Kichkaret was confused. He'd just blown his opponent into a fine mist thanks to his Confluence Path's Skill, Exponential Burst Rush, empowering his attacks for each hit he landed, but the fight hadn't ended. He began to run after the head and arm that had flown into the trees, but a loud roar stopped him in his tracks. Trees could be heard falling and Kichkaret moved a few feet back into the clearing to have time to react to whatever that roar was.

After a second, he could feel that strange pressure on his mind that appeared when near his apparently not dead opponent. Not long after that, a 12-foot tall humanoid being with gray skin appeared from the tree line and made a beeline for him. Its right arm was disproportionately large with long, slender fingers ending in vicious-looking claws. Its head and left arm, however, were significantly too small for its frame and were clad in the blue armor of his opponent.

As it ran, it roared yet again, spitting up blood as it did so. Seemingly, the force of its roar was tearing apart its own throat. Kichkaret steeled himself and slashed down into the monster's overly large right arm as it came in to hit him, cutting off the lower part of the forearm. However, as his sword made it all the way through the being's arm, it was knocked away and almost out of his hands as the being's arm regenerated fast enough to create a shock wave.

The punch landed as if the sword was never even in the way and he was smashed flat onto the ground. He checked his Health and found that one blow had done more than his opponent had done the entirety of the fight before, leaving him under half Health. It reared back for another punch, but Kichkaret rolled out of the way and stood up, sending a blow with each of his bucklers at the monster.

The first blow disintegrated its left leg pelvis, with the second blow turning the bottom half of its torso into a bloody mist. Its innards began to flop out as it began to fall, but it roared again and explosively regenerated, sending dirt, grass, and Kichkaret flying multiple feet. He landed on his feet and the monster was upon him once again. He began an up right cut, but the monster kicked his head the moment his sword connected.

He flopped to the ground and tried to stand up, but a massive weight fell upon him. He looked back to find the monster's foot on him, keeping him from moving even an inch. He sent a weak hit with his buckler into the monster's leg and Exponential Burst Rush kicked in, reducing the entire leg to paste with an explosion of Mana. Kichkaret managed to roll over onto his back as the monster's limb yet again explosively regenerated, smacking his torso with enough force to compress the dirt under him almost half a foot.

The monster's fist was coming down on him and he knew he had one last use of Exponential Burst Rush before he ran out of Mana. He had to make it count. So, he met the incoming fist and angled his buckler so the blast would be aimed at the monster's face. The arm turned to mist and he looked in horror as he realized the head of the monster hadn't also been. Its now-stump of a left arm was moved as if it had guarded its now-fleshless face.

The last things Kichkaret saw in this fight were a man's enraged face rapidly cover the skull of a monster followed by massive claws piercing his eyes.

Melena was somewhat surprised to see a 12-foot tall monstrosity appear in the room she and Degritone were using. Only somewhat, because she had watched Degritone's fight and knew what happened. Degritone-turned-monster turned to look at Melena, his face full of rage as a backhand came with the rotation. However, as soon as his eyes fell upon Melena, his features softened and everything but his head, neck, and left arm disappeared.

As the limp portion of a human landed, blood splattered across the floor, which rapidly turned to smoke and disappeared. Over the next 6 seconds, the portion of a human slowly grew to a full, nude human. Melena suppressed a blush as she tapped the ground near Degritone's body. Clothes at least visually identical to the ones he'd always worn before appeared on his body.

Not long after, he woke up. He immediately knew something was off when his clothes felt strange. He sat up and thought over what he remembered of the last few seconds. As he did, Melena said, "That was quite a fight."

Degritone looked at her, barely there, mentally, when it clicked. "Ah, I regenerated naked, didn't I? Sorry you had to see that. Give me a second," he said before tapping the ground twice. A small room appeared around him, blocking himself from Melena's view. He stripped and tapped the wall twice to create actually identical copies of his clothes on his body, then tapped the wall twice again to make it disappear.

As he saw Melena again, he realized, "Oh, wait. That didn't actually help because of the constant Patron stream of me. Hopefully," he raised his voice and looked at a random position in space as if looking at a camera and said, "no one watched!" He pointed at the non-existent camera sternly before turning back to Melena.

