Degritone immediately enters Flash Space and looks at his health.

1345.14...

1536

Two hundred! He looks back to the arrow and quickly follows where it came from and sees another one coming at him. He tries to jump to the side, but finds himself weightless, and mostly goes up. He's about 3 feet off the ground and flailing by the time Flash Space automatically ends. Successfully dodging the arrow, he enters Flash Space again before he hits the ground, stopping him mid-air.

Don't remember zero-gravity being a part of Flash Space, Flash Space ends once more and he enters yet again, but makes sense, given time is required for gravity. Flash Space ends once more and he lands and turns toward where the arrows were shot from, gets down like a runner about to sprint while making sure his feet dig into the ground slightly, and enters Flash Space.

With good footholds, he's able to launch himself in the direction he wants to go. Looking forward, he's not able to make out much in the gray world, but thinks he maybe sees a humanoid in the process of either hiding behind a tree or coming out from behind the tree. Flash Space ends once more and he sees that it was, in fact, a humanoid in the process of hiding behind the tree.

He recasts Omen of Death on himself and it gets down like he did and disappears as the real Degritone lands in the same pose, entering Flash Space and jumping yet again, now aiming at the tree. Catching the trunk with his right hand, he rotates around it. He's able to stop his momentum just in time for Flash Space to end and he sees it's a classic goblin. Goblin lv7, in fact.

With his clone just starting a diagonally up right swing, gravity brings him down and he stabs his mana sword into the goblin from above, the blow landing at the same time as his clone's. Degritone jumps back and they both cast Omen of Pestilence at the same time. His clone starts an Omen of War enhanced Great Cleave as Degritone himself casts Omen of Famine.

The goblin manages to bring his bow up and get a shot off at Degritone's head. Letting it hit his helmet, he starts his own Omen of War enhanced Great Cleave as his clone's lands, knocking the bow out of the Goblin's hands, and starting its Omen of War enhanced Overhand Strike. It lands just after Degritone's cleave and he starts his own Omen of War enhanced Overhand Strike, maxing out the Stamina cost for the additional 131 damage.

The ghouls start their attacks on the Goblin as the two Degritones start alternating Omen of War enhanced Great Cleaves and minimum Stamina, Omen of War enhanced Overhand Strikes. On the second rotation, they break through the goblin's leather armor, though they're unable to actually put too deep a cut into the goblin itself. After the third of the clone's Overhand Strikes, it manages to get its feet under it and escape.

The goblin is very fast, but the Degritones have the ability to temporarily effectively stop time, and they do so, entering Flash Space as soon as it's past them. They look at each other inside Flash Space, extremely surprised that they managed to activate it at the exact same time, which wastes half their time inside it. They kick off the tree they were beside and fly toward the goblin, but are stopped half way by Flash Space ending.

Entering Flash Space again, Degritone realizes he's been an idiot and just wills himself in front of the goblin, appearing there. He readies himself to start an Omen of War enhanced Great Cleave as he exits, and casts it as soon as he does. Having not accounted for the fact that the goblin is, in fact, moving, he and the goblin collide, tumbling down with the goblin on top of him. It flies off him and is pressed into the ground.

Degritone stands up and looks at the goblin, then toward his clone, who points to its stomach then its eyes before starting up on rotating between Great Cleave and Overhand Strike once more. Degritone understands the gesture as it using Soul Grasp, the pointing to its stomach meaning its soul, and eyes meaning the recently obtained Soul Sight, which he would be meant to use if he didn't understand the full meaning behind the gesture.

It takes a full 6 more rotations of Great Cleave and a minimum damage Overhand Strike, both enhanced with Omen of War, as well as each of them recasting Omen of Pestilence and Omen of Famine, before the goblin dies.

"You go, I'll scout," he says to his clone. The clone nods and heads back to the house to tell everyone about the fact that the goblins deal almost 200 damage after the 71.15% reduction from Mana armor and the 5% reduction from Unholy Covenant. Staring at the dead goblin, he thinks, 71.15 times 1.05... close enough to 75, so 200 times 4, about 800 damage? Less than, but somewhere around there. 750, maybe 700.

