After seeing me rip the snow lion in half Seth nodded. Another odd observation was that my regeneration seemed to also work on skin-tight casual wear. My teacher sized me up and down, clearly using scrutinizing skills of some sort.

He just as clearly couldn’t make heads or tails of what he saw. “What was the first martial art you learned?”

“Unrelenting Glacier,” I answered.

Seth opened his mouth to say something but no words came out. He closed his mouth and paced for a bit. Finally he said “I figured out your issue. You have been sprinting your whole life, and you don’t even know how to crawl.”

“Could you explain that using more words?” I asked.

“Most people do not start with a Cosmic Martial Art. They start with a style. Something like Aggressive, Strong, or Quick. This is when they are young and untrained in any skills, mind you.”

He wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve, “From there anyone actually trying to learn to fight will learn a mortal martial art, stuff like Boxing, Karate, Jeet Kune Do… basic things like that. The classification for those aren’t really important beyond how it is a school of thought pulling several combat skills together. “

Seth paused to see if understood. When I nodded he continued, “From there, the truly dedicated can break through and unlock an Elevated Martial Art. That is a combination of both physical and often mystical abilities to create a more potent fighting style. After mastering one of those and gain competency in several others Elevated Martial Arts a chosen few can break through to a Cosmic Martial Art.” a lot of certainty left his voice as he continued, “These are reality-distorting combat styles that are broad in both scope and power. The big thing is, each facet of a Cosmic Martial Art is a combination of multiple skills.”

“How’d I manage that?” The path Seth described required experience and deliberate action. I had extremely limited experience, and was basically flailing randomly.

Seth took a moment to think, “Probably by virtue of fighting high level and scale enemies and just being a Titan Spawn.”

I keep forgetting that being a Titan Spawn is the answer to the majority of dumb things that happen around me. Probably shouldn’t talk too much shit, it is also the reason I was still alive, “So do I need to learn to crawl then?”

Seth sort of shrugged, “Actually I think we need to speed you up a bit further and see if we can get you to fly.”

I mean, I didn’t know what I was doing so it made sense to at least try. “Okay, how do we do that?”

“Cosmic Martial Arts are more complex than most. They have the staple abilities of Fast Attack, Strong Attack, Counter, but they also have a Utility ability, a Mobility ability and a Mystical ability. It becomes a sort of puzzle for the person using it to assemble the appropriate skills and align them. Some claim this is a sort of path to self-discovery also.” Seth explained

I nodded, I felt a bit like a bobble head. That said, I didn’t know enough to argue, “And what does that mean?”

“We need to figure out the ethos of the martial art you have, and then level the skills to fill out the list.” Seth explained. “How many abilities have you unlocked.?”

“Two: Crushing Defense and Ablative Shell,” I said.

“What do they do?” Seth pressed. He had put on a stern teacher's tone.

Wondering if I was a poor student, I explained. “Crushing Defense lets me counter attack people who I block the attacks of. Ablative Shell… lets me stack a shell made of ice. Once per minute up to three times?” Probably shouldn’t have said that last bit as a question, but I had no idea what that meant.

Seth nodded, “How many people can you counter attack?

“Now? Twenty,” I answered.

“How much structure does the shell have?” Seth asked, considering stuff.

“Twenty, I think,” I said, double checking my prompts.

“Holy shit,” Seth said. He walked away. He walked over to his bed and pulled a pitcher off the stand and poured himself a glass of what looked to be water. He then drank it to stall further for more time to think. “So to be clear, you can put out up to twenty-one attacks a second without penalty and generate a layer of structural armor that with your defense will absorb eight attacks on average every minute.”

“Oh, is that what Ablative Shell does?” I said, considering my ambivalence to the system again. “I should have been using that.”

Seth closed his eyes for a moment before saying, “I age greatly each time you speak.”

I frowned at him. What exactly did he want from me.

“The Titan Spawn have been said to be wise and mysterious beings. You come across as…” Seth hesitated before finishing.

“An ignorant child?” I offered.

“Your words.” Seth said before deciding they were his words also, “but yes.”

I shrugged. “Give me six months, maybe by then I will be all mysterious.”

Seth smiled almost ruefully. “I am sure that is how it works.” He looked down at himself and sighed, “I will have to get my gear repaired before we get too rambunctious again. How about we work through the method to your madness… martially speaking. I can’t help with the other stuff.” His eyes looked to a middle distance while gazing in my direction. Clearly he was reading some sort of prompt. He frowned, “Doug, I do not mean to sound judgemental, but your Crushing Defense ability is in your fast attack option.”

