I followed behind the wizard guy, contemplating on my situation. Tell you what, not as bad as I thought!
First off, they have next to no info on me. While I, however, can look at them and get all the info I need! Aaaaaaand that's my literal only advantage.... Look, I'm only slightly less fucked, I need to stay positive okay?
After getting back into the big holding cell and sitting around for awhile, Thurston went through the trouble of gathering a bunch of hay to make a big bed for me. Which is...kind of sweet actually.
Once again, I spent a bit of time contemplating my situation. At some point though, I fell asleep. It was my first time sleeping in this other world and...I'll be honest it, was odd. I closed my eyes and for what felt like 5 minutes I just sort of...floated, in a dark abyss. And when I opened my eyes back up, a full day had passed!
And what did I get up to after I woke up you may ask? Well, a whole lot of nothing! Okay, not exactly. Although one could argue watching these piss poor excuses for fights through the window bars on the back wall counts as nothing.
Alright, since you're so curious, I'll elaborate. The back wall of this place connects to the inner wall of the actual battlegrounds of the Colosseum, so if I look through the little window bars they left us, I can see fights when they happen in the field and well...it's pretty sad to say the least.
First off, combat between intelligent races and non intelligent races are wildly different. How so? Well for starters, if its a non intelligent races, the other side will just wail on them with consecutive attacks and do their best not to let the opponent get an attack in. Seems like the reasonable thing yeah? However, when an intelligent race faces another intelligent race, they do the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
THEY TAKE TURNS LIKE FUCKING POCKET MONSTERS! I kid you not, if one persom swings, the other person will just dodge then do their attack. Vice Versa too! No counter attacks, no consecutive blows, no combos. Nothing! They don't ever attack twice in a row, even when they have the perfect opportunity!
I had asked Thurston about it, who is actually pretty cool, and he looked at me like I was mentally disabled, just patting me instead of giving me an answer. So, I suppose that's just how it works? Or maybe its house rules? I have no frickin clue!
Not only that, but they seem to have an even dumber way of doing things when the level gap is large. For instance, if a level 20 and a level 40 go at it, the level 40 doesn't even attempt to dodge, they just take the hit! But that's another strange thing. Stat and level differences are...way out of whack.
For example, a level 27 and a level 35 fought each other. The level 27 looked like a regular human and had around 70 power. The level 35 looked like a half man, half lion. Who also happened to have 70 power. However! I saw the lion guy literally punch apart a rock into dust, and the human could barely swing his sword hard enough to cut the lion guy's skin.
Now, there's two guesses here. Guess one is that the actual difference in levels caused the stats to have different values, despite being the same number, not likely. OR due to the fact that they were different races with different body sizes, 70 for a human isn't the same as 70 for a lion man, very likely.
Now, if thats the case, I have 152 power, so what the hell am I capable of? I was already doing decent damage at 62! I can only guess what my strength is like now...
...what was I talking about before this? Oh right! The garbage fighting system, which I still have nitpicks about. The biggest problem here is not the weird turn system, it's the technique. It's as if no one ever inveted martial arts! They just swing their weapon as hard as they can! And they're supposed to have "Mastery" skills, which apparently don't affect technique. But rather how you actually handle the weapon aswell as a increase in damage.
For instance, lets look at Thurstons Sword Mastery.
Blip!
[Finer Sword Mastery]
Increases handling ability with one handed swords greatly. I.E. how easily user manipulates weapon. 20% Damage increase.
See? No mention of technique anywhere. Look, I can't say much because I fist fight 9/10 times. But I've studied ALOT of martial arts! It's just sad...
Hooh, I need something to take my mind off this, lets just see about mutating now that the timer is up.
Blip!
[Mutation Info]
Mutations: [Weak Protective Muscles] [Weak Omni Brain] [Weak Omni Eyes] [Weak Reinforced Bones] [Weak Reinforced Teeth]
Mutation Points: 678
Mutation Timer: N/A
Hooh, I'm probably the weakest level 45 Ripjaw out there with such basic mutations...and by the way, I figured out if I focus on specific info, it doesn't bring up the whole board anymore! Just the related bits. Neat.
[Mutation Shop]
Mouth
Arms
Legs
Internal Organs
Brain
Oh boy...we get to do this shit again.
Guess we'll go in order...
[Mouth Mutations]
Weak Mana Infused Teeth costs 1 MP
Lesser Reinforced Teeth costs 5 MP
Weak Regenerative Teeth costs 1 MP
Weak Draining Teeth costs 1 MP
Weak Snapping Jaw cost 1 MP
Weak Locking Jaw costs 1 MP
...I don't know why, but I expected more.
Alright, lets get to it...
....
....
....
Okay! I've doubled down on all the mutations, and now I have to pick actual NEW ones. What I've really been looking at though...
[Weak Rage Organ]
Build rage points to a maximum over time by taking damage or strenuous combat. Points can be spent to enduce a rage effect, that triples all physical stats, for an amount of time equal to points spent. (Variable of time is random).
Sounds like like a deal right? But the main issue is that last part, "Variable of time is random". Its a little concerning due to the fact I have no clue what the fuck that means.
It only costs 1 Mutation point too...
[Mutation Info]
Mutations: [Lesser Protective Muscles] [Lesser Omni Brain] [Lesser Omni Eyes] [Lesser Reinforced Bones] [Lesser Reinforced Teeth] [Weak Rage Organ]
Mutation Points: 647
Mutation Timer: 72 Hours
I super hope I don't regret this...
Great! Now I wait.
....I hate waiting.