It was a conversation neither of them wanted to be involved in. Tom prepared and changed his handicap. It was something he did regularly, and if there were any watchers, they must have thought he was schizophrenic, given how much his skills varied both run by run and day by day. This time he chose not to use lightning and gravity at all, but instead applied the energy-sapping affect. It was both the easiest and the hardest one to cope with. The willpower needed to push himself through the crippling exhaustion sucked, but, once he actually moved, he felt so free and in control – much more so than when the other effects were running. Without the gravity and muscle cramps, Tom could move at near full-speed, and so he kept up with his opponent. It was only when he reached the wall that things became harder. Kang’s height impacted the course for the first time, and Tom had to strain his muscles more than usual to keep up.


    His hand slipped, and he scrambled, but couldn’t hold himself up.


    As he fell, he spent a point of fate to get himself an unexpected gift. It was nonsense. A point wouldn’t accomplish anything, but coming up with random ways to use fate was proving more and more difficult, so he hoped he had a breakthrough soon.


    He crashed on his back heavily, and then lay there, gasping for breath and too exhausted to move because of the ring.


    A short time later, Kang landed beside him having seen the fall, and had returned to make sure he was not injured.


    “You okay?”


    He responded with a big thumbs-up, then fiddled with his restrictions, and, with the artificial tiredness gone, was able to get to his feet. They went again. He and Kang practiced together for the rest of the session as Eloise and Briana squabbled and ran through frequent contests. Eloise won most of them, because a well-placed force step made a lot of obstacles trivial. Eventually, the four of them went to dinner, both girls loudly proclaiming that they had won and had beaten the other.


    Given the tone was unlikely to change, Tom was happy to retreat to his system room and the company of the other champions while feeling more than a small amount of pity for Kang.


    Neither of his lecturers were present and were not expected to be for the entire evening. So, as he left the blue grass for the more sterile common area and its stone floor, he chose to sit with his back against the large central boulder. The moment he did, so a message appeared above him.


    Enhance Wooden Weapons for free. Possesses a Living Wood Skill, willing to assess and improve tier-zero weaponry. – Child Bucket One so all are welcome.


    Tom knew his abilities were weak, but open contestants weren’t allowed to help others due to their wide level of skills, and everyone else in the lower buckets was martially focused. None of them would have taken the time to learn any crafting abilities, so, generally, they all had to cope with the crappy gear supplied in the armoury. Given the quality of the items available, he expected to be useful, despite how inadequate his skill would have been in most situations.


    Almost immediately, a monkey-like creature about Tom’s size scampered up.


    “What can I help you with?” Tom said brightly.


    “Can you tier something up?”


    He shook his head, knowing that the magic of the place would let the alien interpret the motion. “Not yet.”


    “Then you probably can’t help me.” In its hands appeared a kind of whip like construction. There were lengths of vine about a foot long, linking more clunky, sharp wooden sections together. With straight physics, it wouldn’t have worked, but if it was bolstered by a skill or magic, Tom could imagine a whip being almost alive, having teeth at random spots that could attack you from multiple angles. “Can you improve this?”


    The monkey handed it over to him.


    Tom’s skill interacted with it immediately.


    The weapon was a masterpiece, even if it was only tier-zero. Life throbbed in the vine sections, which made them strong and flexible, and the wooden spiked knots were the opposite. They were dead and refined perfectly, leaving him not a single flaw to attempt to fix.


    Once more, he shook his head. “Sorry, no. It’s perfect. I can’t do a thing.”


    It took its weapon back. “I thought so. We had a treant in my group last year. They had an innate ability to improve wooden objects.” The monkey waved at Tom’s sign. “Like yours, I suspect. The improvements he made to my whip won me a number of battles, and so I figured I should check to see if you could enhance it further.”


    “You’re talking past tense.”


    The monkey grinned at that. “He was too cautious to be incapacitated, let alone killed. Lacoo was not the best fighter.”


    “But at less than one victory per week, that would win him eighty coins max.”


    The monkey looked at him. “Don’t sound so disparaging. With curated lists, that’s enough to build something. It’ll get you a solid selection of tier-zero and -one abilities, a few tier-two, and a couple of tier-threes. That’s heaps for what we need. It’s enough skills that they can teach the pre-requisites for five or so classes. That can turn things around.”Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    “I can see how that will work, logically.”


    “Tom, you’re a human. You’re in the competition. What can shift the needle for you is nothing like what does it for the rest of us. Eighty coins are enough to transform the future of a species. Lacoo got what he wanted, and lacked the drive and skill to push into adolescent two. Back to you.” He gestured at the wall. “Will your skill improve, or is it static? Should I be checking back?”


    “In time, yes; possibly?” Tom frowned as he considered his likely trajectories. “Definitely within a year, as there’s an item on my curated list that will help.”


    It bowed its arms. “Too late for me, then. I only have another two months here.”


    “Then I have to say sorry. I doubt I’ll skill up enough to be able to help.”


    “Well, then good luck. I hope you can do for others what Lacoo did for me.” Then it tucked itself into a ball, which was the equivalent of it bowing to him and thanking him, then disappeared, presumably returning to Existentia proper.


