"Alright," I said at a shout to try and be heard over the ringing in my ears, "I think I speak for everyone when I say that supercharging your flash is completely forbidden while in the same area code as allies Kyli."

",', ,,,,,!" something that might have been a voice whispered under the all consuming ringing.

"I think someone just said something," I shouted conversationally. "If so, I'm afraid I didn't catch that. That flash was so bright that it's somehow deafened me as well. Heck, I think even my sense of touch and smell have been knocked out as well! Give it a few more minutes to hopefully fade. I really hope I don't have to try and regrow my eyes."

",', ,, ,,,,,! , ,,,,', ,,,,, ,, ,,,,, be this bad!"

–You are no longer afflicted by Blind–

–You are no longer afflicted by Deaf–

–You are no longer afflicted by Anosmia–

–You are no longer afflicted by Anhedonia–

–You are no longer afflicted by Ageusia–

–You are no longer afflicted by Vertigo–

"It's okay!" I lowered my voice, despite a bit of lingering ringing and spots, "It seems to be wearing off. Hells bells! Disabling Flash is an on point name for that skill! How long was that? Five minutes?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Damian spat, still rubbing his eyes, "I'm pretty sure I got the full effect just from what reflected off your shiny metal ass!"

"It even affected my moths outside the building!" Matilda complained as she rubbed her compound eyes with her scarf, "Despite being miles away they still got knocked out!"

"I had my face buried in the dirt!" Will's right head complained, "It did nothing to stop it!"

"I'm sorry!" Kyli wailed dark tears stinking of copper staining her cheeks, "I didn't mean for it to be that bad!"

"This is why we are testing these out in a controlled environment." I did my best to sooth the woman by lightly running my tail down her back, not sure how successful I was considering I kept getting caught on her boney thorns. "So catastrophic successes like this don't happen somewhere someone might die."

Michelle poked her avian head around the corner, blinking owlishly at us, she began to nervously finger her new afghan poncho as she stammered out, "Uh, I'm back. D-did something happen while I was in the bathroom?"

"Kyli blinded us!" Will's right head moaned. "With science!" the left chuckled. His right head bit his left's ear causing both to yip in pain.

"I'm so sorry," Kyli sniffled, collapsing to her belly and covering her eyes with her claws.

I mentally sighed as I continued to try and coax our librarian out of her cycle of self recriminations. This exercise had been running into a lot more potholes than I was expecting.

Sure Anthony had made it through his rounds with me without incident beyond briefly locking me up with his Focused Paralytic Bites, but it had passed quickly and barely scratched me. Then the toad, Elijah, had stepped up for his round and discovered that his Poison Coat when Focused exploded off him spreading a cloud of noxious toxins through the air. Thankfully his poison wasn't particularly potent, yet, and most people didn't suffer much worse than a spat of vomiting and a few cases of diarrhea. It still took a lot of wind out the sails of the activity. Then Jeremy took his turn.

Now, to be fair to Jeremy, what happened was hardly his fault. In fact he'd been very smart about things, such as testing his corrosive bite on one of the stadium seats before biting me with it. Something I was grateful for as the chair rusted away to dust and even the concrete it was bolted to seemed to erode into soil at frankly horrific speeds. I was even the one who suggested he try using Focus on his rotwalkers. I didn't expect it to knock him out or summon the absolute horror that we were calling the Rot-brute.

I cast a worried glance at the six foot at the shoulder thing that looked like it rivaled Rumi for the title of 'Most Roided'. It currently lay near Jeremy, its long black stilt legs folded under its oozing fleshless body, the black mossy vines that seemed to be holding its flesh in place wriggling like worms. Its wide perpetually grinning mouth sat near Jeremy's face, using a long twisted tongue that looked disturbingly like an arm to groom its summoner. Its glowing lamp-like eyes seemed to be gazing nowhere, yet gazing deeply into my soul at the same time as I absently massaged the spot the thing had hit me hard enough to leave a dent. I swear its ear wide grin grew even larger in response, revealing all three rows of teeth growing haphazardly out of its pitch black gums as if to remind me that it had come worryingly close to drawing blood.

I would happily deal with Nolan's exploding bees and armor piercing mosquitos or Damian's ability to become undetectable to even my tremorsense again before I willingly faced off with that monster again. At least Matilda had been nice and normal with her swarm of web spitting moths. Then Jerry had to try and knock me through a damn wall with his fully charged Wind-Up Blow, his smug smirk had made me sorely tempted to punt him into a wall of his own. I swear if I wasn't leveling up my defenses like mad I'd have already called an end to this little session of show and tell.

