Beyond M-Eclipse: Easy Mode LIVE

———Wiina———

<5: 28 pm>

“Those two were completely insane for doing that…” Karra can’t help but say while she is still rolling on the bed. I only increased the width a bit and she’s reveling in it already. “By the way, am I actually supposed to wear those shoes during the stream?”

“Why wouldn’t you? It’s basically an extra pair of weapons you can use. It’s not like they’re just just training weights.” Having an extra option aside from that knife of hers is quite good. Unlike the weapon that she held in her hand, it’s nearly impossible to disarm something attached to her feet. It’s not as if she has weak joints and needs to worry about them dislocating.

“Yeah, I guess…” She doesn’t really have a good argument for it outside of discomfort. She isn’t even wearing it right now. I think she can get used to it eventually. “I don’t want to hear any joke about being heavy on the stream.”

“I think as long as you show those shoes at some point, it’ll be fine.” It’s nothing to really worry about. Perhaps a few leaps in logic in an attempt to make jokes, but she can simply ignore those. “You’ll get used to it eventually. Besides, it’s not like you never incorporate kicks into your battle plan before.”

“I know. It’s just that the extra weight is… quite a lot.” She said while trying to not sound like she’s whining too much. “Isn’t doing this not even a week before the stream kinda… too much?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like this is going to change much of your habit.” I said to reassure her. The added weight definitely messes with her movements and such, but I’m certain she can overcome that rather quickly.

We have another training session tomorrow. By that time she should have fully accumulated to it. If that still isn’t enough, I can do a few things to fix it, though preferably we never go that far.

“Let’s hope that’s true…” She said before having her face dig into the pillow. It seems that the fatigue from yesterday’s training still lingers, considering she hadn’t been up to training today. We already agreed on this being a free day, so she wasn’t really pressed on doing anything else aside from lazing around.

I guess since we’re not doing anything right now, I might as well hop on my computer and play some games. Let’s see here…

…Why am I stuck on the loading screen? Hello? This is a cutting edge PC, no way it runs into any issue. Let me check the computer first… Doesn’t look like anything was wrong? Let me go check any updates on other sites… So the game is down right now, server issue. Classy… I hope they update the game to that ‘2.0’ version they talked about before, maybe the server will work more than half the time by then.

Looks like I need to play some other games instead. I guess that is fine, I’ve been playing this game for way too long despite the lower playercount. There haven't been many updates to it or any events to speak of, better to use my free time elsewhere anyway.

I grabbed the custom controller and plugged it in. Time to play that old fighting game that the developer seems very adamant on not releasing or making something similar ever again. Bunch of fun haters. Good thing mods exist.

Loaded up, I’ll play some of the low tiers until I get bored. I have to play ranked with how many people just quit the moment anything but a high tier character is picked in unranked. I haven't played it in a while, but all the advanced techs are still in my head, and the muscle memory remains intact.

*Click* *Tap* *Click* *Tap* *Click*

A bit too easy. Then again, I didn’t exactly grind out rank often. I’m still low on the leaderboard. I ought to run into a lot of people just picking up the game somewhat casually, or people just wanting to play with low tiers without being quitted out on like I am.

*Click* *Tap* *Click* *Tap* *Click*

“This game looks hella scary for something that came out over twenty years ago.” Karra finally got up and commented while I was in the middle of this match.

“It’s mainly because of all the jank they put in. They didn’t have a lot of time to fine-tune everything before release with such a short time window.” Can’t really blame them. It’s kind of a miracle it became such a cult classic.

“Why does your controller look so weird?” She asked once I won the match.

“You mean the notches? It’s pretty much a standard for any pro playing this game. Make it easier to get the correct inputs.” I technically don’t need it with all the crazy stuff I could do on my own, but I don’t see why I shouldn’t give myself an advantage by making this controller.

“...Do you even need it?” She asked, sounding a bit demeaning. Rather fair, considering the multitude of advantages I innately have.

“Not really. As long as the controller works, I’ll win.” I said while the next match was starting.

*Click* *Tap* *Click* *Tap* *Click*

“...Say. Do you know why those two were so strong all of a sudden? It felt like they were catching up to me way too quickly.” She asked while I was in the middle of this match.

“Eh. There is still a noticeable gap between you and those two. I wouldn’t worry, personally.” This guy is playing a top tier and isn’t even doing some techs properly. “If you’re that spooked out about it, maybe train harder tomorrow?”

“I think I did a pretty good job yesterday. It’s them that is weird. How much stronger did they get in a day exactly?” She said, sounding a bit annoyed.

