Chapter 116

 

Dream State, second try to survive the Doppelganger Girl

I hadn’t even been in the dream state for ten seconds, and my eyes are still adjusting to the change in the light and atmosphere when I hear and feel Fox yelling while tugging desperately on my sleeve. “Hurry Shun! We have to stay moving!” She’s really stressed out and almost ready to lose her cool, which is saying a lot for her, who never loses her head.

I turned just in time and Fox has yanked me out of the way from a massively powerful overhand weapon chop from Doppelganger Girl. I can feel the air whistle by my ear and it scared the crap out of me. Wow, how did she know where we would re-spawn or enter at?

“I thought I told you to be careful!” she shouted.

“Sorry.”

I still haven’t learned how to get the shields and buffs up before automatically transitioning into the dream state.

There’s another heavy overhand chop follow up from Doppelganger again as she charges in before we can scatter. We’re trying to pick up speed but Doppelganger is just really persistent.

“Watch it!” she barked. And like that we’re off again with her pulling me by the arm and trying to get me to pick up speed quicker.

“Another marathon sprint,” I muttered.

“If you want to live, learn to marathon,” Fox said quickly.

Doppelganger Girl says nothing...most of the time. But sometimes she mimicks what we say word for word but in a weird tone that screams psychotic illness.

But she’s more rested than I wanted her to be or at least has the appearance of it. Somehow she’s tapped into my fatigue restoration system, I think. It normally would restore Fox’s fatigue to a certain point because it was a full day later and both Haruka and Ayumi were channeling energy that was going through the Demon Box into me and her. But Doppelganger shouldn’t be able to steal or siphon that off but she has.

So the demon box is working against me. Will it always work against me from now on or only when it wants to feed?

She’s still able to gain on us before I hurriedly hit her with the movement debuff spell. Then I buff both of us with + movement and then finish off every buff and debuff that I can.

“Good, we’re gaining some ground,” Fox said hoarsely.

“Let’s keep it going,” I said.

“I hope you managed to come up with some plan since last I saw you,” she raised a questioning look to me.

“Yep…” my voice cracked hoarsely.

We’re still putting some distance between us and her.

“I still need as much distance as possible though,” I said.

“OK, do I need to buy us time?” she asked.

“I think…we’re probably good without you confronting her yet,” I said. “Just run normally for a bit.”

Then I manage to get runic shielding back up on both of us. But then we have to increase our pace a bit.

The problem is that I haven’t gotten a chance to practice the runic summoning spell that we just traded off to the old dwarven spellcrafter. So there’s a chance it might not work the first time and there’s also a chance that the first time there might be other unpredictable effects involved.

Will it make Sunghee dizzy? Will the mana cost be higher the first time? Can I even handle the mana cost? Will she be hurt in trying to summon her? Can I get Sunghee running and on her feet before Doppelganger catches up with us?

Slowly we rework our increased pace gain again. But it’s putting a toll on both of us.

“Sunghee! Be ready to move!” I call out to the cage in the middle of the arena below us. She’s been quiet this whole time but I know she’s there. I can see her face resting against the golden colored bars of the cage. She signals us back with a thumbs up.

“I think she’s ready,” Fox said.

“Let’s hope this works,” I said.

I cast the summon spell the first time on Sunghee. I can feel the energy working and channeling and my mana dips a bit…but then it fizzles at the last second. I could see a faint sparkly set of hundreds of small light flickers around the cage, but then it wore out before it could take effect.

“Crap!” I said.

“Are you going to risk using the stun first and then doing the summon?” Fox suggested.

“No. If Sunghee is dizzy on summon I will need it then. It’s still unpredictable what will happen and I don’t want to use the stun at the wrong time. So I can’t use my fail safe yet,” I said.

We then had to run around the arena some more to regain our distance while Doppelganger Girl is still trying to wear us out before we have another opportunity to try again.

“We…can’t…do this…forever Shun!” Fox pleaded.

“I know…running to death is a terrible way to die,” I said.

“Should we just let her kill us?” Fox half joked, while panting.

“Nah, that would be less fun.”

“This time make sure you are fully stopped if you have to. You have to focus on just the basics and not be intimidating by the psycho demon chasing us with a sharp weapon. If you think too much of her being close you will fail the spell. And spells fail even if its your first time doing them just by themselves,” Fox said.

