Roger immediately went back up to face the Salamander.

Looking at this scene, the Giant Flaming Salamander, opened up its mouth and stuck out its tongue a couple of times like a snake and made some noise.

"Sha, Sha, Sha, Sha" The tone that it made, made it seem like the monster was mocking Roger. 

It was proud, that it managed to push Roger so far back with its tail.

But in the end it was still a beast without much intelligence.

"How dare you make fun of me?!" Said Roger as he was again in front of the monster.

He thought to himself, I have got to figure out its weaknesses.

Like a beast, that the salamander was it repeated the same actions as it did before. It took a deep breathe and was getting ready to let out another breathe of fire. 

Except this time Roger was prepared for it, before it got the chance to let out another breathe attack. Roger charged right up in front of the salamander's face. As it was about to let out another breathe attack Roger jammed his shield right in its mouth and activated the energy shield portion of it as well to cover any loose ends that fire might escape from.

The salamander was shocked from the unexpected action that took place. 

"!!!!" The salamander gasp.

 The giant flaming salamander, no longer could hold back its attack. It had to let it out.

And so it did because it didn't have a choice, as it was to late.

Mana energy that was used to hold the shape of the shield and the electrical energy used to sustain his body, was again rapidly draining from him. 

After a few moments the salamander end up choking by his own breathe. 

Due to the backlash its own body rose a bit.

"Cough, cough, cough" It was currently in a daze.

Not letting this chance go. Roger took up his sword and stab it through its eyes. Which is generally a weak spot of any living creature.

He stabbed his sword through it's eyes right into its brain, and with the frozen element that was currently covering his sword, the ice expanded all throughout its brain, killing it. 

"Hue" Was the sound that Roger let out when it died.

Roger noticed that this was a really inefficient way of killing these Giant Flaming Salamander.

He had already lost 10% of his health and 20% of his mana. Lucky, the grade E mechanical body has a self repair function and can slowly gain back its own energy, but that takes time. 

Once he was below 5% of his total energy reserve he would be forcibly log out, so that it can recharge. And if he was still in a danger zone that would be bad. As that he could be subjected to attacks while he was away. That is why generally you would head back to base which would not only lessen the time it takes to recover. If not, one would generally find a hidden spot before longing off.  

At this rate Roger would only be able to kill 4 more salamander before he had to head back to base.

Right now standing in front of him was the corpse of the giant flaming salamander. 

"Hey, Ai guide... You don't expect me to carry this back to the base right? That would be really slow." Said Roger as he looked at the corpse.

AI: Of course not, do you see those 6 orbs hanging by your waist?

Roger looked down at his waist, the AI was right there was 6 orbs hanging on his waist.

"What are they for?"

AI: They are Space Compression Orbs, they could compress the space of a dead or inanimate roughly the length of that salamander in a spherical space. They could generally hold 1 corpse at a time but if they were the same minerals or plants they could stack.

"What is this? Is this ********?!"

AI: What is *******? Anyways, this is high technology. There are more sophisticated Space Compression Orbs that can hold a much larger object and many more things, but those cost a lot and not something that should matter to you for now.  

"How do I use it?"

AI: Hold it up against the said subject, give it a light tap, it will analyzing the subject and its dimensions and it will compress it for you. If you want to release it, just tap it again with the biometrics or serial number of your mechanical body. 

Roger did just that. He tapped the orb against the corpse and it disappeared.  

"Hold up, does that mean I can use it on other mechanical bodies as well since, they are supposedly inanimate?" 

AI: Yes, only if they give you their permission.

As Roger was finished with his questions, he spotted the next Giant Flaming Salamander.

This time he was more prepared. The actions that Roger took was basically the same as before. Though it was effective, it is still not the best choice of action. 

Though, it might seem like only a short amount of time has passed, in reality time was flying by really quickly. Real time action combat, actually takes a significant amount of time with all the planning and execution of the actions. You don't press a button and the action happen instantly with no delay.  

He was already down to half of his mana and energy reserves even though he only killed 2 monsters. 

On his third Giant Flaming Salamander, an unexpected occurrence happened. 

Roger had his shield already in place, which was the salamander's mouth. When suddenly the ground shook, as this was a volcanic region this shouldn't have came as a surprise. 

The two was knocked off balance.

"Crap!"

But lucky for Roger, the Salamander's breathe went towards the sky instead of at him. The Salamander fell upside down. It couldn't get up due to its short stubby legs. It was currently wailing around, struggling hard to get back up right. 

"Lucky"

"Shaaa, Shhaaaa!"

Looking at the upside down salamander, Roger noticed that its underside wasn't actually covered in scale! This time he took his sword and easily stabbed through its neck! 

"Haha! I have got it!" Roger said as he raised both his hand.

"I have thought of the most efficient way for me to kill these things."

In the background, rocks were currently being spit out of the volcano.  

"But first, I have to take cover."

While, he was taking cover from the flaming rocks, he was currently refining his plan over and over again in his head. 

"I hope this works."

After a few minute the eruption of flaming rocks finally clamed down. He looked outside of his hiding spot just to make sure that the coast is clear. It was, so he went to look for another salamander, he was already down to 30% of his reserves. If he did the same as he did before, this would be his last kill before he had to head back to base camp. 

He spotted what might be his last prey in the distance. This time while the salamander wasn't paying attention, Roger immediately activated his shield early. He charged in with several times more force then before, and when the salamander noticed him, Roger was already inches away from it, He bashed the salamander with intense force from the side and flipped him over. Moving as swiftly as he could he brought his sword up and stabbed it through its throat. 

"Ah, ha! It worked." Roger looked happy.

Not only did that flipped the Salamander, it also stunned it as well. 

It took far less energy as well. In fact, it didn't even use half the energy that it would have cost, if it was done the old way.

It was a classic shield bash.

With that, he barely managed to fill up all 6 of his storage orbs.

As his storage orbs were now full, and he was low on energy, he started heading back to base. On his way back he stumbled on one of the rocks that the volcano spilled out.

He picked it up.

"Hey, Ai guide analyze this rock."

AI: You better not pick up a random rock off the ground again! Analyzing.... Item: Fire energy crystal. Description: A crystal that contains a mass of fire energy. Value: calculated by weight and purity. Bring it back to base to sell.  

"Sweet!"

He got back to base, and unloaded his items at the material processing shop.

AI: Alliance Credits will be credited to you as soon as everything is calculated. 

"Ok." He said as he was heading towards the resting and charging station to log off.

"Log off!"

He was disconnected from his mechanical body.

When he came to in his real body, it was already night time. Looking around his small apartment, nothing have really changed. He just noticed that his nutrient pack that he hooked up almost ran out and need replacing. Besides that nothing.

He went on his computer and messaged a close friend of his he met in a online game.

"Hey old pal, you got some time? We need to talk."

Author's Notes

Hello, Lostcattears here.

I have a patreon, and it have goals for faster and more constant releases.

https://www.patreon.com/lostcattears

Please don't steal my work, if you do... don't ever put it on those predatory sites... you know which ones...

If you were to steal my work at least leave up the "Author's note" so people can actually know where to support me so I can actually continue writing. In fact if you are stealing and doing it with an intent to profit, which I hope no one does, at least join my patreon.

Though really, that is only if I ever get big enough to go after anyone...