They had spent most of the day sitting around, talking, watching things and just playing about. Janik liked the Invisibility and they found out that it was more overpowered than expected. It deactivated if Sam was attacking or moving around chaotically, but it didn’t seem to count attacks made by the Psyhands as ‘attacks’. This raised many interesting questions, however, this meant that the only drawback it had was that it deactivated after 30 minutes, and needed 10 energy allocated to it to make him completely invisible.
Janik also helped him look around for more skills and items, he was also taken aback at the sum he had earned from the fights, it was considerable, after all.
“Well, you can always have a look at the weird or abnormal weapons,” Janik commented as they looked at the list of things on the TAC market.
“What do you mean? Abnormal weapons?” Sam replied questioningly. He had seen the filter button on the page but hadn’t considered it enough to click it.
“Yeah, there are weapons that are either non-standard, hard to use or just things that don’t follow what people expect,” Janik explained as he clicked the button, changing the filter.
This listed a lot of different things, weird things that would be hard to wield or just weapons that didn’t have good synergy with other things. Things that had conflicting skills like a fire sword with a boon to cold damage, were not unusable but unexpected and odd.
The bonus with these was that they were on average around 30% discounted compared to similar but non-abnormal items.
“Oh, this is interesting,” Sam commented as he turned the tablet towards himself.
Looking through he found a lot of different things, the most amazing thing was the discount. Though 30% sounded both a lot and not enough, it changed a 5-trait S-rank dagger from $3 900 000 down to $2 730 000, which was a lot.
Though most of them had the same conflicting skills, like a blade that heals when stabbing someone, usable in the correct scenario, it did damage at the same time so... shanking a friendly to heal them as you also do damage, effectively cutting down the effect unless the damage delt was lower than their Defence...
Even though this meant that he could get some neat weapons somewhat cheaper, his mind went back to skills. Having seen just how both easy and hard, it was to get weapons and items, he thought that skills were the way to go. Items could be taken away from you or end up useless, but with the correct skills that could change.
Setting up a list in the app on the tablet, he checked with Janik.
“I have always wanted an Item box skill, I also have ideas for things I can do besides just weapons, rope, or perhaps chain, which will make a lot of fights easier,” Sam explained. “Having an item box will let me... not having to carry all of that shit around.”
Janik nodded, somewhat agreeing with his thoughts.
“I also want a ton of strong zip-ties.” Sam continued. As he saw Janik’s confused expression he explained further. “Imagine a strong zip-tie lifted over your head and tightened. You don’t need much force to tighten it and they are stupidly strong for their weight and cost. Now, you have two choices; use effort to cut or break it, or work through breathing issues. Either way, we win.”
Janik looked at Sam with a horrified expression, but at the same time, it didn’t seem like he had a good comeback. “It won’t work on things like the golems or stuff, but against anything that breathes... yeah... that sounds horrifyingly effective...”
“If I want to start carrying around a lot of weird things to use in combat like that, I think an Item box is worth the cost, much more than a good backpack, so I’m getting this one.” Sam ended by clicking ‘add to cart’ on the B-rank Item Box skill, giving him 40 slots but costing a million.
The attached info page listed that things could be added or taken out at will, seemingly instantaneously, the item just manifesting in your hand. Now, he didn’t know if that included his Psyhands but even if it didn’t, it was a worthwhile investment. Especially when combined with his Invisibility skill.
Another thing added to the list was a boon for Dia, Iron Fist, it increased the base damage of unarmed attacks, this was the closest to swapping for a better weapon before the rest of the math did its thing, and she needed a damage boost. This cost 1.5 million... strangely more expensive than the Item Box. Sam couldn’t get his head around the logic for costs, but he had seen that life-saving or protecting things tended to cost more, damage-deling was probably a second.
Looking into resource boost skills, more Energy would do him well, didn’t go far as those skills were in such high demand that there weren’t any available. Much of the skill and good item market had been absorbed since the Tower Break, and it wasn’t too different now. Given how rare getting items are, it made sense that it’d take a while to stock back up.
Armour better than what he had now was also more expensive than he could afford... which almost felt weird.
“But, is this what you wanted to be doing today? I thought you wanted to relax?” Janik smiled jokingly at Sam.
“I did, I really wanted to. But my mind is racing, I want to test all kinds of things, I want to get back out there, I kind of want to fight... Not sure how much of that is due to my last two months, or just the System affecting me... But I feel I might be sent to another fucking solo dungeon at any time and I want to be ready...” Sam’s voice almost grew tired through the sentence. It hadn’t happened that many times, but it was still more than enough.
“Soooo... we’re not going to watch movies or slack today?” Janik confirmed, looking surprisingly eager.
“Well, I do want to do that as well, but I’m surprisingly up for other things after I spent my 8 million.” Just completing that sentence almost felt wrong.
