George Knows Best [Mud Wizard LitRPG]

"Mr. Brown, that was quite the performance. The way you hid your abilities. You even fooled me, I'm embarrassed to acknowledge. Mr. Brown, you have a gift for the theater. The way you were sweating and cursing as you walked onto the arena. What a performance..."

Bob watched Two-Sword slump dejectedly on the shoulder of a companion. In the end, Bob had succeeded in damaging the creature, right where it hurt, in his pride. Two-Sword looked dazed and broken, like his mind had errored midway through processing what had just happened.

Mess, following Bob's gaze, continued, "I might have to reevaluate your character. That was rather heartless. The way you held back your attacks. Knocking him down just to show how easily you could have crushed him. And then that arena exit... Agreed, he should have acknowledged himself defeated and surrendered admirably, but to be expelled out like unwanted excrement... He will never forget."

"What?" Bob snorted. He hadn't really been paying attention. He was doing his best to staunch the blood flow from his mangled nostrils. "What are you talking about? That thick-skinned bastard. Those hits would have downed an elephant. And the villain gets up like I patted him on the back."

Mess laughed and patted Bob on the back. "You're a card, Bob. Don't let anyone tell you different."

"Seriously, Mess, why couldn't I damage him? Is this some trick you guys have? Is that shell of yours secretly kevlar?

Mess tilted his head. The problem with being the funny man is nobody can ever credit you with being serious.

"Mr. Brown, have you forgotten our little game? Truths must be won. And it is I who have an unanswered question."

Bob sat down in his camp chair and rubbed his feet. He'd really torn them up good. Every step was a stinging annoyance. And he gotten so used to the health-patch's numbing properties that he was hyper-sensitized to pain. Call his dependence what it is. Unhealthy. But he wasn't stupid enough to ask whether healing was allowed.

"So what was your question again?"

"Mr. Brown, explain to me the difference between a monster and a sentient?"

"That there is a good question. I've been wondering the same. I had a run-in with a semi-intelligent beetle tribe. Things escalated and, well, let's just say, they ended badly."

"Mr. Brown, are you referring to the sack of the emerald city? I can inform you that no one has seen any members of the horned beetle clan for several days now."

"Mess, I'm going to have to plead the fifth. Anyway, monsters aren't mindless creatures. Just look at you, Mess. You're probably smarter than I am. You think, reason. You have culture and societies. You have traditions, like cutting off people's big toes. You can reproduce. You seem exactly the same as us."

Mess waited. He was hoping for something more concrete. Bob understood. Several millennia of human history and we are still all desperately searching for meaning. For Mess, this was probably the only chance he would ever get to ask. Most people don't greet monsters with fancy invitations to tea and biscuits.

"Mess, do you have access to the system interface? Imagine pulling up a virtual overlay."

"I don't understand. I have nothing like that."

"And no companion object equivalent?"

"No."

"But you do have abilities?"

"Yes."

Bob chewed on this. "Mess, what's the last thing you can remember?"

"I can remember only seven sunrises. One day, I was simply awake. I knew what I was. I knew my strengths and weaknesses. I had some general knowledge of the world. Of mana. Of sentients. But that is all."

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"Strange. Seven days, you say. That would be when the world ranked up."

Monster

System-created entity to support sentient leveling.

Cannot level. Cannot evolve.

Bob shared the primer entry with Mess. Mess shook his head. What were you supposed to say to that? Born to die. Trapped at your current strength. Waiting for some sentient to grow more powerful than you and cut you down. It was a hard life.

"I'm afraid, I don't know anything else."

The next matchup was between an enormous mace-wielding contestant and a delicate fencer with a single, needle-point blade. Bob weighed his options. He glanced sidelong at Mess, trying to puzzle out some clue from his expression.

Bob really wanted a question answered. Sure he'd won his bout. He'd discovered his inner kung-fu. But he was still at a significant disadvantage, especially when his opponents figured out that he had not been holding back and had no way of actually harming them. At that point, they could basically forget their own defense and launch suicide attacks. Somehow, he needed to discover how he could hurt them.

