“Ok,” Annabelle said, “you’re gonna like this. It starts with a duel.”

“I like it already,” Akari said sitting up and crossing her legs, ready for story time.

Annabelle went on to describe the events of that night when I showed up at her arena and fought six guys by myself. Her facts were similar to Andy’s retelling, but she focused more on the abilities I used and the way I used them.

She told about how I used superspeed to close the distance with the first guy, then used martial arts to finish it before he knew what was happening.

“Civil, but effective,” Akari said.

She told about how the second guy found himself tied up in ice ropes before he could even finish forming his fireball.

“Opposite element, nice.” Akari said, nodding approvingly.

She described how I made him submit by flicking his nose, and how he tried to backstab me after he tapped out and I set him free, then how I encased him in ice again.

“Ha!” Akari barked. That was it. One syllable. I couldn’t tell if it was a laugh or what, but Annabelle seemed pleased with the reaction so I took it as a win.

Then she told her sister about how I surrounded his head with Void until he went unconscious after he tried to backstab me.

“Considerably less civil, no less effective,” Akari said with a shudder, then frowned and turned to me. “Wait, back up. You used Void around his head? I’ve been in the Void and I can only imagine what it must’ve been like for that poor guy. That’s borderline cruelty. But that aside: you can manipulate both Ice and Void?”

Annabelle’s eyes went wide and she grinned. “I know! At the same time!"

Akari snapped her fingers. "That's what he did to the head cultist yesterday."

"Exactly. But get this, I also saw him use Air, Water, Fire, and Earth magic yesterday, too,” Annabelle said.

Akari turned on me. “Seriously, who are you?”

I shrugged and bit off a chunk of dried sausage.

Next Annabelle told about how I took the last four on at the same time.

“The match starts and the next thing: splat.”

“Splat?” Akari said. “What’d he do?”

“You’re not gonna believe it,” Annabelle said.

“Just tell me.”

“One moment they're there ready to attack, then splat. Three of them just kind of fall apart into chunks of bloody meat on the ground. No warning, just...splat. The last guy just gives up right then and there."

"I should think so," Akari said. "So how'd he do it?"

"Razor floss!” Annabelle said like she’d just announced the meaning of life.

“No!" Akari said, then tossed a half-eaten blue carrot at me. "How do you have a razor floss ability?”

“Um, well, I kinda created it?”

The sisters shared a look.

“You know who he reminds me of?” Annabelle said.

“He sounds like us,” Akari said.

“That’s what I thought!” Annabelle said. “Like if someone took how you fight...”

“And combined it with how you fight,” Akari said without missing a beat.

“You come out with...” Anabelle silently gestured at me with both hands like I was a prize on a gameshow.

“That’s him,” Akari confirmed.

“Wait a second,” I said. “I kind of get how I’m a bit like Akari when I fight.”

“Elegant but ruthless?” Akari said, to which her sister blew a raspberry.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, “but how is the way I fight at all like how Annabelle does things?”

“You mean how, apart from that explosion lunacy, all she did yesterday was shoot energy blasts?” Akari said. “That was just a show, my friend. If you think that’s all she can do, you do not understand her sorcery.”

“Oh.”

“The point is,” Annabelle said, “you piqued my interest too that night. I wanted to meet you and see what you were like.”

They both thought I was something special and wanted to know more. Oh man.

I lowered my head. “I see. Look, I’m sorry I disap—”

“Don’t you dare say what I think you’re about to say,” Annabelle snapped.

“By the ancestors, how thick-headed can a person be?” Akari said, this time lobbing a whole carrot at me. “Don’t you get it yet?”

I looked up at the two sisters. They reminded me of Sigrid and Jane, always on my case about stuff.

“Think about it,” Annabelle said. “And don’t say another word until you’ve figured it out.”

We sat together on the picnic blanket and ate in silence for a while.

I didn’t really have to think about it. Deep down I already knew what they were saying, I just had a really hard time accepting it. Based on the night in the arena and the kerfuffle at the Cathedral, it was hard to deny that at that point in time I was stronger than any other Player, even the ones with Expert mastery in things. I probably even could have made a respectable showing against an entire team.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The problem was how long that would be true. It may have been the case at that moment, but what would I do when they developed more. What would I do when they got as good as Flint? Or gained new abilities to attack or defend better? Or got magic items that did the same? Then my feeble Adept mastery wouldn’t be a match for them anymore. Akari had just spent the last few hours making that abundantly clear.

The sisters watched me with keen interest the whole time I pondered my dilemma, and it wasn’t until I breathed a very deep sigh that Akari spoke up.

“Right now you’re thinking about how I mopped the floor with you this morning, right?”

“Lucky guess,” I said.

“No luck required, it was all over your face. Okay, listen up and listen well because this is important: what did your fight with Flint and your sparring with me have in common?”

"You're both overwhelmingly better than me?"

"Flint may be more skilled but he's not better than you," Akari said. "Try again."

They were both NPCs, but she wouldn’t mean that. Was it that they both took an inordinate amount of pleasure from crushing me? Probably not. They both...wait. Maybe it’s not something to do with them, but with me.

That’s it. In both cases, all I used was omni-do.

“Akari?” I said.

“Hmmm?”

“After lunch, can we keep sparring?”

“Absolutely.”

“But this time, can I use other abilities besides my hand-to-hand fighting technique?”

She grinned at me and so did Annabelle. “Look at you, you got it. Took you a while, but you got it eventually.”

“So can I?”

“Abso-bloody-lutely. But that means I get to as well.”

“I’m good with that,” I said.

