There was no time for further introductions. My copy did not speak, it looked at me expressionlessly like an automaton carved in my likeness.

Fists clenched in concert to my own. I felt my bloodlust rising, but detected no such thing in the placid expression of the clone that stood across from me. The master of this puppet had left it incomplete; a furnace with no fuel.

I would show them the failure in their creation. As soon as I ran towards it, it charged me in kind. In its physical perfection as a replica, it took the action that I wanted to see the most. It threw its arm behind its head at the same time that I did. We both threw our arms forward and struck each other at the same time.

Our punches were terribly slow like they were embalmed in molasses. They were stored with all the power that we could manage. I was pleased that my clone craved the same great, decisive blow that I did even if its face did not show it.

There was no appetite to dodge the other’s attack. Our fists would inflict the full weight on each other to ruinous effects.

The fist collided with my torso. It felt like a warhead smashed into my ribcage. I felt each piece of my body break in slow motion like a car test video. My scales were torn apart like wet tissue paper. Bones disintegrated upon impact, causing my torso to collapse in on itself. Organs popped like a water balloon smashed with a nail-studded baseball bat.

I was turned to a donut. My eyes drifted to inspect the gaping hole in my chest. Blood spewed forth from the wound to disappear into the pool.

My eyes widened at the destruction wrought upon me. I was faced with the realization that I had neglected to reallocate the points that I placed into strength back into the rest of my stats. None of the vitality I possessed remained.

But, the smile plastered on my face could not be removed. My clone was a perfect copy and had possessed an identical stat spread.

My punch pressed into its sternum and popped open the ribcage like a turkey’s wishbone fought over by a pair of professional wrestlers. Meat confetti covered the pool as the clone backpedaled. It reached down and scooped up its intestinal party streamers and stuff it back into its body. But, it didn’t matter.

[Too Angry to Die] activated, but left the both of us too weak to continue the fight. We collapsed at the same time. As soon as my body touched the ground, the water enveloped me in its embrace. I sunk towards the bottom as the joy of the fight faded to be replaced by the tortuous pain that the punch ravaged on my body.

I don’t know if the cave would have let me die even with my passive. Slowly, my body reformed in the water. The body parts that became little more than red mist and bone fragments that even a professional archeologist couldn’t identify.

That slowness allowed for me to ruminate on the fight. Bloodlust gave way for pragmatism to rest at an unsatisfying conclusion to my inaugural self-brawl.

It was a draw.

All of that excitement boiled down to identically powered and placed punches that incapacitated us at the same time. If I were to go up and do it all over again, I would aim for the head.

But, there was no doubt that the controller of the reflection reached the same conclusion. Perhaps it had noticed something smarter. Maybe it would allocate its stats differently to survive the strike. Perhaps, this time, it would try to dodge.

The time for my strategy session came to an abrupt end. A current lifted my body from the depths of the water and back to the surface to commence the second round. I moved my stats around to prioritize strength and body slightly above agility and magic. I flexed my hands as the severed nerves that controlled them returned.

My face broke through the surface and a spray of water pushed me to my feet. Across the cave from me was my repaired clone.

“Learn anything?” I asked whatever was pulling the strings.

No words came in response. Instead, my clone bent its knees and started bouncing on the balls of its feet. It held clenched fists in front of it like some street boxer from a fight filmed in portrait mode.

I took a step forward and it started another charge towards me. Good, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it if it immediately turned to the defensive.

My arm flexed with a full powered attack. I twisted my body and planted my foot to deliver a devastating straight at my clone’s head. But, all I felt was the whistling of air.

A large burst of wind ripped through where the clone had been standing and caused ripples in the reflective ground. Steam puffed out of my nose and displeasure rose within me. The puppet master piloted my replica in a distasteful way. It dodged from my punch, side-stepping and delivering a blow to my stomach.

I spewed some of my caustic saliva at my clone’s face and scowled. The liquid dripped ineffectively from the clone’s face.

“Fine,” I said, mimicking the street brawler stance that I had used in the past. “Let’s see how well you know my memories.”

I rarely had the opportunity to use these stances in a real street brawl of equal strength. My style was not greatly different from how I normally fight. Large, difficult to block attack intended to deliver as much punishment as humanly possible. The footwork was only a vehicle to help me reach my destination.

My body hopped forward to gift another heavy blow to my clone. The clone raised its left arm and met my forearm to deflect the punch from its head. It delivered a sharp uppercut into my chest and stepped to the left to try to smack me in the kidney. I whipped my tail, opening a bloody wound on its forearm.

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An elbow caught it in the face and sent it backwards. I didn’t give it time to recover and threw another punch that connected into its chest. It dug its feet into the ground and stopped its backwards momentum.

I didn’t want to let go of my initiative and threw another punch. Vice-like hands gripped around my wrist and teeth dug into my flesh. My blood dripped from my copy’s mouth.

Laughter left my mouth as I wrenched my arm from the dagger-filled maw. I didn’t mind a struggle.

We began trading fists. Each savage blow was met with one in return. Each dodge earned a slash of the tail across the feet. Each bite delivered had a bite in return. No move would go unavenged.

Our health dwindled. Blood poured from the cracks in dented scales. Spikes were bent and ripped off bodies. Teeth were punched from the mouth to leave sucking holes in the gums.

I spat out another tooth. Catching it in my hand, I flung the bloody projectile as hard as I could at my clone. It tilted its head to the side and allowed it to pass just barely past the neck before running at me.

Another high-powered punch loaded up in my arm. I didn’t care about whether or not it was going to be a draw. I just wanted to see it die again; receive my pound of flesh and start over.

