Rocket Punch!

"Guys, I'm a little behind in levels," I announce once everybody had gathered together outside of camp less than half an hour after my self-evaluation with Melpomene. "Is it cool if I see how far I can get us by myself?"

I had still been watching the video again and again, even going further back by requesting the video of my mass Devour to watch the creation of my current body when my Spore Shoal returned to a human form. Even now I was looking at two still images of myself, one grinning like a maniac with only vaguely red eyes while riding the imperial corruption carrier and the other one roaring with demonic eyes staring blankly through the hologram.

Speaking openly and honestly like he knows I would prefer, Go says, "Are you sure that's a good idea? You've been sitting here sulking and soul searching by yourself for the better part of an hour. You, obviously, have no idea what's going on and you're worried. Shouldn't WE be worried as well?"

No? Maybe? How was I supposed to answer a questions like that?!

"I don't know," I reply in all honesty, still meeting the different gazes directed at me from the holograms the others could not see. Even thought this was all just a video game, I was betting my livelihood on making things work and suddenly what I could only consider as an unknown content coding was shoving a wrench in the works. I was still in control of myself to the point that I was aware of what was happening and stopped it when I actually realized.

After having hashed it out with the AI, one of several likely factors for loss of conscious control would be the fact that my cordycep skills themselves were fairly low because I rarely ever used them. Namely, Shapeshifting. I just naturally had an aversions to my overpowered abilities because they took the fun away.

Now that I knew there were more than just a few other people with super powers, though, that needed to change. If I ran into somebody like a godly elemental mage then I would be harshly screwed over through ice magic. Someone like the lich spawner would only be a threat to me in numbers since cordyceps were naturally higher ranked than undead in this world.

If they had an army of ice magic specialized liches, I would probably die. Horribly. Hands down.

The lich spawner was honestly the only super powered player I could think of, but training against mass amounts of ice related mobs would be perfect prep work for long and drawn out combat against rivals. Ice was the only weakness I was aware of due to my cordyceps, so what better to train against than my own weakness?

As to my request, the others took some time to debate among themselves about what to do but eventually caved in. I mean, I was essentially the clan's trump card and after listening to a brief explanation of what I had worked out with Melpomene they really had no choice. Despite having been the jackass to put forth a vote about suspending my activities during the trip here, Conansson became my biggest support by verifying the presences of several other super powers who freely lorded their abilities over the masses.

What the others did not expect, though, was that I would give them a quick order to load up on raw materials from the lab for me. Once the others were all back in camp, I flashed a smile to my main familiars before turning and running as fast as I could for the raid lane. It did not even take me six full seconds to cover the distance.

Once I entered the lane the previous outer default scenery reorganized itself as space itself changed to accommodate the kilometer measurements of the lane while the outposts lined themselves up with the fort. Without a welcome message there was only a fifteen-second timer counting off the amount of time to prepare before the start.

It took three seconds to assess my current physical form using alchemy and raw mana to study myself, then another three seconds before manipulating my mass to enlarge my hands, lengthen my arms, and to almost extend my fingers out into long knives. Since I was not currently taking in any mass, the corrupted materials of my armor and even my crystallized flesh became pale and almost translucent as raw mana was crystallized to increase my physical mass.

Usually changing my fingers like I did while cooking or working in the lab would cost tens of MP but to change everything from my shoulders down cost around three hundred mana per arm. Despite this, I continued emptying my mana pool to perform the same gigantification on my legs before finally expanding the width and increasing the height of my torso. The only part of my body I did not change was my head which was half the proportional size it should be for my new three-meter body.

I was currently as broad as Stonewall but about two feet taller. With a little head. Luckily, there would be plenty of time to replenish my mana while waiting on the first outpost to unleash its trolls.

Even though I did not receive any notifications for it, I could tell throughout the process as it became easier to plan and process the changes that the level of my transformation skill had increased by one or two. Still, the recently upgraded version of the skill could maintain a single transformed part for an hour but each additional part lessened the time limit.

By the time I finally had enough mana to resize my own head and neck after drinking a one-part mana regeneration potion while walking onto the field, the overall amount of time that I could maintain this shape for was less than fifteen minutes. However, consuming mass could sustain the form or I could spend about a thousand mana to refresh the time limit.

When I finally broke into a run only a third of the way across the first field, I put my new replicating skill to work by growing Hardened Hickory about my arms and hands from my knuckles to my elbows. The trolls themselves never even made it half of the way across the field despite their mad charge as only a few of my lengthened strides ate up the distance.

Continuing to pile on the power, I drain my only half replenished mana pool down to about a fifth of its fill by pouring the mana into my body in the form of the lightning element. My super-conductive body made up mostly of raw mana itself began arcing and hissing as soon as I reached out for the first troll.

I never even got to make contact with them before the electricity arcing about my arm converged in my sharp fingertips and then discharged into the troll.

That troll was immediately charred and thrown straight back with its feet dragging along the ground from the sheer amount of straightforward force that had struck them. Some of the trolls behind were pushed back and out of the way of the speeding bullet troll but the others quickly divided to either side like a stream flowing around a large rock in order to surround me.

I let them surround me, presenting my back to dozens of trolls while continuing to face forward and lash out with swiftly raking claws that left sets of gnarly gashes marring the full length or width of my targets' bodies. Blood sprayed or flowed in all directions ahead of me. Then, as I unleashed an unarmed 360 Edge amid the encirclement that finally started to close around me, the entire area within twenty feet of my body was a cloud of arterial spray.

Even thought my blade fingers increased my unarmed damage output and the Hardened Hickory augmented my attacks with a heavy knockback effect, most of the trolls actually survived being gouged and gashed at my hands.

