"-rise!"
Pinkie Pie finished her sentence just as Spike snapped back to reality in more ways than one. She noticed the abrupt shift immediately and overcame her confusion just as quickly, leaping to his side and checking him over for injuries... Not normally useful given the Gamer's Body, but despite that she still found plenty to look over this one time.
Spike's scales were cracked or charred, smoking black in some places yet impossibly dead-cold in others, while the section of skin and muscle under his right eye was missing entirely (as was the eye, and most of the socket for that matter). He didn't have to look at the HP monitor in the corner of his vision (the only corner at the moment) to know it was empty. Before Pinkie could ask what happened or get too close of a look at his damage...
Tutorial complete.
Restoring body and mind to prior conditions.
Processing results of the battle, judgment pending.
He let out a string of disgustingly congested coughs until eventually a thick wet strand came out and landed on the ground... Probably his trachea? His old one maybe: This time he did pay close attention (with both eyes) as his HP meter shot back up from rock bottom all the way to perfection. All of the wounds on his body closed or repaired themselves at the same time, sometimes leaving sloughed-off parts in the process.
The ground was eventually littered with scales and bits of muscle and tissue, some bones, even a few spiral-shaped purple and green horns. Spike started moving all of the mess into his Inventory as Pinkie stood there staring at the entire process. Eventually his health came back to the top and he let out a much healthier-seeming sigh: Pinkie's sigh of relief came just after.
He fell back on his butt and looked up at the sky.
"OK, maybe that was a little ambitious."
"Um? Umumumum."
"Yeah I know trust me that was weird for me too. Sorry. Extremely apologetic actually, just... any chance you could watch over me for a minute? I want to think about what just happened before I go trying to explain it."
She nodded, even if it was a little hesitantly. Which was extremely hesitantly when you put it into Pinkie perspective, practically a null motion. But it was enough for him to relax his hackles and let his slowly-recovering powers take over. If there was ever a time to try and meditate to re-settle his state of mind, it was right now.
He didn't use Omphaloskepsis, or any of the methods Lyra taught him. He didn't even try to reach for her fourth method, although his gut instinct said he was much closer to figuring it out than before this test. Instead he just let his mind go empty, trying to replicate how his Random Battle System tutorial had ended.
He had died, obviously.
Spike chased after that feeling now, trying to bring himself to the same state of mind he'd reached after his loss. It had not been a long battle in terms of clock time, nor had it been much in terms of blows traded. He let loose maybe a dozen attacks before it was over, but even that was probably a modern record. Princess Celestia and Luna rarely ever raised a hoof unless they were forced, and every time that happened they seemed very low-key or even weak.
Spike had a much better idea why that was, now that he'd seen an imitation of it with his own eyes. At the very least it was a working theory: There had to be some natural trade-off between power and control, and when you moved the Sun in the sky every single day and night? That was far off one side of that scale. With concentration and a small focus Celestia could outshine even Rarity or Twilight in terms of intricacy. That was a level of control she had worked at tirelessly across entire millenia. In a battle? That probably wasn't viable.
The alicorn simulacrum he had fought in the 'stage' wasn't held back by those compunctions, and the space where they fought had nothing that needed to be protected or kept safe. It was just a knock-down drag-out fight between a dragon and an alicorn using their full power, no more or less.
He could still feel pain with the Gamer's Body, and he could still experience emotions with the Gamer's Mind. Those powers kept the pain and emotions from meaning anything: Preventing harm from damaging his functional body or appearance and stopping emotions from swaying his behavior. Neither of those facts mattered in the face of an unleashed alicorn, even accounting for his system's (probably) limited ability to reproduce that power.
You have received a true crippling blow that exceeds the protection of Gamer's Body.
You are struck by an all-consuming rage that exceeds the protection of Gamer's Mind.
You burn with flames that come from higher powers, exceeding your Utter Fire Resistance.
That had just been the first attack. It went for his eye right away, and even through the pain and fury Spike kept himself on pace to for a severing claw swipe to try to take a wing. He didn't succeed, trading an eye for a bruise at best, and that set the tone of the entire battle to come. Each attack he made was on the back foot while his opponent got more dangerous with each blow exchanged.
