Seth did not like my idea at all.

I thought it was actually pretty clever. You see, Seth set up for about a dozen people to fight me but a lot more showed up for the opportunity. It turns out a lot of folks had the Gisele mindset. I was a rare chance to battle a titan spawn in an environment that didn’t translate to instant death. So they were gonna try and kick me in the head for the clout, or as a learning opportunity. That said, before anything got out of hand at this training field on the windward side of town, I made a deal with folks. I would fight them if they would provide any good faith advice and spar with Spine after.

Several folks balked at this, but most were really gung-ho to battle me. One guy was way too excited. He just sort of stared at me as he lovingly polished his sword. You may think that is a euphemism but no, it was completely literal. Part of me wondered whether or not the euphemism would be less awkward. Anyone who has ridden public transportation long enough has a story of politely ignoring someone… polishing their sword in public. It’s not fun and you are vaguely concerned about getting stabbed, but you also know what you are dealing with. I guess I did now also: a creepy guy with a sword.

Anyways, upon word spreading that I was willing to fight anyone that would spar with Spine after, the crowd swelled to hundreds. The only thing preventing Seth from slapping me for being a dumbass was he had invited twelve people, and they then told their friends, who told their friends. So, my dumb choice had compounded rather than caused the current situation.

Which was gambling.

A cluster of older men, and one legitimately elder woman had set up a chalkboard on an aisle and were taking bets. A lot of bets. As they started they told me I could not participate but they would be cutting me in for ten percent of the total to not rig any one bet.

I shrugged and we were off to the fighting.

So I knew I was strong, but I quickly had this point driven home to the point of inanity.

The first person to fight me had gotten that right by drawing lots. The crowd cheered, either for him or for blood.

His nametag read Pablo. He was a thin, wiry man . This became obvious when he took off his coat. “I know I volunteered for this, but hold back a little please. I am here to learn.”

I turned to Seth and whispered, “What is the skill to not hit as hard as possible?”

Seth watched me for a moment to gauge if I was serious before saying, “Dampen. The skill you are looking for is Dampen.”

I thought ‘Dampen’ really hard.

Dampen check… Successful

Please select damage cap for attacks.

The prompt also had a slider that let me select a number. I set the max damage to ten. That seemed like a reasonable number.

I nodded, ‘Ready when you are.”

Pablo crept up toward me. He stopped about two of my arms lengths away. He stood with his hands up in a defensive posture. The crowd was shouting. Some were cheering him on, others were jeering. All of them wanted something to happen.

I waited for Pablo to do something. He was sweating bullets despite the cold. “Fuck it.” he said before pulling a damned handgun from his inventory. He then tried to shoot me. Dick move.

I can’t tell you why I hadn’t expected someone to shoot at me. I knew guns existed. I knew people here had guns. That said, I was really surprised. I took two shots to the chest. Between my armor and toughness that changed what should have been a near lethal injury into a painful experience. Each bullet was comparable to get hit with a baseball, and not one thrown all that fast either. Having been shot before in the world that was, this was far more manageable.

Willpower check… Successful

Emotional state remains in control.

Note: Repeated rolls will increase the difficulty.

That wasn’t a real surprise. That day was a nightmare for a lot of reasons. It was also not my main focus at the moment.

Pablo, upon seeing that the first two shots had done almost nothing, committed instead to me not punching him. He backed away quickly as he fired three more times. I was equally committed to not getting shot anymore. That is a lot of words for ‘he tried to shoot me and I dodged’. The crowd shouted, although this time it was less excitement and more upset indignation. A shimmering green dome encased us and the stray shots bounced off of the edges. Turns out the old gamblers were also magical.

I closed the distance and clocked Pablo.

Attack… Successful

Pablo take 67 points of damage

Dampen check… Successful

Damage reduced to 10 points

Several internal parts of my anatomy clenched tight when I saw the original damage total. Turns out I need to roll to dampen my damage every time I rolled damage, but also could adjust it out of combat. I had thought 10 was a measured response.

My fist hit Pablo like a sledgehammer. He pinwheeled through the air and crashed to the ground. He sort of laid there in an awkward pose for a moment. “I give” he managed.

“Are you okay?” I asked, walking toward him.

“...I will be,” he said. He rolled over and was surprised to see me offering him a hand up. He smiled and took it. Once he was on his feet a little shaky he asked, “How much were you holding back?”

“I was giving you about 14.9% of the damage the hit should have,” I said, calculating beyond my normal ability in the world that was. If the Mind attribute was doing that, why wasn’t I smarter? I mean, I still didn’t know how food worked. I added it to the list of things to figure out later. That list was getting big.

