(1850 words)
Um, so there is a count-down from 5 minutes at the top right of my vision. Pretty sure it is a countdown for the end of the time lock or whatever they call it. Ok, got to be quick now! Since I don't have any inherit means of offence or defence I should go for the skills. At least I don't need to wander which skills to buy... Oh, the Split Thinking skill, I was going to turn it off but it will help in this situation.
{+ is the original, others are artificial copies.
~ is the one that bought all the skills last chapter.}
+Hey you, I know you hear me, help us get out of this situation quick!
-"Ok, ok! Umm, let's try appraise on the bad guys and the skills!"
•"Looks like it will take 30 seconds for use but I am on it!"
+"Hey who are you?"
~"Dude, are you mental. We are you!"
+WTF, how many of you are there??
~"Eh, including me and you, 4."
-"Hey you guys, stop screwing around and appraise the bad guys and the skills. We don't have time to goof around."
+Yeah, yeah sorry.
°"Sorry."
-"Alright, I tried appraising the appraise skill. It seems to do what its name suggest, without any cost, but have a cool down and it's starting from 30 seconds, the countdown of the next Appraise increases by 5 seconds with each use. And the timer resets every day. What do the others exactly do?"
~"Hardness seems to do what it says and increase our HP two-fold but reduces our Stamina Points to half, when used. Hah, good thing we don't have any!"
+Focus increases mental focus and reduces reaction time. It decreases Stamina Points, 1 per second and HP too, 1 per every 10 seconds
°"Calmness, seems similar to focus. It says that it clears our minds with the cost of 1 Skill Stamina(SS) per minute."
-"SS? Oh I've seen it now, it's under normal Stamina Points. Hm, it seems to be 35/35. Let's appraise it 'Skill Stamina is required to use certain skills, it gets depleted upon using said skills. Recovers it self just like HP and SP, but its recovery could be sped up with the use of some skills or items.' ok it is something like MP but for skills. It probably got unlocked when we acquired a skill that uses it as a fuel."
+I appraised the leader and others:
Name: Galileo
Sex: Male
Title: 23rd Squad's Captain
Creed: None
Protection: Protection of Bashkhan
Health Points: 55/30(+25)
Stamina Points: 16/26(-7)
Level: 8/?
Class: (Uncommon) Front Line Tank (level 3)
Age: 37
______
Skills:
Divine: (empty)
Unique: (empty)
Higher:
Indomitable (level 1)
Protection of Bashkar
Normal:
Bulldozer (level 3)
Spear Proficiency (level 5)
----------
Clan: North Gake Union
+And this is the squad members'. Others are just like this one.
Name: (empty)
Sex: Male
Title: 23rd Squad's Member
Creed: None
Protection: Protection of Bashkhan
Health Points: 39/25(+14)
Stamina Points: 21/29(-6)
Level: 6/?
Class: (Common) Spearman (level 2)
Age: 29
______
Skills:
Divine: (empty)
Unique: (empty)
Higher:
Protection of Bashkar
Normal:
Spear Proficiency (level 3)
----------
Clan: North Gake Union
~"There's a lot to point out but aren't they kind of weak though?"
+Diablo said something about animals. Perhaps that's why they are weak, they might be one of the lesser races. Races are most important in a fantasy world like this after all.
~"Don't be racist! Thankfully they may evolve and become strong too!"
°"Idiot, why are you happy that they can become stronger. We still don't know if they are friendly or not."
+They attacked us, pretty sure that they are enemies.
-"But they might not know that we are intelligent. He might've poked us just to inspect. He probably thinks that we are some either random weird rock or an expensive ore."
°"If that's the case, more the reason we should focus on strategies."
~"Hey I've inspected their equipments."
Squad leader's:
Iron Tipped Spear:
Average Attack: 15 Damage Per Attack
Average Attack speed: 1.5 Thrusts Per Second
Parry Rating: 3/10(+2)
Speed Rating: -2
Condition: 86/100
Abilities:
Superior Parrying
Desert-Worm Leather Armor Set:
Base Protection: +25
Speed Rating: -5
Abilities:
Move Like An Egpytian
~"Didn't bother looking for the foot soldiers' equipment, they probably are inferior to the leader.
-"There are a lot of unknowns but we need to assume that they work just like how they would in an RPG. We have some sort of defence with the Harden but we don't know how durable we really are."
+Hey, don't we have another skill called Coordination?
°"Oh right, let's inspect it..."
-"If we hadn't bypassed the system by using Split Thinking, all this would have taken ages! Thankfully the system applies the countdown individually."
~"Hey, say. Which one of us will remain when we disable the split thinking?"