“But it is a counter attack,” I observed. “Shouldn’t it be my counter attack?”

Seth nodded, “I think that is odd myself, but you are the one with the Godkiller achievement.” he shrugged.

“How does that work?” I asked.

“You are combining the skills for Unarmed Attack and Block.” Seth thought for a moment, “I would guess you could combine that with any other weapon skill. Come to think of it, that may be a way to blunt the huge difference in Scale between us.”

“What skills are involved with Ablative Shell?” I asked.

“Block and Craft mostly.” Seth said.

“But I didn’t have Craft at Trained until after I unlocked that ability.”

“My guess is you pushed Block to the Expert level and then due to extreme want, you were able to unlock the Utility ability.” My mentor speculated… correctly.

I thought about that for a moment, “That sort of feels like my style, The Unrelenting Glacier is more about self defense than, say, hurting others.”

Seth eyed me with a ‘no duh’ look on his face, “That is true of almost every martial art ever. You need to dig deeper. The title is a clue to the themes, and the base skills you used should help guide you to at least the Strong Attack.”

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“Block and…” I started.

“No,” Seth cut in, “Unarmed. It is an attack. You need an attack skill for an attack slot.”

I turned to Spine, “Does that make sense to you.”

Spine looked up from his book, “Yeah. You can’t attack without attacking.” He thought for a moment. “Except for traps, explosives, environmental effects, and some other things like dragon breath.”

“That seems like a lot of exceptions,” I mused.

“It isn’t,” Seth insisted. “Dragon breath is a skill, an attack skill.” He said that last part more to Spine than me.

Spine shrugged and wrote something in his notepad.

I considered what Seth was actually saying as my teacher worked to get his boots off. It took some doing and more than some cursing. To a certain extent the answer was obvious. If my Fast Attack was a combination of block and Unarmed, then my Strong Attack should probably be a mix of Dodge and Unarmed. As to what the counter should be… Okay ‘obvious’ may not be the right word for this.

“If my fighting style is more retaliatory maybe the Strong Attack would be a mixture of Dodge and Unarmed skills.” I offered.

Seth had a brief flicker of excitement dance across his expression, “It is possible… we should,” he calmed himself. “It would be best to get my gear fixed first.”

“I am not sure if I can help, but I do have the Craft skill at Trained level.” I offered.

“Which ones?” Seth asked, considering the idea.

“Craft, just Craft,” I said.

Before I could dig into my screens to see if that was a problem, Seth shook his head, “Of course you have Craft. Not Craft: weapon, or Craft armor, or Craft woodworking. No, just jump straight to a Divine Scale skill.” he paused. “Actually that makes sense.”

“How does Scale work with skills?” I asked.

Both Spine and Seth looked at me. I knew their question before they asked.

“Yes I am serious. I have no real idea how this world works. Like at all. If it wasn’t in the World That Was, I don’t know how it works.”

Seth and Spine exchanged another look.

Seth broke the silence first, “The Scale of skill is mostly a measure of how situationally dependent it is. There are a lot of caveats and loopholes, but for the most part the more basic the skill sounds the higher the scale is. Craft: Basket Weaving is Common Scale, but will only make baskets if you have material to do it. Craft: Energy Weapon is a Rare Scale, or so I have been told. Someone with that skill can create all sorts of weapons and components needed to make blasters and powered weapons. Craft on its own, no qualifiers, is Divine Scale. It basically allows the user to exert their will on matter and shape it as they see fit.”

I considered that, “So could someone at Common Scale get the Craft Craft skill?”

“Just Craft,” Spine corrected.

Seth shrugged, “I have never heard of it, but in theory it is possible, but they would need to master a Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Heroic, and Demigod scale craft skill first.”

“And Mastering a skill requires?”

“A breakthrough, or someone with the Mentor skill and a Skill at Master level or higher to teach you.” Seth instructed. He thought for a moment, “Apparently some McGuffins could also cause a breakthrough, but I haven’t seen that personally.”

Huh. “How does a normal breakthrough occur?”

Seth sat down on his cot, seeing that we weren’t going anywhere soon. “The exact mechanism is argued about, but it seems that once someone levels a skill to expert they need to succeed on a roll. Then there is a roughly one in twenty-three thousand chance that the user will break through.”

I considered that, “Do they expect someone to roll the highest on result on a d4, a d6, a d8, a d10, and a d12 all at the same time? That would be one in 23,040.” When did I become a calculator?

Seth looked at me like what I said was more on brand with something a Titan Spawn would say, “That is the proposed math behind a breakthrough, but above Master level, and the odds get flexible for some individuals.’

That sounded like Narrator fuckery.

