While not debilitating, Mike’s mutilated arm was painful, especially without adrenaline distracting him in a fight to the death. Bending down to cut the pieces of meat as quickly as he could, he couldn’t help but miss Analyze, so he could know what kind of steak he would be making for dinner that night.
After salvaging some of the meat, he walked the 30 minutes back to his crater, grateful for his heightened brain activity which made retracing his steps easy, despite his surroundings being uniform. A quick nap later using Hands of Healing, and he was ready to back out and keep training. He had been sloppy and overconfident during the last fight, and he was lucky that he had been a natural counter to the beast, or else it could have ended far worse.
It took quite a bit longer to find a beast of similar strength to himself the second time around, enough so that as he stood behind what appeared to be a giant arachnid, but with a total of 12 legs, he had the perfect line prepared.
“Hello. I am not sure if you can understand me, but I have been stranded…”
The spider moved much more quickly than the rock monster had, and he was forced to activate Damage Premonition immediately in order to interpret the 8 different attacks coming his way simultaneously. He stepped forward into the first attack, brushing it to the side as he did so, finding to his surprise that his strength was on par with the large creature.
A sensation warned him of the surprise stinger that was hidden underneath the beast's body, and he jumped backwards through the air, just managing to dodge it in time. The move had been anticipated however, and he was unable to do anything other than use Unflinching Meteor to avoid being impaled on the many claws no pincering in from behind, ready to impale him. Unable to move, he was forced to simply hope that his initial force would be enough to break free.
For the second time in as many fights, Mike was on the losing end of the mass category, and rather than breaking free, the spider caught his body. He was forced to simply wait patiently, biding his time as he watched the beast first try in vain to first impale him, second sting him, and finally crush him to death.
As the skill was about to end, he found himself pressed firmly against the creature, and he prepared for his strike. As soon as he was able to move again, he raised his hand and activated Sonic Sounding, sending a deadly concussive force straight into the beast's body, even as the knife-like limb dug into his body, remaining partially embedded as he fell back down to the ground. In worse shape than he had been after the first fight, he was forced to use Hands of Healing where he currently sat, or risk bleeding out immediately. For the second time ever, the skill didn’t actually cause him to black out, and after collecting some of the claws which were sturdier and sharper than what he could currently form with Quicksilver, he continued hunting.
Like this, the next few days passed, during which time, he only returned to his crater a single time to rest and recuperate. By the end of his hunting spree, he felt he had a good feel for his current body and was ready to progress further.
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Two days later, Mike stared at his core like a proud father. What had once been the size of an apple, was now bordering on large grapefruit after his fourth successful improvement. The rotational speed had still proved to be his biggest challenge, which is why it had taken him so long to only gain a single level. Not wanting to fall out of touch with his body again, he decided to take it for another spin before gaining another level.
It has nothing to do with upgrading my core being boring. He reaffirmed to himself as he made his way outside. Although, not spending the day staring at a floating ball of energy does sound exciting. Besides, even in SEAL training we were able to work some of our pent up energy out through sparring, and that is all I am doing now.
While walking, he reflected on the different sizes of cores he had seen thus far, having long since given up on engaging a monster civilly and needing to construct an introduction. It seemed to him that there were three size categories, at least from what he had seen so far. The first were beings with cores that were close to his own size, around the size of an apple to the size of a coconut–with his being somewhere in the middle. He had yet to see anything with a core between the size of a coconut and a watermelon, rather there seemed to be a bit of a gap, which he postulated was due to some kind of dramatic increase in core strength. Then there were beasts who had cores ranging from watermelons to large pumpkins. It was beasts of this strength that were lining up to enter the rift, giving him a pretty good idea of what his strength needed to be to reenter–at a minimum. Finally, he had detected one beast who had a core that was double the size of a large pumpkin. He had sensed the energy signature from a ways away, as it seemed to glow with more energy than the whole of the cosmic pool, and had opted to steer very far away from it.
