Hollow

A few moment's later.

Hayate was a 100 Metres away from his house. In front of him was a tree trunk, it was old and withered. Dead, even.

So this was going to be Hayate's practice dummy.

Hayate knew many pure damage spells. Or course, he knew many other spells with additional effects. As a result, he was more and less effective against living and non living entities.

He picked a random spell of the many he in his repertoire — one which would destroy the tree trunk. "[Magic arrow — Arrow rain]"

[Magic arrow] was a very basic spell. It was an simple tier 1 spell which shot an arrow made of magic at something. [Magic arrow — arrow rain] was a much stronger tier 3 spell which did exactly the same but instead of one arrow – it shot out 100 at the same time with a 10% of each one being an explosive. He pointed his index finger at the trunk and in a sudden movement, a hundred arrows shot from it — There were all sorts of colours to them, a rainbow. They glittered like rainbow.

The arrows loosed from his hand travelled flat paths as they streaked through the air, each one striking the trunk without delay and as soon as the last ten hit — they all exploded one after the another. The explosion of magic energy ripped across the tree trunk, tearing it to shreds and leaving almost nothing left of the trunk but a pile of splinters

That was to be expected.

"Nice — the power of my spells are just as good.''

He muttered to himself. This was nearly the same amount of damage the spell would've done in Hollow so this was good. His spells hadn't changed their functions, as far as he knew.

It was quite satisfying to blow stuff up with a finger.. but just blowing up trees wasn't gonna do much. He needed test it on an living entity – something that moved around.

No, before that he needed to test something else.

"[hellfire]."

He said as a ball of black flame, hot enough to melt metal was fired at the remains of the trunk and three seconds later he used another spell, "[Aqua-blast]."

A wave of water was launched from his hands, also aimed at the remains of the trunk.

Both [hellfire] and [aqua-blast] hit each other — dissapating into smoke.

Hayate smiled to himself.

The recast time between spells was the same as in Hollow. The actual process of casting was faster than in hollow. Previously, in order to cast an AOE spell, he would need to choose the spell, then move the cursor over the desired area. The process now was quicker than that.

"So my memory was right."

He muttered to himself, now he was sure that some parts of the game had carried over to real life just on a smaller scale. It still was the same thing.

"I wonder what else is the same. This was a nice start.".

What else should he try?

Ah yes, he needed a living target.

[create 9th tier elemental — Earth Elemental king].

In accordance to his wish, the ring on his pinky finger glowed a bright brown colour.

The ground started to shake violently, like the surface of the ocean during a storm. The whole area started to tremble viciously, the ground felt like it was alive. Cracks started forming all over the ground and the earth began to rumble and split apart.

Dust and ashes spewed into the air, creating clouds of dust.

Hayate watched as the ground in front of him split apart and a great fissure formed, a fissure like a abyss.

From that abyss — something came out.

The giant earth elemental king climbed out of the crack in the ground. It had to duck its head to get through and when it came into the open area it stood at least 5 meters tall. The earth giant — it was just as the name suggested, made out of earth and dirt. It had rough skin with the consistency of a rock, and its entire body was covered in dirt.

It looked like a walking mountain range.

It had a an ugly, misshapen humanoid face and it's eyes seemed to be full of fury.

It's form was bulky and it was muscular, it had thick limbs that looked like they could punch through concrete. It's hands were sharp like spikes, it could probably tear through metal like paper.

Its arms and chest were made of a solid granite-like material, while its legs were made of dirt and clumps of soil. It wore no armour — no shield. No weapon and yet it looked dangerous — like it could knock down an entire mountain with its bare hands.

Hayate was both fascinated and horrified with this creature.

He could hardly believe something like this was spawned from his spell.

Though it's form was that of a giant it was still a creature, created through magic and he was it's creator. This earth elemental was the highest earth elemental just below the earth elemental dragon which wasn't a summon but a monster — usually a boss monster.

This was a level 90 summon.

A tier 9 summon — pinnacle of summon magic with the sole magic being mythical items or one time use legendary items. A tier 9 summon had a total stats of 450 and since he summoned this elemental using his ring instead of his skill — his "ring of overlord" didn't activate otherwise it would have been a level 100 summon.

The ring which Hayate used to summon this was a very useful item, it had only 2 flaws.

First, he could only use it 3 times per day.

Second, there was an 8 hour cooldown between summoning sessions, which he was used to but still irritated him but the benefit — he could use any spell or skill he wished once per day without its cost. "This is interesting.."

He said quietly, studying the earth elemental that had now turned around and stood directly in front of him. The earth elemental looked down at Hayate, as though surprised that an being shorter than it was just standing there in front of him. It probably had assumed that he should be running away — like a normal human being would.

It's eyes were like the earth — it was an earth type monster. It had no feelings towards Hayate. And Hayate was it's summoner, he was the only one who could command it — if he didn't give it any order it would simply wander and destroy anything in it's path without reason much like an earthquake.

The earth elemental king roared, It's voice like thunder, the sound of it sending chills down Hayate's spine. The roar shattered every window and mirror in the area — it was almost as loud as a giant explosion.

