We have gathered many of our finest heroes in this training zone. All who are not occupied with preparing our forces for war, have been sent here to embark on a preparation of the entirely personal sense.

This is self-care, in Mystix form. At least if I am understanding self-care correctly from what Delta has told me.

Delta, unfortunately, is out in the logistics department, likely yelling at everyone to get their asses into gear or whatever. She has my sympathy, for someone whose combat prowess is not high but is still seen as a leader anyway. She must use her brains instead.

With me, then, are Francis, Julie, Pablo Rosas, and a few other warriors gathered around from Mystix.

One of them looks strangely familiar, as if I saw a glimpse of him sometime in the distant past. I don’t think we have met. An old white-beared man who wields two huge clubs and his outfit is made entirely from the furs of various slain beasts.

But he introduces himself to me anyway. “Hello, I’m Guk. Barbarian King.” He smiles and reveals just a few too many missing teeth. “I’ve heard all about your power, Eryk Solbourne. I look forward to joining you on the battlefield. I had a tough enough battle against your girl Mestopholees back a few years ago. This time, though, we’ll be in for a much rougher ride, I think.”

“I fear so. Thank you for joining the Systemless Squad.”

“Huh? No. I’m part of the Sleeper Slayers.”

“Which I believe is under the umbrella of the Systemless Squad, organizationally,” I say.

“What’s an umbrella?”

There is also another person that looks at me with great interest. A young woman, a half-orc, half-elf hybrid with a lanky, yet well-adjusted figure and a great interest about her.

“Hello, new friend,” I say. “Welcome to the training party.”

“Wow, it’s really you!” she exclaims. “My grandparents told me all about you. You’re such a hero.”

“I wish I was as much a hero as they said. In fact, I am simply trying to make do for a past life that dealt much destruction to the world.”

She ignores this and then shakes my hand with a strong grip. “My name’s Wredd Shire. I can’t wait to become a hero just like you.”

“Okay, Wredd Shire. Are you ready for the most excellent of training sessions?”

“You betcha!”

She goes off to talk to another solider. Francis sashays over to me and gives me some silly eyebrows. “She sure looks chipper, eh?”

“Yes. I hope all our younger recruits are as ambitious as her.”

“Kinda reminds you of someone, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

Francis smirks. “Let’s get on with the training.”

I still don’t understand what he means. But I doubt he will tell me.

Everyone lines up in formation, except for Julie and me.

“Listen here,” Julie says. “Eryk and I have special [Demigod] cards in our Destiny Card Decks. So we have powers far beyond what most are supposed to be able to accomplish.”

Pablo Rosas raises his hand. “Am I supposed to have a system for this?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Okay. I was just wondering if...”

We probably could have given him a system at some point, but... I sort of forgot about Pablo, I must admit. Well, too late now.

“We both have a special card called [Time Deceleration],” Julie continues. “It will slow down time a great amount. And if we both use several of them at the same time, they will stack. We can spend a week or two inside this time bubble, while only a few minutes pass in actual time.”

Francis goes as giddy as that Wredd Shire girl. “Time travel! Yes, I love time travel! I knew we were gonna get some eventually with all this wacky multiverse crap going on. You can never have one without the other.”

I give him a strange look. “In what way are multiple worlds and time travel linked?”

“Timey wimey bullshit mixes greatly with the string theory of infinite bullshit realities,” he says. “Both of them are cool, so both of them will necessarily appear.” It’s as simple as that. Francis says so, and so it is.

“We’ve packed food and pillows,” Julie says. “Think of this like the most extreme camping trip you’ll ever go on.”

“Camping that consists of almost entirely fighting each other and gaining more power,” I add. “We will beat each other so hard that we will gain an entirely new insight into our combat abilities.”

“And then we will rest for a few in-our-perception days, come out fully refreshed, and rejoin the others like nothing ever happened.” Julie stares at each and every member of this small party. “I expect each of you to become leaders. You will be guiding the rest of our army to victory. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by. You’re training with the best warriors on the planet.”

“What’s a planet?” Guk asks.

Julie and I step into the formation and activate our Destiny Cards, several of them.

It took a distressingly long time to actually draw enough [Time Deceleration] cards between the two of us to actually pull this off. But it’s absolutely worth it.

We spend over a week fighting each other and it’s absolutely stupendous. The greatest fights the multiverse has ever seen.