On the other side of the clearing stood a roughly 5'10 human in full plate armor, wielding a polearm.

Round 4 begin!

His opponent blurred slightly as they dashed to a few inches outside their own range. Degritone took a single step forward and had to immediately react to a speedy thrust, which he deflected to the right. His opponent took a step back and Degritone activated all his toggleable Skills. Unlike his previous opponent, his current opponent did not go completely limp from Vital Presence, but took significantly longer to react to Degritone's next step, only starting their thrust half way through his second.

After a cast each of Omen of Pestilence and Omen of Famine and three easily deflected thrusts, Degritone was in range to attack with his sword. A full power, down left swing of his sword and his opponent fell to the ground. Stepping on their chest as they tried to get up, he fully pinned them to the ground, mostly thanks to Knockback Resistance, partially thanks to his 1400 Strength.

His pinned opponent's armor began glowing as he began full power stabbing into them. Three stabs later, and the armor erupted, sending Degritone flying multiple hundreds of feet into the air. As he neared the ground, he saw his opponent standing once more, readying an attack for when he entered their range. He activated Guard at full power right before doing so, causing them to snap their own weapon on his body. He once again brought his sword down at full power, hitting them right on the top of their head.

Some blood spurted from under the helmet and his opponent raised their hands and dropped their weapon. He found himself back inside the room with Melena. Another multiple minutes of comfortable silence later, he was back in the clearing.

His next four fights played out similarly to the one against the scorpion opponent: He got in range of them, activated Vital Presence, they went limp, and he gained free SP.

As he entered the clearing for round 9, he saw a person of the same race as his Condensing teacher and So'ejan. They were about the same height as his Condensing teacher, but about a foot less long with gray armor. The armor plate over their arms retracted and they closed their eyes.

Round 9 begin!

Degritone activated his Skills and charged at his opponent. He expected his opponent to at least react when they entered his Vital Presence, but they didn't. Instead, one step before he got in range for a slash, a yellow spear appeared in each of their hands. With a thrust, Degritone's right shoulder was almost pierced, but he activated Guard just in time. Even with a near full power Guard, however, he still took about 300 damage.

This opponent appeared to not be affected by his Vital Presence in any way as he unleashed stab after stab. Some of these stabs, Degritone was able to deflect, some he could dodge, while there were others he knew he would be unable to deflect or dodge, which he took fully and delivered a blow of his own, which were invariably intercepted by his opponent's other spear.

Even with his three ghouls helping him fight, his current opponent didn't seem flustered or unable to keep up, simply blocking attacks while getting attacks of his own off. Luckily for Degritone, this opponent was incapable of dealing enough damage to overwhelm his natural regeneration, especially with Adaptive Palisade granting him ever increasing damage reduction against his opponent's attacks.

It took three minutes of this deadly dance before Degritone was finally able to draw blood. As soon as he saw the first drop of blood, he began to see his opponent's armor begin to sizzle from his acidic blood aura. It was another two minutes before his opponent surrendered.

As Degritone reappeared in his and Melena's room, he sighed. "What's wrong?" She asked.

"Boring fights."

"Boring's both good and expected. Means no risk of losing. But yeah, the first 12 or so rounds of your bracket will be boring. You should enter weak half on round 13 or 14, though they probably won't get exciting until round 20 or so, and consistently be fighting the strongest opponent in your bracket from round 34 or so, with all weaker combatants knocked out by then. I'm not saying you are actually weak, just that you're going to mathematically be the weakest in the system's eyes, as it ignores images."

Degritone shrugged and went back to silently listening to Melena work. Noting her last statement, he began working on making the image of a young Immortal Troll, before his sweat was infused with his regenerative abilities and skin became electrifying, back when he thought he was just any other normal troll, quick to bring fully to the front of his mind.

Wait, I'm going to have to take out the top 16 or more? Dang. Also, I just realized, 50 rounds is normal? How much is 2 to the 50? After a few seconds, he mentally shrugged and got back to work on the young Immortal Troll.

