Implode: An Epic Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (The Completionist Chronicles Book 8), page 15
“I met a Master, by chance, and it did not go well.” Joe grumbled over his third cup of espresso in the last five minutes. Perhaps rage-sipping coffee so potent that it would show up on a drug test wasn’t the healthiest of activities to pursue, but he was going to do it anyway. “The skills that I have to offer in terms of quick advancement of the city are locked, due to being unable to build somewhere I don't own without permission. I guess... my only hope of getting to the Council of Masters is defeating one of them in a trial. But who knows when that is going to happen?”
“I do!” A passing Dwarf stared at Joe in confusion, and he seemed oddly familiar. “Your trial time is already set; how do you not know when it is going to occur? It’s on you to put forward the challenge, and that means you pick the time.”
“A guard I was with did it on my behalf…?” Joe answered with mounting excitement. “Good fellow, would you mind letting me know when I-”
“Nah, it's more fun to make you figure it out on your own.” The Dwarf’s face bore an evil grin. “I'm going to follow you around for a while and see how long it takes you to figure this out.”
A part of Joe was not even surprised that this was the reception he was getting in a new city. Their race was shattered, which had to be at least partly his fault, and simply by killing a large group of them, he could expunge his negative title and easily join the Elves. It was unlikely that the Dwarves here had as much exposure to humans as the capital city had, which had its own pros and cons. On the positive side, no one knew that he’d had a part in the Oligarchs being dropped into lava and torn apart by a World Boss. That was a big pro.
On the negative side, all of the achievements and reputation that he had built had not preceded him, so his claims to fame were practically ignored without question. Added to that was the fact that most Dwarves had a negative view of all humans in general, and it made sense why no one was willing to put themselves out for a stranger like him. “You would think that being a Major General would afford me a few more benefits.”
“Yeah, if you went to a Legion outpost.” The snarky Dwarf snorted as he continued following Joe around. “Then you could walk in and order people around, all the way up until someone with a higher rank came along and kicked you out again.”
The Ritualist scowled at the random detractor that had decided to tag along just to be annoying, and he tried to just walk away. To his consternation, the Dwarf easily kept pace, taunting him the entire time and beginning to draw a crowd. Soon Joe was jogging through the streets, and unfortunately, the entire throng was coming along for the ride. The laughing and taunting increased to a near-untenable level, and before long, the roads were so packed with bodies that Joe would have needed to abandon his teammates in order to Omnivault over the crowd and be on his way.
“That's enough, that's enough!” the original taunting Dwarf shouted, his voice echoing above the entirety of the crowd and bringing them to near-silent in an instant. “I'm glad everyone was able to gather so quickly, and I think it is time to show this human what happens when you come to a place that isn't happy to see you!”
“Yeah!” The crowd cheered in response to the Dwarf’s declaration, many of them pulling out weapons or sending mana to dance over their fingertips. Joe slowly backed up, getting close to his fellow human so that they could protect each other.
“I saw this going another way in my head,” Joe grumbled as he sent a couple orbs into the air. Against what felt like the entirety of the city's population, the small silvery weapons looked like toys.
“People hate petitions, Joe,” Jaxon told him sadly, “Didn't I mention that to you? The only thing that annoys people more than bothering them when they are just trying to go about their day is trying to get them to sign a random document. You may as well have held up a sign that said ‘Spying for the Elves, right here!’, and then had an arrow pointed down at your face.”
“Helpful.”
“Anyway, let's get on with this!” The Dwarf stepped forward and tossed off his outermost layer of robes, and Joe recognized him in that same instant. He was the unassuming Dwarf that Joe had assumed was a Master, and had nearly brought the guards down on him. “I need twenty volunteers who want to take lessons from a Master! Ten of you will be learning from him, the others from me! The winner of this competition gets the seat on the Council!”
“What?” Joe involuntarily started, taking another look at his strange opponent. “I knew it. But why do all this? If you’re one of the Masters-”
“The first thing you need to do is prove your Mastery,” The Dwarf informed him coolly. “Are you going to be presenting a skill or spell?”
“It's a skill, but it uses mana and stamina to function,” Joe babbled, unable to get over the fact that this person had been messing with him for nearly half an hour before revealing himself. “Again, why did you-”
“Look, human. Nobody likes being challenged.” The Master’s face hadn't changed from the apparently ever-present scowl he wore. “Originally, I was going to beat you down in a nice and quiet fashion, but then it turned out that not only did you not know who I was, you hadn't even bothered to propose the challenge yourself! Now I don't even know who to go and throttle when I’m done with you!”
“Then…” Joe could only throw his hands up in the air and wish for a do-over. “Look, can't we just-”
“The crowd is here, and we are here, so unless you are going to retract your challenge and publicly apologize for wasting our time, let's get to it.” The Dwarf was obviously expecting him to continue, because he made no move to leave the small arena that had formed around them.
All Joe could do was scratch at his head. “I don't know what this challenge consists of. What am I supposed to do?”