“Daniel,” Annabelle said, standing up as she tied her purple hair back into a ponytail and, I kid you not, put on a pair of librarian glasses. You know the ones I mean. Then she reached out her hand and said, “Do you trust me?”

It took zero-point-zero seconds to consider my answer. “Yes.”

“Good. Because before you have your little fun with Akari again you need to tell me exactly what you are capable of.”

“Okay,” I said. “But, um, it might take a while.”

“Oh really? Someone’s cocky all of a sudden,” Akari said. “Fine, let’s see what you can do.”

And that’s how I came to spend the rest of the day and most of the night demonstrating to the sisters everything I could do. I started at the top of my Status and worked my way through, beginning with my affinities. It took some time to cover all twelve of them because they wanted me to show them all the different ways I’d been using them, and each one I demonstrated seemed to make the pair get more and more excited. Then when I showed them what happened when I combined multiple affinities together they kind of flipped out, especially Annabelle.

Explaining my gifts went a lot faster because it wasn’t really possible to demonstrate most of those, I could only explain them. Murder Hobo was the trickiest to describe because it involved a bit of meta-gaming, so I just said I was very lucky with the treasure I found.

“Hey Anna?” Akari said, “you got any more wine in that basket?”

“I wish,” her sister said.

“Oh. Here,” I said, making a couple of bottles appear in my hands.

Wordlessly, Akari took one, Annabelle took the other. Akari didn't even bother with a glass.

Then I got to the powers. This took a lot of time, for obvious reasons, and that was just going through the powers I had in my Status. I’d only gone through a handful when Akari stopped me.

“I’m never going to remember all this,” she said.

A pencil and paper appeared in my hand and I held them out for her. Akari flinched back like it was a poisonous snake. “Whoah, wrong sister, dude.”

Annabelle sighed and took the writing tools. With her glasses perched on the end of her nose she scribbled down what we’d covered so far, then as I continued going through my powers she kept peering up over them adorably as I demonstrated something then looking down to feverishly jot notes. Every so often I had to stop and eat to replenish my mana, and eventually Annabelle got fed up with the interruptions and dashed away for a couple of minutes, coming back laden with a crate full of mana potions.

“I hate to ask, Annabelle said, “but will this be enough?”

“More than,” I said, hoping I was right. We still hadn’t finished the powers in my Status, who knew how long it would take to cover the ones I could copy?

All Can Be Revealed was another tricky meta-gaming thing to explain. I just said I had the ability to see what other people could do, and demonstrated it by describing all of the sisters’ abilities from their Statuses. They got a bit worried when I did that, but apparently there were some things about them I couldn’t see and they seemed relieved by that. Which only made me want to know what it was that I couldn’t see that much more, of course.

The real kicker came with Synthesize. I explained how I had made the razor floss effect by combining other abilities, and how with that came the realization that even if I wasn’t able to create a certain effect with the abilities I currently had or had access to, it was very likely that I’d be able to find a way to synthesize it. Annabelle wanted me to demonstrate taking a copied power and synthesizing a new permanent one, so I synthesized a power I called Anál Nathrach, my own version of her sorcery combined with the enhancement power from her staff. I thought she was going to cry.

Then when I explained that I was able to use my customized version of Artifice to apply any of these powers onto an item, I thought Annabelle was going to totally lose it.

She flipped through her notes. “Could you put the Versatility For The Win power onto an item?”

“I’ve tried, but it’s always failed.”

“Was it a lack of mana?” She could Artifice so she knew that the more potent the enchantment effect, the more mana it required to instill it.

“I think it’s more that I lack the expertise to do it, and I’ve plateaued with how good I can get so it’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to. Not unless I can somehow lift the restriction from Good At Everything. And even if I was good enough, it still might take too much mana, or require too many restrictions placed upon it to make it feasible.”

“Yes, well, we can cross those bridges when we come to them,” Annabelle said.

“Sorry to say those bridges have been blown up. I can’t ever get good enough to cross them.”

Annabelle glanced at her sister and Akari glanced back.

“Let’s move on,” Akari said. “What’s next?”

“We’re not done with Synthesize yet,” I said. “I still haven’t shown you how it lets me apply the different elements to other powers to create different effects.”

I started to show them various examples, like how I could create binding ropes made of any affinity with All Tied Up, or summon different kinds of elemental creatures with Circus Master.

Annabelle kept saying, “I don’t believe this,” over and over until she eventually blurted out, “Stop. That’s enough. I get the idea.”

Once we were done with the powers I had, it was on to the ones I didn’t but could copy at any time. After demonstrating them for a while Akari stopped me again.

“How long is this gonna take?”

“I don’t really know. I do have a perfect memory, but at this exact moment I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and I honestly can’t think of all the powers I’ve got access to. I’m pretty sure I’d probably be able to think of them if I needed them, though.”

“You think you’re overwhelmed,” Akari huffed. “Sheesh.”

“Even if you think you can remember them when necessary, can you think of them quickly enough to be useful in a pinch?” Annabelle said.

I shrugged. “Maybe? I don’t know yet. Although I have been in situations where I have too many options and get stuck on choosing the right one.”

“I used to have that problem myself with sorcery, but I can only imagine the choice paralysis you can suffer.”

“Used to? How’d you get past it?”

“It’s simpler than you think: experimentation and experience.”

“I just got a fun idea and I want to try it before I forget it,” Akari said, “but we need to do your skills first. This won’t take too long, will it?”

“Not if I don’t have to demonstrate them, which I don’t think is necessary.”

“Allons-y,” Akari said.