Evolution conditions met: Sword proficiency ranks up to sword mastery

Swords may come in many different styles, but the general idea of getting a long bit of metal and sharpening one or both sides is about as ubiquitous as weapons can get. There's a reason why they're so popular; they work. In fact, they work well enough that you were able to take down a natatio sideralis, daemonium spina and daemonium brutum with one. This skill greatly increases your competence and damage when attacking with a sword.

Evolution conditions met: Cutting damage resistance ranks up to cutting damage nullification

Swords, axes, chakrams or scythes, plenty of weapons work by concentrating a large force into a sharp edge. You have survived the removal of a limb, as well as, somehow, a full beheading, earning you this upgrade from resistance to nullification. This skill will make your body much harder to cut.

I stood over the corpse of my fallen foe, panting as the jeers from the spectators rolled over me. It wasn't that they had anything against me, or disproved of me beating a demon. They jeered everyone. The demon spectators were equal opportunity jeerers.

The bulky, five metre humanoid demons I'd seen on floor four but had never been close enough to appraise turned out to be named daemonium brutum. Physical fighters with no magical ability, and muscles where their brain should be. Not great for a conversation, but perfect for training my neglected combat skills.

I noted with disappointment that the sword skill evolution message lacked the 'without a scratch' part that it had the last time. I felt that was unfair; I hadn't taken any scratches. There was no way having an arm lopped off counted as a scratch, and nor did having a sword run through my lung. They were both far too large wounds to be considered scratches. I did have to laugh at the bit about surviving a beheading, though. When was that? Ah, right, when I was licking up black blight stuff to train my disease immunity, and dupliKatie wanted to make very sure we didn't get a third sister.

Actually, from the way my panting didn't appear to be achieving anything, I think he got both lungs.

Suffocation tolerance advanced to level 5

Yup, both lungs. Thankfully, the abyss had a shrine, so I didn't have to walk down here from floor four after every defeat. There had been a lot of those over the past day, but at least I had a lot to show for it. When I first joined the arena fights, I struggled against one of the imps, and now here I was, forcing a draw against one of the giants.

Best of all, we could fight without restraint. I respawned, while they... were fake. Not in the sense of being soulless monsters, but in the sense of being blatant NPCs. Just like I'd complained about the gate guards' excessive shifts, the arena audience never left. Their entire existence involved nothing more than sitting in the stands and jeering. The exact same demons had been in the exact same seats on my every visit.

And the competitors... They all came out of a gate in the opposite side of the arena, but I'd stuck my head in there once, and all that was behind it was a short corridor that didn't go anywhere. I walked up to the arena reception, picked my difficulty level, entered the arena, and a suitable opponent spawned. I could watch it happen with perceive presence. A demon just coalesced into existence, walked out of the door, and attacked me.

They still talked, and gave every impression of being intelligent, but no-one complained when they died. It was kinda freaky, especially when I got the same demon twice. Literally. He had the same face, the same voice, the same name, and the same personality. Didn't remember me from the first time I killed him, though.

I'd even sat in the audience a few times, and it made no difference. Demons came out of both sides, one killed the other, and the survivor left, fading back out of existence once it was through the gate. And then nothing else happened. The corpse just remained there, abandoned on the floor. Until I left the audience and walked back in, at which point the floor would be pristine again, and a new pair of competitors would enter to fight.

Was it just my imagination, or did things get stupider the lower in the dungeon I travelled? This floor wasn't even trying to be realistic. At least the fox-kin had a fairly decent civilization going on.

Or had they? Once again, I was reminded that I'd never seen the temple closed for the night, nor had anyone be unavailable due to being asleep. It wasn't as if I'd spent much time there. Maybe I'd just failed to see past a thin veneer of realism.

I shook the thoughts from my head as I stood up and made my way back to the arena for my next attempt. My twin thought she was real, and that was good enough for me to want to save her. The situation with the pair of dragons and me accidentally screwing myself over was just icing on an already tempting cake. I needed to get stronger. However much progress I'd made over the previous day, I couldn't imagine I was anywhere near the level required to beat a demon lord.

Demon lord was, alas, not an available selection in the arena. Maybe it was a secret unlock? Or it had a non-obvious name; there were a lot of options, after all.

Name: Katie

Primary class: Princess of undying laughter (level 9)

- Class skills -

Trigger respawn

Item box {Enhanced}

Mapping

Appraisal {Enhanced}

Resistance focus {Enhanced}

Fast travel {Enhanced}

Secondary class: Aberrant monster tamer (Level 4)

Improved silk

Draconic breath (rainbow)