    Tom shook his head and marvelled at the interaction. He had known that the natives were getting a lot out of the trial, but he had assumed that was just people fighting high-stakes battles rather than a culture of gaining only a single point in each duel. Given that terror races didn’t fight with a GOD’s shield, it made sense that most couldn’t afford the risk. The transformation potential of the disks he was making was greater than he had realised.


    There was the sound of grinding rocks, and, when he looked up, he saw the seat opposite him occupied by a creature. His gut said it was biological, flesh and blood, but its appearance suggested it was a form of elemental that had been created out of rock and moss. A combination of axes, scythes, and hammers were dumped down on the table in front of him. There were ten in total, and each of them larger than what a full-grown human could comfortably wield.


    “Me weapons break. You fix.”


    The translated English was terrible, and its deep voice sounded threatening, but only friendly vibes radiated from it. Cautiously, Tom reached out and touched the nearest war hammer. It was exactly what it looked like: an unimproved item from the armoury, a shaped and sanded single piece of timber that had been attached to a lump of metal. He could feel the imperfections throughout the shaft.


    He forced himself to meet the eyes that looked like liquid crystal. “I can improve them.”


    “Good. These break almost every hit. Very bad. Cost fights.”


    Tom concentrated on the first one. His skill locked in on it and started making the corrections. At a thought, a glass of water appeared, and he sipped on it. Why was talking to the monkey such fun? He had no desire to interact with whatever this person was.


    “You did?”


    He glanced up in surprise. Was it really asking if he was finished already?


    “No, I’m not done. I’m not even close. It’ll take me an hour for all of them.”


    “Mine,” it patted them. “You magic fix. Then armour.”


    The room allowed him to interpret the meaning that was intended to be conveyed. “When they’re finished, I’ll send them to the armoury.” he agreed pleasantly.


    “Good, good. Me go fight.”


    The person left, and Tom focused on his skill mending the invisible imperfections inside the wood.


    More aliens drifted by. Slowly, the pile of work grew. Most left their weapons after a short conversation like the rock person had. Tom didn’t mind - this was better than the bubble tag he would have otherwise been pretending to enjoy.


    “What’s the penalty on this?” he asked the air.


    “Penalty is three percent.”


    Out of the corner of his eyes, Tom could see the ugly construct now that it had spoken. It had appeared in the way the creepy things usually did. One second, it hadn’t been there, the next it was.


    Tom laughed at that answer. It was DEUS putting her thumb on the scale to give him an incentive to do this for her other representatives. Having only a three percent tax for the benefit of being able to work in perfect conditions was a massive boon. There should be quick levels because of the sheer variety of fixes that he had to make, and the environment was perfect. Everything was dynamic. The seat was able to adjust flawlessly so that he didn’t suffer sore muscles from sitting still too long. There was food and drink available as he desired, and the weapons he was improving could be retrieved or sent away at a thought.


    Baptiste came and settled down beside him, choosing the seat next to him instead of positioning himself across the table the way everyone else had done. The moment Tom finished enhancing a one-hundred-percent wood-constructed morning star, the plant creature snagged it with one of his vines before Tom could send it away.


    “Please, may I look? I have some innate talent for this sort of stuff.”


    “Really?”


    “Yes, but I’ve been watching you. Mine is very different from yours.”


    Tom observed with interest as the weapon glowed while Baptiste was using his own ability on it. The changes made to the wood were subtle: there was a slight shift in its properties; the spikes became harder and lost some of their flexibility, which was likely going to result in them acting more like a metal than wood. The chain links were likewise transformed to be slightly more pliable, which meant that they were going to become less likely to break.


    “Wow. That’s much more impressive than anything I did.”


    “No, it’s not. It’s very limited. I can’t do what you were doing. I can’t correct damage or close fractures. All I did was make it so the most suitable variety of wood was selected for each component part.”


    “But the morning star is better. All of has been improved.”


    Its leaves rustled like a shrug. “I shifted it to a type that suits the weapon better. To be honest, I’d be surprised if you couldn’t do it.”


    Tom’s eyes sharpened in excitement. “How?”


    Baptiste’s leaves straightened slightly, which conveyed uncertainty. “My trait might be different from your skill. I can feel the various potentials of woods and choose which one to bring out.”


    “My skill does…” Tom stopped talking as his throat locked up because Social Silence had interceded. He couldn’t finish that sentence. He had been about to say ‘doesn’t work like that’. For a moment, he sat there, stunned at the interruption. He hadn’t been expecting that, but then he thought about what his skill did and why his tier-seven skill had stepped in at that moment to stop him from saying something that could hurt his relationship with Baptiste.


    The only reason he could think of for the intervention was that he had been about to inadvertently lie about something Baptiste actually cared about.


    What did my Living Wood skill really do? He asked himself.


    As he inserted his ritual into the wood, he was changing its nature, which was exactly what Baptiste was doing. However, his friend was controlling the process, while Tom had been taking the easiest and most magical separate form that he could find.


    “My skill does things differently,” he told Baptiste, simply pretending to finish the same sentence even if the meaning was almost the opposite of what he had been originally intending to convey. “But I’ve done something similar in the past, even if I didn’t consider this use case.” He clapped his hands excitedly. “I think I can see how to do it, but it’s going to take some experimentation.”


    “I’m sure two minds can make things go faster. Let me help.” A lump of wood appeared in front of Baptiste. Half of it glowed and then he passed it to Tom. “Try adjusting your side to be as soft as mine.”