Degritone appeared in the same clearing as before as he finished creating his armor and sword. The sight of this place immediately made him sad, but he set that aside for now, as he looked at his opponent. Opposite him was a large scorpion, with segmented claws that could bend in the middle, acting like rudimentary fingers closed around a metal oval.

Round 3 begin!

The scorpion quickly scuttled into the trees behind them as they squeezed the oval together, sending out a yellow pulse at Degritone. He began moving out of the way, but the pulse slammed into him faster than he could dodge. Thanks to Knockback Resistance, he wasn't moved, but when he checked his Health, he was missing a few thousand. It would take him about 6 seconds to regenerate the damage fully, which he had no time to do as another pulse slammed into him from a slightly different angle.

He activated Guard at about twice the power of the extra damage, activated Haste, and ran toward where the second pulse came from at over double the speed he was without Haste, now moving over 350 miles per hour. Another pulse hit him directly from the side and he activated Swordsman's Territory. With it, he could see his opponent would soon scuttle out of his Skill's range.

He cast Omen of Pestilence between his opponent and their escape route, but still in range enough to deal damage with it. Even with its slow, the scorpion was too fast. Sighing, he said, "Oh, boy. My build's worst match up this time," and activated his auras, using Aura Manipulation to extend their range slightly. They immediately stopped moving their limbs, tumbling tail over claw, releasing their strange weapon.

Within seconds, Degritone was there. Two Empowered, Omen of War-enhanced attacks later and he had finished off this weak opponent, as well. He arrived right next to Melena. He placed his hand on her head and asked, "Why don't people consider Vital Presence powerful enough to base an entire build around, exactly? Granted, that was probably still a weak-side opponent, but still. Just activating it completely removed them from the fight."

"Its weak because of its range, typically. Sure, it can get pretty high, but ranged opponents will pretty much always be outside its range unless they make a mistake or the person with Vital Presence is going exclusively for Vitality and Agility and nothing else, in which case their damage will be too low to be useful. Anyway, shall we make our way to a private room to work on your perception Skill?"

"True, but, unless soul strength is something that can easily overcome its effect, it seems like it'd completely negate any melee opponents. And sure, sounds good."

They began walking toward the closest wall, toward a door, as Melena responded, "True, but most people think about how builds work in completely solo environments, partially because of this tournament, even though Dungeons and invasions seem to be balanced around a party of 5. 1 tank, 3 DPS, 1 burst damage dealer, 1 healer, including at least one non-physical damage dealer, is the best theoretical party for almost all Dungeons. A couple fringe Dungeons need 2 healers, 2 tanks, or the burst damage dealer can be a DPS or some other deviation, but those are typically rare."

Degritone shrugged as they walked through the door. "So, what do I need for a perception Skill and why are they a unique case?"

"They're a unique case because they're a feature added by the system after an Architect Tournament. I wasn't around back then, but apparently, fights were determined entirely by who managed to activate their ranged Skill first, since they were impossible to react to. The winner, despite being very good at that kind of fighting, hated it and had the system implement a way to counteract this, and it decided the way to do so was this classification of Skill.

"A perception Skill, or more accurately a reaction Skill, or to use the system-given terminology, a Speed Skill, are Skills that somehow increase your ability to react to things. Around level 35 or so, monsters become impossible to react to, though people won't get unreactable until around level 57 or so. Some items can make that lower. Anyway, perception Skills bypass the normal Skill creation process.

"You need someone to actually craft your Skill for you, which will be me, in this case. Depending on exactly what you want, it'll take me a few rounds to get it functional, but it'll work exactly how you want, because the crafter need only give the basic shape to the Skill and the system will fill in the gaps with your intent for the Skill. Just tell me what you want, and I'll get to work. If you need, I can provide examples."

"Yes, please."

"Well, the easiest example is increasing the speed at which signals travel through your nervous system and brain. Somewhat sadly, that type of Skill is permanently on and cannot be turned off, making it hard to talk to anyone who doesn't have the ability to move at high enough speeds. The most popular is time dilation centered on the central nervous system and brain. Toggleable and arguably more effective than a signal speed increase, but also heavily dims the world around you when you use it. It's also quite tricky to craft.