–Bunker Down has leveled up! x7–

–Gained 21xp–

–Bunker Down: D→ C–

–Wolfram Mutagen has leveled up! x6–

–Gained 18xp–

–Wolfram Mutagen: D→ C–

I've done worse work for less.

"Alright," I said with what little pep I still had left after helping Shaniqua and Michelle walk Kyli off to the side of the field and help get our librarian together, "Who's next then? Jack, Omar, Rafael, Will?"

"Yeah I got somethings I'm wanting to try," Jack said, stepping forwards. I noticed he was wearing a tool belt loaded down with hatchets, hammers, and machetes over tight black leather pants now. "You might want to really harden your defenses for this, it might sting a bit."

Activating Bunker down and reading myself to Focus both it and my scales playfully boasted, "Fool! Your puns can't harm me!"

I swear Jack's face smirked as all six of his abdomens showed far more flexibility than I'd expected them to have as they bent around his torso to point at me, two resting on his shoulders and four under each armpit. I readied myself for a volley of stingers, only to be caught off guard as he vomited a bright glob of fire into his hands and quickly smeared it on his six stingers. With a flick of his wrist he tossed away the leftover burning ooze and braced himself as all six of his now flaming stingers fired.

"That's so fu-" I started before all six stingers slammed into my armored hide and exploded.

BRUMTHUMTHUMTHUMTHUMTHUMOOM

–You have taken 217 Piercing Damage–

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

–You have taken 185 Fire Damage–

–Bunker Down has leveled up!–

–Gained 3xp–

–Wolfram Mutagen has leveled up!–

–Gained 3xp–

I blinked in surprise to find myself laying on my back with several oozing wounds in the thickest parts of my armor. There was deafening silence as I lay there in that foggy period of passing out where your body is still rebooting and my brain wasn't entirely certain how to react. Well there was one response I felt was probably safe to give. "Ow."

"Shit! Joe!" Omar bellowed as if my announcement had frozen a spell of frozen time.

"Sorrysorrysorrysorry!" Jack chittered on repeat as he hurried forwards as well.

"Everyone! Don't crowd him!" Anthony tried to shout over the sudden uproar.

"Bandages!" Matilda shrieked, "Someone help me bandage him!"

"I've got a skill that might help!" Jeremy screamed trying to force his way closer.

NO! Nononononononono! Keep that evil away from me!

"Shove off!" Rafael shrieked, landing on my huge belly and nipping at several of the people crowding me, "I've actually got a mutation specifically for this kind of shit."

I could only half see the leafy bird from the way I was splayed out, but it looked like he was ripping out several of his leafy feathers, or was it feathery leaves? Whichever it was, he ripped several of them off himself and smeared them across one of my wounds. What had been a distant burning ache briefly sharpened before the pain faded away leaving an almost cool feeling in the burnt crater. Wonder what was going on?

–Health: 68/470–

–Stamina: 110/110–

–Willow Wing Restorative–

Willow Wing Restorative? I wonder what that does?

Willow Wing Restorative: A powerful medicine made from the feathers of a Weeping Woodhoopoh bird. Regeneration++ Fire Resistance+ Pain Resistance+

Huh, and can just ask things of the system and it will answer? Well that's good to know.

I grunted as I rolled myself right-side up again despite the protest of those around me. "'M fine. Looks worse than it is." I made sure to find Jack and look him dead in his compound eyes. "Sorry about that Jack, got caught up in how stylish you were making your attack look and didn't have any Focus going. My bad. Though I suppose this is a wonderful example of what happens when a Focus boosted technique meets an unfocused defense."

"Sorry about nearly killing you," he murmured, his wings buzzing sadly as his, "Though I did discover something about the system from it."

"Told you, looks worse than it is," I lied as Matilda and Rafael both worked at medicating and bandaging my injuries under Anthony's guidance, "What did you figure out? Share with the rest of the class."

"Well technically two things I guess." Jack said, seeming a bit shy now that I'd put the spotlight on him. "I noticed that the system does differentiate between normal attacks and ones with Focus, it called them Empowered. The big thing though was that when I combined my Venom, Pyroclastic Projectile, and Projectile Stinger the system popped up with a message when they hit. It called them a combo and gave me twenty five extra experiences."

"Interesting," I flinched as another load of feathers were stuffed into my wound, "I wonder if it works for things beyond attacks. I might need to look into seeing if I stack another defensive ability if it works for me."

"Or maybe if I have a third type of summon," Nolan buzzed excitedly.

"I wonder if it works for stealth abilities," Damian mused.

"It does seem like it's encouraging us to specialize," I hummed. I tended to prefer a more generalist build for a system I wasn't familiar with and had been trying to make myself as well rounded as I could but maybe shifting a bit more towards defense wouldn't be the worst idea. Especially considering how many people on my own team were able to punch through my defenses now. "Certainly something to keep in mind. You ready to keep going?"

