The feeling of controlling a battlefield was intoxicating. Grey felt like he was back in the octagon again.
Using his arms, his legs, his grappling and wrestling skills—all of that was so familiar.
Using swords and blades, various axes and bows—those were not.
However, Grey’s understanding of spacing, of footwork, of how to make a long distance feel like a short one, and a short distance feel like forever to go... those translated perfectly to this new world.
And the moment he started to feel familiar with the weapons in his hand, that aspect of himself, that knowledge he had always had, bloomed.
The result was a feedback loop between Goblin Warlord Spirit, his own experience, and what felt like consistent pulses that came from the Looping Necklace.
Every bit of mind-to-muscle reinforcement he did seemed to count 10x more than it should have.
The result?
Grey cut through one region after the next. The moment he quieted the anxiety in his mind, he found that Goblin Warlord Spirit was practically a cheat code. There didn’t seem to be a battle he struggled with at all.
And it just kept improving.
From Level 3 to 4, and then from 4 to 5. He was making true progress for the first time.
The creatures didn’t matter at all. From the Skrill, to octopi with blades on the ends of their tentacles, to this demi-giant creature formed entirely of garbage.
That last one was definitely not fun, especially when it started spraying acidic garbage juice at his face. It had nearly melted a layer of his nose off. Luckily, he had had the mask.
Grey wasn’t the only one who noticed his improvement, though.
** ** **
"This is... weird." Caldrin frowned, his tentacle itching. He really wanted to use their tokens to check Grey’s status screen. His speed of improvement didn’t make any sense.
If this kept up, he would outpace Joaquin by so much the storyline would end in a fizzle. But watching one guy dominate wasn’t good television.
’Well, it can be for a short time...’
The problem was that there was no easy way to veer Grey away from this path. They had some control over the spawns of the Genesis Games, but it required resources to force, and it wasn’t worth it right now.
Caldrin pulled up the file on the Wicked Forest Witch.
"Caldrin, I’ve finally found it. Information on the necklace you were looking for. I had to cross-reference a few pendants available in the Rare Rarity pool, but I’m fairly sure it should be this one."
Caldrin casually reached over to pluck a report out of the hands of his assistant blob, half paying attention to the new information, and half trying to understand whether Grey would be going into a real challenge this time or not.
His eyes suddenly went wide.
Caldrin hurriedly stood. Or, rather, half of his tentacles slammed into the ground, elevating him several meters at once.
"Bullshit!"
Caldrin scrambled to pull up information on the Skrill Mask, and he was certain.
The Looping Necklace had Branching as a Restricted Type. But the Skrill Mask had it as its Accepted Type.
How the hell was Grey using both?!
Caldrin tapped at his screen. But soon, his shock was fading away into something much more sinister.
’A Dual Neural Frame. That’s impossible.’
"Blob, bring me the data from this participant’s waiting room. Now."
"...My name is Gri..." the blob said under its breath. It bobbed away, moving like a slime ball expanding and contracting as it slid across the ground.
Caldrin didn’t hear its words at all, already flicking back to the screening of Grey’s waiting room. He was already watching the replay of the glitching robot arms by the time Gri had vanished.
He watched it again, and then again, and then once more.
His skin paled with every watch. He should have noticed this before.
The arms didn’t glitch. Grey’s Nexis Suit was heavier than it should have been.
The robot arms were optimized to save on money, and the creation of the Nexis Suits was automated and built on site. The precision was so great they only had a few grams of play.
The material Nexis Suits were made from meant that there was no substantial difference in weight between someone who was four foot tall versus eight foot tall.
However, if the Neural Type of the owner was an anomaly, the difference could become very apparent, very quickly.
Normally, it would be fine. But when there was a current running through the Nexis Suit like the one that was used to test whether the suit would work or not...
The difference in that weight could be in the dozens of kilograms.
The pre-programmed arms didn’t have an AI assistant built in like the higher-end ones would. So while they were working on a mapped flight path, they ended up slamming into each other.
All of that said, a mistake wasn’t the reason Caldrin was so pale. Associate Producer Gard clearly hadn’t noticed either. He could normally get away with just a slap on the wrist.
The real problem was how the Genesis Council treated Dual Types.
They were meant to be killed on sighting. Especially one from a Cracked World.
If the Genesis Council found out they let one participate in the games because they cut corners to save on money...
It was horrible. It was all horrible.
As much as the Monelay might suffer for this, though, Associate Producer Gard would have the hammer fall the heaviest on him.
And before it landed on Associate Producer Gard, it would certainly land on Caldrin’s head.
The little guy would always suffer the most.
’What do I do? What do I do?’
The obvious answer was to kill Grey swiftly and violently. But he didn’t have the jurisdiction. There was a reason he had to send envelopes to Associate Producer Gard to make the final decision.
But if he told Associate Producer Gard, he would suffer.
But what if he didn’t tell Associate Producer Gard?
Suddenly, Grey’s rapid improvement took on a completely different color.