Gi spent well into the night learning how to fight with Doyle. At first, Doyle would attack and then call out a dodge, block, parry, or counter. Based on how Gi did, they would adjust it until it was useful. As much as Doyle knew about his own fighting style, it was apparent that he was creating one from scratch for Gi.

If Doyle hadn’t shown his thought process the entire way, Gi might have been put off by that. Every time Doyle made a correction, he had a reason for it. Every correction made him more and more annoyed with the crab’s personality, but more respectful of his methods. As they stopped for the night, Gi’s curiosity forced him to ask.

“How are you doing this? It feels like you’re creating a fighting style specifically suited for me… and it seems to be working. Just… how?”

Don’t trust my expertise and experience? Hmm? Smarter than I thought! Doyle devolved into his clacking form of laughter. Gi had discovered that letting him laugh himself out was better than engaging him. My inherited trait was [Mentor] which allowed me an easier time teaching someone else. I upgraded it in the Adolescent Stage to [System Mentor]. It allows me to pass on Skills I know to another.

“That doesn’t make any sense though. You don’t know the skill you’re teaching me. You’ve been making it up the whole time.”

Doyle beamed like a particularly proud father, if said father was a crustacean. That’s the beauty of it! With [Fighting Style], the system has to recognize you attempting the skill to learn it. Things like [Bladed Weapons] are easy. You try and stab someone and the system can recognize it. A fighting style though? That’s much more involved. You need all the parts for it to be what it is. For example, imagine a mouse trap. You can’t catch mice with just a board or just a spring. You need the whole thing for it to actually function!

“So how does that work with your Skill?”

Doyle’s legs were articulated in two different spots and he folded them up to sit down, making him look almost like a regular crab wearing a bowler hat. Because my Skill allows me to pass on a Skill, I have to be able to remold my Skill to their function. In this scenario, the system feeds me knowledge on how to adjust it. That’s how I trained ol’ Hazz also.

“Hazz? The Coastal Goblin kid?”

Doyle clacked his claws. No! I mean the real Hazz, the Progenitor of the Coastal Goblins. That kid isn’t a real goblin. He’s more like a doll, you see?

“No? What do you mean he’s not real?”

You’d have to ask Jalx. I don’t really know more than that, but I was good friends with Hazz before he died. He was a great monster. Very noble.

“I see.” He didn’t really, but he wasn’t sure how much it mattered. If Jalx had named the fake kid after his Progenitor, that was between him and his clan as weird as it seemed to Gi. He was curious about how Jalx’s Progenitor had died though. “So how di-“

Doyle scrambled over to his little pond until only his little hat floated on the water, interrupting Gi’s question. It’s time to sleep now. Come back tomorrow. Bye.

“Good talk…,” Gi muttered, but he’d been clearly dismissed and he knew well enough at this point to not try and force Doyle to do anything. He made his way back to the Underbridge where Tiria and Poe were. They were both posted up in the house with Poe reading his book, the Fattest Unicorn, and Tiria was lounging on the rope bed, looking bruised and stiff.

“Food right here!” Poe announced pointing to some more meat sticks wrapped in wax paper.

“Thanks, Poe,” Gi said, before turning back to Tiria. “What happened to you?”

“Training with Jalx,” she said. “He’s been teaching me how the Coastal Goblins fight.”

“Fighting Style?”

She groaned. “I wish. Only Skill I picked up was the [Shield] Skill. The rest is more of a methodology. All his examples are of you dying as well which frankly I’d rather do without.”

Gi wished he’d kept [Cure] from the Infancy Stage. It was only useful to heal others and at the time, that had been low on his priority list. Even with having never used it, he knew it wasn’t as good as the Angelic Mouse clan’s skill [Services Rendered], but it would be good for her current bruises.

Maybe he could get Doyle to share his [Bubble Cure] skill around. Gi wouldn't have the slots for it after learning [Fighting Style], but maybe Poe or Tiria...?

“Let’s return to the Encampment for the night. I’ve got one level worth of Soul Orbs to spend and I’d like to start feeling out the potential of it. You’ve got the Wind Fern leaves still?”

Tiria nodded and started to get up, but Gi motioned her back down. “Relax. We’ve got time so let's eat first.”

Gi ate the meat sticks that Poe had procured and the three of them relaxed in companionable silence. Both Gi and Tiria were exhausted from their day. He finished up eating when a question that he hadn’t asked since the Child Stage popped into his mind.

“Hey Tiria… What is it that you want?”

She took her paw off her eyes and looked at him quizzically. “To sleep? What do you mean?”