Yes…and her saying that didn’t help any. But she was right that I’d been intimidated and it’d hurt my concentration. I should be still too. If I know the spell well and have done it a few hundred times, then not stopping wouldn’t be an issue.

Then we had to go run around again looking for a window of opportunity a second time, when the spell failed a second time.

“Damn,” I swore.

“Its OK, you can do this. Its normal to have a few bugs worked out on a new ability,” Fox coached.

The third time we have an open window of opportunity and a new chance, I can feel the energy channeling through my mana core and outward through my body and hands that are forming the runic symbols. Then the mana energy I have left in my core dips again.

There is a sparkling shower of light particles from the cage. Then a couple of seconds right after that the light particles solidify next to us in the form of Sunghee. Then as it clears she’s on her hands and knees next to us trying to control her gag reflex.

“Oh gosh that’s awful! I want to barf so bad! It feels like my stomach is in knots,” she is crying.

“It worked!” I shrieked in happiness!

“Yes!” Fox gives me a high five, and then slaps me on the back.

“Sunghee get up!” we both shouted.

“I’m so dizzy! I can’t!” she cried out.

“You better or that thing will chop off your head and ours!” I cry out in return, putting urgency in my voice.

Sunghee is trying to stand and gritting her teeth but stumbles a bit while the enemy is getting closer. We don’t have much time left.

“You were right about needing a failsafe,” Fox said.

We have about three seconds before Doppelganger girl is about to hit us.

I hit a shielding spell on Sunghee first, and I’ll barely have enough time for a stun spell I think.

“Weapon?” Sunghee cries out. She’s finally gotten to her feet, but it’s going to be really close on the timing.

I hand her mine and she whips it up just in time to counter the block and aftershock of Doppelganger hitting her upswing at the same time.

“My hell that was close!” Fox swore in frustration.

“Oh shit! That hurt so bad! This is like a swinging a weapon at a passing vehicle,” Sunghee swore.

I then managed to finish casting my weapon stun, and it hits Doppelganger Girl square in the chest.

“You have ten seconds,” Fox says to Sunghee hurriedly. “After that she’ll be back up and we retreat!”

Sunghee proceeds to bash into at Doppelganger Girl as fast as she can while Fox is also circling behind for a sneak attack.

Doppelganger Girl isn’t made of real flesh, or something has magnified the composition and durability of her body. It’s like she’s made out of marble or stone as Sunghee’s hits shake off bits of stone and dirt. Left slash to the shoulder, right knee cripple chop, stab to the abdomen, neck swipe, and then stab from the right into the rib cage from Sunghee into the enemy. And then one more rib cage stab, which seemed to do very little damage.

But none of it works in finishing her off and she even looks more determined than before. Instead a shower of dirt and rocks shakes off her body.

“Some kind of earth element magic shielding?” Sunghee asks Fox.

“Afraid so. She had some kind of mana ability of some kind at least on a minor level,” she replied.

“Is she… a mage?” I asked, worrying greatly. It was bad enough with just her physical abilities.

Fox releases her manaburn weapon into Doppelganger Girl’s back and the Girl starts screaming like mad as if she was stabbed by what was inside a molten smelter. Slowly Doppelganger is wounded terribly as energy and chaos in the shape of magma flow arcs through and down her abdomen and hips. She looks a bit scratched up now and I thought I saw smoke coming off her but she’s still mainly intact for the most part but with what looks like minor burns here and there.

I can’t believe it. That was the heaviest weapon we had and she still wants to fight.

Sunghee from the front is still chopping at her left and right from the top in her body above the impact site.

“No time left. Run now,” I warned them. I’d been doing a countdown in my head.

We start jogging away slowly trying to keep a good strong gain.

“My gosh, she’s still fighting it,” Fox exclaimed in shock.

“What?! How can that be?” I wondered.

“Didn’t you channel a ton of mana into that strike Fox?” Sunghee gasped in astonishment.

“A third of my total mana. I still need to save some for other things. I don’t even understand how she’s still alive,” Fox said in awe.

Behind us Doppelganger is still following us from behind. It takes her a minute to get to her feet, but sure enough within about five seconds she’s running after us again like a robot.

