From the depths of the cavern emerged a shambling figure, hunched over in wretchedness. Lumpy gray flesh drooped from its bent body, and it waved a pitchfork around with stubby arms and howled in agony.

‘A vulgar homunculus!’ the loli whispered. ‘Stay back, brother, I’ll defeat it.’

‘A vulgar whosoever inasmuch as which as to what is where is not?’ Long Bao wracked his throbbing head, trying to remember if he’d seen anything like it before. Visions of a muscular, half naked demon lord with a glowing green bastard sword the size of a 6 foot 4 inch NBA player leading an army of flaming undead flashed through his head.

‘The vulgar homunculus!’ the loli snapped impatiently. ‘Did you fall asleep during Old Grizzled’s bestiary lectures? The demonic tribes of the Celestial Magus Kingdom fall into five ranks. The vulgar homunculus is a low level demon from the fodder rank, the lowest of the five ranks. Other demons such as infernal succubus, the infernal mancubus, and the infernal helwaker commonly feed on homunculi to restore their own mana pools. However, this is usually a waste of time as the vulgar homunculus has such poor mana affinity, it takes more mana to digest it then it gives back.’

‘Say no more,’ Long Bao said with exhumed overconfidence, striding toward the homunculus. ‘The lowest rank demon? I’ll put it into the ground faster than a tub of lard melting in a summery nuclear reactor! Wretched demon, eat the shimmering edge of the Nomological Blade, slayer of the fifth reincarnation of world boss Cumulus Cloudwarden, Azure Drake of the Northern Skies! … the Nomological Blade?’

Before Long Bao could register that he was empty handed and unarmed, he felt a shattering impact in his pancreas.

‘Buhhh…’

Long Bao slumped against the floor, crumpled in pain.

‘Brother Kung!’ the loli cried out. ‘Don’t overexert yourself! Don’t you remember you are the weakest member of the Facetious Deathwardens, the squad of the five weakest and lowest ranking members of Gratuitous Panacea, handpicked by Old Grizzled as the weakest and most pitiful members?’

‘Th-the weakest member of the weakest squad?!’ Long Bao’s head throbbed and reddened with shame. He felt a pulsing in his stomach similar to the beginnings of a mentally induced kidney stone.

‘Not only that, but the Gratuitous Panacea is the blood paladins subdivision of Undulating Persistence, which is commonly known as the subdivision of the weakest subclass!’

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‘The weakest subclass?!’ Long Bao internally screamed and tried to distract himself by sorting large arrays of floating point numbers in his head to stave off his impending rage.

‘Not only that, but as the weakest member of the weakest squad of the weakest subclass in one of the guild, you suffer from historically low scores in all five of the major character attributes! When Old Grizzled took your measurements, he thought either he went senile, or the universe had re-aligned the fundamental laws of magus detecting energy because he’d never seen such low numbers!’

‘Historically low stat scores?!’ Long Bao rolled around in anguish, beating the ground with his fists and wailing with the wrath of a red-faced clench-fisted baby.

‘Your intelligence score was a 5! The lowest possible score is 3! Below intelligence scores of 9, a character can’t even use magic scrolls, because he is unable to read the magic symbols on them! Intellectually speaking, you are closer to an inanimate object than to a mentally disabled!’

‘Closer to an inanimate object?!’ Long Bao buried his head in his hands and apologized to all of society for the resources used to sustain his existence.

‘Your strength score was a 6! A character’s maximum carrying weight scales with strength, so sometimes Brother Bong has to cast a Strength spell on you just so your spine can continue to support your own weight! And you’re not even that fat!’

‘Not even that fat?!’ Somewhere within Long Bao’s tortured mind, the last remnants of his dignity committed ritual suicide to cheering throngs of jubilant chromosomes.

‘Your dexterity score was an 8! After we rescued you as a soot-covered baby from the flaming ashes of the Burnt Tower of Axiomatic Worship and trained you for your whole life in the art of F-Style (Flagellating Style), you’ve achieved the basic physical fitness of a standard unathletic work from home middle aged father of two!’

‘An uninspiring average dexterity?!’ Long Bao’s head cleared, and the rage of the Peach Tree Whisperer in another life cut through his hazy despair like a glaive through hot sourdough.

‘I am the Peach Tree Whisperer, highest level rogue of the Shadow Eaters guild, consistent leader of the highest scoring squad in the Goddess’s Trial! A substandard, suboptimal dexterity?! Impossible! Gaahhh!’ Long Bao charged at the homunculus, projecting all his rage and frustration at the wobbling gray mass now shaking, repentant with mutual embarrassment at the loli’s revelations of Long Bao’s indubitable weakness.

‘Watch out for the Shambling Swipe!’

‘Guhhh!’

Long Bao’s vision blurred red. Wobbling in pain, he saw the exasperated loli drag him back and face the homunculus, now slightly sheepish at bullying such an incompetent opponent.

The loli straightened her arm and pointed.

‘Arcane Strike!’ A white bolt of energy shot from her fingers.

‘Grooogg…’ the homunculus staggered, then fell to the ground, disintegrating into dust.

‘Impossible! How did you?!’

The loli sighed and stamped her tiny feet in impatience. ‘Brother Kung! Did a Jubilant Mind Worm enter your skull and eat out the last remaining chromosomes in there? Arcane Strike is the tier 1 offensive skill of the Arcane school of magic. There are four schools of magic discovered so far by Undulating Persistence: Arcane, Necrotic, Blood, and Holy. Now hurry and let’s escape this cavern before other monsters spawn!’

Drawing a circle in the air, the loli cast, ‘Homeward Portal!’ A solid blue circle of light appeared before her. Grunting with the effort, the loli dragged Long Bao’s pathetic, beaten down body into the portal as the world around him whirled and dissolved into a single point.