"What was wrong with the clothes I gave you?" She asked.

"Kinda itchy. They weren't exactly the same as the ones from home. So you watched!" He said in fake outrage before saying, "How dare," in a high-pitch talking-to-a-puppy voice, smile on his face, as he gave a very light chop to her head.

"How are you ok?" Melena asked, taking a hold of the hand on her head.

Degritone simply tilted his head.

"Obviously, you're physically ok because the system made it so, but how are you mentally ok enough to joke so soon after being reduced to nothing more than a head and arm?"

Degritone tilted his head the other way, closed his eyes, and crossed his free arm. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes and said, "I mean..." After squinting, he shrugged. "I don't know what you mean, really. I guess that could be traumatic for some people, but the second thing I did after the introduction Dungeon was decapitate myself to see where someone would regrow from, so." He shrugged again.

"I know I can't die here, and I know I can't die for a different reason... ok, technically 2 reasons. The second of which is because a loli told me not to, so I won't. The first is somewhat similar to quantum immortality from back home. Turning a 20 minute video into a sentence or 2, basically, I can't die because I'm an observer in a quantum system. Though, I take that more to mean that I will always follow the timeline that gives me the greatest life length possible, rather than that I'm truly immortal.

"In infinite timelines, I've already died, but they're not me. I will never die because I will always follow the timeline that makes me live the longest. Granted, 'live' may mean being turned into a vegetable, but still," he shrugged. "Shrugging a lot this conversation."

"Well, don't... never mind, that could be detrimental to you in the future if taken to be a literal, if vague, order. Instead, I'll give you a similar, less vague, and not as life-affecting order: Do not become a vegetable."

"Noted. I was trying to avoid that where possible, anyway, as living life without being able to control myself would be annoying."

Nodding, she held out her arms to him. He hugged her, picked her up, sat down, and sat her on his lap all in one motion. "Sorry to worry you again," he said.

"Don't worry, you didn't. As you said, I know you're immortal here. No, your opponent made me sad because he hurt my protege so bad." As Degritone got half way through a nod, she said, "That does not mean find him and inject him with a permanent torture image, or to exact any revenge upon him."

He paused and slowly raised his head before nodding again. After a few seconds, Melena broke the hug. After a few more seconds, Degritone asked, "Oh, hey. Why are you still a loli after being alive for centuries? Are you a halfling or some other small race, or does the system somehow influence growth or something?"

"Rude, but the latter. I am human. Once you reach 1000 Endurance, you stop physically aging, with each individual point of Endurance being 0.1% slower aging. This only really keeps people small like I am when the system has just recently arrived and it's still chaotic. Once everything settles down, parents typically disallow their children to level up too fast, to keep them safe. Heck, on more organized worlds, that can happen even during the initial shock of the system's arrival.

"My parents were killed when I was 6. The system came while I was living on the streets at age 8, and I reached 1000 Endurance a few days after I turned 11. Accounting for all the reduction in aging speed during that time, I roughly have the body of a mid-10 year old. It used to be a sore spot for the first 200 or so years, but I don't care anymore. As I said before, I've already dealt with them, so there's no need for you to go on a murderous rampage. I did that long before you were born."

Degritone chuckled as the mental energy he'd already started using to plan out how to do so dissipated and said, "You got me."

"It is somewhat tiring to have to remember to deal with that side of you. So, I order you to only exact revenge on someone who causes me to experience a negative emotion if I explicitly state for you to do so."

Nodding, Degritone said, "Probably a reasonable demand. Can I- I would like to request a way to request being allowed to exact revenge."

"You may ask, but please only do so if it's a highly egregious offense, such as directly targeting me for the express purpose of causing pain."

Degritone nodded. "The rest of the fights should be easier than that, right?"

Melena tilter her head back and forth as she thought. "There's two ranged agility builds, but you should be fine if you make yourself unable to be hit without coming close. Additionally, there is a melee burst fighter in 7th - well, now 6th - place. So, not necessarily easier. We've got press waiting outside, by the way, if you want to talk to them. Kichkaret was the favorite to win, and a huge upset like that, especially one that was as much a spectacle as that in such a low-leveled bracket, will make people want to know more about the winner."