“What about that sparring? You kind of threatened me yesterday, I want to confirm if you’re full of shit or not.” Janik’s wide grin had returned, he looked surprisingly eager for this.
Sam held back a sigh, he had things he wanted tested, but at the same time, he didn’t want to hurt Janik. If they used one of the fancy rooms that protected you, that could work...
“Fine, but only if we use those rooms that stop you from getting hurt...”
“I’ll get my stuff!” Janik exclaimed as he got up from his chair. He had arrived with his gear on him, as most players do, but he had taken it off after they sat there and chatted a while.
Sighing this time, Sam got up and got dressed as well, he could use the rest of his money later, so he put in the order for the things he had found so far. It was just the two skills but it set him back 2.5million. The thing that felt strange about that was how little strange it felt to use that much.
It didn’t take long for them all to be properly dressed and geared, since he was getting an item box skill he decided to bring his camping and survival gear as well. Elara hitched a ride with Dia, coiling around her neck and torso like she normally did with Sam.
They headed down to the desk where you got your purchases first, they used their Skill Crystals and obtained their new skills.
[ Item Box - B - 40 slot Item Box. Can place and retrieve items with a thought, each slot can hold many of the same items if they are small, and only a few, or one, if it's larger. ]
[ Iron Fists - C - Increases Base Damage on all unarmed attacks by 60% ]
On the way to a fancier training room, Sam tested the Item box repeatedly with one of his cheaper daggers. He quickly found out that this was strangely intuitive, he always felt what was in the inventory and he could manifest it in his hand, or just next to his hand, at a thought. The backpack with its stuff didn’t go in, the bag itself did, which caused everything inside it to drop to the floor. He put the rest into the item box as well just to get it off the ground for now.
To his extreme glee, he found out that his Psyhands counted as hands, so he could spawn or dismiss weapons wherever a Psyhand was.
“Duuuude...” Sam commented on realizing this.
“What?” Janik asked, looking at Sam with a questioning look.
“The Item box counts my Psyhands as hands.” Sam smiled back, this was possibly huge.
“Well... that’s terrifying...” His tone hinted that this was indeed putting him off, but it wasn’t in a proper negative way, more in a positive and frightened way.
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“Oh? How come? I mean, I can spawn weapons wherever my Psyhands are, but that’s not a massive difference from normal.” Sam lifted an eyebrow, he understood that this detail was indeed dangerous, as he could just pull out or swap weapons during an attack for incredible versatility.
“Yeah, but can’t you then just steal every weapon or item in range?” He patted the swords on his hips. “If I hold them, you can’t put them in the box... I think, as it doesn’t count as a valid item or something, I read that somewhere but we can find out. But like now that I’m walking and not holding it in my hands when the time comes and I want to pull them, with your range you can just steal them before that.”
This gave Sam many ideas, he had a good point. He expected that people had found ways to abuse this ability in various scenarios, but having as ‘long arms’ as he had, he could do a lot of stuff with this...
Pondering the possibilities had Sam not noticed the rest of the walk, so they found themselves in the training room shortly thereafter. Sam snapped out of it and halfway expected to be teleported away to another solo dungeon, as that was what happened the last time he went to one of these, but he was glad to see that this didn’t happen this time.
This room cost money to rent, due to the resources it used to protect the Players inside. The devices that controlled this room raised a barrier, negating all damage, and letting you do as you want. Though this made things like bleed damage and other things that specifically triggered ‘on damage’ not work properly, for more active sparrings like this it was a godsend.
Janik activated it and did a test on himself, stabbing his arm with one of his throwing daggers, and turning around when he was satisfied he faced Dia.
“So, little lady, we’ll be fighting, but it’s safe, so... please don’t attack me.”
She looked hesitant, looking between Janik and Sam, and as Sam nodded she seemed to be fine with it.
“I will not fight.” Nodding approvingly.
Sam had a brief moment where he wondered why she swapped between her name and ‘I’ when referring to herself, was that just a language barrier or something else? Deciding that he’d just ask her later he turned to Janik, who was walking into the room proper.
“The system should tell us how much damage we’d normally get from this, it’s also displayed on the screen over there.” Having pulled his swords he used one of them to point at a large screen high up near the ceiling. It had two entries: J and S, the J name listed a damage value of 5, but resisted by Defence.
“Ok, that’s fair. So... You want me to just attack you... or you want to do some testing first?” Sam asked hesitantly as he manifested his Psyhands and grabbed onto the weapons still sheathed on his body, leaving a few hands free for other uses.
“I think we can just do some fights first, see if you’re full of shit or not.” Janik smiled as he got in a ready position, but as he did he suddenly added more. “Oh! Don’t use that throwing shit, lifting me is cheating... well... it’s not, but we already know that works so let’s not use that for now.”