“Fifty six percent for Malk and Fifty four for Qyunda. It only makes sense that they got similar numbers since they got this large power boost together.” It is a massive jump for one day. “It is very impressive. Compared to Jennla who was stranded for multiple months, possibly a year, and coming back close in power to Kenni and Emmie, who is triple the strength of the average of our class, not counting you and those two, and it becomes quite clear how absurd their boost in strength is.”

“So why did that even happen? Do you not have any clue?” She asked while I waited for the next match.

“I did check the warp history to check which floor they passed before returning. They got past one hundred and fiftieth floor before checking out. No idea what caused them to be so motivated.” Those two together could do a lot of things. They may often fight each other, but when together it’s hard to stop them.

“...What.” She seems quite confused at the number. It is admittedly a lot, but it’s not impossible in practice. Most levels aren’t that long, very few even get close to a soccer field.

*Click* *Tap* *Click* *Tap* *Click*

“One floor isn’t exactly long. They could reach that far if they cooperate and don’t really care about their mana and stamina.” The only thing really stopping them from going that far is having enough fuel in the tank to keep going. They weren’t in there for the entire day, so it’s clear that they weren’t really taking their time and are going all out clearing the floors. “If I were to hypothesize with just the current information, they got very lucky with their drops and found a lot of stamina and mana potions so they don’t need to conserve energy and play it slowly. That obviously doesn’t count for even half of it, that kind of boost in strength doesn’t happen from such a grueling session alone.”

“What kind of event would’ve caused such a jump in power?” She asked. If we’re going to keep talking. I probably should put my controller down and log out. I am listening intently, but playing and talking at the same time definitely makes me sound a little bit dismissive and out of it. Not to mention these low placement players are really boring to fight against even though their characters are way better than mine.

“If you mean just general things. Outside of the Eclipse and the following events, which is a whole can of worms in itself, then there are…” I was about to list them but the numbers are quite big. I should curate the list a bit… “A lot of things that can technically cause such a massive boost in base power, but not a lot of them could realistically happen inside a dungeon which is a controlled environment where very little shenanigans could happen. As you know, killing monsters and other humans do boost your power, but only by a little bit, even if they go around killing every monster they see, it wouldn’t have given them such a large boost, especially since the power gained is relative to the strength of what you killed, they’re basically ‘overleveled’ even over a hundred floors in, so the experience gained wouldn’t be that substantial on its own. Dungeons are built more as a marathon than a race, the difficulty spike doesn’t really happen until you’re extremely deep in for a few more hundred floors.”

“I don’t need all of that recited…” She quickly interrupted. “Just tell me what could’ve caused all of that power boost.”

“Alright then, if you want a no-context explanation, then I can think of two reasonable possibilities. First is that they actually did just get all of that power just from the dungeon run by throwing caution to the wind and fighting nonstop until it’s time to leave. There is this thing called a breakthrough, when a large portion of their potential is unlocked at once, like a dam opening. That is something that the Mythical Eclipse partially caused so everyone can better learn how to use magic. You could also call it enlightenment. Second is a bit more unlikely, which is them learning some sort of powerful siphoning technique that lets them get more experience out of their kill. It’s unlikely because most types of abilities that do that kind of thing only work on something with souls like humans, and using it on soulless things like most monsters would give very little in return.” Quite a long explanation, but every other option is either extremely sinister or basically impossible. Not that the latter isn’t worrying if that is true, but even that possibility is very unlikely.

“Is a breakthrough something that can just… happen? With how you worded it it seems like it’s very important. Did you ever need to go through something like that?” She said while tilting her head.

“No, not really. As for if it’s something important… I mean, it’s basically like one of those shonen protagonist power ups in practice, except you don’t transform or whatever. Go ask Jennla about it or something, I didn’t read that many.” It’s just simple potential unlocking, the point where your head becomes a little clearer and suddenly you feel a lot more confident in everything. “It’s the least shocking or even impressive reason, but it’s the most likely.”

“I bet that kind of event has its limits, right?” Is she afraid it’s going to happen again?

“Yeah. You can’t really have something like that happening on a regular basis. You can’t actually make it happen intentionally. It’s an emotion-based thing.” It’s certainly not something you can force to happen. At least not on your own, and even then it can only happen ever so often.

“I see…” She said with her ears drooped down. I think this is the first time she has been so invested in this kind of topic. The reason the others are catching up or even surpassing her was because she wasn’t all that interested in it. I was the one who dragged her around for training in the past, and I don’t want to pressure her to do it often since she has her own life. Right now, it seems a little different. I don’t actually want her to get all that passionate about this though, it might affect her own interest in streaming. Just doing dungeons and training streams can only gather so much interest, even if those aren’t really niches that have been completely filled in at all. I think I should come up with a way to clear her head quickly without taking too much time. Don’t want to miss the New Year’s fireworks.

…Let’s try this then.

*Plop*