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Luckily, it seemed that most of the beasts were unable to sense energy signatures, as he was the one constantly approaching others, and had yet to have anything approach him, at least until that day. Thoughts of watermelon sized pumpkins had filled his head as he walked from one crater to the next, causing him to daydream of the way a sweet, freshly-picked watermelon tasted on a summer day, and he had almost missed the humongous purple blob that oozed silently across the ground to his location. His initial reaction had been to escape the situation, but upon noticing that its core was only marginally bigger than his own and that it was actually a bit slower than him, he decided to give it a shot.
Dashing forward, he sent a jab at the beast, intending to test its defenses, but was completely shocked when the gelatinous mass simply retracted around his fist, causing him to miss completely. Having not fully committed to the attack, he withdrew his fist quickly, in preparation for getting some more jabs in, only to have the creature's body converge back to its original position in an instant, engulfing the knuckle on his pinky. A sharp pain on his hand caused him to look at his hand, where he saw that the flesh and even bone that had been engulfed were completely gone.
A twinge from Damage Premonition alerted him to the creature's follow-up, which was simply moving forward to engulf more of his body, and he jumped backwards several feet to buy himself space. As he took in his enemy from a distance, he noticed the missing piece of his hand floating in the top layer of the creature, where it was slowly dissolving.
“Note to self, don’t actually touch that creature.” He said as he called forth one of the spider’s claws, which had become a staple of his fighting lately. They were easy to wield and so far had held up very well against anything he had fought.
Jumping forwards at an angle, he landed to the side of the beast and stuck out with the claw. The creature reacted by retracting its body as it had done before. Figuring this would be the case, he pulled the weapon back just in time, but was forced to fall sideways into a roll, dropping his weapon, as a spear-like protrusion formed from the creature and almost impaled him. He rolled quickly to his feet, but was too late to save his weapon, which he saw was already being digested.
“Scratch that. Note to self, touching any unknown creature is probably a bad idea.” he amended as he thought through his next move.
He wasn’t given much time to think, as the creature pursued him relentlessly, forcing him to relinquish another claw in their next exchange. Frustration at losing two perfectly good weapons caused him to form a long blade of Quicksilver. A sword was far from his go-to weapon, but he thought the increased reach and slashing power would come in handy.
For the next two minutes, the two kept up a steady pattern of Mike attacking, the monster dodging, the monster retaliating, and Mike jumping away to get space. Finally, he found his opening, and the key to securing the victory when he correctly anticipated that the monster would counter-attack with the gelatinous body javelin (as he had named it in his head), allowing him to side step before swinging his blade through the protrusion. This resulted in the creature making its first noise of the engagement, a horrendous, hissing scream that made what little hair he had on his head stand on end.
A follow-up attack came quickly, and he jumped backward, where he saw the creature retrieve its fallen, unmoving, body part, absorbing it back into itself. Realization dawned on him then, and he spent the next 30 seconds testing his theory. Sure enough, if a part of the creature was separate from its body, it would lie lifelessly on the ground, just as any creature's appendage would. It was a relief to know that the creature was killable, and with this knowledge obtained, he once again went on the offensive.
Creating a longer blade of Quicksilver, he attacked with large, looping arcs that forced the creature to give ground or risk losing a bunch of mass in one go. Bit by bit, he reduced the creature, steering it always backwards so it couldn’t regain any of its fallen mass. During this process, he learned that whatever mass was larger of the two segments he created when cutting it would be the one to retain sentient thought–a hard one bit of knowledge that he gained when he thought he had beheaded the creature, only to have its bottom two thirds surge at his feet.
Finally, when it was no bigger than a small dog, he activated Footsteps of the Wind, further cutting it down until it was no larger than a marble, before scoping out a bit of rock using Rock Tunneling, and flicking the creature into the pit with the sword tip. He watched it struggle for a bit, unsure if there was a way to kill the stupid creature, but upon seeing that it couldn’t get out of the tiny pit, he decided to simply walk away. The fight had worn him out.
As he began walking back to his crater, his mind was put at ease as he saw that bits of the creature were dissolving, with the earliest cut portions already being completely gone. The knowledge put his mind at ease that the evil Jell-O monster wasn’t going to hunt him back to his den anytime soon, and he was able to get back to dreaming of his favorite fruits and veggies to make the return journey easier. He had had enough training for one day.