Degritone shrugged. "Where is the Patron camera right now?" Not seeing how that was connected, a slightly confused Melena pointed at the wall to their left. "Excuse me," he said, standing while moving her from his lap to the couch. He pointed aggressively at the camera he couldn't see and exclaimed, "I am Degritone, the Lolicoknight! I will never fail to carry out a loli's orders, and I have been ordered to win this tournament, so I will!"

He then lowered his arm, shrugged, and laid down while moving Melena to his stomach. "That was my entire speech, in case anyone wondered. If you have the capability, feel free to clip it and send it to whatever press. I," long pause, "don't really care. I feel I was going to say more on that point but it has left my brain."

Melena pat his chest a couple times and said, "What did you get for that image?"

"Let's see," Degritone said and opened his Skill list.

Beginnings of the Immortal Troll lv1

Immortal Flesh

Prodigious Regeneration

"Wow, nice," he said after skimming the Skills before sending them to Melena. Then he actually read them, making him pull a not bad face.

Immortal Flesh

While you have more than 0 Health, your body regrows significantly faster and regrows as if you were missing 90% less Health.

(sqrt(SLevel)+log_2(Physical))*7.75 = 97.383...% faster regrowth

This skill is part of the Beginnings of the Immortal Troll Skill Set.

Prodigious Regeneration

Reduce the time you take to regenerate your Health.

Other Skills and effects still treat your Regenerations as being per hour.

500/6*(300/(300+SLevel+log(Physical))+100/6 = 98.773...% Health Regeneration time

This skill is part of the Beginnings of the Immortal Troll Skill Set.

He checked the first like of his Health Regeneration's popup, finding it to be "Health regeneration per 59.264... seconds." He said, "Very nice. That's, what, a maximum of... well, minimum of 16.6 repeating percent?" He blinked at the numbers a few times. "So, at infinite skill level, it would take me to regenning my listed value in 10 seconds. Nice."

"You are the only person I know of to care about Regenerations even a quarter as much as you do. I go against conventionally optimal on that front, as well, splitting all my stats evenly, but you are on a whole different level. You actually managed to create a Skill to rival Being of Vitality in its power in that regard."

Degritone stared at her and did some math in his head. "Nah, Being of Vitality was a multiplier of 60. This will only ever be a multiplier of 10. It's literally 6 times as good." After a short pause, but not long enough for Melena to begin speaking, he thought to add, "At infinite skill level, Being of Vitality still beats Prodigious Regeneration."

"The fact that they're even in the same competition is what's the most impressive. Nothing else comes even close."

Degritone shrugged and said, "If it was anywhere near as good as an actual Troll, it would also make it so getting to 0 Health doesn't disable my regeneration. Without that bonus, I'd take Being of Vitality over this any day. I guess I can improve it down the line, though. Oh, hey, speaking of images, how can I create a Mana copy of a soul? When Scan existed, I could exploit how the system did it to copy my soul for a skill I need. With it gone, though, I can't penetrate my soul with Mana to make it work."

Nodding, Melena said, "That is exactly why it still needs testing. It shouldn't open up exploits like that. Some people want the system to implement it first and fix any issues later, but the potential problems that can arise because of that Skill are too great to warrant leaving testing. It would be nice to have some day, but we aren't slated for another update for another 10, maybe 20 system years. It's inconsistent, but never less than 10 system years. Anyway, as far as I know, there is no way to do that. I can look into it, though."

"Yes please. I kinda miss having a clone of myself to react to things I do from a perspective that isn't actually me. Really helped me..." Degritone let his head rotate according to gravity for a few seconds before he turned back to Melena and said, "Completely lost that sentence. It's gone."

They existed together in silence until before the next fight, when Melena spoke up, "It looks like, assuming there's no major upsets, your next 2 fights will be simple. I won't say 'easy,' but they didn't appear to have any Confluence Paths that could really threaten you into materializing your image. Now, suit up. It's time again."

Sighing, Degritone picked up Melena and sat her down on the couch while he stood up and made his armor and sword. Never had he been so tempted to grab her butt, but he didn't.