"Ah love ya girls. Ah hate ya too sometimes... but ah still love ya, all the same."
"Right back atchya AB."
Sweetie nuzzled up to their friend while Scootaloo kept laughing, although their attention never entirely strayed from the problem at hoof.
"Always! And the numbers look good, by the way: The checking has been doubled!"
Spike looked from the board and then to the not-quite-forgotten knife, then to the Crusaders.
"So I'm just going to sit here taking hits?"
Apple Bloom began shuffling through the contents of their cart, trying to find something in particular.
"Naw Spike, yer not just gonna sit around gettin' wailed on."
"Oh good, because-"
She finally came back up with a claw-backed hammer in muzzle. Her initial attempts to speak were totally muffled by the tool, so she spat it out before trying again.
"After all, somepony's gotta calculate how hard we're all hittin'!"
"While being hit?"
Scootaloo hadn't bothered getting herself any kind of weapon, instead relying on her hoof-strikes.
"I mean can you think of a better time?"
The reply that came out of his mouth was so dry Spike was pretty sure his tongue curled.
"Several."
That gave them pause. The Crusaders looked from one to the other, silent for a moment.
"Spike, if you're not OK with this-"
"No, no, I am! I just keep grinding to see if I can get Sarcasm as a skill."
"...Now see, I can't actually tell if that was sarcasm, so are you still..."
"The better question is when am I not. Just... start hitting. I promise not to be flippant about the actual work we're doing."
"Works by me! Who wants the honor of first blood?"
"I don't actually seem to bleed anymore, so I’m not sure that term is copac-"
His little jab got cut off by an actual jab, a stiff hoof to the gut. He rattled off the damage numbers and then took another hit from a different direction. His menus needed him to look to see details, but he had a constant sort of 'knowledge' of his HP and MP even without turning on the visible bars. He closed his eyes and focused solely on that instinct.
Attempting to predict where the next hit would come from was another way to stack one exercise (maybe some kind of threat awareness or blind-fighting skill?) with another (taking damage for Physical Endurance), and yet a third once that started ranking up: As his Endurance rose the damage the girls did went down and the math had to be constantly adjusted. Eventually they learned to pull their kicks and bucks and bites and stabs in order to modulate the damage, and a consistent rain of blows ensued.
Once the damage started getting into a steady flow, with his HP and MP kept in check by the hits and the cost of regeneration, they started getting real experimental. Could severe damage to his limbs lower his DEX or cause a status effect? A pony could be hobbled or crippled, even a dragon could (he remembered a bad fall off a bookshelf back in Canterlot, although it had healed weirdly fast even then), but could a Gamer? No he could not, as it turned out: Even when Sweetie took one of his arms clean off in a massive sweep (the damage so high they had to pause for a minute), Spike maintained full use of the limb that had been 'removed'.
After that, things settled back into a casual groove of beating and breaking, cutting and burning: Every so often the girls would pass their weapons around to each other, and Spike took new hits from different angles as they all learned how to use everything at-hoof. Despite the constant flares of pain (which steadily dropped as they worked), he was actually enjoying this. There was something satisfying about mutual training, to the point where he decided they'd need to make a habit of this. Not just damaging him, he was pretty sure he wasn’t enjoying it that much. No he’d been thinking more of just... training in general.
Towards the end, another plan for an experiment came up, this one much more tentative. Spike reacted to having an arm lopped off the same way most ponies reacted to stubbing their hoof... But what about critical damage? The body had a lot of very important parts, and so Gamer's Body or no they couldn't risk anything that would kill him outright. In the end they compromised on some soft blows to the less essential 'danger zones'.
"Eyes?"
"Eugch, yeah, that'll be on the list for sure."
"Inside the mouth?"
"Well, I don't have a conspicuously loose scale under one leg, but we should check the traditional dragon weaknesses. So yeah, that gets in."
"Yer, ah..."
The hesitation was palpable in the air, and Spike cracked his eyes open to see the Crusaders blushing and shuffling their hooves.
"What?"
They pointed down, he looked down, saw nothing but smooth scales...
"Oh. OH! Nope, nope, not letting knives anywhere near them. A kick would be OK though."
"Them?"
"Just... Let's test the risky spots and move on?"
He got some dubious looks for that, but closing his eyes again ended that conversation... Doubly so when those closed eyes were assaulted a moment later. Details aside (just because he could endure it didn't mean he liked recalling it) it seemed like the weak-spots they had chosen worked. Taking a hit to one gave him a 'Critical Damage' notification, bumped his Physical Endurance XP much faster, and did much more damage.