Spine spoke up, “But how do you know all the stuff from the Goblin Mode?”

“Fight Club actually existed, in the world that was anyways” I answered.

Spines eyes went wide, “What about Popeye?”

“Sadly he was a cartoon,” I admitted, “And a webcomic. There was also a live-action musical.”

“What are you two talking about?” Seth asked.

Spine looked like he realized he had told on himself. Rather than discuss Goblin Mode, I decided to offer some cover. Hell they still had Star Wars. “Popeye the Sailor Man. He is strong to the finish because he eats his spinach.”

Seth looked at me like I was stupid, but was respectful when he asked, “Is this some reference to the world that was?”

“Yep,” I said, with a nod.

“Spinach doesn’t make you strong though,” Seth explained.

“Of course it does. It has iron in it,"I argued. Spinach is better than lettuce… I said what I said.

Both Spine and Seth looked at me like what I said was dumb. Seth was gentle when he spoke. “No, Doug. That isn’t how food works. Not at all. Whoever told you that is being ridiculous.T Vegetables boost Body Attribute and specifically helps with holding off the Starving condition. That is the only reason to eat them.”

“What about the vitamins and stuff?” I asked.

Both Seth and Spine gazed at me again.

Spine spoke first, “Doug, do you not know how food works?”

“Of course I do. You eat it to not die,” I said.

Seth and Spine exchanged a look, “That is… true, but do you understand the base mechanics?”

“You need so many calories a day. If you use more than you eat…” I trailed off as they both shook their heads. “In my defense I can’t starve to death. I am immune to the condition.”

“Talking to you is an oddly uphill experience,” Seth muttered.

Rather than snark back, I pressed on, “Do you want me to try and fix your gear?”

Seth considered before saying, “Not today. No offense, but I don’t have backup gear. I want to know what I am getting into.”

I shrugged. Fair enough. “Is it alright if I go talk to the other people I came here with or are we going to do more training?”

“Not today,” Seth stood. “I am going to need to adjust my methods If I am going to help you master a Cosmic Martial Art.”

I turned to Spine, when I spoke he penned something, “You good to go?”

Spine looked up, “I guess… we aren’t going to talk to the stupid fucking dwarf are you?”

Well shit. Brunhilda was the one I was worried about… although come to think of it Angelica had been subdued since the upgrade. That said, checking to see if Brunhilda was okay while dragging a survivor of her attack along seemed like a bad idea.

Brunhilda had done right by me, and I doubted she would have hurt Spine’s Village if she knew. I could still see the haunted look in her eyes. While that certainly wasn’t the behavior of a callus murderer, but I really didn’t know her.

I just didn’t know enough.

“I do need to talk with her,” I admitted.

“Of course you do,” he spat, the anger boiling to the surface.

Wait, perhaps some form of avoidant behavior could resolve this? “I am not going to make you spend time with her. How about this? We find Brand first, he said something about restocking on supplies. If he is willing, you can stay with him.”

“And if he isn’t?” Spine pressed.

“I am not going to make you interact with her beyond what is absolutely necessary,” I explained. “I can’t make promises for the future, but for today you won’t have to see her.”

I watched his face carefully. He wasn’t happy. There was anger. Of course there was. Anyone who has had a loved one hurt is angry. There was some fear as well. He was surrounded by people who normally would have attacked him on sight.

Dammit. I need to do better, “Never mind.”

“Wait, what?” Spine asked.

I called to Seth, he was dressing for the cold. “Could we just wait here?”

“Certainly, just please leave my art supplies alone.” Seth said before zipping his massive coat closed. His eyes peered at us from inside the fur lined hood.

“How about we just wait here?” I asked Spine.

He glared at me, “You think I can’t hack it?”

“That isn’t what I said,” I managed.

Spine cut in, “Not out loud. Let’s go talk to Brand.”

I tried to keep my voice calm and level: no point provoking him. “Spine, I am not trying to talk down to you.” Spine scoffed. That was a poor word choice on my part, but I pressed on. “I am trying to be empathetic to your situation and not make things harder on you. You said you felt like a hostage, and I am sorry for anything I have done to worsen that. So what do you want to do?”

“Let’s go see Brand,” Spine insisted.

Seth gave us some directions to where a likely candidate for gun stuff -and therefore Brand- would be. The wind had picked up even more. Visibility had dropped to maybe about ten feet. As we wandered the snow I ruminated on what just happened. I had been a parent of a teenager before this. The fact that I had convinced a teenager to accompany me on an errand, and insist to be involved, was breaking my brain.

Obviously this was some sort of accident and could not be repeated.