“Damn… that knocked me down to 4 HP.” Pablo said. He smiled before shifting slightly and immediately grimacing from the pain. “It is going to take hours to recover.”

I was going to need to turn things down a bit more. I called that over to the people running the betting pool. That caused a flurry of action as more bets were placed and a teenager with a battle axe walked up to me.

“You ready?” he asked. Before I could answer he was swinging.

I dodged the swing and in another moment of muscle memory punted them away.

Attack… Successful

Francis take 61 points of damage

Dampen check… successful

Damage reduced to 10 points

The teen was much smaller than Pablo and a kick has better geometry for launching people into the air than a right hook. So Francis took a flight. Bob, of all people, caught the kid before they hit the ice.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Sorry!” I called over the crowd.

Francis gave me a thumbs up.

Another person was already in my face. They had two short swords and were really twirly in their assault. Again, in a world that didn’t work in game mechanics I would not be able to block the slashes. Each one flowed in another. I should have been overwhelmed. Instead I slapped all the away and blade, and decked in right in the snoot. In a beautiful swirl of fabric and blades they fell to the ground. “Ow!” they managed.

People were still cheering and shouting as two more people approached. They looked basically the same.

“We are twins.” one said.

“We do everything together,” the other said.

“Okay,” I said confused.

They nodded in unison. It totally wasn’t creepy. Then one pulled a broadsword out of my inventory and the other a rifle. The shield came up and the crowd roared. Clearly this affected the betting.

Sword twin charged me and was actually a lot faster than the previous opponents. Somehow blocking two attacks from the sword and dodging a bullet resulted in me doing a handstand. Not sure how, but instead of analyzing that I kicked sword twin in the head. The moment put me back on my feet and in reach of rifle twin. I punched them also. I expected them to have dropped like the rest but they were still on their feet a bit worse for wear.

All said and done it took three hits to put the rifle twin on the ground, and four to drop the sword twin. Not so identical after all.

I was just glad to be free of them and their creepy… twinness. It could have been worse. They could have been twin clowns.

The fighting randos became my world for a while there. It was a serious mixed bag. One guy threw a crocodile at me. Another lady had a bullwhip. The guy polishing his sword was as weird and inappropriate as I feared. Thankfully violence corrected that issue. From there things got a bit more high fantasy. Several people could empower attacks with lightning, fire, and ice. Another guy had a full on wizard hat and a shotgun. This was followed by a lady who insisted she was a sorceress. I know it had to be true because she told me many times.

Checking up on Spine’s progress I found him battered and bloody. That said, his win-loss rate wasn’t terrible. He had one about two-thirds of his bouts with the randos. While that was great for a batting average it left something to be desired in a duel to death environment.

“How are you holding up?” I asked him.

He spit out a tooth, “Pretty good I think. Do you ever get a sort of fuzzy feeling in your everything?” he asked.

“That is probably the phantom pain from the…” I frowned, “Hold still.” I pulled a knife out of his back.

“Fuck basket! Thanks.” Spine said.

“Anyways, the phantom sensation of injuries seems to linger. I think it is your brain tricking itself into feeling pain because it doesn’t know how to process your injuries healing so fast.”

Brunhilda and Angelica looked concerned. When Spine got distracted by his tooth regrowing, I met their eyes and raised a thumb with a questioning look. They both shook their heads. Angelica cringed as she watched Spine pull another tooth out of his head. Apparently it had been knocked loose and a new one was growing underneath it.

“You making any progress on your martial art?” I asked.

Spine shrugged, “I have no idea.”

I turned to Seth, “How’s he doing?”

“Come over here,” Seth said. He pulled me several paces away, “He is going to die, unless we figure out something different.”

“Got any recommendations?” I asked. I caught Brunhilda’s eye and she nodded. Backup plan extreme violence still had its ducks in a row. Trouble was that option was terrible. We would stop people killing people by killing people… fucking for virginity had a higher success rate.

“You learned several stages of a Cosmic Martial Art in day. Could you learn an Elevated Martial Art and then teach it to a goblin in an afternoon? He isn’t going to put it all together fast enough otherwise.” With an expression of supreme frustration, Seth sighed, “I came out here to get away from kids in combat.”

I walked back to the crowd. “I am switching to an Elevated Martial Art. Who’s feeling froggy?”

The answer to that was a lot of people. That said the audience was a lot less enthused with me disappearing using Blend In and then ambushing people. I do admit that was less visually interesting than the guy throwing a crocodile. I don’t understand how he kept it alive in this frozen land, or how it wasn’t hurt when he threw it, but it was certainly visually striking.