“I can’t believe it,” I said.

“How are we going to deal with that?” I wondered.

“Not sure but she’s definitely much stronger than before. It’s not even worth trying to try to counter her without some kind of stun because the vibration from blocking her hits almost broke my hand,” Sunghee said.

Again we tried to buy more time while my stun timer is cooling.

“Just a bit more,” I said.

“Wait, don’t do it immediately,” Sunghee said.

“Why?” Fox asked. “We should hit her as soon as we can.”

“But she’s trying to memorize our skills too, and how often we can do moves. You need to fake her out. She won’t be able to regenerate that fast anyway from that last hit, so it should be OK,” Sunghee huffed.

“But running to death is worse than fighting,” Fox pleaded.

I saved my breath, not wanting to talk yet.

“Sunghee’s right,” I finally said.

We waited till double my normal cool time for the stun to wear off.

But unexpectedly Doppelganger was watching for the stun. She did some kind of quick lunge to the right and the stun goes off into space. But its also proof that she’s watching our abilities to analyze how to counter them. I didn’t even know someone could avoid my stun till now.

“Crap,” I said.

“It’s OK. That was a good attack, it’s just she’s got monster reflexes, literally,” Fox said.

Sunghee is biting her lip and glancing back while we run.

“So what are our options? Anything we haven’t tried?” Fox asked.

“I was about to ask the same thing,” Sunghee said.

We keep running around the arena in circles again.

“Weird, she changed it,” Fox said.

“What? What do you mean?” I asked.

“The arena has differences in the floor that weren’t here yesterday. That spot in the middle with hardened sand and the slide that we used to get in here is gone too ,” Fox noted.

“Ah, she did change it. But it wasn’t like this until…” I voiced aloud.

“Right around when you hit her last time with a heavy attack?” Sunghee guessed.

“That’s right,” Fox snapped her fingers.

“So if we hit her again with something, will she change the arena again?” I asked.

“Probably,” Fox sounded half defeated.

“That’s proof she’s absorbing energy from us somehow,” Sunghee snorted.

“Let’s watch for another window,” I encouraged them hopefully.

“Wait! I have an idea! Let’s use Shun’s 10% stat buff, and the other running buff on Fox’s energy weapon nuke beam thing whatever it is,” Sunghee said.

Fox snickered. “That’s silly. It doesn’t work that way. That’s a people buff, not an item buff.”

“Why not? Give me one good reason not to try,” Sunghee shot back.

“Because you can’t put a buff on a weapon, when the buff is meant for people,” she shot back.

“Really? I hadn’t thought it was possible. But Sunghee’s thinking isn’t wrong. What would happen?” I asked.

Fox suddenly gives me a questioning look. “I don’t think that’ll work Shun.”

“Are you sure? It can’t hurt to try,” Sunghee asked.

There’s an awkward silence while we continue to bide our time thinking of anything else we can try. But my mind keeps wondering if there’s a way to alter the buff skills I have to change them to fit onto items and equipment. It might be a big gain if they both work and can stack onto each other.

Doppelganger’s pace has slowed now because she’s wounded but her tenacity is still as big as it ever was. She will never stop. If I didn’t know better I’d say she was part robot.

“Actually, I’m a bit curious what will happen. We’ve not thought of doing something like this before. And the buff spells don’t cost much to cast,” I said.

Fox is puzzled and thinking for a minute.

Finally she nods, “Well I suppose we could try it, but you have to change the middle second class glyph ro with sader. If you do it like that maybe it will work? Oh…wait. I’m not sure?”

This is a weird conversation. Will it make a weapon buff? Or will it fail?

“Well we should test it on a different weapon before you dump mana into that energy sword,” I said.

“That’s true.”

I had to piece through in my mind the glyph and runic cast sequence though. It was too hard in my mind. But after five minutes of jogging I think I had it worked out.

“OK, Sunghee, trade me weapons,” I said.

This was the moment of triumph or despair. We’re all intensely curious too. Will it fail or will it explode or something else?

I casted the modified sequence.

Sure enough it works.

Somehow the dwarven warhammer I’m holding looks larger and shinier than before. There is also a glowing runic inscription on the long handle in light blue light that almost looks as if it were burning slightly also in light blue flames coming up from the writing.

