“The tree clenches earth in its mighty roots and sucks up the nutrients, leaving the soil parched and bare. In wuxingquan, the wood art is called bengquan. Let me try swinging with the crowbarlike implement and activate the Universe Staff’s Mistilteinn at the last second… Oh my god! The golem went flying! And oh great, here come the glares… I wasn’t trying to steal your thunder. If anything got stolen, it was my MP! Let me seal this away… One misaimed swing and I could send the girls flying. You guys would be fine. You all dodged that last misfire. I couldn’t hit you even if I was aiming at you—but I suppose I owe you an apology regardless.”
A long line of golems toppled and exploded, one after another. I chalked it up to the Mistilteinn rather than basic wuxingquan. The attack burned through my MP but remained controllable and powerful both.
“Huh… That’s not a long, straight corridor. That’s a hole. I guess this is a cave system now? Well…whatever gets us to the bottom quicker, am I right?”
Nod nod. Rattle rattle. Mm-hmm. Jiggle jiggle.
Fusing qigong, magic, and martial arts was becoming stronger, faster, and more energy efficient by the minute. I was also noticing fewer and fewer side effects. Was that Hoplology at work?
“Yeah, like in the ichi no tachi aka spontaneous sashimi incident or the Mistilteinn attacks. I can’t activate these skills on command yet, but…I feel like I’m getting closer.”
My new growth allowed me to stay fighting on the front lines even as we went down to the 41st floor. There, I discovered that a well-formed wuxingquan strike could shatter the hardest turtle shell (btw there were turtles down here; did I forget to mention that?). However, a sloppy move had no impact at all.
“Piquan! Piquan! Piquan? Piquan! P-tooey! Wait—mispronounced that one. Piquan pulverizing, go!”
Piquan, the metal element of wuxingquan, used the edge of the palm to imitate an axe blade. Against turtles, this felt all too reminiscent of basic crowbarlike-implement bashing, aka manual labor. However! The move was deceptive in its simplicity. Each simple strike built to something bigger, something more complex because it was so simple. To master its perfect profundity took persistent practice.
“I kinda don’t know what to make of these ‘Oily Turtles, Lv: 41.’ They’re tough, sure, but fighting them is just so easy. I was hoping for something more. I wanted a battle that would force me to come out of my shell!”
The turtles oozed an oily mucus that they slid on to skate across the floor, snatching chunks out of me with their snapping jaws as they went. Their crocodilian faces, long claws, and short, clublike tails poked out of hard shells that whizzed and whirred every way across the soupy hell they made of the floor. It’s like turtle bumper cars out there…
“This is like curling gone wrong.”
Unfortunately, this lineup of nasty characters was not who I’d hoped would join me for a teenage boyness oil-play slip-’n’-slide extravaganza. I inevitably wound up taking the brunt of all the slipping, and no one took the brunt of my teenage boyness.
“Hii-yah!”
“Take, that!”
I batted away one careening tortoise with my crowbarlike implement, which slammed into the second incoming turtle, caromed off, and wiped out turtles three and four. Turtle number three crashed into a fresh turtle of its own, and the next thing I knew, I was trapped in a pincer attack of turtles rushing in from all directions!
“…Hff.”
I stepped forward and slammed my staff into a turtle with bengquan. Then, following a half-step, I laid waste to another foe with hengquan. The two turtles ricocheted away, clearing the field of other incoming reptiles. Then one of my companions caught the next turtle with a fresh attack and added it to the mounting mayhem. The dungeon emperors sent the reptiles zigzagging across the floor at every conceivable angle like so many billiard balls, setting off a totally turtley chain reaction! The turtles lost track of which way was up, so occupied were they with helplessly leapfrogging from one to the next of our five-person group.
“Go, turtle!”
Wiggle wiggle!
This fine mess had all started with an accident on my part. Conscious of my lack of self-control, I had been careful with taking my first, tentative half-step. I’d kept it small. I’d put very little weight on my lead foot. Alas, my caution had ended up being the deciding factor. I’d botched my balance, and when my weight had shifted as I raised the Universe Staff, I’d slipped and screwed up the move. Instead of crushing turties, I’d skidded on oil and bumped into the first unlucky beast, thus setting off the whole floor-wide bump-a-thon. But it wasn’t my fault the dungeon emperors saw that and joined in.
“Is this this world’s first billiards game, curling match, or turtle bullying session? I guess it doesn’t matter if everyone’s enjoying themselves—but I’m having a terrible time here!”
Miss Armor Rep whacked a turtle with a tongbei thwap of her sword. Dancer Girl sent several more spinning with a swoose of her tongbei chain. Sleeping Beauty, not to be outdone, joined the fray with a thwack of her tongbei halberd, and Slimey brought up the rear with many a tongbei bobble and bounce.
Yes, the oily turtles were difficult foes—just not in the usual sense. My dungeon emperor pals were having a grand old time sending them caroming into each other with turtley shrieks of terror until, at last, those hard shells cracked and shattered to bits on each other. Bye-bye, turtles.
“Whew! At least that’s over. I wasn’t bullying tortoises à la Urashima Taro! I just tripped! Believe me, I would never do anything that could jeopardize my chances of bagging a hot turtle girl princess. If anything, the tortoises were bullying me!”
Jiggle jiggle.
At least Slimey had enjoyed himself…
“I guess a lack of entertainment breeds new pastimes… Still, those turtles would be dangerous for normal folks. Let’s keep turtle billiards to ourselves for now.”
Wriggle wriggle?
“No, I mean it. They were level 41, they had All Resistance and Double Impact, and they swerved around at superhigh speeds. That could kill a regular person. And don’t get me started on the biting!”
I let Slimey eat the turtles to stop him from sulking, granting his bibbling and bobbling extra bibble-bobble power with Double Impact. He’d set foes’ hearts a-quiver now with even more wriggly, quivery goodness!
“Speaking of… Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see Vice Rep B with Double Impa—Ahem! Who said that?”
Her weapons of mass destruction were too big to qualify as bludgeoning devices. Too big, too round, too deliciously heavy… She had the kinda body that made you want to invent jiggle physics.
“Whoa! I was only imagining her. I wasn’t doing anything untoward! Put the morning stars away. Not you too, Sleeping Beauty! What is it with the girls handing out morning stars every time they make a new friend? No, that is not a local custom from back where we come from! The teenage boy population would’ve been extinct if it were! Put the notebook down. I’ll be good, I swear.”
The dungeon emperors had fun; I got good practice in. All was well that ended well. Except for the turtles—but I wasn’t going to mess with any turtles on account of the whole Rip Van Winkle aspect of the Urashima Taro story. Yeah, it was a cautionary tale? But the only magic gems I received were turtle spellstones, not turtle treasures, so maybe I was safe?