Teleportation was essentially a flashier version of Flash Step, and its pros and cons became immediately obvious. At Level 7, the Spell essentially gave him a 3-D snapshot of his surroundings in a 100-metre radius at the time of the Spell's activation, and he could teleport anywhere in that zone instantly, bringing along anything directly touching him (aside from the ground).

That sounded significantly better than Flash Step on paper, but in practise the cooldown closed the gap somewhat. Ten heartbeats between each use, and that wasn't the worst of it. He had a single heartbeat to choose his destination, and if he failed to do so, the cooldown was 100 heartbeats. It wasn't all bad, since his Mind level was more than high enough to take stock of the snapshot and pick out a good destination in that time, at least in his low-stakes testing. He figured it was in place to prevent him using the spell as a quasi-Clairvoyance. Another data point for his narrative theory.

So Flash Step wasn't about to become redundant. The two similar abilities had their uses in different scenarios. He foresaw Flash Step as having much more utility in combat scenarios, and Teleportation being more versatile. It would remain to be seen.

For now, though, Teleportation was undeniably the superior ability, because it'd let him get out of the classrooms and corridors without having to smash his way out and draw the headmaster right to him before he was ready.

With one hand held to the burning sky, oily darkness billowed around John as he appeared on the roof of the school directly above the classroom he'd been testing his new Spell in. The roof was flat, made of grey stone, and starkly unadorned. The sight reminded him of getting out of bounds in a video game, though there wasn't anything so blatant as unfinished textures. It just seemed… less detailed. Like it was a place that wasn't designed to be seen.

He found he didn't mind the blandness of it, because he'd actually just teleported.

A giddy feeling bubbled in his belly. With all the horror of the last few days, it was easy to get all grim and overlook the awesomeness of superpowers.

I can teleport, a childish version of his voice cried out in his mind. I can create a clone made of blood. I can create a magic blade that sticks out of my knuckles like wolverine. I can turn my skin to metal, and it shocks anything that touches me. I can fire a bolt made of a dozen different spells from my arm. And that's just a fraction of what I can do.

Muscles corded beneath his clothes, toned as a pro sports player. His skin was as clear as a model's. His hair was dark and luscious. He was pretty sure even his posture was better.

In any other scenario, he would have been overjoyed at the changes he'd gone through in such a short space of time. It wasn't so long ago that he wouldn't have been able to dream of looking like he did now.

All it took was the world ending. He couldn't help but chuckle slightly at that. The shadows were covering him, so he let it out, allowing the chuckle to transition into a full laugh. He wasn't doubling over with uncontrollable mirth or anything, but the release felt good. A bit of tension eased itself off his shoulders.

He gave himself a second to silently revel in the moment as the black cloud of Shadow Stream flooded the rooftop, then got back to work. The smile slipped off his face.

From up here, the sprawling complex of the false school was revealed to him. It looked like a giant square grid of identical corridors and courtyards surrounding a twisted facsimile of the white-walled arena from the real world. The true arena was a sleek, modern thing, all glass and white walls, standing at maybe three or four stories tall, wide enough for classrooms and, presumably, a sports complex. He hadn't bothered to get a proper read on the place outside. It hadn't seemed relevant.

The arena in here, on the other hand, looked like a cracked tooth in black gums. Its jagged edges stretched up higher than a football stadium, and it was easily wide enough to match. With Eagle Eye he could see broken windows and cracked bricks, with many metal support beams jutting out like broken bones piercing through skin.

It was too far for Mana Sense to give him any indication of what was going on within, but he could sense monsters marching along the corridors in regimented rows. The vast majority of them were heading to classrooms—some of them, it seemed, were even moving towards classes he'd cleared out not even an hour ago—but he couldn't help noticing the place where some were disappearing.

His eyes narrowed. That would be the exit then, presumably. Block A-B. At least he had some idea of where he was, relative to where he'd started; it was four 'blocks' over from him, pretty much on the very corner of the square-shaped facility. A part of him had hoped that his presence in the portal would prevent the monsters from leaving as part of the rules this place played by, or just from focusing on him, but that was evidently not the case. Thinking back, monsters had departed the bus depot despite his and his comrades' presence, too.