With a grandiose sigh, the Dwarf scanned the crowd and shook his head theatrically. “He doesn't even know what he's doing! Let's give him some proper Dwarven hospitality and show him why only the best of the Masters sit on the Council!”
There was a roar of approval as the Dwarf began to glow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“I am a known Master of the Council.” The as-yet-unnamed Dwarf called to the crowd at large. “Today we had a human walk into our city, and one of the first things that he did was challenge me directly!”
*Booo!*
“That's right, Boo! Boo for this ridiculous, over-entitled smear that came in here to cozy up with the leadership of our city!” The Dwarf turned and glared directly at Joe. “I don't know about the rest of you, but I think that he has other plans. Sinister plans.”
You are being affected by a Master-rank speech skill!
Joe took the message without flinching. He wasn't entirely sure what the speech skill was going to do to him, but the Dwarf would not have gone first so easily if it was nothing. He decided to interrupt the flow of the Master, hoping that it would break whatever compounding affect the words were having. “In human society, it is considered polite to introduce yourself. Especially before you start going off on someone with no justification.”
His casual rejoinder had a profound effect on the people around them, and the rowdy crowd started to settle a bit. It took a few moments for Joe to understand why the onlookers seemed so very confused. Then, one Dwarf called out and his words made everything click into place. “Hold on, how could he have challenged you directly if he doesn't even know your name?”
“My apologies, I was challenged directly, but through a proxy on his behalf.” The fact that this Dwarf apologized and told the truth so publicly meant that his skill had something to do with believability, and Joe figured that was something he could work with. “As for you, human, my name is Stu Sarcasm, Master of Sarcasm. I am the first Bard in Dwarven society to reach the Master ranks with one of my skills, and I am by far the most difficult to unseat from the Council.”
“Because of course you are.” Joe muttered under his breath. Then, in a regular volume, “My name is Joe, the Excommunicated. It is… somewhat pleasant to meet you.”
*Ooooh.* The crowd started chuckling at Joe’s attempt at a joke. It seemed that his ploy was working. By mentioning his title, he informed everyone around him that he was wearing the mandatory title with pride. It served to indicate that he had no intention to switch over to the Elven side in this war. By downplaying his reaction to meeting the Master, he hoped to put the Dwarf on the back foot.
“Why don't you go ahead and tell us what skill you have mastered and intend to teach faster than I can teach someone to be sarcastic?” Stu, as a Bard, was certainly not going to allow Joe to take over the crowd without a fight.
“Are you teaching them to be sarcastic, or are you teaching them a sarcasm skill?” Joe grinned as he responded, getting into the rhythm of this strange type of battle. More than anything, it felt like a slam session, and his time in the military had been filled with people listening to unending rap battles and diss tracks—while not wearing headphones. Even if begrudgingly, he had picked up some techniques. “I am going to be teaching people the skill ‘Jump’, which I recently evolved to a new Tier, Omnivault, and upgraded to Master status.”
Stu’s eye twitched, and Joe wondered if the fact that he was going to be teaching a purely physical skill was going to help him in this public arena. “Why don't you go ahead and prove your you-totally-have-a Mastery?”
“Certainly.” Joe looked around the area, realizing that they were surrounded on all sides by buildings. That was perfect for what he intended to do, so he crouched down, chose his target, and launched into a perfect Omnivault, only to fall flat on his face. “…What?”
“That certainly doesn’t look like jumping to me!” Master Stu started laughing, and the crowd had begun laughing with him.
The Master skill that you are being impacted by has added another stack!
That message made Joe's mind spin, and he thought he had figured out what was going on. This Dwarf was a Master of Sarcasm. In order for it to become an external skill, it had to have some sort of effect on the people it was used on. By the fact that he had just fallen on his face and received no message that it was due to his Excommunicated title, he had to assume that Sarcasm impacted his ability to use skills. Joe stood up and grinned at the Dwarf; who began to scowl immediately. “What a fun skill you have! Too bad for you; now that I know what’s going on, it's not going to be a problem for me anymore.”
He had plenty of experience using his skills in negative conditions, and he knew that the best way to get around the limitations was by focusing all of his mentality on using them correctly. Before he activated Omnivault again, Joe sent a small amount of power flowing through his body and into the skill. Feeling out the pathways, he focused on compressing his mana into only where it should be going. “Omnivault!”
From a complete standstill, Joe was able to leap forward with one-tenth of his strength multiplied by three. In an instant, he soared forward forty-nine and a half feet, his shoes easily touching down on a building a dozen feet above the Dwarves' heads. With barely a pause, he activated the skill again, burning one hundred and fifty-two mana and seventeen Stamina to flip back over the street and bounce off the opposite wall.
He was able to activate the skill a total of seven times, including his first usage. By the time he pressed off of the wall the seventh time and aimed to land in the exact spot he had started, Joe had burned three thousand, one hundred and ninety-seven mana, as well as three hundred and fifty-eight stamina. Even with that expenditure, he still had a comfortable amount of both resources remaining, but not enough Mana to reactivate the skill an eighth time. When he landed in front of Master Stu once more, and did not seem to be in any sort of distress, the Dwarf didn’t seem to know how to handle himself.