I could feel Matilda, Anthony, and Rafael's glares boring into my back as they paused in their tending of my wounds while everyone else looked at me like I was crazy. Omar was the first to put voice to the question, "Are you sure that's a good idea Joe? You've been getting pretty banged up."

"And getting all the stronger for it," I pointed out, "Both my skill and mutation have both ranked up already and we're learning a lot from it. Don't you have anything you'd like to test out?"

"Sorta?" he shrugged, reaching for the hammers on his belt. "I've kinda been wondering if we can use this Focus thing on things other than ourselves. So I've been trying it with my hammers and it's, kinda, been working. Sorta?" he fidgeted nervously as all eyes became fully focused on him, "It's, weird, it's almost like I'm trying to strain pasta through a strainer that's flipped the wrong way around so a lot of it is spilling everywhere, but some of it's working."

Jack immediately snatched up four of the tools on his belt and started looking at them intensely in turn. "Yeah. I see what you're getting at. It's almost like trying to pour water into a cup spinning on your finger tip while riding a unicycle. Difficult and awkward, but some of it is going into the glass." He hefted his hatchet and looked at it closely, "It seems to be a bit easier with this axe though."

"I'm betting it has something to do with the wooden haft," Omar said excitedly pointing at the tool's haft. "I noticed it myself that wooden tools seemed to be easier than plastic or composite hafts. I thought it might just be me, but if you're noticing it too there might be something to it!"

"Have you tried using it on bone or monster hides?" I asked, "It might have something to do with once living things." I caught Omar's gaze and we both grimaced. Making it so tools and gear made out of people and monsters could be enhanced to outperform even modern tools it would just be par for the course with this monstrous system.

"I swear that it it turns out we're dealing with a Dragon Hunter situation I swear I'm going to," Will's left head started only to be interrupted by his right saying, "start grinding out armor sets?" the two heads began to start playfully nipping at each other and calling each other names.

"That's something for the future," I said, changing the subject. "For tonight, I think we should focus on getting everyone outside up to a basic level of competence in combat."

"Are you sure that's a good idea Joe?" Nolan asked, struggling a bit to turn his heavy body to face me. "You've gotten your ass chewed up pretty bad from this session, if you have everyone out there start doing the same we're going to suffer casualties, if not fatalities."

"The world is literally full of monsters now," I declared bluntly and flatly, "We've managed to shelter these people so far, but how long until a worm monster burst from the ground, a giant fish drags them into a river, a field of grass attacks them, or a roc drops on them from a blue sky? Not only that but in just two days we've already gotten so powerful that if we wanted we could topple skyscrapers, they are all going to reach that point eventually. We need them trained enough that they can fend for themselves long enough for someone else to save them and disciplined enough not to use that power recklessly or in anger. Some of them are going to get hurt, sure, but in the long run it will probably save more lives to have them at least trained enough to call a militia. We aren't going to be teaching them how to Focus, unless you feel the person is loyal and responsible enough to handle such a powerful secret, but making sure they won't accidentally kill each other in a panic seems worth the risk of injury.

"Besides, we heal quickly now," I jerked my head back towards my own injuries, "So a few gashes, bumps, breaks, and bruises will help them learn control as well as power. An hour or two after supper every day sounds reasonable to me. What do you say Omar?"

My overgrown sasquatch jerked as I asked him for his thoughts and sagged as he realized why, "Yeah, that seems fairly reasonable. I'll let everyone know while we're eating."

"Great!" I smiled encouragingly to my friend, "I'm looking forward to teaching a bunch of animals how to get hit."

"You," Matilda hissed, her voice oozing venom, "Will not be participating in the training tonight."

"Agreed," the tiny chicken-snake next to her stated with a surprisingly authoritative voice, "We might heal quickly but you have taken numerous severe injuries today from what I've heard. Moreover, I watched you at breakfast and know you didn't eat nearly enough for an animal of your size this morning so you will have an extra large helping tonight to aid with your healing. We'll be making sure you get plenty of bed rest, even if we have to tie you up and constantly hit you with my status effects."

I glared at the three acting medical professionals standing on my back as they glared back at me. "Fine. Can you at least bring me that book on semaphore so I'll at least still be doing something useful here?"

They at least agreed to let me keep doing that much as the group began to break up to go about their various business throughout the stadium. I absolutely did not spend the rest of the night sulking in the stadium trying to feel the faint vibrations of the training the others were running in the evening light. At least the scorpion gumbo was both tasty and filling even if it was missing a couple of ingredients from the recipe.