For the first time in several hours, John dismissed Shadow Stream entirely, replacing it with Ultimate Shot. In the other slot, he activated Summon Undead. It was time to disrupt a lot of classes.

Thunder rolled across the portal world like a deafening drumbeat. Courtyards sprawled out on either side of the rooftop he stood on, and he aimed for all the windows in sight. Ultimate Shots blended together into a constant growl, filling the air with a dizzying array of effects, elemental and otherwise. His Aura started ticking up, no longer consigned to boosts of 50 at a time, confirming the kills.

At the same time, John activated Summon Undead, drawing on every corpse he created and, where there weren't any available, pulling zombies from the ground. A mental command, and they all set to attacking everything in sight—not just other monsters, but the school too. They poured out into the courtyard, tearing at walls, windows, doors, and anything else they could get their hands on in their frenzy. Chaos descended on the false school, the screams of undead insects and the groans of zombies mixing with the thunderous roar of Ultimate Shot to form a deafening cacophony.

And yet, the headmaster's booming voice punctured through it all like a javelin delivered right to John's ears.

"THE AUDACITY! YOUR NINE GENERATIONS WILL NOT BE ENOUGH FOR KARMA TO FORGIVE YOU!"

The mantis erupted through the roof nearby, sending up a plume of rock and dust. The hellfire in its bulbous eyes was so bright, he couldn't immediately tell where it was looking. Not that he needed to, with the pressure that fell on his shoulders the moment the monster arrived in his presence. The colouring on its carapace was jet black all over, and there was a hint of serration to all its edges, like it had donned armour for battle.

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"YOU!" It thundered.

"Me," John said amiably.

+1000 Aura

Then he swapped back to Teleportation and Shadow Stream and zapped himself over to the other side of the courtyard, where he immediately activated Accelerate and chained together Flash Steps while launching as much darkness into the air as he could.

As expected, the headmaster didn't give chase. Instead, it rushed down into the courtyard, moving so fast its body became a blur. It cut through the ranks of undead monsters and zombies alike with incredible speed, a scythe through wheat. Moving with unerring precision, it set to slaughtering John's minions with the same kind of efficiency he'd shown when decapitating the bugs in their classrooms, and he couldn't help admire it, even as he was running away.

The idea had come to him when he saw the headmaster taking the time to clear up something as inconsequential as the shadows he'd left behind in his earlier escape. If such asinine 'vandalism' bothered it, surely actual destruction of school property would earn its undivided attention? Hiding in his shadows drew its focus away from him, and he theorised it would then take the time to clean up the mess he'd made.

Though he'd been right, he could already see this method wouldn't stymie it for as long as he'd hoped. It wasn't just how fast the monster dispatched his minions; it seemed to possess supernatural skill in building, somehow piecing the walls and windows back together like a jigsaw puzzle speedrun.

But that was fine. He could do it as many times as he needed to. Glancing back over his shoulder after every Flash Step, he made it four 'blocks' before he caught sight of the headmaster lunging back onto the rooftops, and took that as his cue.

Teleportation bought him another hundred metres of space, and then dual Ultimate Shots were barking and snarling and gnashing at the school, tearing apart windows and walls and roofs and floors, spraying detritus all over the place. He made sure to do as much damage as possible on either side of him, spreading the carnage as far as possible.

The headmaster soon caught up with him—

"YOU DARE!"

—but then John was dashing away once more, stringing together Flash Steps as fast as he could, relying on Catfall and his Agility stat to keep him from falling. The headmaster bellowed in rage behind him, then blurred down into the school proper once more, while John gained distance across the rooftops, surrounded by roiling clouds of darkness.

From there, it became a game of cat and mouse, of sorts. John endeavoured to inflict as much carnage on the school as possible before the red-souled monster could reach him, then surrounded himself with darkness and teleported away, leaving the headmaster to deal with the damage. He didn't limit himself to Ultimate Shot and Summon Undead, either. Lava Sphere had its uses, and the red bar in the corner of his vision had filled up enough that he dared to risk Sanguine Clone again.

