[Arrives in a cave, that appears dug out in a football stadium sized arena.]
“Everyone on the mat, Scatter! We’ve got an Anderson fight going on!”
[Everyone scatters out of the arena, into the stands. Many call their friends from outside into the stands as well]
“Ready?”
“Why not.”
[John moves to the far end of the field, I move to the other end]
“I Thought we were seeing Mr. Anderson fight?!!” - Onlooker
“This IS Mr. Anderson. AARON ANDERSON.”
“Ooooh.”
“Aahh”
“AWESOME” - Onlookers
[ Some random Referee comes in]
“Normal sparring rules: No crippling, no killing, and no excessive torture. Got it?”
“Yep.” x2
“START!”
-/Duel Enacted: Non-killing Rules: Death is impossible, from actions of other participants/-
“Hehe. Death is impossible? So I can smack you around, freely? YAY!”
Wait a minute. Where’d he go?
[TINK]
-/0 DAMAGE/-
“Uh-oh...”
“You… just poked me with a dagger? In the back? So not sportsman-like.”
[Pulls out ‘Aaron’s Cheat’]
“...What is that?”
“A little cheat of mine. It’s not really that good, but at a level under, say, 100, it’s a rather good boost.”
“How much?”
“300 max damage.”
“...my dagger, was found in the dungeon, made of adamantium, and it only gives half that...”
“ADAMANTIUM!?!? I am now certain that I am going to go dungeon diving. This sword is only made out of iron.”
“What?!”
“Well, it is triple condensed though, and molecularly sharpened.”
“...what. That… is just absurd.”
“Well, back to the battle.”
“Oh yeah, we were doing that weren’t we...”
“Just keep moving around and trying to attack me. I need to upgrade my battle focus, and thought acceleration anyways.”
“Okaaaayyy….”
[Roughly two minutes of Aaron attempting to dodge something he can’t yet really follow]
-/Battle Focus Level Up!/-
-/Battle Focus Level Up!/-
-/Battle Focus Level Up!/-
-/Thought Acceleration Level Up!/-
-/Thought Acceleration Level Up!/-
-/Thought Acceleration Level Up!/-
-/Thought Acceleration Level Up!/-
“Cool. Enough of that. I can actually follow everything you do now.”
“Wait wha...”
[Walks slowly towards Johnny]
“Umm.”
[John Sidesteps every once in a while, just enough to not be suprise attacked]
[Lunges forwards]
“AHK!”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
(And covers roughly 20 yards)
[Swings the cheat, at a speed of which is near undetectable, even by Aaron, flat end forward, for safety reasons]
[THWACKKKKK]
[John is sent flying into the air in a V shape, all the way into the wall behind him, of the cave]
-/8922 DAMAGE/-
-/8718 Damage Negated Due to Duel’s Non-killing Rules/-
-/Duel Over: Winner: Aaron Anderson/-
[John attempts to crawl out the hole in the wall]
“A little help?”
“Sure. Probably.”
[Aaron decides to send mana into the rocks, and attempts to force the hole bigger, because, YOLO, it should be possible with mana being]
[ZWOOOSH]
“Oops.”
[Aaron simply looks over at the wall now, and there is a roughly five meter wide hole]
(Roughly the size of two and a half men on top of each other tall, and wide)
“Umm. Thanks? Can you like, fix that?”
“It’ll take a couple seconds, but yeah, probably.”
[Reverses the process, and make the rock uniformly dense and thick]
There we go.
That… is easy. Why isn’t that a skill? And why isn’t my telepathy/mana transference also a skill yet? I can only guess that due to my way of doing it, it is not classified as any current skills in the system. I guess.
“So. Aaron. I guess you just had the same type of thing as Adam? Some sort of stat training? Because most of my men, have been training, by either dungeoneering, or sparring, leveling their battle focus as they go. In fact, my battle focus is up the level six, and I think Adam’s is up to seven, maybe eight, now that he has started dungeoneering as well.”
“Yeah. This is truthfully my second… well, first actual battle.”