It turns out Ambush and Unarmed mixed into a heavy attack, and the stealth skills and Unarmed mixed into a fast attack.

Elevated Martial Art advances

The second Stage of the martial art is Hunters Grasp

Snow lions attack from nowhere and are brutal. If an attack from stealth also successfully triggers an ambush. You will immediately initiate a grapple. This grapple will also grant you a level of scale to knock target prone.

Ambush is now at Trained

Elevated Martial Art advances

The third stage of the martial art is Savage Assault

Like the Snow lion you can strike with catlike speed. If you succeed on an attack from stealth you may make a second attack before needing to roll to maintain stealth.

This was something. That really was a mean combo. I could sprint without affecting my ability to hide, then hit my opponent with a quick one-two combo that transitioned into a grab and throw that bought me enough time to go back into stealth before they could do anything to me.

Strangely, this hit and run style of fighting was more disheartening to people then my beating them straight up with a Cosmic Martial Art. I suspect seeing me be overpowered was expected. Having me be overpowered in a way that wasn’t obviously understood -like from popping out of the snow and clobbering them before they could even try and murder me- was more humbling.

Betting was beginning to sag slightly. Leigh, the old lady running the betting, quickly took me aside to discuss this, “Could you please mix it up a bit.”

“I am trying to master an Elevated Martial art as quickly as possible.” I explained with a shrug.

She squinted her eyes, “So you just need to master an elevated martial art and you will go back to fighting folks fair and square?”

“Sure,” I agreed.

“What do ya got so far?” She asked.

“I got the fast attack, the heavy attack and the mobility figured out.” I explained before remembering that I probably shouldn’t tell just anyone my abilities.

“Oh that is easy. When all else fails, mix in magic,” Leigh said with a laugh. Before she walked back to the black board she said, “Try magic.”

I turned to Seth who had come over to see what the problem was, “Is she right?”

Seth shrugged, “She isn’t wrong.”

“Will Dampen work with magic?” I asked.

“Yeah” Seth said walking away

“It’s worth a shot,” I muttered. I turned on Claws of Darkness.

The lady about to fight me, Brianna, looked concerned, “Oh shoot. You aren’t holding back anymore.”

“I am trying to,” I smiled. I hoped in a reassuring way.

Brianna did not look reassured, or even assured for that matter. Then again I would not want to fight a giant with weird magic hands. That would obviously go poorly.

Brianna was right to have concerns. The claws were sharp and could cut. Yeah, Dampen was still reducing the damage, but it certainly looked more violent.

The crowd was enthused by it. That was a little disturbing. Anyways an hour of literally mauling people with magic claws did result in the following prompts

Dark Magic is now at Trained Level

New spell learned

Tenebrous Form

While obscured from light you can render your form the stuff of shadow. While this ability is active, Reduce health regen by [Magic Attribute - 2]. User also gains a percentage chance equal to [Magic Attribute] to be insubstantial to any successful attack against the user.

Elevated Martial Art Advances

The last stage is Mauling Claws

The true reason people fear the claws of the Snow lion isn’t their sharpness, but the gaping injury they leave behind. When you succeed on an attack using magic, the attack will also inflict the Extreme Agony condition.

You have mastered Path of the Snow Lion

New Achievement: My Kung fu is strong!

You have mastered an Elevated Martial Art. back in the day this was quite the achievement. Nowadays… yeah it is kinda cool, but it is really more you are a loser for not having this achievement. You know this is like: doing a chin up, or being able to jog for a mile, or talk to a woman without looking down her shirt.

Reward: you can lord this over the fifteen people around here who haven’t mastered a martial and also care.

Experience points withheld. Experience will be awarded once requirements are met.

That was a lot. Experience points withheld… to hell with you too, system.

I immediately stopped using my magic claws. That Extreme Agony condition was one of those things I wasn’t comfortable inflicting on someone… maybe on snow lions. Fuck them in general and whichever one I hit with this specifically.

Anyway, a quick timeout later using the Mentor skill I managed to get Spine up to Trained level in Ambush and Unarmed. This pushed him to the third stage of the Path of the Snow Lion.

“Huh, is this how people normally learn a martial art?” Spine asked. He was getting a little pallid. I could tell from the faint glaze in his eyes that he was absolutely dealing with the white noise.

“Absolutely not.” Seth glowered at us. “This is power leveling and it is a lame shortcut that breeds overconfidence and sets people up to… for failure.” Seth was apparently the never say die type, at least when Spine could hear him.

I could tell what he meant.

“Spine, hold off on fighting any more. You need to rest. The pain only fades if you give it time,” I explained.

He blinked at me. “Cool. What are we talking about?”

Well, shit.