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{locked}

Tertiary class: None {locked}

- Combat skills -

Unarmed proficiency: Level 13

Master dodger: Level 22

Spear proficiency: Level 20

Master blocker: Level 20

Dagger proficiency: Level 20

Sword mastery: Level 20

Proficient parrier: Level 20

- Resistance skills -

Friend of fear

Pain immunity: Level 33

Poison immunity: Level 34

Corrosion immunity: Level 32

Disease immunity: Level 40

Mind magic nullification: Level 27

Heat immunity: Level 30

Light tolerance: Level 4

Cold nullification: Level 24

Curse nullification: Level 25

Soul magic resistance: Level 14

Spatial magic tolerance: Level 2

Suffocation tolerance: Level 5

Earth magic tolerance: Level 2

Blunt damage resistance: Level 20

Piercing damage resistance: Level 20

Cutting damage nullification: Level 20

Void resistance: Level 10

- Crafting skills -

Improvisational artisan: Level 15

Artistry: Level 4

Mining: Level 5

- Scouting skills -

Proficient stealth: Level 13

Perceive presence: Level 10

Proficient empath: Level 10

Sense danger: Level 9

- Magic skills -

Perceive mana: Level 12

Bend mana: Level 6

Since that big guy counted as an achievement for my sword proficiency, I needed to kill one with a spear and a dagger to get those evolutions too, and do some parrying for that evolution. I'd already evolved dodging and blocking in an earlier battle. Despite the ones on floor four being unarmed, the arena combatants carried weapons. They were still completely naked, though, and all were very definitely male. I could probably get another blunt resistance achievement just by goading one into turning around very quickly.

The weapon seemed to be randomised each time, and I'd had my head spattered by a hammer and had my heart stabbed out by a spear, so they should count as achievements for blunt and piercing resistance, but I still needed one more. Since a daemonium spina, one of the pointy hedgehog things, counted as an achievement for my sword proficiency and defensive skills, perhaps I could get my second achievement for piercing resistance off one. That just left me in need of something for blunt. Maybe if I deliberately crashed into the ground at maximum speed?

I was going to need a notebook to start writing all this stuff down. What happened to levelling by breathing fire and having diseased zombie sex? When did it suddenly get complicated? Still, it could be worse. At least there wasn't any maths involved, beyond achievement counting.

Well, no time like the present. Abandoning my walk to the arena, I spread my wings and flew directly upwards, gaining height until I hit the roof of the cavern. Then I aimed myself straight down and dived.

Evolution conditions met: Blunt damage resistance ranks up to blunt damage nullification

Clubs, war-hammers, staves or even a fist, plenty of weapons work by subjecting their target to sudden, overwhelming momentum. Or, on occasion, it's the target that has the overwhelming momentum, such as the time you impacted solid bedrock at supersonic speeds. For surviving the impact, as well as a daemonium brutum cracking your skull open with a war-hammer, you have earned this upgrade from resistance to nullification. This skill will allow you to absorb a large portion of any impacts.

Success. Frankly, training those resistance skills was the only reason I hadn't taken the rainbow scales skill yet. The extra layer of protection would doubtless make levelling harder. Or most of the reason. Given the apparent fact that I had a level cap, I didn't want to assume I'd be able to enhance every one of my skills, so delaying picking out skills until I was level five would be advantageous.

I stood up and made my way to the arena once more, this time to battle another daemonium spina and deliberately let it beat me, apologising silently to the demons walking around the streets when I passed my impact site. Unlike the arena, it had not been magically cleaned up while I wasn't looking, and I was impressed by the way the blood had managed to splatter as high as the fourth story of the surrounding structures. Though the skill message had said something about me going supersonic, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.

I tried not to look at the impact site itself. That was... a mess. In the battle between my skull and the rock floor, my skull had most certainly not emerged victorious. It had certainly emerged in other ways though, as had my brain, and my... well, everything else. I hadn't just crashed, I'd splashed.

The demons walked around it completely unperturbed, not even commenting on the gore. They noticed and responded to me, but my splattered remains apparently weren't worth their time. Another sign of the fading attempts at realism? I stopped and watched for a while, and to my complete lack of surprise, I saw a humanoid demon leave a house, walk up the street, and into a different house. Then, ten seconds later, the door of the first house reopened and the same demon walked out again. I let the loop repeat five times before I looked away.

Once again, I was left wondering if the fox-kin settlement had been like that. I'd never stopped in the streets and just watched. I'd always been walking, and if the same person walked out of the same house twice, I'd never have noticed. They'd reacted to me, but so did the demons. But surely I'd have noticed something. I couldn't imagine these demons holding a civil war, for example.

Maybe it was a combination? There were a limited subset of 'real' ones, and the rest were just background decoration, like the black dragon seemed to be far more real than the demons living here. If living was the right word. Existing here.

Next time I saw that dragon, I was going to need to ask. If he hadn't noticed how stupid this city was, then I would feel a lot less bad about the world ceasing to exist, if I ever found a way to get the sword. He'd said that... He'd...

Damn. There was something he'd said. Some way I could break the oath safely. But thanks to the oath, I couldn't even bring it back to mind.

No use dwelling on it, though; I had skills to grind. I finished my trip to the arena and picked up my winnings from my last fight, which the receptionist was happy to give me despite me dying out there immediately following my victory. I picked my next opponent and made my way into the ring, wearing only my nightie, waving to the spectators, who responded only by jeering more loudly.

My opponent left its gate, the size of a large dog, standing on six legs and covered in red spines. It raised its two tails, aiming them straight at me, and fired. I spread myself wide for optimal reception of impacts.

Evolution conditions met: Piercing damage resistance ranks up to piercing damage nullification

Spears, poniards, arrows, or even a club with a nail in it, plenty of weapons work by concentrating a force onto a small spot, piercing into their target. For surviving your heart being run through by the spear of a daemonium brutum and over a hundred simultaneous wounds from the spines of a daemonium spina, you have earned this upgrade from resistance to nullification. This skill will make your body much harder to pierce.

Over a hundred? How many spines did it pack into those tails?