A stadium in a dream.

Martial Arts Student Henry was flicking through the pages of a beige book with the words “The School of Nine Fists” calligraphed on the cover.

This was the introductory manual for the style, which was based loosely on Burmese Barenuckle Boxing, where one fought with kicks, knees, elbows, punches, and headbutts. Nine possible points of attack, nine ‘fists’.

Of the thousands of martial arts on offer in Saana, he'd chosen this one for his first style despite its notorious difficulty.

Its complexity arose from its interactions with .

The distribution of could only be determined at the beginning of its 6-second cooldown cycle. This favoured simple fighting-styles where one circled their opponent, waited for an opportunity, delivered a single full-power blow, then backed away to repeat. A Nine Fists practitioner, however, took the opposite approach, getting in close and entangling their enemy in a flurry of weaker, unpredictable blows from one of the nine attack points.

The core issue with the second approach was that one could not all nine points at once, since this would divide the potency of the attacks, making them laughably weak. Instead, the practitioner had to predict in advance the exact combination, sequence, and timing of strikes they would use over the 6-second period, then ‘code’ to manifest at the moment of each attack using a delayed pulsing technique.

How preposterous that was should be obvious to anyone who's experienced or watched a real fight. To execute a premeditated 6-second combo against a dummy, that was possible, but against an opponent who is actively blocking or punching you back? A lifetime might be too short to become this skilled.

As a final nail in the Nine Fist coffin, -based attacks were extremely niche after Level 5. The abilities one learned upon attaining a Martial Class, although less flexible, cost half the Stamina, came with additional effects, and generally had a shorter, 3-second cooldown.

For these reasons, the style was practised almost exclusively by NPCs, who had decades or centuries to master its complexities. Those players who tried were considered, justifiably, masochistic idiots.

But, hypothetically, what if a player had multiple lifetimes to practice?

In that case, The School of Nine Fists became a supreme foundational martial art, giving the practitioner unparalleled control and flexibility over their attacks that would benefit any styles learned later.

That flexibility would be especially valuable for a prospective Earthfriend, who’d be constantly switching between human and monster forms.

Henry cracked a smile as he imagined himself as a martial-arts-using gorilla flexing on the puny noobs of Suchi.

Relying on his past experience, he breezed through the training manual’s early chapters, which taught the student to pulse according to various rhythm schedules. The manual was structured to have the student start with mastering attacks using their dominant fist. Following that, they would add the other eight ‘fists’ one by one.

When he came to the practical exercises for the first fist, he summoned three exact copies of a slender teen dressed in phoenix-feather armour with metal reinforcements around his feet, knees, elbows, fists, and forehead.

These were clones of an NPC called Ezichi Ifechin, a member of the Danji people from Southern Basindi. Ezichi had been 92 years old despite his youthful appearance. Before being slain in a duel four months after Henry’d met him, he’d been the heir of The School of Nine Fists and its most promising student. Henry knew older, more skilled practitioners, but he couldn’t summon Sentient beings above Tier-5 with his current number of Syncretist set pieces.

Creepily, the clones of Ezichi did not react to their summoner or their surroundings, nor did they move except to breathe.

This unresponsiveness, which was also found in skeleton summons, was due to the clones lacking a ‘soul’, a feature he’d yet to unlock. The game had a weird conception of the soul, with it being a person’s will, personality, and memories divorced from their mental faculties. Functionally-speaking, soulless beings needed orders to act, and the types of tasks they could perform were limited - fighting was fine, composing a sonnet wasn’t. Lore-wise, the theory was a hot mess of inconsistencies. Animals and monsters were supposedly a part of 'The Cycle' and possessed souls, too, yet the ones he'd summoned in this world hadn't been zombified.

Anyway, directed by Henry's will, one of the clones sprinted at another to demonstrate a drill. Grabbing its opponent by the throat, it jabbed their head again and again with a regular rhythm. Since it was the most straightforward combo, there was no variation of force between the jabs, each one doing enough damage to shatter the opponent’s nose.

Studying the combo like an entomologist might the segments of a beetle, Henry felt a bit unsettled by the clone being gruesomely punched in the face without a reaction.

He supposed, though, that this was one of the great advantages of The Overdream. No punch or thrust needed to be held back ever. He could die a million times without repercussion.

Feeling ready, Henry equipped the same style of armour and had the system lower the stats of the third clone so his Level 5 attacks could hurt it.

Grabbing its throat, he jabbed out a combo.

Immediately afterwards, an unexpected notification appeared.

One-Fist, 1st Form (The School of Nine Fists)

Performance: 51.2%

Henry pursed his lips. “A performance score...that could be helpful, I guess. System, what does the percentage represent?”

100% is the maximum performance the player can achieve with their present resources over an infinite time span.

“The resources I’ve brought into The Overdream or literally everything?”

He had a lot of resources.

The former.

“That’s a relief. Then, do I get a roadmap for how to achieve 100%?”

Unlocking the Souls of trainers will help.

But that wouldn’t bring him to 100%.