It took a few steps towards Hayate, each step it took felt like the entire world was shaking. Every time it's foot made contact with the ground it left huge cracks behind.

Hayate simply stared at it and raised his hand, "kneel."

He didn't shout his command — he spoke it very softly. The earth elemental, stopped in its tracks when it heard that command. It paused for a second and then knelt down, its head lowered to the ground.

"That was faster than I expected."

He said, observing the kneeling creature, he would be lying if he said he wasn't intimidated by it. The sheer amount of raw power the elemental king held was truly amazing.

Since it was a earth elemental, it's main speciality would be tanking, of course it could also hit extremely hard but being extreme tough was it's specialty.

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Hayate took two steps towards the earth elemental king. "Raise your head." He said and with a slight motion, the earth elemental king lifted its head from the ground, meeting Hayate's gaze.

Looking at its face Hayate was once again reminded of just how strong and powerful creatures his skills could summon.

This thing — the earth elemental king — could flatten a mountain top with its bare hands, it had a lot of physical strength and durability. Not to mention it was an earth elemental — so it would be extremely resistant to physical and explosive attacks.

Usually, to create anything above tier 7 you would need some sort of cost like your own xp, cores, gold etc.

For a tier 9 summon – you needed xp to create it and since he did not have any means of getting more xp he did not want to use his own skill. Apart from this ring, he also had a racial skill which could create two demon's which were each level 90 for free but using it right now would be be a waste.

He wanted to save it for emergency's. Who knew what this world would throw at him.

For now though he needed to test the earth elemental in front of him. No, he needed to test his own power's.

"Stand up" he commanded. The earth elemental king got back on its feet obediently.

"I want you to fight me."

Hearing that, the earth elemental roared – this time it was a roar of excitement.

Hayate could tell, it couldn't wait to fight him. Of course it would fight him — he was his creator, if he told it to stand still it would, because of how creations worked.

He wanted to see how strong he was right now.

The earth elemental king started to raise it's leg — it planned to attack him with a stomp. It was only warning him.

This creature was polite enough to give him a warning before attacking, unlike the people in Hollow — and they knew what they were doing, these creatures were just like that. Before the earth elemental could stomp down, Hayate teleported backwards, away from the earth elemental.

The earth elemental king slammed its foot to the ground where Hayate was just a second ago, creating a giant crater under where Hayate was. If Hayate hadn't moved he would probably have suffered massive damage because this wasn't a normal stomp — it was a skill.

[Earth Shockwave]

The shockwaves rippled throughout the area, causing the ground and the air around him to shake violently. This attack also had another effect, the air was charged with energy and small streaks of lighting coursed along the ground as the shockwaves passed through it. If hit with it, he would've taken both lighting and aoe damage.

Hayate was impressed.

To see an elemental use a skill like this without being prompted to was surprising at least. "Sentience..they have sentience" he thought to himself.

Usually, a creation would not at all under any condition attack its master. That wasn't part of the code in hollow, this was something orginal to earth.

Friendly fire was turned on here.

He didn't know why these elementals could attack without being commanded to but it didn't matter much right now as Hayate was only planning to use it as a training dummy.

"I can take a hit or two from you." He muttered to himself.

As a physical-attacker type, the earth king, it had a very high HP total.

Of all the special abilities that earth king possessed, the most dangerous one was the ability to summon smaller versions of itself which was lower level than themselves. However, summoned monsters could not in turn summon more of them. For instance, the fire elemental king would often summon pack after pack of fire elemental knights – ifrits and low level demons, making them very hard to deal with.

In addition, one troublesome point about the elemental king was that it was very hard to manage its aggro. The earth elemental king aggro more easily than all the other elements except for the fire elemental which had the highest aggro. In addition, it had the special ability of doing more damage and gaining more defense the more damage it took was even more troublesome. Still, that was not too frightening as this was his creation so he could just tell it to stop and it would stop.

There was so much this monster had at his disposal but Hayate was confident that he could beat this thing. "Well, I shouldn't draw this out." He pointed his finger at it and in a instant.

"[Pure Magic — water bullet]"

A hundred arrows made of pure concentrated water flew at the earth elemental king — this was the best counter for an earth elemental was earth was weak to water type attacks in hollow.

The water arrows slammed into the earth elemental king's chest, sprinkles of water fell to the ground, making the ground wet.

There was no visible damage.

It hardly did any damage to the earth elemental king, it was like rain falling on a mountain.

This was what Hayate had expected.

This monster was using one of its skills — [iron skin & lung].

It was a defensive skill which could boost his defense by 100% and boost his resistance stat by 50%, for the next 150 seconds. It really was an extremely powerful defense skill considering it gave no downsides to the elemental king but it could only be used once per 6 hours. It also made him immune any type of one hit ko move as it would leave him on 1 H.P

Hayate knew this.

The earth elemental king roared and charged at him, its huge form closing the distance quickly and with a loud slam it swung its huge fist at him.

"I wonder how dark angel-sama would have handled this."

