Blasting forward, Mike’s bruised, bloodied, pin-pricked, and now skinned form ate up the ground between himself and the cavern walls, which were beginning to become defined as he approached them.

With 8 seconds left of the Footsteps of the Wind, he entered the outskirts of the Quicksilver Kingdom and leapt with all his strength, bypassing the streets that would have been impossible to traverse given the size disparity between the intricate city and his careening body. His appendages flailed widely in an attempt to keep himself vertical from such a take off, even as his increased intelligence caused him to remember the kinematic equations he had learned in high school, and he couldn’t help himself from calculating his trajectory.

He figured he was running at 180 mph, and jumped at about a 20 degree angle, meaning that the vertical vector of his flight path was 60 mph, or 27 meters per second. Under the assumption that there wasn’t any air resistance, which he could probably work out somehow with his Aeromancy skill, he would be in the air for about 5 seconds, and travel a horizontal distance of 200 meters.

His thoughts were interrupted as he reached the peak of his arc, and his increased height allowed him to see the true end of the cavern: a gaping maw, only a few hundred yards past the edge of the city that was visibly shrinking as Quicksilver coalesced to lock him in. It took a moment to wrangle his overzealous brain and apply itself to the problem at hand, but despite his best efforts, he saw only one way out, and it was going to hurt.

Mike dumped 8 of his remaining 11 Stat Points into Dexterity, causing his modified Dexterity to reach 204, 4 points over the threshold to level up Footsteps of the Wind. He read and dismissed the notification informing him that the Skill Ability now lasted 15 seconds and had a slightly lesser impact on his Dexterity after the skill ended. Step one being accomplished, he could only watch as the ground approached at an alarming speed, while some detached portion of his brain noted that he had only been in the air for 4 seconds, proving that air resistance should, in fact, be considered in kinematic calculations... At least until he could more effectively control its impact on him.

At the last instant, he formed a sled of Quicksilver beneath him and braced himself for the resulting impact, which despite his now 50% damage reduction to blunt trauma, still knocked the air out of him and almost popped both arms out of their sockets where he gripped the sled. Though the sled beneath him did prevent him from being skinned alive on the unforgiving cavern floor, he acquired an impressive assortment of actual burns due to the metal surface heating up as friction brought his makeshift vehicle to an uncontrolled stop. With only 2 seconds left, he was able to force himself to his feet, run at max speed, and leap forward, activating Stomach Surfing quickly followed by Unflinching Meteor.

Since he had activated Unflinching Meteor with his face towards the ground, and because the skill prevented him from feeling anything, the only senses guiding him over the next seconds were smell and hearing, and neither sense was comforting. The cloying stench of smoldering cotton was quickly replaced by the acrid scent of burning metal as his clothes burned away and the metal beneath him got red hot. On top of this, the loudest, most piercing noise he had ever encountered roared through his ears as his utterly unyielding body scraped across the ground like nails on the chalkboard. A slight change of slope, and then his body tore through the small hole that marked the remaining exit to the cavern.

The ground beneath him ended abruptly as soared into a large cavern, the angle of his ascent granting him vision both forward and beneath him, despite Unyielding Meteor still having three more seconds on the clock. His initial reaction as a meter long beam of Quicksilver entered his vision and then struck his airborne body was to flinch, but he couldn't so much as blink. Three more missiles rammed into him as he crash landed for what felt like the tenth time in as many minutes, followed by the rapid staccato as smaller projectiles continued to bounce off of him.

As soon as his timer wore off, he leapt to his feet while he simultaneously formed a large kite shield of Quicksilver, which he used to hide behind as he formed a thin and flexible suite of mail around his body–it was dangerous business to fight in the buff.

As he hunkered behind his shield, which he was continuously forced to repair. He judged each blast to have the power of a high caliber rifle, causing his arms to ache after only thirty seconds of defending himself. After a minute, he began to notice a rhythm to the blasts-three quick blasts, a pause for 1 second, three more blasts followed by a three second pause before the pattern repeated itself. Following 20 seconds of confirming the pattern, he opened a slot in his shield during the next break, allowing him to get a slitted glimpse of what lay before him.

His brain had a hard time processing the towering form that stood 100 yards away, the bright purple glow behind it masking the details of its being in a dark silhouette.

Name: #SRT%#STA

Monster Type: Terran Abomination - Dungeon Boss

Level: 10

Strength: 40

Dexterity: 20

Intelligence: 25

Charisma: 7

Toughness: 80

Luck: 30

Abilities: Quicksilver Creation: The product of unbalanced forces, this once native creature has gained the ability to excrete Quicksilver from its body.

The bosses stats and abilities were almost enough to distract Mike from its form as two long arms lifted from the ground till they were angled slightly behind the creature. After a brief pause, the arm on Mike’s left whipped forward and three shining spikes hurtled towards him. He closed the opening in his shield and flinched as Damage Premonition let him know exactly how his body was about to be pummeled. Gritting his teeth, he distracted himself by counting the six blasts before immediately opening the slot back up.

Three seconds at a time, Mike was slowly able to piece together his foe. It looked like a giant sloth had mated with an even more giant mole. As the creature lifted its arms behind its body, Quicksilver would rapidly coalesce on each of the three claws that made up the creature's hand, which would then be flung forward at near supersonic speeds as the whip-like arms swung forward. Every 2 minutes or so, a meter long beam of Quicksilver would form behind the creature, which it launched from its tail in an impressive display of dexterity.

