The System

CH- 36: Secret techniques.

    One thing was for certain. Killing is the fastest route to gain power. Kill is equal to growth, which in turn means becoming a monster. The one that can attain peace, power, and free will, or a real monster, true to its name.

Tetsu compared all his gains with the fights as always. This helped him progress faster.

Learn from what worked where and how and repeat the process. A simple technique Grandma Razz taught Tetsu for a bigger adversary than life. It was to outfox Kile.

If Kile wasn't so out of his league, Tetsu would have more victories in the bag. The victories he had were thanks to these techniques. Thanks to wise old Grandma.

Tetsu shutters by the mere thought of the word, old. Never call her old to her face. "Forbidden word Uno."

Grandma was beyond wise for her, ah... race. The only human that has the upper hand on Tetsu.

"Hundred to one?" Tetsu wondered about the score.

She always found Kile on his weakest leg, broke it, and scattered before he ever perceived what happened. Figuratively and a couple of literal times, too.

In her defense, Kile started it, hence the one.

Tetsu stares down at the cave with four pits already dug and covered. Two that held meat, one with booger slime, and the last one to hide inside. A hidden pit was dug inside the fourth pit for extra safety measures.

A double pit, if you will. One acts as a decoy while the other acts as the real, real safe zone. An idea his dad came up with, if you can believe that. Because he sure as hell didn't.

Tetsu's reaction to when Razz asked him about his father would always be the same. "My dad's smart? Nah!"

The only thing he learned from Dad was to run and if he says so himself, no one could outrun Dad.

No one.

People say Tetsu had that similarity with his dad, but he highly doubts they ever had or will have anything in common.

Look at all these preparations. Tetsu came to fight. He knew he couldn't outrun or outmaneuver the Imps out in the open. So, confuse, hit, and hide was the name of the game. Decoy being the last trump card to ensure his survival.

Razz always told him to never assume about the unknown and always question the given. The usual why, how, and what do they get out of it?

These were tools meant to face Kile and, by extension, scenarios way above Tetsu's level.

These types of dungeons claim to never release their terrors. The first dungeon run and the fact that he is still alive prove that point. Yet he had to question and prepare.

One reason Kile never got the jump on Grandma is this technique. Even his pure gestures were questioned, stripped, and hung out to dry. Never to accept, never to believe. There is another...

A sudden roar makes Tetsu shove away the nagging gap in memory and enter the dungeon.

Time for round two.

Tetsu was shocked to see all of his Ru'nic formation in place. A quick activation of RR skill and Tetsu finds most of his resource bubbles still active.

After a bit of hidden research, he concludes that the clever or big bad boss of the cave ripped out chunks of rocks to disrupt Tetsu's Ru'nic formations. Most of them are near and around the huge cavern.

The Imps he met the first time in here continued their usual rounds, mechanically repeating their previous actions to the dot.

"Simulation indeed." Tetsu nods.