What they could not survive, though, was the intense bleeding damage that followed the incredibly thin but technically blunt edges of my finger blades that ripped through their bodies. Thanks to the overwhelming speed buff more than the increased damage granted from the lightning augmentation of self-enchantment, two seconds was all it took for dozens of trolls to litter the ground around me.

However, it took almost a minute for the crimson cloud to disperse even as it froze in the frigid air and fell like snow. There was just that much blood continuing to splash about as the trolls blindly through themselves at me. They cared as little for the deaths of their comrades as I did, seeing their sacrifices as nothing more than giving them an opening.

Little did they know, my current form did not accommodate the softness of flesh at all the way my 'natural' body replicated its feel. Even the underlying and stretched spider's silk lining the inside of my armor was as hard as steel from the crystallized mana filling in the enlarged spaces while retaining a malleability akin to clay. No matter how many attacks landed on this body, I only lost around two or three percent of my health per strike before the trolls flew aside.

Walking forward over the mess which was all that remained of a hundred trolls, I started using Devour with every step to soak up the gory matter like a dried up sea sponge. Thankfully, not only was there enough iron rich fluids and muscle tissues to stimulate my 'earthen enriched' body but there was enough organic mass in general to refill the timer on my transformation.

Breezing into the next outpost territory while leaving a wake of arching energy behind me like a comet's tail, I calmly wait and ponder at the halfway point for the trolls that were only just leaving the second outpost.

In this form coupled with my seldom used Self-Enchantment, my use of just 360 Edge and basic attack easily matched the damage output of using combined attack skills and poison. So far, I had not even bothered using poison yet. However, the trolls in the early outposts usually only used their buffing skills while the reinforcement troops would usually cast them freely.

As the next wave of combat started I casually barreled through the disorganized ranks of the enemy trolls while lashing out, finally incorporating virulent souls into my basic attacks by excreting the All-Tox from my 'pours'. In this fashion, a single basic attack was not only enough to rip away limbs and send several trolls into the air at a time, but the trolls themselves never made it back for a second round as my poisons drained the last bits of their health away.

Regardless of how much this could be considered as me bullying the trolls or how much I usually avoided using powers like this, I was actually having fun! Sure, I was literally just swatting flies at this point but these flies were twice my usual body weight and still could be sent up ten feet in the air over my heightened head.

Once this batch of trolls were dead, though, instead of using Devour I used Assimilate and drew in most of the gory body parts from within thirty feet of me using magic.

Not only did the Troll's Physique buff that increased my physical attack and defense by ten points receive an upgrade that raised my physical parameters by twenty percent, I acquired another ten percent of ice resistance as well as an actual troll skill called Timber Tantrum. This was a two pronged skill which increased my efficiency with organic and primitive tools such as wood, stone, and bone equipment while also giving me a three-minute berserk option that increased my physical damage by thirty percent, my health by twenty percent, and increased my damage intake from all sources by fifteen percent.

Despite the not-so-punny name, Timber Tantrum actually seemed like a good martyrdom skill to use in a stressful situation if I wanted to pave an escape route for my party or just rush through a tough boss monster.

Moving on to the third outpost where I faced one hundred and twenty trolls, I quickly used the once a day berserker aspect of my Timber Tantrum skill and started mowing the field. With such a heavy increase to my damage on top of the preexisting Imperial Order that triggered any time I was in combat, 360 Edge directly ended the lives of any troll in reach. It did not even take me a full minute to clear away the trolls in this group.

Reaching the fourth outpost with little to no problems at all, I finally let go of my current transformation which was when I received a pleasant notification.

[Saved Transformation: Hulk Scissor-hands]

For a first full-body transformation, it was not nearly as bad as its name as far as actual use was concerned. If I was in such a hulk form without the 'scissor-hands' I would probably be able to properly wield Hauntings with one hand again. For now, though, I needed to work on some of my other cordycep skills.

Generating a variety of materials from spider chitin needles to ice mana quills that protrude out from the palms of my hands by the dozens, I spend half of my mana just concentrating hundreds of needling growths in the palms of my hands before condensing wind magic into a super-imposed pair of Air Cannons while excreting virulent souls all over the needles.

Once the trolls were within fifty yards, I released the nine-inch needles from my hands and set off the Air Cannons to propel them forward at speeds of several hundred feet per second. The once close-knit clusters of various needles expanded like pellets coning out from a shotgun barrel and punched through their bodies as easily as knives in butter. Sadly, this was an attack of attrition.

I even gained a notification for a skill called Organic Cannon that came with an automatic backlash of ten percent of its damage capability. Ten percent was a hell of a lot more than the damage I just took, which only cost a few percent of my health bar!

Even with the increased defenses of my body the backlash from my own explosions of compressed air tore jarred the joints and fractured the bones of my hands due to proximity. While the various materials of the needles triggered varying degrees of damage and effects, only about half of the trolls died or were rendered into critical conditions.

The others all still had between thirty and fifty percent of their health.

Just because this attack could not kill all of them did not mean as much as the backlash in my eyes. If I were willing to sacrifice a single hand, I could probably take out a small five or ten-man party of players in a single attack. However, if I were willing to sacrifice a single hand I might as well…

"Rocket Punch!" I shout shamelessly and excitedly, forming a massive compressed Air Cannon in my forearm while condensing my fist into a fully hardened crystallization while punching out. Detaching my wrist myself with Corruption, I set off the Air Cannon and watch with a childish glee as as my fist flies out with a subsonic trail of distorted air.

As soon as it struck a troll less than fifty yards away from my position, not only did the wounded troll's upper body simply explode on contact but the fist itself also exploded into a massive shower of shrapnel that spread out to all the other trolls still on their feet. And swiftly cleared the fourth outpost field.

*