enhance] and [Range] spells. The cost brought her back to 208-minutes, she was comfortable with that, and she finally had the completed suite of four arcane spells she had been advised to purchase.

When Carly activated the [Enhance] spell, and suddenly lost 500-mana from her pool. This was the reserve the spell required to continue to function. Despite the hefty cost, Carly could only feel impressed as that mana coursed throughout her body strengthening and reinforcing bone, muscle and connective tissue alike. Even her skin felt like it was slightly more resilient when she plucked at it. The spell gave Carly a 5-percent boost across her physical stats, with upgrades it would become a truly monstrous boost to her power. She felt like kicking herself, had she known it would be this good she would have purchased it before getting the boots and gauntlets. It probably would have meant Carly would have invested her DP quite differently, focusing much more on the physical stats rather than magic stats. That investment would have helped boost the effectiveness of her boots and gauntlet also.

Hindsight is 20/20 though, and mistakes were made. However, Carly realised quickly, that the most important thing was that she was still in the event, still producing positive lap times and, despite her mistakes, she was getting closer to the pointy end of the field.