"I'll take the mace-wielder."

The monster was a good foot taller than his adversary and he looked like he could shatter steel. In his mind, Bob called him Maceatron. Mess only smiled and nodded his head. It didn't take long for Bob to recognize his mistake.

The fencer pirouetted around the slow, heavy fighter, his blade spearing forward as he easily dodged lumbering strike after lumbering strike. Mess put on his thinking cap as he considered what his next question should be. Bob fumed.

The fight was practically already over. Blood trickled out of many shallow holes on the Maceatron's body. His life-force was pissing away as he raged around the ring, swinging at shadows. King Kong and the fly.

And then it happened. The fencer back-stepped as the mace chainballed at him. He back-stepped and found the ground suddenly give way. His foot had found a small scar rutted into the pristine arena grounds. Now how did that get there? The unexpected dip had our fencer tumbling backwards. He jetted out his other foot and had almost recovered himself when—the mace reached him.

Crack!

Mess walked over and examined the little ridge. He frowned and looked back at Bob, who was whistling his ignorance. Bob certainly had not created that scar with his sword-catching stunt. Mess smoothed out the tournament grounds and came back to Bob's corner.

"Mess, really, how could you let good fighters duel on such a ruined field? It's a travesty. Maybe the tournament ought to be canceled. We could try again tomorrow, or next full moon even."

"Mr. Brown, my deepest apologies. But chance is the companion of combat. And I was distracted by good conversation."

"Happens to the best of us. Now, for my question..."

Bob ran over a couple different formulations in his mind. He didn't think Mess would stiff him, but it's better to ask for what you want, than hope you'll be interpreted as such.

"Describe to me exactly and in detail how I can make my physical attacks damage my opponents?"

"Look at your feet, Mr. Brown."

"That better not be the answer."

"Humor me, Mr. Brown."

Bob's feet looked normal. Good even. The torn skin was healing nicely. Very nicely. Why it barely hurt to put weight on them.

"Now look at your nose?"

Bob's nose was a wreck. Dried blood, dried snot and nose hairs were mangled up together. Bob really ought to blow his nose, but he was too afraid to try, lest he tear the whole organ apart.

"Notice anything?"

"My soles are basically healed, but the nose has hardly improved."

"Mana. Your foot injuries were caused by friction with the ground. While your nose was cut by your opponent's mana charged blade. Evolutions through C-rank are a transition from a pure-matter based lifeform to a mana based one. You are Rank-D now. Your body is partially a mana-entity. Purely physical damage will have a limited effect on you. The only real danger is colored mana. Colored mana devours other color mana."

"And my punches, they didn't contain any mana?"

"No, there were purely physical attacks. That's why everybody assumed you were mocking your opponent. Intentionally holding back."

"Now we're talking. So if I can imbue mana into my physical attacks, they will do damage."

"Yes."

"Ok, so describe to me 'exactly and in detail' how I do that?"

Mess was a good teacher. He didn't shortchange Bob with vague metaphorical bullshit (the mountain moveth not). He was practical and hands-on. Of course, you couldn't directly see or perceive another person's mana. But you could feel when it corrosively interacted with your own. So Mess let Bob swing at him and then explained where and how he was releasing the mana.

Bob was a bad student. Theoretically, he should have been able to leverage his mud mana manipulation skills. In practice, the experience didn't seem to carry over. Bob had always had an awful body sense (too much in his own head). But he did at least manage to grasp the core concepts involved.

They spent the whole next fight practicing, Bob agreeing to cede the wager as a thank you for above-and-beyond instruction. That fight had wrapped up all too quickly—a dual-dagger competitor dominating her axe-hand opponent.

Now, it was semi-final time. Bob was facing the spearman from the first bout. Wing-Spear, Bob had named him. "Gratitude, Master Mess." Bob bowed to his sensei, before heading to the field.

Time to show his master what he had learned.