“What the fuck?” Fox fell over right in the middle of the sand floored arena, she’s so surprised.

“Hey isn’t that cheating? Why does it always give you the new skills?” Sunghee sneered back at me as she stole the new weapon out of my hands.

“But how much has it actually improved? Is it actually really improved a lot or just a small amount?” I wondered.

“I’m not sure,” Fox asked.

“How could you not know?” I wondered.

“That’s a different type of magic. I’m altering reality remember? You’d need an enchanter to look at it. But it probably will wear off before that happens,” she muttered back.

“That’s probably true. I’m guessing it will last as long as the buff normally lasts?” Fox added right after that.

“That would make the most sense,” I said.

“So a few hours pretty much?” Sunghee guessed.

“Yeah something like that,” Fox said.

“Well…if it will work on weapons, what will happen if you changed it again and added it to our shoes?” Sunghee said.

“Are you serious? There’s no fucking way he can just instantly make a shit ton of new buff skills on the fly,” Fox sounded like she’ll hyperventilate. “There’s a limit to how cheaty he can be!” she said getting mad.

“Well it’s just an honest question. And he hasn’t really lost much mana right?” Sunghee inquired innocently.

“That’s true. I still have plenty left,” I confirmed. Also Fox’s attitude makes me want to try it even more now.

“And if you used the movement speed buff on the shoes would it stack onto the buff already that is on our body, which ISN’T a SHOE?” Sunghee asked, emphasizing the differences.

It takes another ten minutes to work it out. By then we’re getting excited. We modified another spell sequence again.

Then I casted it on Sunghee’s shoes first since she’s the one that is the most able to hopefully fight that monster chasing us. But this time it fizzles.

“What’s it mean?” I asked, wiping the staticky feeling and burning sensation off my hands. It didn’t feel good when it fizzled.

“I don’t know?” Fox said. “This is your experiment! I’m not taking responsibility for it! Hmph!”

Sunghee snickered. “You are jealous aren’t you? Try it again Shun! The summon spell fizzled the first time too.”

“Well…maybe just a tiny bit jealous,” she said.

“Try again,” Sunghee encouraged.

Strangely even the Doppelganger seems curious what we’re doing. She doesn’t look as lethal now but is still trying to catch us. She looks a bit confused at what we’re up to.

The second cast works and there’s a singing light blue burning set of runes that cover the sides and front of Sunghee’s school uniform tennis shoes.

“Oh wow! This is nice! I feel like…lighter and faster! I seem to be gaining so much more ground now. Oh this is wonderful!” she exclaimed.

“Really? No freaking way!” Fox’s eyes are wide open. She almost tripped in the sand she was so surprised.

“Seriously?” I gasped.

“I want some too!” Fox said with an intense look in my direction.

Less than a minute later we’re all wearing rune encrypted shoes. There’s also a status window that pops up. But it takes like five times longer than normal to read it because it’s hard to read while jogging even when the text is fairly large sized.

“Congratulations! You’ve unlocked the runic spell enchant, enchant shoes, and enchant weapon! Weapon damage +10% on weapon, running and movement speed +10% on shoes, stacks with other buffs, but may only benefit from one item type with each enchant plus the normal enchant spell itself (10% damage, and 10% movement increase added together). Thus only one shoe buff may be used on shoes and different buffs can’t be put on each shoe,” Sunghee reads.

“That’s so cheaty. Not even fair,” Fox is shaking her head.

“So it does stack with the other +10%?” I again confirmed.

“Yep, so 12% from the original movement speed buff plus 10% which would be 123% on top for a total of 1.23 times a normal person’s running speed or movement speed, or 23% increase beyond the speed of a normal run for a given stamina cost,” Sunghee confirmed after she went over it again.

“No wonder she got tired of chasing us. We have the 23% increase beyond a normal run, but she also has the 10% decrease at the same time. So it’s like a 30% difference that we keep exploiting full time,” Fox smirked. She even is keeping an eye on Doppel-chan, who is looking at us with a forlorn tired expression.

I almost feel sorry for Doppel-chan right now.

No doubt she can hear us but is saving her energy and not trying to get closer even though she’d still had us beaten in a real hand to hand combat game.