No one has the DR I have. They probably have higher health, yes, but, with my armor, my health is basically four times as high as it states. Even for those that have Mana Armor, it only starts around 10, 15 percent? More for those with more Magic, maybe 20 percent. 15 times 4 is 60, so I have around 6k effective health. They'd need about 5.5k health to match me with their Mana Armor.

Pretty sure anyone other than me would be dead right now. Well, anyone else at home. I'm sure Curtis and Lee would live, let alone a bunch of others I don't know about, plus high leveled people. Speaking of Lee, I wonder if he was the one to get Flash Space before me or if the RP boys exist. Probably the former, but it'd be cool to meet the original Degritone. With that thought, he finally looks away from the goblin.

"Oh, hey, I never sent a friend request to Victoria!" he exclaims, immediately doing so. With as much as he used Flash Space there, he decides to check how it's doing so far.

Flash Space lv2

"Ten point eight outa twelve, huh," he says, looking at where the battle started. "Probably based on time spent inside," definitely not based on distance traveled. I used it, what, 7 times that fight? It was 2 seconds before, now 3, so yeah, it's based on time spent inside. He spins himself so he's facing directly away from where the battle started with the goblin between him and that spot. "Probably that way."

"But, if they're all gobbos and are spawning more than the deer and cockroaches, then I'll need even better escape, so time to get Flash itself. It's," simply just instantaneously entering Flash Space, teleporting by using the loose space or whatever it actually is in the actual reality that is right now, rather than RP world, and leaving Flash Space all at once. If it wants more than that, I don't know what else it needs, as that's what it is.

The skill itself would just be the automation of that process so that my little human brain wouldn't have to work on timescales that it is physically incapable of doing. Now, system, you c-

Congratulations! You have modified a skill!

Flash Space becomes Flash lv2

-uck nice. Seeing the Flash distance of 3 inches, he rolls his eyes. "Of course it wouldn't let it keep its full RP power. Well, I guess it kinda is by letting it be absolutely free teleportation, but still, no stat scaling is still kinda out of flavor, since how powerful you were determined how far you could Flash, but whatever."

He flashes 3 inches to the left and checks the experience. Upon seeing it at level 3, 2.7/14 experience, he pumps his fist. "NAISUUUU! Basically made grinding this take way less time. Well, less relative time. I can probably time the," activation of Flash in FS mode better than I can repeatedly cast it in Flash mode to have a lower absolute time pass, but no way am I staying in Flash Space for hours on end with nothing to do but masturbate.

FS mode is still better for escapes, though. Rather than walk toward the direction the goblin was heading, he flashes. It initially takes much longer due to the fact that mentally activating the skill immediately after getting to his target location takes time and it moves such a small amount, but it rapidly gains experience, reaching level 36, 406.6/675 experience, by the time he reaches the road.

Still seeing nothing, he Flashes over the road, into the woods on the other side, and up a hill before spotting something odd. Flashing all the way to the about 10 feet from the edge of the tree line, behind a tree, he peeks out and sees many small huts made out of crudely cut wood, with at least 20 goblins working on making more huts, and a few others sparring or lazily guarding the place.

In roughly the center of the place is a roughly 10 foot tall, hexagonal, purple, pillar. There's, what, 50, 100 of them, assuming the huts are in use and/or some are out hunting? Assuming 50 here... 15 divided by 2 is 7.5, so 8 shots to kill me. One shot to kill an Omen. I don't trust myself to be able to dodge enough of them to survive, and doing anything but taking out the node in one assault is not a good idea.

Assuming each of a pistol's shots is 100 damage, as a rifle's is probably around 120, and the pillar has no DR, we'd need 100 shots. Each magazine is, what, 10 rounds? We'd need 10 people with full magazines to kill it in a reasonable amount of time. Actually, let me test something. With that, he enters Flash Space and removes his Mana Armor from his left arm before cutting himself with his sword, wincing as he deals painful damage to himself.

He immediately checks his health and sees that it is, in fact, regenerating. "Ok, so, as long as I get in here before I get hit 8 times, I can regen myself. RCD multiplies regen by 8.8, so close enough to 10, so 70k, divided by 3600... more than 10k, then more than 100 over 6, 50 over 3, more than 16 per second. So, less than 100 seconds to fully heal myself, so two visits into here to fully heal myself."