"The one I use is probably the most disorienting, at least when you first get it: Completely bypassing the body's nervous system entirely and replacing it with a permanent image construct that gives you literally instant feedback to stimuluses. Downsides are the disorienting nature, untoggleability, and the fact that it doesn't affect how fast your brain itself can process information. The latter can be gotten around with some manually applied images.

"The last category of Skills focus entirely on speeding up the brain's processing and nothing else, making them a bit more simple to make, but also not lowering the time it takes to get a signal from body to brain or brain to body. This downside can be gotten around by image users, as they can forgo bodily combat to fight exclusively using materialized images. This was the most popular before time dilation was figured out, and fell out of favor because people realized that pure image combat often leaves the body vulnerable to surprise attacks."

After a few seconds, Degritone said, "Give me a bit to think."

"Of course," Melena responded, taking a seat.

Degritone stood for a few seconds before sitting as he though. How can I use Flash or Flash Space to cheat? Detecting something like its ripples wouldn't be encompassed by this kind of Skill, that would be some sort of detecting Skill, with the time frame involved being the scope of this type of Skill. Think, how can I use roughly 200 years of scientific advancement to my advantage? ... He rubbed his face.

Honestly, just time dilation sounds like the best bet. His mind began wordlessly thinking through various scientific advancements made in the last few years. Actually, I could probably do slightly better by effectively stopping time in stagger step to heavily increase the speed at which I can process information, but also be able to freeze time entirely before I relearn how to Flash. Meh. Flash would completely take over the upside to that over time dilation.

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Signing, Degritone said, "Honestly, just time dilation. If we knew about a more base energy, it would be a super easy choice because I bet I'd know how to do something really... I don't know the word I want. Anyway, time dilation, preferably levelable so I can get a bit more PP before I use all my SP."

"How far above the Skill level cap are you? I thought you'd already be at or near getting less than one percent normal experience from those 5 days of slime abuse."

"Over 1400 over. I get like 30% experience or something like that right now."

"Wow. I'm only at 583 over the level cap and I'm getting a little over point nine percent normal experience. Add that to the list of things that are interesting about you."

"There's a list?"

"Not an actual one, no. Anyway, levelable time dilation, huh? Anything weird about it that you want?"

"Not that I could think of. Nothing that will be useful when I get Flash back or if the base energy exists, anyway. Also, wow. I just realized that it already takes me so long to level Skills of my levels with 30% experience, and you went to such a low percent. How in the world did you find time to level that much?"

"Dungeons. And alright, I'll get you a standard time dilation Skill in... let's say 8 rounds. Once I have it crafted, the actually difficult part will be up to you."

"Actually, would it be possible to... words are hard, and I'm actually not sure if that would work, never mind."

"What was your idea?" As Melena asked that, a cube appeared in her hand.

"My idea was to have a second nervous system live in Flash Space and connect to my real body. It wouldn't be a full brain and everything, just the parts needed to react to stuff. I don't know how it would work, mechanically, or if it would even work at all, as my brain would still be the one reacting to things, and that's the major limiting factor in this, but putting my entire brain in Flash Space would mean I never experience time ever again and go crazy from permanent isolation.

"I guess if my entire nervous system were in my body for a few milliseconds and then put in Flash Space, or stopped time, for a about a hundred milliseconds, I could effectively react to things as fast as my body is able to generate signals, but it would also be nearly impossible to move or really do anything, since I'd effectively be experiencing the world at an inconsistent pace."

Nodding, Melena said, "Yeah, people have thought of that before. If it were anyone but you, I'd say that everything you could think of have been thought of before. Well, maybe other people from your planet are as capable with images."

Degritone shrugged. "Yeah, I'm not the most creative person to exist, though I'm probably above average."

"Are you certain that you just want standard levelable time dilation?"

"No, but a decision needs to be made."

"A perception Skill shouldn't be required to win your bracket, you know. If you want to delay it-"

"I'm good," Degritone said, solemnly. "I'd rather guarantee victory as much as I can than wait for a better idea. By the time I figure out a better idea, I'll have probably figured out Flash, anyway."

Clicking could be heard from the cube. "What is Flash, anyway? If you've described it to me, I've forgotten."

"It's a movement Skill, basically teleportation, but it's 100% free. This isn't 100% accurate to the actual physics of what happens, but basically, you step into a fourth physical dimension that is not coupled with any normal time dimension, with Flash Space having a completely separate time dimension from every other one, while every other one is at least somewhat connected to each other.

