They went through the next few platforms like hawker food through the intestines of a newly arrived gweilo. Or, like a katana goes through the neck of an unarmed civilian, waiting to be dropped into a mass grave in a school. A little too racist? Maybe; but then again, Arthur had never promised not to be racist. Or, for that matter, had the Japanese ever apologised or even acknowledged the atrocities they'd committed in Malaysia or other parts of South East Asia in the previous century. Then again, why would they?
The Westerners might decry racism within their countries—and it was bad, or so he'd heard—but it was nothing like the way a whole country hated another. When you had thousands of years of stored animosity, all of it recorded and remembered, from personal tales to long history lessons at school, it was hard to let go. Especially when one side or the other failed to acknowledge or even think they had done anything wrong.
Which was why Arthur was quite happy to acknowledge he was a massive, raging erection. But at least knowing he was one gave him a starting point to improving. If he wanted to improve.
More importantly, and more pertinently to the matter at hand, his new Lightning Reflexes trait—in combination with Fast Twitch, Swiftness, and his ability to pick out minute changes in musculature or landscape—was having some weird feedback effects. In particular . . .
He watched as the vine swung towards him, moving at what he knew was objectively at the same speed it had been before they had arrived in the clan building. But to his newly improved Body and senses, the vine might as well have been moving through slow motion.
It wasn't exactly like those speedster movies, where the hero had all the time in the world to look things over, make a decision, and act. On the other hand, it wasn't that far from it. He could feel himself making quicker decisions, feel as though he had more time to move out of the way as he saw the beginning of an attack long before it transmitted all the way. A minor shift in weight, a twitch in the vine starting near its base. He saw it all.
When he did decide to move, though, things went a little haywire.
It should have been simple. Lean backwards, let the vine pass over his head, missing him by an inch. Then, move forwards, throwing his body into a lunge with his spear leading the way, tear a hole in the gap between two vines he knew would appear in half a second.
Except, when he leaned backwards, he moved not an inch and a half like he meant to. He moved nearly half a foot. The vine that should have just passed by him had swung far away. And as he shoved himself forward, he nearly collided with the vine’s trailing ends as he moved too fast.
Also, too fast was his retaliation. Instead of finding a gap between swinging vines that should have appeared like he'd planned, he'd pinned the other vine in place, his tip punching all the way through with barely any effort. That was, of course, the other side effect of moving faster than ever—the greater force he could apply.
He managed to hit his target and kill the vine monster, even if it was much more sloppily than he had ever expected. He still had to dodge a half-dozen more swings as he widened the initial wound, but that was easy enough. Even if he did feel like a jerking marionette managed by an amateur puppeteer.
"Eh, boss. You okay, ah?" Yao Jing asked, wandering over and reaching in, tearing apart vines to dig into the creature they belonged to. These higher-level plants had a nasty set of thorns on them, but Yao Jing had added to his knowledge of Wood Body and combined it with a greater defense trait, allowing him to grab hold of the plants barehanded and not bleed.
Much.
"Getting used to my new Body and traits." Breaching the 20-point attribute level seemed to have been a whole new explosion in energy, and the traits working together were even more synergistic than he'd expected. It was going to take him a bit to get used to.
"Heh. You look like a second-year student, trying to ape his seniors," Leia called out from above. She had moved ahead of the group, intercepting with Rick a bunch of mushroom men before they managed to disrupt the team.
"Whatever," Arthur said, grumpily. "I took care of the vine myself, you know." Of course, there were two vines on this platform, each of them covering for one another, and if not for the rest of the team, he'd have to step back and blast away from a distance. As it was, with its attention focused on Yao Jing and Eric, he had managed to slip through close enough to finish the creature without being subjected to two vine monsters.
Though . . .
"I'd like to try both next time."
"My turn next!" Uswah called out. "I only need one, though. And only at the start. Someone can have the second."
"That'd be me," Lam said, firmly. "Though, I don't have much to test. I only need the one."
Arthur looked around, searching for objections. There were none, so he waved the team on. Uswah moved ahead of him along with Lam, so he fell back to join Mel at the back, keeping an eye out for more trouble and more traps. Now that they had actually spotted the traps, it had grown quite boring dodging them. Even if they came down faster and were more numerous the higher they climbed, they were only a real concern when the monsters started arriving.
Arthur and Mel managed another couple of platforms, literally jumping upwards on cloud steps in one case, before they broke the silence.
"What did you get?" Arthur asked.
"From cultivating?"
"No. When you slept with Rick,” he said sarcastically.
The sudden silence and blush made Arthur jerk his head to the side and nearly fall over. He could not, would not believe it. Except, of course, it was true.
"YOU DID SLEEP WITH HIM!" he whisper-shouted in horror. "HOW? WHEN?"
"It happened," she said, then fell silent. Shrugging, she continued, "When we were out gathering stones. And it wasn't anything."
"But why?"
"He's rather good looking? A woman has needs?" Mel shrugged. "I don't see how this is your business."
"As your . . ." Arthur shook his head, cutting himself off. "No, I can't do this. Won't do this. It's just not the kind of miss I'd take." He grimaced. "Whatever. Sleep with who you want."
"I will." She paused, then added, "Anyway, I didn’t get much of an upgrade. I'm focusing on Mind and Body mostly." She grinned a little. "I like the Refined Energy Darts, but they're a lot of energy to use. So if I can speed up and process energy faster, it will be better." She smiled slightly. "Anyway, not as though I'm being fed a ton of monster cores."
Arthur grunted, but he forced himself not to hunch inwards. He knew the reason he was being given the majority of cores; without him, the entire clan would crumble. So, he was not going to feel guilty about it. Or at least, he'd try to tell himself he wasn't going to feel guilty.
"Any good traits?"
"Recaptured Energy," Mel said. "Makes my workings more refined, so that when I use a technique, a small portion of it comes back to me."
"Sounds like one of mine, From the Dregs."
"You pull energy from your stores, from your body to fuel your actions,” she explained. “It's broad ranging and always working, even making it cheaper for you to exist. Useful for when you exit the Tower even. I recover spent energy, which is only useful if you're using a technique. On the other hand . . ."
"It's more." Arthur paused, considered his options and chose not to use his Cloud Stepping method. Instead he backed off two steps and took off running, jumping to catch the edge of the next platform that reared all too far away and then swinging himself up. He landed in a crouch, feeling the earth give way only slightly beneath his fingers.
"Right. Yours doesn't even bother giving a percentage amount to your return, but mine does." Mel chuckled. "Only a few percent, but it's there."
Arthur nodded in reply, then looked at both Uswah and Lam. Neither one seemed to have added to their number of techniques, or even significantly increased their attributes. At least on first glance. Then Lam took a blow to the chest, head-on from one of the bunched vines—a spear by any other name—and just shrugged it off. Now, he was wearing a breastplate, but still . . .
"Wah lau!" Arthur shouted in surprise. He exclaimed again a moment later, when a dark tendril managed to slip in between a wound, pierce deep into the vine that Uswah was fighting, and then explode in a flurry of spike shadow tendrils.
"I guess they've improved." Arthur grinned.
It was always nice to see people power up.