Without lingering pain to distract him, with Gamer's Mind and Gamer's Body at full strength again, he sank down and focused on recalling the aftermath. In mere minutes he had been crushed and ruined, laid out without any more chance to fight back. The entire landscape had been reshaped by their battle, even his own fruitless attacks were enough to shake the ground and shatter trees. At the end he lay beneath the bed of the pond as the water fell back down from the sky to flatten him. Watching the near-endless rain and the pitiless eyes of his enemy above him, he had one thought.
"Never again."
Judgment complete. Reward determination complete.
By facing the ultimate challenge despite the risks and costs, you have learned of Death!
By crossing shamanic thresholds and touching the face of Death, you have self-initiated!
By having absolute defenses breached by absolute power, you have achieved [Defiance]!
By unflinchingly meditating on the boundary, your [Exposure] has become true [Dualism]!
By drawing the line between what you can and cannot accept, you enact [Demarcation]!
[Defiance] (Passive, Special) LV100 EXP: N/A
Never again.
Any effect that would attempt to breach the sanctity of the Gamer's Mind or Body is likely to fail.
[Dualism] (Passive) LV1 EXP: 0.00%
By understanding the real division between the inner self and the outside world, the user of this skill has learned that there is no need to lose mental focus to the actions of the flesh. This allows for all forms of meditation to be permanently active regardless of the actions of the body, and transforms the nature of traditional meditation. A myriad of future skills WILL develop from this root...
The user is capable of permanently meditating while active, using any form of meditation they wish.
Excess HP, MP, and Stamina recovery are converted to other benefits during 'normal' meditation.
This skill cannot be deactivated, and the act of meditation is now protected by the Gamer's Mind.
Dualism replaces Exposure for all purposes, resetting its level in the process.
Dualism acts as a precursor to many other skills.
Meditating trains Dualism and all skills that follow from it.
Acquiring new forms of meditation enhances Dualism.
[Demarcation] (Forbidden) LV0 EXP: N/A
No dragon shall set themselves apart from my Laws.
You are being watched...
A violation of the Rules you set has activated [Defiance]. Recalculating...
[Demarcation] (Active) LV1 EXP: 0.00% MP: ALL
No dragon shall set themselves apart from my Laws.
In proper Defiance of improper Law, you have marked yourself as unique. You are now a singular entity in the world of Dragons as defined by those who came before. Rules of a game are different from the Laws of the world, but no less powerful to the right mind: It is your decision who the Rules apply to and when, within your domain.
All area effects you create will only impact chosen targets regardless of physics, law, or logic.
You may attempt to shrug off or ignore effects which are applied to an entire group or type of target.
This skill consumes all your remaining MP when used and only applies to a single effect at a time.
This skill is limited and may fail to consistently remove you from the subject of some great powers.
This skill will never fail to exclude others from effects of your own creation or under your command.
Spike cleared his mind and exhaled slowly. Breathe in... He could already feel the massive change between having to meditate and simply being meditative, not in a metaphorical or conceptual way but truly living in that state at all times. He had questions about the other skills, the messages, the entire concept of having random combat encounters interrupting his life from now on... But those could wait until he talked to Pinkie.
That took some time.
Pinkie Pie's reaction was about what he expected: In roughly this order, she was...
> Disappointed he didn't take her along with him to join in on the fun.
> Annoyed at Discord for dropping more hints without showing up to explain himself.
> Furious at his system since it didn't let him take her along, replacing her prior disappointment.
> Unsurprised at the idea that Fluttershy could pose an enormous threat in combat.
> Curious about what he had experienced in his fight and what happened after.
She wasn't annoyed that he had put himself through something like that: If anything, she might have done something just as crazy if given a chance to act without any consequences. Just because she wasn't concerned about it didn't mean that anypony else would react the same way. They both put a joint moratorium on ever telling anypony else what he had experienced, just in case. Again, lack of consequences meant there was no reason for them to spread the information anyways, not even the most tenuous of worries about disclosure or honesty.
The idea that he might get pulled away for more fights at any moment did concern her, however.
"Sooooo, what are you planning to do about all these randobattles?"
As much as this was a serious conversation, sometimes snark was the answer: He shrugged.
"Win!"
"...Good plan!"
Pinkie pronked back onto the trail alongside him and they got back on the path. They were ready to hit today's projected end goal even faster after this sudden interruption: After all, this encounter had taken no time in the 'outside' world, and if that was true for all random battles? He would get faster as he improved under the pressure.