+(*Imaginary sweat forming*, Oh shit they
gained sentiency and the instinct to preserve themselves)
-"We may never know, and I know where this is going, we shouldn't let an inner dispute weaken us. Especially when we are in a crisis like this."
+Yep, I agree with you!
~"Hm, guess you are right..."
°"Ok guys, Coordination seems to decrease 1 Stamina Points and 1 Skill Stamina every 20 seconds to make the user's body and body parts to stretch, move and reshape at will. The restriction is that, or danger, the body may take damage from the absurd shapes the user takes."
+Holy shit! If we can use it, we hit the gold mine!
~"Isn't 'Coordination' a weird name for a skill like that? Wouldn't something like Flexibility be better?"
•"Now is not the time for tha- hey, its name changed?! Into Flexibility?"
-"It seems we are able to change some skills's names, but now is really not the time for those."
+Hey, should we try it? The Flexibility. I am pretty sure we can move in this stopped time.
-"We are bound to use it anyways, let's give it a shot. And I highly doubt that reshaping ourselves will damage us, we are a rock after all."
-"Hm, we need a volunteer. You be the main caster."
°"Me?"
~"Me?!"
+Me?
-"Oh, we really need to use some names... The last one to respond, you take charge of the Flexibility skill."
+Alrighty.
°"What about others?"
~"Yeah. What about us?"
-"The second to respond take charge of observing out surroundings, give us a warning the moment you sense danger. The other one, you are in charge of the skills except Flexibility, especially the Harden. You can try experimenting with the skills. Your allowence of Skill Points is 5."
+How many skill points can I use?
-"There is not much time left, practice with it as much as you can, and don't wander off too far. When there is 15 seconds left, you'll take us to our initial position."
+You have a lot of confidence in me, huh. I'll do it.
~"Yeah, I'ma be the observer. Damn, I am cool as fuck! Hell yeah, Elliott, The Observer. Is there a nickname cooler than that?!!?"
-"And I'll take charge of the strategy and command in general."
+(Ugh, I am now sure that the different parts of my personality are distributed among them. Even though I don't like being ordered around by a clone of myself, he is right about what he is saying. So let's just practice Flexibility for a while.)
Darn, this is a lot harder than I thought. But we can move! Thankfully the ones setting all this system haven't made the skills "consume" Stamina Points but rather "decrease" it upon usage. Which is kind of the same under "normal circumstances" but we definitely are different. "We"?!? Damn it, this Split Thinking is fucking with my mind.
First there was one child like one, but now there are three of them all of sudden. Thankfully the new ones are competent. But the chance of them retaliating against me is making me form imaginary sweat on my imaginary forehead. My mind is set. I'll disable it whenever we get the hell out of this situation. It may be cruel, since they are capable of will; but to me, they are just some shards that belong to me. Don't get me wrong, I am not sadistic. While practicing this, I Appraised the Split Thinking skill.
"It copies some of the parts of the user's mental abilities and personality to create new, temporary ones. The user can effectively double the efficiency of the mental tasks, as long as the "minds" are willing. If the minds are unsatisfactory, the user can easily disable the said identities. Upon disabling them, the said entities will merge with the user."
I am pretty sure that they did appraise it too. And I commend them, my self, for not being scared about what will happen when I disable the skill. Well, they at least know that they'll not really disappear. So I think that's why they don't seem to rebel against me. Hell, even if they do, what are they going to do? They can't really stop me from just disabling the skills anyways. But then again, I don't really know if there really isn't a skill or something to make me unable to disable them. Better do it as soon as I get into a safer state.
Anyways, I managed to control my body to some degree. I look like water that is waving and floating, in the sky. Though I couldn't really damage someone like this. And if I attacked them, they'd start attacking me and my life would be in some real jeopardy. I can't really face many a veteran with a mediocre attack power and no experience. My vision is really strange too, it seems. A while ago I joked about having Byakugan eyes but, it is kind of close to that. I can see from any part of my body. I tried separating some part of me from the main lump of rock I have, and it worked. Though that part needs to be at least one fourth of me and I start losing control of that part after 10 seconds. I think it would have killed most users aside from an irregularity even in a strange and nonsensical world like this, meaning, me. Being able to function just as good while missing ¼ of your body? Welcome to the planet- what is the name of this world again, oh well a question of another day. By the way, out of anything, creating an RPG world really? Diablo said that he is "entrusted" with this world, so he probably hadn't create this world. And there probably are other deities too. I wonder who created this one...
-"Hey, there are only 15 seconds left. Get us to our original position with the same shape!"
+Alrighty, thankfully there is a big mark where we sat for 5 years.
In a few seconds I took my initial shape and place. The time started to flow just a bit later.