Further tests showed it was floored: The weakest blow that did any damage at all did a guaranteed minimum on a Critical. Hits which did more than that got a multiplier, although it wasn’t a huge one. Theory suggested that his heart and brain would work the same but with nastier results. Importantly, shots to the eyes didn't blind him even briefly: Whatever way the Gamer's Body worked with these 'critical' hits, that aspect was still purely in his favor.
By the time they were done? The sheet on the easel was totally covered in calculations, the girls had amended their character sheets with damage outputs ("Just for reference!") and their plan to get the rest of the chores and training done had solidified. It turns out that when you spend enough time stabbing somebody who isn't actually getting hurt? The whole thing gets so rote that you don't mind having a different conversation mid-stabs. Not something he'd have believed if you had told him as much yesterday, but neither was... any of this.
"Alright, so we've got everything prepared, right?"
Sweetie Belle hoisted a long poking-stick and gestured to the stack of boxes.
"Ready!"
Apple Bloom finished closing the easels and throwing all the data into a folder for later.
"Eeyup!"
Scootaloo just kicked him in the shins again to keep his HP from topping all the way off.
"Good to go when you are!"
He resisted the urge to kick back, and instead just clapped his claws together.
"OK. Good. But before we do: I've had this little niggling worry in the back of my head, and I wanna take care of it. I've been getting so many skills today, and all so fast... Given how the quest I got was worded? I think the golden age of quick pickups is going to end when the quest does."
"Awwww!"
"Real shame."
"Bummer."
"Yeah yeah, no disagreement here. But, since I know it's coming? I can cram as much as possible before then. So, while I am going to regret this later... Can we go a little harder this time?"
There was no response: Not a verbal one at least. Their intent was made clear by the way they prepared and angled themselves, with almost no visible worry about going overboard. This was... fun, fun in a way Spike didn't quite have a grasp on. Maybe after so many years of being the one being he knew without any direct power, with few adventures to his name? Maybe this was all going to his head... Well, at least he had experience getting that kind of thing back under control.
It was a good thing, too, because 'control' was going to be the watchword here. He went into the trance that activated Omphaloskepsis and let the trance carry him forward as they worked. It was much harder, trying to move and act while staying in that meditative state, but after a few false starts he managed to make it work. It was weaker than normal, and it got disrupted over and over as the Crusaders interfered with him. But instead of letting the distractions bother him (only listening in order to know what to do next), he focused on keeping his mind in that state. He took each distraction as it came and then drifted back to his center.
Spike held the trance as he worked, wove the work into the trance and back. Movements of his limbs matched the interior movement of his blood, the passage of air matched by the passage through rooms. Attempting to Observe the insides of the boxes and packages was mirrored by self-observation. Cutting and being cut, breaking and being broken, reading and being read. He could Observe the world in order to observe himself. Treat the world as a part of himself, as well as the other way around. Twilight had talked to him about this kind of meditation before, but he had never really understood it until now. Now... he fell into a pattern, as the grinding and work continued.
Spit fire (literally, sending test items to the Princess), spit fire (bolstering his Intimidate), Spitfire (Scootaloo delivering Wonderbolts trivia), spit fire (a catastrophically failed attempt at rapping).
Crack rocks (consume more gems, study their benefits), crack rocks (Earthshaper opening the geode Twilight ordered), crack rocks (a box of medical journals, overdose countermeasures...).
Move water (pour drinks, bring them out), move water (try to control his beverage with Stagnet, fail), move water (bathroom break), move water (loads of laundry and glasses to clean).
Fresh air (move the laundry to the line, out on the balcony), fresh air (a break outside, break down the empty boxes), Fresh Air (say hello to their new neighbor, a sky blue unicorn).
Trip light (everything blurs together, he barely remembers the conversations as he worked), trip light (a stumble here and there, as his legs are cut from underneath), trip light (the girls glow on the inside).
Open everything (all of the boxes are clear), open everything (air out the storage closets and the basement), open everything (cry, just a bit, when the Crusaders can't see), open everything...
Spike opened his eyes, raising his eyelids.
Spike opened his eyes, pulling back the membranes beneath.
Spike opened his eyes and something else opened with them.
A skill has been created through a special action! Through immersion in the flow and then safely returning from it, a skill to open oneself to the world, [Exposure], has been created!