“Interesting,” he gruffly grunted, “you can prance around all fancy-foot-like. Not exactly sure what good that is, but no one ever said a Master skill had to be useful in order for it to be mastered.”
A few people in the crowd laughed, and the Dwarf’s smile grew fractionally.
The Master skill that you are being impacted by has added another stack!
“There's a crowd requirement, huh?” As he was hit by the skill once more, Joe found yet another potential weakness. In a loud voice, he casually fired a reply back at the Dwarf. “Clearly you’re correct. It doesn’t need to be a useful skill, otherwise… how would you be on the Council?”
The Master skill that you are being impacted by has lost a stack!
“Gotcha.” Joe’s eyes practically glowed as he was able to throw off the skill that had been weighing on him. Master Stu was practically snarling at him, but he composed himself as quickly as he could in front of the audience that he needed to keep on his side.
“That is good enough for me, I suppose. Proof of Mastery… accepted.” The words were obviously meant to be ceremonial, because the ten people that had volunteered to train under Joe and the Dwarf stepped forward as soon as he voiced them. “Now we can get to the parts of the challenge that actually betters all of our people, and I’ll win and get back to my normal seat in the Council halls.”
“I think you mean to say, ‘Winner gets the seat on the Council’.” Joe shot back instantly.
Stu tugged on his beard, pretending not to understand what Joe was saying. “What did I say? Pretty sure I said it correctly; what do you all think?”
A roar of approval met his query, including the people that had volunteered to be trained. That made Joe nervous, as it was possible that these prospective students were plants in the crowd, and his odds of winning had just dropped even further. Stu called out, “We will have ten minutes to bring all ten people to the highest skill level we can, potentially jump-starting their path toward Mastery! Two… one… begin!”
“Jump starting is my specialty.” Joe considered the Dwarves in front of him doubtfully. “Okay, so I have only taught the skill once before, and it was in the middle of a dungeon. It should be fairly straightforward to learn. Here's what I want you all to do.”
He parted his lips to give the same instructions he once had given to his party as they had worked to escape a burning building, but what came out of his mouth was nowhere near that minimalistic explanation. “Jumping is all about achieving the highest heights that you can. Something to remember is that if you are moving forward and you ‘jump’, that is actually leaping. They go hand-in-hand, and as far as I can tell, the system does not make any distinctions. I do.”
After waiting to get confirmation that they were listening, Joe charged along. “That means, what we are going to attempt right now is a vertical jump. In order to jump as high as possible, drop into an imaginary chair and use the power of both your legs to push off the ground. Be careful that your knees don't point inwards, as that can result in a ‘knee-lock’. Short version: keep your knees as straight as possible, ideally positioned vertically over your toes.”
With that, Joe guided them to practice using his instructions. It was a strange feeling to be teaching other people something so physical, as in his own mind, he was a pure Mage. If he had only raised his Ritual Magic to Mastery first! All of the Dwarves were able to jump, as they were not elephants, but the height that they could achieve began slowly increasing as he continued to give them instructions.
“Hold on; I see a small issue in your form. You! You’re flailing your arms as you push off. Do what you can to keep your arms at your sides and your back straight. Better… good.” Joe moved to the next Dwarf and tapped on the man’s thigh. “You are using your abdominals too much. Push your body with your legs. Spring off the balls of your feet and swing your hands up into the air for additional momentum. Better.”
By this point, over half of the time in the competition had passed. Joe began searching his mind for any other information he could give them to generate a competitive edge. The biggest issue was that he did not have a teaching skill or anything equivalent to it. His opponent clearly did, and was using it in conjunction with his skill training. “Properly done, your feet should roll forward, from your heels to your toes as you jump off. You should feel pressure on your heels; guide that force upward towards your toes as you come back to a standing position. Practice that a couple of times, then do the same thing much more quickly in a proper jump. Wait, no, you’re pushing off oddly. You’ve gotta roll all the way to your toes.”
Joe had never felt ten minutes pass so quickly, and he was starting to lose his composure as the other group started laughing at something their instructor had said. His instructions became slightly more frantic and demanding. “Keep your arms parallel to each other and move them just behind your rear! Swing your arms forward while straightening your whole body! Land on the balls of your feet and roll back onto your heels. When you land, you should take care to land in such a way as to keep the kinematic chain going in a single plane from the ball of your foot through your ankle into your knee and finally through your hip joint-”
“Time!”
In only ten minutes, the Dwarves that he had been working with had more than doubled the height that they could reach from a standing position. Joe didn't know if it would be enough, and as they had an appraiser walk down the line, the human’s bald head became ever shinier from sweat. Neutrality Aura activated, and light stopped reflecting so intensely from his follicle-free pate after a moment.
The appraiser finished and turned to the crowd. “On average, Master Joe was able to bring the skill level of his trainees to Beginner three! Master Stu was able to bring his trainees to Beginner seven! We have a winner!”
As the crowd cheered for the incumbent Master of the Council, Stu crossed his arms and smirked at Joe. “Looks like the only chasm you can't jump… is sarcasm!”