A wide smile crossed my mouth; my blow was faster. Yet, it all disappeared when I felt an impact like cold steel on the other end of my knuckles. Its scales looked thicker than they did right before impact and the damage done was minimal.

Then, I saw the scales thin out again as the stats that just inhabited the defenses shifted somewhere else. The end of a punch.

I laughed at the ingenuity. It was a rapid blow with maximized speed and strength. To add further insult, it employed the Grand Master’s mana infused punching technique. Even if I were at peak condition, I wasn't sure if such a blow would have been survivable. Everything about it was infuriatingly perfect.

It should have been me who had thought of it.

I didn’t see the punch hit me. I didn’t feel it. Everything just went dark and water splashed around my legs. [Too Angry To Die] activated, but I was already meat paste floating down to the bottom of the river.

As the waters of the lake pieced my raw hamburger body back together, I was possessed with one thought.

“How do I best manage my Hoard?”

I had simply thrown equalized distributions into even stat without consideration. I had not thought about shifting it mid-combat. But, what values were optimal for each move? How much did I need in an attack mid-punch to kill someone in one hit? How long did it take to shift stats mid-fight?

Entirely new avenues of strategy opened up and I floated back to the top intent to learn the full extent of my abilities. I was eager to trade my flesh for knowledge; this first revelation was already incalculable.

The clone was waiting for me when I arrived. It looked at me with the same expressionless face that it had every time. But, for some reason, it appeared more focused than last time; more determined.

“I’ll even the score with this round,” I announced and entered my stance.

But, before I knew it, I was already floating back down to the bottom. My body was torn to pieces to descend with my torso and severely damaged head. My face was contorted into an expression of confusion and disbelief.

What just happened?

We started the same way as before. The only difference was that I was ready to shift my stats around. I planned around a rudimentary see-saw between maximized defense and offense to give myself opportunities to learn more in this fight.

But, my clone possessed just as much time as I did to innovate.

A blur of black traveling as fast as Yoshitsune’s lightning collided into the center of my stomach before I had the time to even process the beginning of my own plan. Just as the rapid punch connected with my body, all the points shifted into strength to obliterate me in the same fashion as my previous death.

I fumed. How could I be so weak as to die to myself so easily? They were not using anything that I did not possess. They simply used it better. I felt like a new driver in a race against a professional.

This was far more humbling than any lesson I could have been delivered by someone stronger than me.

I popped out of the ground like a submerged balloon. All my points were flung into agility. I could see my clone’s muscles flex as they began its attack without fanfare.

This time, I took my maximized speed to the air. My clone reached its destination to find me dropping directly on them faster than I ever flew. It stepped a wide margin backwards while I slammed into the ground with full force. A wave of water rose from the slam and washed in every direction.

It escaped the kill blow. But, my attack succeeded in grazing the clone’s arm. It hung limply at its side.

The clone ripped its arm off and wielded it like a weapon. It stepped in again at maximum speed. I shifted all my stats into my body and flexed to meet the attack. A healthy amount of damage ripped through my body and my [Carapace] returned a decent amount into it.

I maximized speed to follow it. The regenerating side of its body was wide open to a devastating attack. My fists clenched and rocketed forward.

Bright light exploded from the clone’s body. My eyes seared and I yelled from the unexpected pain. I tried to rapidly blink my vision back into operation, but I knew that it was too late. I had lost the initiative and that split second was enough to seal my fate.

Another killer punch carved death into my body and [Too Angry to Die] took over while the water swallowed me again.

I was in disbelief. Again, I showed something about myself that I was unaware of. That was [Torchlight] wasn’t it? That was just meant to be a ball of light that was used to illuminate darkness. It wasn’t described as a combat move and never seemed all that impressive.

What about if it was at full magical power?

Bitterly, I floated to the top only to be sent right back down again. Fights constantly ended with a fundamental misunderstanding of appropriate stat distribution. Agility and Magic allowed [Flaying Tail] to cripple limbs and rip out arteries. [Sanguine Bite] refunded a percentage of health and benefited most from a high Body stat.

It even used [The Great Decay] on me with maximum Magic. My stats drained rapidly and [Crimson Eyes] filled my body with enough fear to dull my reaction time and deal the final blow.

That one offended me the most.

But, it wasn’t without progress. My use of flight changed the course of the battle entirely, with most fights occurring in the air if no openings could be seen upon my rebirth from the clear, cold womb that took me after every defeat. I learned that fast punches were the best to deliver [Iron Fist] to create a stun. If it wasn’t for it using [The Great Decay] in such an underhanded way, that one would have been my victory.

Upon my newest revival, I found that there was a guest in the cave. It was a woman with stone-gray skin. They wore iron armor woven with leather and fur. A bearded axe rested at each hip and a tiara of animal bone sat atop their head.

But, despite their radical change in appearance, their soul could not be changed.

“Why are you here, Passion?” I asked pointedly. “Was there something that you needed from me?”

“I was simply curious,” Passion answered while closely inspecting the clone. She placed her hands on the clone’s body and rubbed it over their scales. “You’ve used my gift dozens of times in a row and I was dying to know what was killing you over and over again without letting you truly die. Turns out, it was yourself. I can’t tell if that’s egotistical or not. Maybe Ecstasy would know.”

“I don’t need help, if that’s what you are here for,” I said defensively.

“Help?” Passion scoffed. “Why would I help you when the desperate struggle to survive is so much more interesting? No, I only intend to watch.”

Passion made a show of stepping away from the clone and disappearing into thin air. But, I could still feel the overwhelming presence in every portion of the cave. As soon as Passion left, the clone’s body, which seemed to be frozen in a trance, suddenly fired back up again.

“Show me what you have learned.”