He gazed into a future where, driven by a mild perfectionist impulse that tended to be triggered by scores, he obsessively chased the final fractions of a percentage point.

On further thought, though, that issue could be resolved easily by dedicating a later Overdream session to meditating and conquering his own mind.

Was there any problem The Cap of a Thousand Dreams couldn’t handle?

Returning to the Nine Fists, he watched the clone repeat the combo while performing it again and again himself. His score improved by two percentage points initially, but after a couple hundred repetitions, he hit a plateau.

Stumped, he summoned clones of all the other Nine Fists practitioners he’d encountered and had them demonstrate the combo one by one. Mimicking these caused his score to decline because they were less skilled than Ezichi. However, he noticed a trend of his performance score improving when copying those with arms around the length of his own, suggesting that the attacks should be personalised to suit his body type.

But how was he supposed to do that? The Nine Fists training manual made no mention of this aspect.

Then, raw trial and error?

Hopefully not.

Entering his Mental Library, he ordered the system to compile research on attack personalisation from every other martial art.

In this way, the days flowed by like the individual droplets of a river, and they were good.

19 years later.

Inside a multi-story museum, hoarfrost crystallising on the display cases.

Henry, dressed in Nine Fists-style armour that he'd modified by Metalworking, was battling a 7-storey-tall Frostgiant. Having worked its health to down to zero, he now needed to deliver the killing blow.

Thunk!

The cutting edge of an axehead twice his height swept over his head and embedded into a wooden column behind him.

The Frostgiant gripped the handle with both hands, clouds of icy mist venting from its nostrils while it struggled to free its weapon.

While the axe was stuck, Henry jumped on the giant’s arm and began to run up its length. With each step, his feet made a squelching noise, as they’d been to pierce the giant’s skin and give him traction.

From the Frostgiant’s shoulder protruded three stalagmites. When Henry was about to reach them, they shattered to reveal three axemen made of ice.

He side-stepped the swing of the first and kicked its ankle on the way past, breaking the bone and unbalancing the axeman to send it toppling off the giant’s arm.

Continuing on with the same cycle, he left jabbed the fingers of the second axeman, destroying them and causing it to drop its weapon, then he right jabbed its face. The axeman ducked this shot, right into Henry’s left elbow, which exploded its cranium.

Its inert body was then swivelled into an axe-blow from the third axeman, before a kick to its chest sent both flying.

The sound of breaking glass could be heard as one of the falling three crushed an ancient vase.

The Frostgiant, noticing the defeat of its minions, roared and released its grip on its weapon.

But its reaction was far too slow.

Henry, reaching the giant’s neck, gave a quick series of hooks, carving open a gash from which spilt buckets of boiling hot blood.

Before the Frostgiant’s palm could squash him, he jumped down and caught a stalagmite between its shoulder blades.

There, he swung for a few breaths.

You have slain Vargut, Frostlord of Tazgmiur at The Museum of Volefa.

4:28 remaining.

33 defeated so far.

At some point, he’d grown bored of fighting in the stadium. To spice training up, he devised a two-hour gauntlet with randomised settings and opponents.

The Frostgiant, dead, began to tip backwards.

“System, next round.”

Moments before being flattened, he was transported to a different scene.

Destination: Togavi Tulip Sea.

Opponent: The Monks of Black Scorpion Sect.

Style: Herdswoman’s Spear.

Around him stretched rolling hills carpeted by a rainbow profusion of tulips. A double-ended spear that materialised in his hands had to be clutched tightly, lest it be blown away by a gale coming from the north-east, which was pulling out the tulips and pitter-pattering them off the goat-leather armour that’d replaced his previous equipment.

Facing him were fifty monks, each duel-wielding cudgels, tomahawks, and long-daggers. Aside from the flapping of their black robes, they were statue still.

30-second warm-up timer has begun.

29...

28...

Since the terrain was not exploitable, he decided to fight them head-on.

To prepare, he jogged in a circle while twirling his two-pointed spear with a rhythm synchronised to the pace of his steps. Every now and then, as though each end of the spear was a separate instrument, the points would take turns stabbing out a melodic sequence, skewering the tulips flying past.

The Song of The Lion Let Loose Amongst The Flock (Herdswoman’s Spear)

Performance: 78.0%

As Henry's eyelid twitched at the abysmal percentage, the monks sprang into life.

Riverbank Cabin. A lovely summer’s night, a reflection of the crimson moon shining in the farm’s Dragonfish pond.

A flock of Flying Crabs that had started migrating here during the hottest months were snoozing inside the leaves of the Spinning Top Berry bushes, whose fruit were as big as strawberries and twice as sweet.

Henry stepped out of a rift, having reached the gauntlet’s time limit while boxing a pair of gorgon sisters.

Usually, on nights this clear, he would be set up a hammock in his garden and read until sleep took him. Tonight, though, he walked straight through his farm to his cabin.

Several new structures had been erected along the path he took. There was an Alchemy lab, a smithy, a towering magical statue to boost his farm's productivity, and a complex of barns where the livestock hibernated during the winter months.