Right now, the memories of sparring with his friends were coming back to him, and Hayate was beginning to enjoy himself. Simulated battles with his friends were a fundamental part of devising new techniques and using new equipment.

Dark-angel was the best PvP player of his friend group — he had once single Handedly taken on ; five level 100 player's and won.

Hayate ducked under the earth elemental kings fist, which went passed his head and slammed into an old house, the impact of the punch sent a powerful shockwave through the air, like a mini-explosion. The house crumbled like it was made out of paper.

Wood splintered and stone cracked in an instant as the house collapsed around the fist. All that remained was one ruined structure — one that would never be the same again.

A thick layer of dust was kicked up into the air and it looked like the world was suddenly plunged into a cloud of dust. It was a sight one could expect of a fight taking place as two strong entities battled.

The house remained crumbled, destroyed beyond recovery. It was a sight that would cause a normal person to shiver — this wasn't even 1/6 the damage the earth elemental king could do.

This was like a battle between gods.

There was a clear difference in scale and power. There was nothing here a normal human could compare to such beings.

"This isn't enough yet."

Hayate hadn't even gotten the chance to test out any skills but just then the ground began to shake. Hayate knew what would come next. The moment he had ducked below the earth elemental king's fist, it had triggered a skill. One that he had been waiting for. [earthquake].

The earth in a 3-kilometer radius started shaking violently, creating large cracks of the ground. Hayate was able to stand stable because he had the ability [sure footed] which made him immune to all effects of it.

But the earth elemental king was not so lucky, the earthquake was the biggest downside of the skill. As its name suggested, any living organism who was within the radius of the skill would start to shake and stumble — that was the effect of the earthquake effect.

This was the skills flaw— it didn't just affect targets but also the user.

This was the reason why most earth elemental monsters wouldn't use [Earthquake] when fighting in close-range. Of course, there were exceptions but the normal earth elementals wouldn't risk it — their code wouldn't let them unless their creator commanded them. The risk was just not worth it but this one didn't care as it was acting in its own accord.

"This is getting good."

A grin appeared on Hayate's face, he was having a lot of fun. As soon as the Elemental king began to lose its balance, Hayate made a beeline for him and flew over him. He could not let this opportunity to go to waste as the earth elemental king was now unstable — he had to use the element of surprise here, because once that elemental king regained his balance it would be hard for Hayate to deal any meaningful damage without the right setup.

"[Freezing icicle]."

A single massive spear made of ice appeared at the tip of his finger and it was thrown towards the earth elemental king. It was traveling at a very fast speed. In fact it was traveling with such a velocity that the average person would never be able to even see it move.

It left streaks of ice in the air which would fall down to the earth as small balls of ice.

The spear slammed into the earth elemental king's chest, instead of piercing it's skin — it simply disappeared into energy. Frost energy started to spread over the elemental king's body.

This was a 6th tier spell and a variation of the spell [thunder spear]. It was a single hit attack with a range of 120 meter's in any direction. On hit the target takes 35 HP of damage. And if it isn't immune to damage, it has a 40% chance of becoming paralysed and restrained for the next 20 seconds. On a miss the target takes half as much as damage and has no other effects.

Since this guy was immune to paralysis it would be a miracle if he even got stunned for a moment.

The frost energy was spreading over it's body and it looked like it had been coated in a layer of frost. There was not a single part of the body that wasn't touched by the spell but it didn't seem to affect the movement of the earth elemental king as it stood back up. The ground shaking as he did.

"That's enough, let's leave it here for now."

Hayate said to the elemental king.

This was more than enough information for him. He had gotten a rough idea about his own strength. He was slightly weaker than usual. Not because his skills and stats hadn't been transferred over but because he wasn't used to fighting yet.

That was fine though, he could train and get familiar with his body over time.

Hayate cancelled the spell and the frost energy around the elemental king's body faded.

He didn't want to waste his MP by keeping a spell like that active, it cost a bit more than he would like plus there was only so much MP he could recover in a few hours and he didn't know when he would need MP the most so it was smarter to play safe and not waste a single drop of MP needlessly.

"Thank for sparring with me."

Hayate said to the earth elemental king.

"Now where should I keep him...i can't keep him here..but it would be a waste to kill him..no wait.."

He got a good idea.

"Elemental king, go back in the ground and don't come out till I order you to."

The earth elemental king stopped moving, it was listening to his command. It walked back to the place were he had spawned and knelt down. The ground began to shake once again and the earth was split apart, as if the earth had opened up a mouth just for the elemental king to get in and after getting it, it put his hands out of the hole to cover its head with dirt.

After a few seconds, It closed behind him the hole he had made and earth returned to how it had looked at the start. It was as if nothing had happened here except for the destroyed house and the craters in the ground. Hayate decided to leave as fast as possible. He did not want to linger here for any longer. He used [true teleportation] and teleported back in his house, as soon as he did, he walked over and fell face first into his bed.

"Ah...today was tiring. Fighting is tiring." He mumbled as he closed his eyes and rested for a bit.