Don't think that's safe enough against that many of them. Assuming there's, "only," 50 of them, if I dodge even 75% of their shots, that's still, what, 12 that hit me? Though, that is assuming that they are coordinated enough to get that many to fire at me at once and I don't, he's forced out of Flash Space and he reenters it, have a good opportunity to use Flash to either get away or get in here to dodge, slash get away.

"If I put all my SP into RotG, Omen's of death's CD would go to... well, roughly a fourth of what it is now, which is still, what, 3 hours? That's way too long to reasonably rely on cheesing it with Omen of Death." Storming the place isn't an option, either, as even our most tankiboi, me, wouldn't survive very long and we're probably outnumbered. There's, what, 20 of us at max? They have double our number. I'll just report back and we'll need to up security and training.

He flashes all the way back home, the return trip much faster than the trip out, and not just psychologically as is the case on car trips. Once he arrives home, Flashing into his parents' bedroom, he stops Flashing and walks toward the front of the house, where Ted is lounging on a couch. "How the heck is anyone supposed to survive level 7 monsters? I was maxed out for," pause, "someone just making a village and I would have died had I not," long pause, "had Mana Armor at level 50."

Ted stands up and looks at Degritone. "I see you succeeded in killing one, regardless of your griping," he says.

"You can tell?" Degritone asks.

"Your level gives it away," Ted says with a nod.

Raising an eyebrow, Degritone opens his status.

Name Degritone Race Human Resources 1698/1698 (+10499.96) 753/753 (+5370) 428.378.../1583! (+2236) Class Lolicoknight lv4 Experience 61/1000 Strength 36 Endurance 24 Vitality 62 Agility 11 Physical 115 Magic 75

"Oh, wow. Three whole levels from a single goblin," he says. He puts his thumb under his chin with his pointer finger on top of it. "Considering it took," basically all my mana to kill it and it took that long to do so, it's not worth risking taking down multiples solo, even if it does grant so much experience, thanks to the 200 damage per shot.

Waving his hand in front of his face, he says, "Where's the village leader?"

"After your clone came in and told her about the goblins and the potential threat they could pose, she bought a lumber shop and went to see it."

Degritone nods and walks outside, seeing a new, wooden building about 30 feet out of the front door, with his family members outside it, some nailing boards together, some talking to his dad, and the council standing around a table, talking and pointing at a crudely drawn map. He sees his clone and it sees him.

It walks over to him and he raises his eyebrow and flashes couple inches to the left. The clone looks surprised and shakes its head, then makes a disappointed face as Degritone mirrors it and recasts Omen of Death on himself so his clone has the upgraded Flash, since status updates like skill levels and skill changes don't carry over, according to the short exchange.

The two Degritones walk up to the council Degritone and says, "Ah, I see the Bevis Beehive has been kicked."

They look up and his mom looks surprised and gasps before excitedly asking, "You!?"

He nods and says, "Yeah, change of plans. There's at least 20 of them already, I estimate 50, and potentially 100. They set- set up a whole," pause, "a whole..." He puts on a pained face.

"Village?"

"No."

"Town?"

"No, I can't think of the word, but it's whatever means a group of 10 to 20 buildings that can house 4, or 10 uncomfortably. But anyway, they have buildings and there's way too many for me to risk attempting to destroy the node," he says. After a short pause, but not long enough for anyone to start to respond, he says, "And I have no proof, but it might spawn new monsters at double the level every time it reaches a 1k damage threshold, as, with how many goblins there are, it seems like they were all spawned at once, as it's only been, what, an hour?"

He feels a cold chill on the top of his head and looks around, seeing his uncle lowering his arm. "And you reached level four from defeating just one?"

"Yes, but it also took all my mana and a good 30 seconds or so to do. I could do the math, but they have around 10k to 15k health," he waves his hand in front of his face. "I'm sure Degriclone has already informed you of that. I was planning on killing what I find on the way to the node and destroying it, but with how many there are and the fact they can kill me in eight, well nine now, shots, there's no way I can survive long enough to destroy it."

The council all look at each other. "Should we send a group to go destroy it?"

Someone starts to bring up their own point, but Degritone and Degriclone walk back inside, grab some erasable pens and paper, and get to work trying to figure out what they believe to be the optimal way to distribute their free stats and SP.