As Degritone finished off his 11th opponent, he arrived to see a ton of food on a table between him and Melena. "Eat something," she said. "You haven't eaten since we got here and didn't eat while using that slime as a punching bag."

Looking around, he saw nothing he really wanted. "Can I get bread? Preferably a specific kind, but blah. Just bread will be fine."

Nodding, Melena tapped the table twice and a loaf of sliced bread appeared in front of Degritone. After he sat down, he took one slice at a time and tore the crust off. Once he'd done that, he smooshed 5 slices up into a ball and popped it in his mouth. Once that one was finished off, he repeated for the remaining slices, leaving only the loaf's heels and a bunch of crust.

Without knowing exactly what he was doing, Degritone tapped the table twice as Melena had, willing a glass of chocolate milk into existence. It came, as expected, and he slowly began to drink it. As he did so, Melena finished eating her meal and placed the cube she was using to craft his Skill on the table. She pressed down on its top and as she released her finger, is unfolded to reveal a glowing yellow wireframe sphere with insanely complicated innards, only some of which was visible.

"Here it is. Now the hard part, at least for normal people. Maybe not for you. You just need to hold it while holding a compatible image in the front of your mind. It does not need to be able to be called to the front of your mind like a normal tier 1 image, it just needs to be actively held in your mind while you hold the physical Skill. The image needs to be the entire image, however, while being compatible with the physical structure created, which is where the majority of people find trouble with this. You should-"

The Skill disappeared from Degritone's hand. He checked his Skills.

SP: 680 (200)

Summon Ally lvX

Block lv182

Empower lv718

Mana Manipulation lv19

Mana Weapon lv327

Mana Armor lv182

Guard lv430

Rapid Cell Division lvX

Pacifist lv200

Revitalize lv397

Haste lv334

Orbs of Revitalization lv356

Revitalizing Aura lv356

Energize lv173

Tough Skin lv181

Mark of Antipathy lvX

Bastion lv133

Summon Ghoul lv1

Requiem of the Gravedigger lv522

Unholy Covenant

Omen of War

Omen of Pestilence

Omen of Famine

Swordsman's Territory lv423

Knight's Awareness lvX

Body of Vitality lvX

Knockback Resistance lvX

Recuperate lv182

Juggernaut's Might lvX

Vital Presence lv171

Potent Vitality lvX

As Old, Now New lvX

Spirit of Vitality lvX

Aura Manipulation lv139

Bloody Aura lv171

Acidic Blood lvX

Sense Lolis lvX

Lolicon's Fervent Support lv139

Blood of Vitality lvX

Inevitable Prosperity lv128

Adaptive Palisade lv31

Exotic Nervous System lv1

Nodding, he sent the Skill information to Melena while he read it himself.

Exotic Nervous System

Expand the space your nervous system occupies to effectively speed up your perception of time. This does not affect your weight. The exact amount sped up by can be controlled after initial activation, up to the amount it starts at.

log_1.05(SLevel)*15 = 213.1...% maximum increased speed

While he was here, he decided to go ahead and look at his status, as well. It was getting quite wide with his high regenerations being on the same line as his currents and maximums.

Name Degritone Race Human Resources 210821.284.../210821.284... (+1290485.117...) 52078.821.../52078.821... (+1236302.548...) 86958.124.../86958.124... (+591728.688...) Class Lolicoknight lv35 Experience 42028/63000 Strength 1400 Endurance 1000 Vitality 6282 Agility 252 Physical 2596 Magic 2525

After reading Exotic Nervous System, Melena put her hand to her forehead and tilted her head back as she laughed. "Of course you'd do it before I even finish talking. And it's even going to surpass a standard non-leveling version of the Skill at level 25! It's easy to forget you're the image savant when you're so new."

"Huh?"

"Well, with your calming image being tier 2 and a constant thrum of an image radiating off you after I explained how to materialize images, as well as this being explained to all the Patrons, you've gained a nickname."

Major confusion on his face, Degritone asked, "I have a what?"

Melena looked at Degritone, a confused look on her face. "A nickname. Surely you have something similar back home."

"No, not that. The image thrum thing."

"You're not actively doing that?"

"Mwhat?"