The cabin he arrived at, though, was largely unchanged.

Scheduled Reminder: The 232-month limit is approaching. Beware of spontaneous brain death!

Entering, he offloaded the objects from his inventory that could not be taken with him. Then, he went to a bookshelf and swept up 43 hardback novels.

Without further fuss, knowing he would return soon enough, he left.

Suchi, a secret chamber in a small manor.

Above him, the bulb of an Arcane Lamp flickered in the red-clay ceiling.

Congratulations! Your creation of The Steppes Tetralogy qualifies as a miracle. Scholar level has increased by 1.

Congratulations! You are the first player to reach Level 111 (Tier 5-3). As a global achievement, your accomplishment will be announced to the world!

Out of habit, he delayed the announcement by a week and anonymised his name.

That announcement, more than the previous ones, would attract a flood of reporters to investigate the anomaly, a degree of attention that might’ve worried him in the past. After his 19-year break, though, this thought right here was the only one he gave the issue.

-Hannes Heikken (Helsinki, Finland): So how was it, buddy?

‘Can’t complain.’

-Hannes Heikken (Helsinki, Finland): Hahahaha! I can view your notifications; very humble! How long were you in for?

‘The full two-thirty-two.’

-Hannes Heikken (Helsinki, Finland): Crazy guy! Hey, why’s Karnon with you?’

An azure cat was snoring in his lap.

Despite the years, he remembered being abducted by the mischievous God with decent clarity. After entering The Overdream, the system had begun augmenting his memory, allowing him to recall any event that’d happened to him in the game as though it'd occurred yesterday. That augmentation was still in effect now.

He truly had become a fusion of machine and man.

‘Apparently,’ Henry replied, ‘he’s going to teach me how to be an Earthfriend.’

Hannes Heikken (Helsinki, Finland): Fun! Hey, message me or the system if you sense any funny business with your mind. I’m going back to sleep. Will check the data later.

‘Bye.’

Henry felt mentally intact. It turned out that the conventional wisdom that one would go crazy in isolation was slightly off the mark. The critical element was actually keeping the brain stimulated; it just happened that most people failed to find an adequately-intense substitute for socialisation. If you could, though, the hermit life was comfy as heck.

He poked the God. “Karnon, wake up.”

The cat unfurled and meowed at him.

“I haven’t learned Besan Blue.”

Karnon leapt off his lap and shapeshifted into his human form, his giant height forcing him to stoop to avoid knocking his antlers on the ceiling.

“Me either. I’m digging those duds. Can I have them?”

“Nope.” Henry unsummoned them for less ugly attire.

Karnon scowled. Unleashing his imposing God aura, he shouted in a booming voice, “DO YOU KNOW WHO I—“

“Skip this. It’s not happening.”

Henry didn't fear being robbed of the Syncretist items, even by a God. Knowing he might get murdered while strolling around The Slums, before catching the boat here, he’d stored in his inventory a few Legendary pendants, rings, and relics with a higher gold value. Someone coveting his shabby clothes would have to kill him forty times before one dropped.

Karnon, shedding the act, rubbed his hands together with mischievous excitement. “So, are you ready?!”

“Sure.” Henry rolled out of the hammock. “If you try to start a war, though, I’m going to snitch.”

“Abolish your worries! After becoming a mentor, I, Karnon, have developed a sense of civic responsibility.”

Henry really doubted that.

Snickering away, Karnon transmuted the floor of the room into dirt. He was preparing to cast a global teleport ability, one he used to flee whenever he aggravated the other Zone Guardians.

Henry took a position beside him. “So where we headin’, Teach’?”

“Here’s a clue!” Karnon, puffing out his cheeks and stomach, created a circle above his head with his arms.

“Yeah...I have no idea what that means.”

“It’s an impression!”

...

“Again, no idea.”

Karnon frowned. “I think I picked the wrong protégé. Can I take the five billion gold coins instead?”

“Nope. You should have accepted the offer earlier.”

“What’s your name by the way?”

“Me?” Henry paused to deliberate something. It could be worth a shot? “Most call me The Tyrant.”

Karnon's mouth popped open in shock.

“That forest you stole last week,” continued Henry, “from the Parani Steppes Colony, I'd appreciate if you gave that back.”

“You're pulling my leg!"

Henry swapped identities with the ring and flashed his username.

The purpose of revealing his identity was the off-chance that the God would hate him and leave out of revulsion. Against someone as unpredictable as Karnon, the tactic was a fifty-fifty stab in the dark. Nevertheless, Henry was content to take such poor odds, even at the risk of his exposing his identity. His concerns around maintaining anonymity had decayed over his 232-month break.

But the gambit failed.

“Hehehehehehe..." Karnon, snickering as he viewed the previous events in a changed light, began to spellcast. “Worry not, my tyrannical protégé; soon you will be reunited with your forest! Hehehehe..."

As Henry shrugged, vines sprouted around the pair and dragged them into the soil.