“Second?”
“…I meant to say first.”
“But you said second.”
“I may have run into a… stray-spawned zombie, the other day.”
“Where at?! If there was a monster outside of it’s dungeon, that must mean the dungeon is so much stronger than the current ones found!”
“Truthfully, I think it was just the pre-alpha test. Not actually a dungeon-spawned creature. In fact, the only reason you see health bars right now, is because I questioned in my head, why I didn’t see any when fighting the zombie. I only saw text though. After I mentioned that, the system updated to show actual images in the User Interface, such as the boxes for the inventory, and bars for the health.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. So the only reason I think the system isn’t worse than it actually is, is due to it taking a couple of ideas straight out of my head, as a pre-alpha player.”
“You think it listens to you now? Mentally?”
“Not really. I think it just listens to all players equally. It just took more account of me when I was in the pre-alpha.”
“Strange. But it does make sense...”
“Say if there were some odd hundred, or even a thousand people who made a skill, that wasn’t yet in the system, I bet the system would input that skill into the system.”
“Like what skill?”
[Sends info mana/mentally]
“Oh. Yeah, that is strange that it isn’t a registered skill….”
-/System Update: Includes: Thousands of Newly-Made Skills!/-
-/Skill Unlocked: Mana Transmission: LVL: 10/-
-/Skill Unlocked: Core Cultivation LVL: 10/-
-/Skill Unlocked: Mana Matter Manipulation LVL: 10/-
…Finally.
“Did EVERYONE hear that!?”
“Sir, yes sir.”
“Well Aaron, I think we just hit the hundred, or a thousand mark.”
“Okay. This is actually rather suspicious… however I have even been thinking about why my skills weren’t counted ever since I told Miss Williams.”
“Don’t worry. It’s not like it is giving us any cheats, just labeling what we’ve already been doing. I just gained a Trait called Leader LVL: 8, which makes my men eight times more likely to follow me. However, before this, my men were already right around there in loyalty. I don’t think my men are now suddenly 64 times more likely to follow me. I think the trait simply transferred my actual traits into a named one.”
“Same here Johnny. I had made the mana transmission skill, and have gotten to where it is like talking. So it labeled it as LVL: 10 for me.”
“It’s John, not… oh well. You did kind of literally blow me out of the arena.”
“With the flat side of my blade, in consideration for your safety.”
“...Cheater.”
“Nah. Just lucky. And Opportunistic.”
“Hey. Any chance I could get your dagger for a second?”
“Umm. What for?”
“I want to improve it for you. As a free gift.”
“Alright… I guess.”
[Condenses the adamantium into a flatter blade, but twice as dense, and creates a molecularly sharp point on the blade]
“Here you go. I haven’t even inspected it yet, but it should do at least 500 max damage now.”
“...Aaron… You. I can’t even. Inspect it yourself...”
“Alright...”
Inspect.
-/John’s Cheat/-
-/Increases Maximum Damage Output by 3000/-
-/Requires: 80 Strength for Two-handed, 200 for one-handed/-
…
“Umm. Do you by any chance have any more adamantium?”
“… I have enough for ten swords of it. Here: It’s no charge, we get it off of the living skeletons on floor number fifteen. After literally boosting my capabilities by ten times almost… you deserve it.”
“Thanks man!”
[Matter manipulates the adamantium into one long katana shape, of course with the sharpest blade possible]
...This is five times denser than his… My gods, how is this gonna compare…
Inspect.
-/Aaron’s Cheat-ier Cheat/-
-/Increases Maximum Damage Output by 10000/-
-/Requires: 2000 Strength for Two-handed, 5000 for one-handed/-
“Fuck me in the ass, this is amazing…”
“Can I see?”
“Sure.”
“Oh my lord in Heaven, smite me now. This is… This is absurd.”
“Yup.”
[Few test swings]
“WAIT. YOU HAVE OVER 5000 STRENGTH?!”
“Yup.”
“I… I had no chance did I...”
“None at all! Hehe...”