“Maybe we should just keep Doppel-chan in here fighting every night. It seems like confronting danger makes our skills go up exponentially,” I said aloud.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Sunghee said.

“Except for the part about running to death?” Fox said, feeling really annoyed.

“Well she doesn’t want to run to death either. And trying to compete with the 30 percent difference would probably kill her,” I calculated aloud.

“This is too funny and weird actually,” Sunghee snickered aloud, looking back at Doppel-Chan. While looking at her, Doppel-chan flips us all off and is heard to be cursing in some odd language behind her porcelain mask.

“Oh wait, I missed something here too,” Sunghee said as her hands are going over the text in the screen window.

“Eh? Something bad or good?” I asked.

She takes a minute, while I try not to stare at her boobs bouncing up and down in her shirt. We’re still walking at a brisk pace with Doppel-chan still following. She never quits, so I am actually more scared of her stalker skills because of it.

“OK, so the system has combined this spell into the summon equipment’s basic item sets. So now when you summon clothes for us, the shoes will have this enchant already applied, and so will any weapons. But it still has a set time for the buff to work before wearing off,” Sunghee read aloud.

“But that sounds too easy, there has to be a catch somewhere right?” I asked.

She nodded, “Yeah, all the equipment has these enchants on them, but it will cost fifty percent more mana to summon the equipment crate.”

“Still too cheaty, but worth it,” Fox said.

“Are you joking? Fifty percent additional mana cost is huge! That’s way not work it,” I exclaimed.

Fox shrugged, “it would save time in emergency deployment situations though.”

Before the night is out we’d gotten the same thing tricked out for the girls skirts with the energy resistance spell, now having an enchant form for clothes. Now there’s a ten percent bonus to the energy resistance buff from the main buff from some kind of research bonus gain, plus the same thing applied to the uniform skirts with both stacking together.

Sunghee reads off a new blue screen, “The summon equipment create now costs 1.75 times more mana than normal to cast with all equipment skirts carrying energy resistance buff, and all summon weapons carrying summoned weapon damage enchant,” it says. But then she turns to me, “But that’s worth it. I’d wanted to figure out a way to increase the energy resistance anyway.”

“The energy resistance buff is going to be super important in the future during mage duels and dealing with magic attacks, and mage hunters Shun. If you ever get any chances to work it up or have gain into it please seize the chance,” Fox pleaded.

Then she reads a follow up screen. “Because of research into further promoting energy resistance you gain a normal +3% total bonus gain to your normal energy resistance which stacks with all other types. Spell received; Enchant item, Spell received; Enchant item; energy resistance.”

“That’s so not fair Shun. Why do you get all this stuff?” Fox is openly jealous, folding her arms across her chest and shaking her head.

“Shun. How come it’s given you all this stuff?” Sunghee asked.

“I know right? I don’t think I’m really that special am I? I’m not the hero saving the world. So why am I so blessed when others aren’t?” I thought aloud.

Sunghee gives me a big hug, “hey it’s OK to be loved and have nice things Shun.”

Wow, she is so wonderful. She’s a very nice person.

“Hey you two cut it out! We’re still being chased, even if she is looking kind of pathetic and weak now,” Fox griped.

“Fine,” Sunghee backed off when Fox looked like she was going to hit her.

“But what’s your total resistance buff bonus at?” Fox asked seriously.

“Good question. Let’s check it,” Sunghee read it off. “It was 19 percent before, so add 3 more and that’s 22 percent plus the item’s 10% on top of that for a total of 1.22 times 1.1 percent together. I’m not as good at math, Fox can you…”

“134% or 34% increase bonus total,” Fox summed up. But then she frowned and cringed at me. “But 34% increase on a resistance buff isn’t going to cut it when you have people tossing fireballs at you. You need to get it a lot higher and see if there’s other damage absorption you can stack with it if you find something.”

Next time I go over training with Sunghee and Fox I will need to go over my skill summary again for a list of all the skills. There’s so much I’m feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes also I see Fox glancing at me with admiration when I’m not looking. It’s clear she’s starting to look up to me, even though she’s supposed to be a really good mage.

Yet still Doppel-chan pursues us…doggedly without giving up.