Gi rubbed his paw against his chin. He hadn’t thought of the best way to phrase this as of yet. “Danna teaches that Family is important. Through Danna, Family. Through Family, Strength. It’s our bonds that make us strong.”

Tiria rose stiffly from the rope bed. “Right, I know Her Word as well.”

“And all of us pushing forward for the sake of Danna and the family is great, but everyone has needs. What is it that you want? What drives you?”

Poe bounced as he read, but still added in. “Boss got me a book!”

Despite Poe’s outburst, Tiria took the question seriously as she did everything and it took her a long moment to answer. “I want to be a good Subgenitor. I want to serve you and the clan well and have us grow. Not just in power, but in honor of Danna as well.” Gi started to clarify again, but she cut him off. “I understand that’s not what you mean, but I don’t have a better answer for now. I’ll have to think on it.”

“That’s all I can ask.”

Since Tiria was already standing, the three of them made their way down to the Encampment. Thankfully, Tiria no longer needed a Wind Fern since her Constitution had been upgraded. A conversation later that night revealed that it was the same as his with the added benefit of her having a lighter mass for movement. It was pure benefit as it wasn’t hindering her in her training with Jalx. That made it seem like Gi would be able to upgrade his Constitution as well.

The three of them slept in slabs they found in the main Encampment building. In the morning, they shared some soup that Tiria made for them and Gi upgraded his Wisdom one step further. If his notes were correct, he was one level away from capping his Wisdom for the Adolescent Stage as well as his next Skill upgrade.

The three of them left back for their respective days and that routine continued for the next couple weeks. On the third day, Gi had filled up his last skill slot with [Fighting Style], but it wasn't what he'd thought it would be. It was a Knowledge skill like [Religion]. It filled in some of the gaps that had been in Doyle's instruction such as underwater fighting, but it didn't make him automatically good.

So they continued to work until most of the sunbeams winked out of the sky-ocean each night and Gi started stumbling back to the Encampment. Doyle had stopped using [Bubble Cure] for anything that wasn't debilitating which meant that Gi was as sore as Tiria each night.

And slowly Gi's foundations actually became more solid. He could aim somewhat through his palm and that opened up many avenues to his fighting. With only one arm, he still struggled at short distances, but he was slowly fixing that as well.

One evening, they were sparring as they normally did to finish up the day. The beams of light from the sky-ocean had dimmed and Doyle towered over Gi.

The crab moved just as fast as he'd been on the first day, but Gi had realized that he wasn't moving all that fast. There was simply no hesitation nor preparation to his actions. He glided on his tall legs, closing the distance between them smoothly, and slamming a claw down on him.

Gi shuffled forward, tucking his tail in to avoid the blow, and then darted forward himself. Every movement was made so that he never crossed his legs and ruined the base of his stance. Gi threw out a palm strike, but Doyle spun away. From experience, Gi knew this left him open to attack.

He flung out a hook kick which caught the crab's incoming attack, and rather than damage him, it gave Gi enough space to reorient himself. Doyle had stepped outside of range with his claws and that put him within range of Gi.

A low-powered [Divine Bolt] burst out of his palms. Doyle parried the first shots with only surface level damage on his claw and then spun again to avoid the other two shots. Like Gi had learned against Yom and the Dragon Pikes, any indirect hits from his [Divine Bolt] did surprisingly little damage.

Like a spear, one of Doyle's claws launched towards him and Gi leaned back on his tail. The sharp appendage went right over his nose, but Gi kept his mind and eyes on his opponent. Another burst of [Divine Bolt] assured that Gi wouldn't be attacked in his precarious position and he used his tail to launch him forwards.

As he took to the air, Doyle smacked him down into the rocky shore with a claw, knocking the breath out of his lungs. Doyle clacked his claws in laughter.

Think, my friend. Think! Use those little gray cells to their full advantage! Unless you have some means of movement in the air then you have forced yourself to commit to your path. Combat is fluid and can change, but it's not an art. Never force your brush to canvas.

"Sorry," Gi said. He was a bit frustrated at never having beaten Doyle, but it had also only been two weeks and the crab was a Classer after all. It seemed that monsters of upper stages got some benefits that wasn't always reflected in their stats.

Now I must arrest myself away for the night and I shall not be here tomorrow. In my old age, I've found myself growing bored of late and eating has become my passion, but alas, one can only eat three times a day to sufficiently appreciate the meal at hand, you see?

"Uh, sure?"

Yes, we are of a like mind. Now be away so that my palate may be well rested for the morrow.

"Good night to you then as well," Gi said, before heading back to the Encampment and meeting up with Tiria and Poe as per usual.