"It basically- basic- it- it- it- IT MOUTH! It basically freezes time outside as you enter Flash Space. However, Flash Space itself also has easily manipulatable space, meaning you can just will yourself to another location, allowing you to just step into Flash Space, pop from one place to another, and step back out into reality to effectively move instantly.

"The physical dimensions of Flash Space are an exact copy of the physical dimensions of reality, just uncoupled from the normal time dimension, allowing you to know where you are. However, because it's just a copy of actual reality, you are unable to interact with reality while in Flash Space and need to come back to real space to do anything. Also, should we be talking about these types of things while every Patron can watch?"

Melena waved her hand dismissively. "It's fine. I may be weak, relative to the other Patrons, but I'm friends with So'ejan, and everyone knows not to mess with him. If they mess with you, they mess with me, which will reach his ears."

Degritone shrugged. "If you say so. Flash does have one weakness, but blah. Unless someone is capable of moving faster than light, usually by using Flash themselves, is capable of reacting in the order of single digit Planck Times, and has the ability to detect a certain thing, using Flash is basically cheating. Only multiverse hoppers can really do anything about people using Flash, outside of reacting to it with an actually instant attack."

"And what's a multiverse hopper?"

"It... Ok, so, there's four... I guess 'tiers' is a good word, but they never had an official classification word. Anyway, the first is time-bound. Time-bound peop-p-pe-pep-PEOPLE are basically just you and me: People who are experiencing time linearly. Above them lie the timeline hoppers, which can jump from their current timeline to an adjacent one.

"This allows there to be multiple, non-clone copies of the person in a single fight and to basically be impossible to beat for any time-bound, since a timeline hopper can just jump to a timeline where an attack that hit them has yet to hit and dodge. Above them are multiverse hoppers that can enter the void between multiverses.

"Multiverse hoppers need stupid high power to punch through-punch through into the void, as doing so requires enough-a powerful enough kick to spacetime that it risks forcing an entire timeline to end, though because of the nature of timelines, it would have already happened in any timeline where that would happen... ANYWAY.

"Above them are omniverse hoppers who can enter 'The Hallways,' which is basically just the void between omniverses. The one between multiverses seems nearly empty because multiverses are relatively small outside their own infinite space. The Hallways are still huge, enough to fit multiple multiverses inside, but the," long pause, "omniverses are gargantuan inside their own," another long pause, "pocket of creation.

"That makes it so you can only really travel to adjacent omniverses on a reasonable timescale. It's not impossible, and a peak omniverse hopper is capable of going to arbitrarily distant Omniverses, but blah.

"A multiverse is a collection of all timelines that," short pause, "could have arisen from the initial conditions of their," long pause, "inception. Omniverses are collections of all multiverses with similar enough physics that being transposed between them doesn't cause instantaneous death. A pocket of creation contains all," short pause, "omniverses that," long pause, "use the same base energy, but have nothing else in common, even the way the base energy," long pause, "becomes matter. This means going from one omniverse to another, or even just The Hallways, while you have a body made of matter means instantaneous death.

"A base energy is basically something like what you're looking for for Mana and stuff, but is also what matter itself is made out of on a super fundamental level, below subatomic particles. Kinda like a unified field theory, or maybe string theory... maybe a bit of both, I forget, but less realistic than either... though the system exists, now, so I shouldn't really say that. Look those up when you visit after I get the internet back online. Just another bit in the little about a lot.

"Finally, there's pockets of creation. They have completely different base energies. The exact specifics of what this would mean are so abstract that we didn't even try and just ended the RP when we got that-to that point. One interpretation of the ending of the RP is that everyone who tried died. The more optimistic interpretation is that they all," long pause, "managed to figure out a way to properly convert their base energy to the other pocket's and started from zero.

"Anyway, I have talked enough for now. I am mentally tired from talking so much and am only going to respond to stuff for the next few hours as I regain my mental energy. When I give a short answer, I'm not saying to not talk to me or trying to be rude. Social interaction drains me."

Finally, after a long lecture on the basics of his old friend and his RP, he laid down. Melena nodded and they spent most of the remaining time before the next round in comfortable silence, with only the soft clicking of the cube to be heard. "It's about to start. Go ahead and suit up," Melena said.

"Mm." Degritone nodded and stood up as he donned his Mana equipment.