Sam shrugged, he didn’t feel intimidated in this case, having already scanned Janik and seen what he could do, skill and stat wise, and knowing how he fights, he was surprisingly arrogant in his chances.
“So, when do we start?” Sam asked and got his answer as Janik suddenly stepped forward, launching an attack.
Sam reacted in a calm and calculated manner. Janik needed to move his legs to get closer, and though he was stronger than Sam was, he was still bound by physics. Placing a Psyhand balled up in a fist just below where Janik’s next step was going to be, as well as placing another hand on the same foot’s ankle and triggering Force Pulse, was more than enough to send that foot sideways, twisting his ankle and having him fall to his face, tumbling along the floor.
There was no damage done, but before he could get back on his feet there was a swarm of weapons pressing against him, blades and tips against his throat and chest. If he chose to force himself up or struggle to the sides he’d effectively cut himself doing so. Not to mention how easy it would be for Sam to just repeatedly attack him again and again like this.
“Ok... I didn’t expect that.” Janik commented honestly where he lay pinned to the floor by weapons. “I suppose you didn’t lie when you said that you learned a few things in your last... trip.”
Sam winced a little being reminded of that place, a mental flash of the black, polished walls with all those red lights was almost enough to give him a headache even here, standing in a proper room.
“You need me to hurt you to consider this a win... or...?” Sam smirked back, feeling surprisingly nice about himself.
“No... I think we’re good. But I want to keep trying.” Janik’s smile returned now that the shock was over. Sam moved his weapons away, letting him get back on his feet.
As soon as Janik got to his feet he resumed his attack, lunging from his position with a powerful pounce, removing the need for stepping the remaining of the distance. Sam dropped all his weapons and split his Psyhands up into two groups, each grabbed one of Janik’s swords and bent them outwards. Though this force was not enough to tear the swords out of his hands, as the force was focused on the tips, the extra leverage of the sword’s lengths allowed Sam to easily move them outwards and make the attack fail. At the same time, he had taken care to drop the War-axe within his arm’s reach. Grabbing hold of that he delivered a powerful downward strike towards the defenceless Janik.
Janik had no chance to dodge or parry.
[ 106 dmg (168 dmg, 10 Fire, 24 Electric, 96 Defence) ]
The math displayed on the screen on the wall, the War Axe had a base damage of 120, but since Sam was using his flesh hands he got his physical strength added. And though he was... not strong, everything helped in cases like these. The added 10 fire and 24 Electric damage was on top of everything else and was not affected by Defence.
Since he was hit during his jump, Janik’s balance was way off forcing him to again end up face-first on the floor, now with a theoretical axe wound in his shoulder.
Sam let go of the swords, letting Janik get back up properly, but he also took a few steps away as a precautionary thought.
“Ok... yeah... I suppose that won’t work, then.” Janik smiled at his failed surprise attacks. “The fuck is the stats of that axe, it hits like a brick to the face.”
Sam smiled before he stopped several solid steps away. “Why would I tell an enemy anything?”
It was just sparring, sure, but all things considered, until they stopped this ‘fight’ he would treat it properly, a healthy dose of paranoia in these cases was not a bad idea.
“If you want to continue, I have a few things I’d like to try out.” Sam’s smile faded to intense focus. He could see that this affected Janik as well who traded his smile for a serious expression as well.
“Ok, I suppose we’ll treat this as a real fight, then.” He widened his stance and placed his swords differently, his left hand and foot were leading, pointing the sword towards Sam. His right sword was also pointed at Sam, though at a lower angle beside Janik as he stood.
[ Activating Invisibility - 10 Energy ]
Sam could see Janik starting to look around frantically for a split second before he just stared vacantly into nothing, seemingly focusing to sense anything around him. Sam knew he would still make sounds stepping around, which Janik could hear. Dia confirmed this when he tested with her before. He wanted to quickly test one thing, which was to fake his steps with a Psyhand, ‘walking to the side’.
This seemed to work wonders as Janik just stood there, then suddenly delivered a few swipes and stabs towards the sound. In his defence, had this been where Sam was walking, he would have hit hard and true. But it wasn’t, Sam hadn’t moved yet.
Knowing that his weapons weren’t invisible, except the Axe which was the only weapon he was holding personally, he knew that if he picked up all the weapons he would win this round easily. Even though Janik could see the weapons and parry a few, there were just too many of them, even not considering the Static Shock or Silent Killer, this would just be a one-round event. No, he wanted to take advantage of a few tests.
His survival kit had some rope, this was the next thing he wanted to try out, taking the rope out of his Item Box was silent and remained invisible as he was directly touching it. Now he just needed to have Janik look away so he wouldn’t cut the rope as it came towards him, but this shouldn’t be a huge problem.
Faking another step to the side, slightly behind Janik, he set his plan in motion.