Since I got my new quest and realized that you could stack the bonuses for having no weapon equipped, I’d been considering what exactly counted as a weapon. So far, my fists didn’t seem to count. It was possible there was a point where I became skilled enough in pugilism that they did, but for the moment, I was going to operate under the idea that weapons were only things that were primarily used as such. What would that mean if I started getting myself a nice tool belt full of useful things? As an engineer, I’d used all kinds of implements that were never designed for or meant to harm anyone, but I had certainly maimed myself by accident many times. So my current plan, after I ran this by Mel for his opinion, was to get a nice craftsman’s mallet and see how the System treated it.

“Afternoon, Dave. You look a lot better today than you did yesterday; that mean you're healing up well then?” Mel asked the moment I stepped into the room.

“More or less, gave myself a mana backlash headache last night, at least I think I did. I only learned they existed this morning from the brothers,” I responded. The pain was finally gone, and I had a pleasantly full stomach after breakfast. Maybe I could consider branching out a little on my routine.

“Ah, so that special skill of yours was useful then?” Mel asked, his voice dropping to a whisper.

I looked side to side and didn’t see anyone in the room, but followed suit anyway. “Yeah, hit level fifty-seven in a single night. Probably going to play around with it again tonight. This time, though, I’ll be a bit more careful at how much I push myself, but I’m actually here for a different reason. The System is knowingly pushing me towards cheating, or as the description said, exploiting reality. What’s your thoughts on that?”

“I’m going to talk to you as plainly as I can for a minute. I like you a lot, Dave, especially the way you’ve been looking after those two kids. If they’d gone to the Arena instead of with you, I think they’d already be dead. Yer walking a mighty dangerous path here, not that I'm saying you have much of a choice in it. The System seems to want something changed, and for better or worse you’re the one it’s expecting to make those changes. This is gonna make you a giant fucking target one day, not that the whole Sanquar shit wasn’t already going to, but to put all this on a newbie, well, it ain’t right. So what I’m trying to say here is yeah, do what the System suggests and push yourself as hard and as fast as ya can because bad shit is coming your way, and you’re going to need to be as prepared as possible.” The speech had been the sternest Dave had ever heard Mel’s voice become, and his color had shifted into a deep, almost blue shade of green.

“Well then, I’m going to need a craftsman’s mallet and maybe a few other tools if you have them, and I need to stress this. I don’t want any weapons, only some tools and possibly a belt to put them in. And who knows what kind of smelting I may have to do? Got any flame retardant gear to go with it?” I asked, figuring I may as well try to cheat the armor modifier as well.

“I think I see where you’re going with this, and yes, I have everything,” Mel said, giving me what I was pretty much sure was his nod of approval.

“Oh almost forgot, why are some dungeons persistent? Elicec thought you might know, and I was curious. I think one of my goals is to take out the desert one, is that even possible, though?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s possible, and maybe you’ll even be able to knock it out in a year or two, but it still won’t be easy without a full-sized raid party with you. The problem with persistent dungeons is that unless you kill everything in them, things start to respawn, so there’s no going back for supplies in between sub-bosses. You’re stuck taking them all out, including the big one, all at once. I don’t know exactly how they form in the first place, but once they’re there, they’re crazy dangerous, so please don’t go running into that one thinking you’re ready to take it on anytime soon,” Mel explained.

“Don’t worry, wasn’t planning to. I’ve got a bunch of stuff to experiment with tonight anyway,” I answered. I still wanted to take on the dungeon, just not yet.

“Good, now come get yer stuff,” Mel said with another nod.

An hour later, I was standing back in my room, looking like I was ready to play around in a crucible. I had to spend ten points moving my body temperature regulation up to twelve to handle how fast this outfit was making me overheat. Wrapped around my waist was a tool belt loaded with a few different items. I’d gotten the mallet as I’d originally intended, but I’d also decided to add in a prybar and a couple of screwdrivers, flathead and phillips both. I sat down in front of my interface and checked what the new modifier I had received was.

Lose 5 Levels Per Modifer

That had some potential, but first, I wanted to run the dungeon with no modifiers for a simple test. As soon as I spawned in, I grabbed my mallet and made short work of all the enemies. The experience window had both a positive and a negative. The suit counted as armor, which I had been worried about as it did protect me from environmental hazards. On the other hand, though, and the far more important one, is that the mallet did not register as a weapon at all. As long as I stuck to using my new tools in combat, I could always gain no weapon bonuses. As the cherry on top, I picked up a new skill to go along with it: Malleting.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I stripped off the suit, thankful It wasn’t a complete waste. I’d give it a try with some of the lava options another time, but I was going to go for one massive power level again and see if that single one gave me the backlash or if it was the number of simulations I had run the night before. It was a rare moment for me since arriving here. I felt in my element, running experiments and testing just how far I could push something. I put my last twenty free skill points into Malleting to get that rank up, and then I selected all the modifiers I wanted.

Remove Weapon

Remove Armor

Randomize Starting Locations

x2 Opponents

Remove Sense: Auditory

Random Mutation

Lose 5 Levels Per Modifer

I entered the dungeon, dropping a couple of feet to the ground. The pain wasn’t great, but I could handle it at this point. To my disappointment, I hadn’t gained another lobster claw; instead, I had a pair of antennae sticking out of my head, and I could feel a weird sense of energy in the room. To make it worse, I hadn’t thought about how my loss of level would hurt all the points I had just put into my skills. I had barely realized how much more confident I had felt about swinging a mallet until the skills ranks were suddenly gone. Ignoring the weird energy buzzing as I didn’t have the time to figure out exactly how that worked, I scanned the room, quickly getting my bearings. This was going to be a harder fight than I had planned.

Everything had survived the randomized spawn as well, which made things even worse. I spun behind me and quickly took out three of the approaching slugs with my trusty mallet, scooped up a handful of rocks, and pelted several more as I moved in on the bitey worms before they could attack me. They went down easily enough with a few heavy stomps.

I then ran around the room as best I could, dodging the various attacks from the electric slugs and the rock snails, both of which had revealed themselves, hammering blows into each of the slugs as I passed. I only took a couple of direct hits before they were all down. The snails proved to be a tougher challenge. Every time I got near one, the other attempted to hit me from behind. Finally fed up with the game, I ran at one, screaming, “Die snail!” and hit its shell as hard as I could with my mallet, cracking it down the center.

I spun catching the second snail by surprise as it had lunged in for a bite, and brought my my mallet down onto its head, nearly as hard as the last hit. Which, in hindsight, had been far too strong of a hit as the impact obliterated the head, sending its remains all over me. At least the fight was over before I threw up.

I managed to catch a slight glimpse of the experience screen before my vision went black.

Monsters Defeated

Giant Slug x6

5 Experience

Giant Slug, Electric x2

20 Experience

Bitey Worm Swarm x2

10 Experience

Rock Snail x2

30 Experience

Experience Gained

150 Points

Multipliers Applied

No Armor

x1.1

No Weapon

x1.1

No Magic

x1.1

I Stand Alone

x1.5

All At Once

x1.5

5 or More Modifiers

x5

Total Experience Gained

2,246 Points

Modifiers In Effect

Remove Weapon

x1.1

Remove Armor

x1.1

Randomize Starting Locations

x1.5

x2 Opponents

x1.5

Remove Sense: Auditory

x1.5

Random Mutation

x2

Lose 5 Levels Per Modifier

x7

Modified Total Experience Gained

128,409 points