Mike allowed himself to relax when the first beam was launched, its trajectory clearly not even remotely close to his current position, but then he watched in horror as it seemed to magnetically alter courses as it homed in on him. By now he was very familiar with moving in-sync with Damage Premonition, and he was able to barely avoid the missile by leaping forward into a roll, dissolving and reforming his shield to increase his mobility and then intercept the six bullets that followed only two seconds after the beam.

After two more such throws, Mike began to suspect that the boss’s high Luck score was to thank for the physics-defying accuracy with which its attacks seemed to follow him. Just one more way that the System had made his life harder than it needed to be.

During the next break, two thrown Quicksilver axes confirmed what Mike had feared from first reading the boss’s character sheet; it couldn’t be hurt by Quicksilver, but rather seemed to absorb the metal. Sacrificing one of his remaining axes, Mike also learned that the creature was even more adept than he was at forming shields around itself.

A brief glimmer of hope came when Mike saw the following notification:

[Congratulations! New skill unlocked, Tactics!

Convert Dexterity, Touchness, or Strength into each other at a 2:1 ratio.

Stats are then locked at new values for 3 seconds]

This was a skill with amazing potential that could increase his versatility in almost any situation. He eagerly awaited the next volley of attacks, which he met by channeling 30 Dexterity into Toughness, bringing the attribute up to 45, making the blasts much easier to withstand.

With this new boon, he was slowly able to build some of his reserves back up under the reduced burden. Although, after almost being smashed by a beam when Tactics was on cooldown and his Dexterity was at a measly 10, he felt an increased sense of urgency to finish this fight. Neither of them could keep up this fight forever, eventually one of them would make a mistake, and since he had the lower Luck, he was sure that someone would be him.

The problem was, he couldn’t find a way to penetrate the defenses of the creature. If he moved closer, he had less time to block incoming attacks, and was in danger of being struck by the appendages that were close to 10 feet long. He did think it would be possible to get inside the boss’s defenses with Footsteps of the Wind, but if he failed to end the fight while it was active, he would surely die when it went on cooldown–plus there was always the issue of him tripping on his own two feet at such high speeds.

Eventually, his gaze was more and more often drawn to the glowing purple wall that spanned the distance from the floor to ceiling behind #SRT%#STA, and which Mike had already determined was the border of the Noob Zone. The Quicksilver Cavern had been long indeed, spanning tens of miles from his valley to the border.

He remembered the feeling he experienced when he first gazed upon it only a few weeks ago: death, imminent and unavoidable. It was the same feeling he got every time he took a step closer to it now.

After as much deliberation as he dared, he was forced to accept another risky gambit as his only way out of a situation. At the beginning of the next long pause, he converted Toughness and Strength into Dexterity, waited three seconds, and then activated Footsteps of the Wind, bringing his total Dexterity to 280. The projectiles that the creature had thrown seemed to move through thick molasses as he easily dodged between them, all the while venting a large pile of Quicksilver near the boss’s now empty right side.

When he was 10 yards away, he once again activated Tactics, this time funneling Dexterity into Toughness and Strength, bringing each up to 145. Though his Dexterity had dropped, his momentum hadn’t. As he careened past the mound he had vented, he jammed one arm through the thick loop he had formed at its peak, then rapped his other arm around the thick tangle of Quicksilver that made up the creatures hide and swung with all his might, activating Undeviating Juggernaut as he leaned into movement. His Strength and Toughness continued to climb with the Skill Abilities activation, and though he was in an awkward position with bad leverage, #SRT%#STA stumbled backwards.

It was the briefest nick. The smallest patch of the creature’s splayed arms touched the energy field as it struggled to regain its balance, but the result was immediate. The creature vanished, and the sudden lack of weight in one arm caused an unsuspecting Mike to trip into the mound of Quicksilver he had lodged himself into, knocking him out cold.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Mike awoke to a terrible headache, the result of smashing into a mountain of Quicksilver and the unceasing pressure that the Zone Border exuded.

[Congratulations! Quest Completed!

Calculating Rewards]

[Congratulations! 10 Additional Stat Points Awaiting Assignment]

[Congratulations! New mythic skill unlocked, Sonic Sounding!

+4 Intelligence

Send a gentle pulse of sonic movement through a medium.

Range dependant on thickness of the medium]

Spitting out the bile building in his throat, he reabsorbed the Quicksilver, once again marveling at the spaciousness of his newest bag, and then slowly formed a path to the whole from which he had entered, over 100 meters from the ground where he had fought. Cursing his Luck throughout the entire process. He would get a worthless Mythic Skill, even if the 4 Intelligence was a welcome boost. What’s worse, the requirement to level up the skill and gain additional Intelligence was about as abstract as they come: Use this skill to gain another Mythic Skill.

Welcome, although not unexpected, was the fact that the Quicksilver Cavern was once again not stationary. A host of small statues frozen in mid step as they rushed towards Mike’s location. Clearly #SRT%#STA had somehow been able to control the creatures, and they were once again lifeless now that the boss had met its end.

With his increased Dexterity and new knowledge of Quicksilver, he was able to rapidly navigate his way back to the entrance of the cavern, and from there, back into his valley. A loud chorus of “Big Bossy Boss” greeted him as he entered the village. It felt good to be home.