Ironically, he was able to learn more about Sanguine Clone in those moments, as he sent his second perspective out to sabotage. It had less destructive power than Ultimate Shot, but it was no slouch. Its Heat Vision aspect let it set things on fire with a touch, Ice Breath gave it the ability to freeze things, and Wind Shear allowed it to lash out with a razor-sharp red mist that could slice through stone.

Learning all that was useful enough, but the really important thing was confirming that it could be called back to him. Upon deactivating the Spell, the clone would disperse into a red mist and fly towards him at speed, whereupon it would absorb back into his body, leaving behind no trace. Watching the red bar crawl back up that first time had filled him with relief, even if he was fairly sure it gave him back less than he gave. This was a game changer. It meant Sanguine Clone was a lot more useable than he thought, as long as he called it back to himself.

Unfortunately, the headmaster managed to kill it the second time he sent it out, rendering the point moot. But he wouldn't let that get him down.

With a truly eye-watering amount of Aura still left to play with even after purchasing Teleportation, John went on a small spending spree, with an eye for destruction. Earthquake and Eruption looked mighty tempting on that front, but he was reluctant to spend another 32,000 right away.

Instead, he went for these:

Meteor Strike seemed like a safe bet for "just" 8,000 Aura, and the Level 5 Spell lived up to his expectations. By raising his hand to the sky like he was beseeching the heavens to smite his enemies, a mental link with something heavy among the roiling flames above the world was formed. Bringing his arm down brought a meteor the size of a minivan plunging down from the heavens, striking approximately where he'd aimed. The explosion it caused was quite impressive, and he smugly challenged the headmaster to clean that up in any reasonable time frame.

The mantis had the corridor looking good as new in about ten seconds, which seemed horribly unfair when the Spell's cooldown ended up being closer to thirty—and the cooldown didn't tick down unless he had the Spell slotted, which was bullshit.

Tornado played out a similar story. It even cost the same. Things looked promising when the new knowledge implanted in his brain instructed him to stir the air with his finger, which created a twister a few dozen metres away from him after a few seconds, its location based on a trippy forced perspective trick. It quickly grew to quite an impressive size, and he looked forward to seeing how it would tear through the school.

Sadly, the headmaster jumped straight through it, dispersing the tornado with a swipe of its sword arms. Bulbous eyes fixing on the shadows that contained John, it roared: "POOR WEATHER IS NO EXCUSE FOR TARDINESS!"

John teleported away. Part of him regretted not just going for Earthquake when he had the chance, but he figured the result would have been the same regardless.

Quite committed to testing out the Level 5 Spells at this point, his next purchase was Dragon Breath, which did what the name implied. He could breathe fire now. It was awesome. And far more effective than he'd been expecting; the flames were so hot they came out white, and they set everything aflame. Out of all the Spells he'd used, they caused the headmaster the most issues, forcing the mantis to stop and frantically pat down the affected area, then rush off to somewhere unknown to fetch replacement materials.

Unfortunately, they also caused John the most issues. His clothes were flammable. He didn't appreciate having to go into his Outfits menu and spend Aura on repairing them, given the circumstances. His only consolation there was the system interpreted setting his own clothes on fire as badass, rather than embarrassing. Presumably, that would have changed if he had let it go on until they'd burned away completely, leaving him naked.

Throughout their little game, he couldn't help noticing the headmaster's threats growing less thematically appropriate for the 'educator' RP nonsense it had apparently been committed to and more… overtly threatening.

"YOUR SCREAMS WILL ECHO FOR ETERNITY!"

"AGONY WILL BE WRITTEN INTO EVERY ATOM OF YOUR BEING!"

"TALES OF YOUR DEMISE WILL BE TOLD THROUGHOUT ALL OF CREATION!"

That last one, in particular, gave him pause, and not just for the painful end the monster was promising him. All of creation, it had said. Did that mean something, or was it just part of the monster's… programming? Character? Personality?

Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to dwell on it, because soon the arena was looming before him, and it was time for the endgame.

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