When the two of them left the next day, Gi did a kata that had been revealed to him by his new skill and then headed up to check on Elizabeth.

He wandered down to the old Iron Ferret estate which publicly was considered his but only publicly. The garden was still mostly intact, but was no longer tended so some of the faster growing plants had started to spread out from their pots whereas others had died without any rain or care.

Noting for the first time that it hadn't rained at all since he'd been here, he looked to the sky-ocean wondering what that might look like, but with no answers, he pushed the idle curiosity from his mind and focused back on the estate.

The destroyed second story hadn't been repaired, but Elizabeth had added a desk that faced out of the biggest hole in the wall directly towards the path and she sat at it watching his approach. Behind her, the Encampment Crystal shone blue, framing her body like a halo.

Gi hailed her and then leapt up to the second story. "Any trouble?"

Elizabeth's tone was flat as always. "No. A couple classers from the Iron Ferrets and a handful of jobbie Progenitors who would have regretted their attack if they'd survived." She looked him up and down. "Jalx mentioned you were learning [Fighting Style]?"

Gi adopted his fighting stance and moved through the basic movements of his kata to answer her question. Elizabeth smirked, a terrifying expression on her lifeless face. "Training like a human."

He wasn't sure if she was insulting him or not, considering that she actually looked human. Addressing it wouldn't help him though so he ignored it. "When are we going to hit the Dungeon? Do you know where a portal is?"

She steepled her hands, still looking out at the approaching path. "You're still too weak. With my powers restricted, I'll need to guarantee our success."

"Is the Dungeon that bad?"

She nodded. "Monsters typically have the advantage at level five. Level five of the Dungeon that is not our levels. The Human races are slow to grow in power, but after they start progressing, they become powerhouses.

Since it seemed that they'd be having an extended conversation, Gi sat on one of the broken bookshelves that had been destroyed by Elizabeth and Ferra's fight as she continued speaking.

"The Dungeon run in the Adolescent Stage is sometimes considered the Great Filter for clans. It's when monsters are at their weakest compared to the Human races and it's the literal step that provides the first generation of a clan."

That made sense to him. Other than the strong adventurer with a shield in first Dungeon, the others had been laughably easy. His aim had still been horrendous, but they were slow and uncoordinated. If they were all like the strong adventurer had been? He'd have trouble now. Even getting a direct hit on him hadn't done any damage at that stage.

"What makes them so strong at this point?"

Elizabeth eyed him as though hesitant to speak, but she eventually folded. "The Divine Reflection. Their innate powers are different than ours, but they are just two sides of the same path. As they progress in the Dungeon, they draw power the same way we do through bloodshed. Monsters prior to the Individual Stage struggle with gaining power like the human races do."

"Do you mean like Doyle teaching me [Fighting Style]?"

"Very human but no. I'm talking about the Knot."

The Knot? Gi hadn't heard that term before. "I don't understand."

"Because you're an ignorant shit who tried a Mind altering skill on me." Despite her harsh words, she found a pocket in her studded leather and pulled out what looked like fishing twine. Gi leaned closer to get a better look.

First, she cut it into three strips and then tied three knots so the three strings formed a triangle. "Each knot represents something. Heart, Body, and Soul. Humans progress these to raise their ranks."

She tapped the knot that she'd represented as Body. "A Elven Ice Mage might have an Ice Constitution. A Fighter might have-"

"Wait," Gi interrupted. "Are the Unique Constitutions like the Ferrous Clan's Iron Body part of the human way of advancement?"

"Yes."

"So I've already started on that path!"

Elizabeth tilted her head and Gi felt like she was seeing through him somehow. He shivered. "You've got an upgraded Body, a half-step Soul, and an empty Heart. That means you're only halfway to where I need you to be for us to succeed."

Only halfway. Having a Unique Constitution had saved both him and Elizabeth during Ferra's attack. What would it mean to have a Soul and Heart at the same level? "How do we do that? Do we meditate or something?"

"Heh. No. Not everything has to be done the same as the human races even on their own path. You'll need to capture an Opportunity. Perhaps from another Progenitor or maybe an ascended plant. I'll find you something." Elizabeth peered at him again. "Your Body is Water attuned, your Soul is... Divine? That's unique. Would you be looking to have a matching affinity for your Heart? Water would be easy enough I think."

He was attuned to Water and Divinity already? Gi placed a hand to his chest and felt that warm light he'd experienced far back in the Child Stage when Danna had truly accepted him. That had to be his Divine Seed providing the affinity. Should he match with Water for his Heart or...? "Light," Gi said. "Danna's realms are Water and Light. I want to align myself with her."

"Very well. Give me a week and I'll have you a target."