Limitless

an eye on what’s going on around me. The darkness is absolutely silent. My body is covered in an opaque earthen barrier and immersed in water, which is at about thirty-six degrees Celsius.
Having what amounts to a sensory deprivation room gives me complete control over my rage. I force my subconscious to work on its own, building shields and staying unemotional. My free streams of consciousness are occupied with something that amounts to nothingness. The hardest part is forcing myself not to think, though I am able to make that happen.
Five days go by, and I’m able to run around the trial zone completely impervious to the feeling of rage. In fact, I actually have to put a little effort into making sure my opponents keep appearing. I end up with something like a switch in my brain that turns emotion off when I need that to happen.
I head back to where Rachel is and kill her without much problem. Thinking back, I remember how I acted when I was affected by emotion — the extra movements, the missed strikes, the irresponsible fighting style, and the complete lack of coherent strategy. Now, my opponent takes a step and swings their sword. My torso turns twenty degrees, leaving my second arm to swing backward, compensating for the momentum. My eyes, chin, throat, and Adam’s apple were all open for exactly a second and a half. But that’s not a mistake; it’s a weakness inherent in the one-handed, short sword fighting style. Huh, interesting! I’m more interested, however, in the fact that I can see that now. I recognized it before, though I didn’t know what I was looking at. Even when father was teaching me to observe and analyze constantly, I only focused on finding these kinds of problems when things were bad. Conscious control over my emotions expands my consciousness, albeit making it drier, more lifeless.
It takes me just one day to get to an opponent at Level 15000. But now I’m seeing all of my mistakes and looking at specific moves in different contexts that give them different interpretations. I finally understand what Femida meant about true mastery being something completely different. She was talking about real battle experience, understanding tactics, and drilling counterattacks until they’re automatic. That’s her fighting style. I’ve always used brute force, and it’s only now that I’m coming up against opponents I can’t beat that way. I need something different.
Undead, Miridia, ???, Small Pantheon Goddess
 
There’s a witch sitting on a bone throne and wearing the brown armor of a priestess. The bones of all kinds of different intelligent creatures are scattered around her, even some from dragons and dried-up mermaids. They’re both the framework and the decorations for her throne.
It’s a trap! The bones aren’t just littered around. They’re in specific spots, and all flush with strength. There’s a grain of divine energy in each that gets stronger the closer I get.
If I were in her place, certain that only one opponent would be showing up, I would create a trap designed to confine him or overwhelm him with numbers. There’s a spell in necromancy that includes both those kinds of trap: the dance of death.
When the assailant shows up, the bones pull themselves into the skeletons of different creatures depending on the strength of the mage and the command they give. If there’s a real threat to the necromancer, the bones form a shield around the opponent that immobilizes him. And those shields aren’t that easy to get out of. They stay there for as long as the mage still has mana to burn, making them jails for life when the necromancer is a god. Of course, you can get away with a leap spell, though getting caught in the spot you leap to would be very, very bad.
The second way to use the bones is to create bone armor that feeds on the owner’s mana supply. The problem there for normal necromancers is that their mana doesn’t replenish, though gods don’t have to worry about that thanks to the connection they have to their source in the astral. Basically, I’m up against an opponent who will unleash skeletons on me the second she spots me. If I try to run, she’ll lock me up in a bone cage. And the first attack I try will trigger everlasting bone armor. That, however, is the issue: she can’t attack and defend at the same time, though she will have divine magic left over to attack with whichever way she goes.
Time to move! I knock back a couple potions to boost my stamina and intellect, the effect set to last for less than a minute.
When I activate my power of darkness spell, I force my opponent onto the defensive. Complete darkness enshrouds everything in a hundred-meter radius. Five minutes until I can use that again. Miridia instantly activates her bone armor and fires off some area-damage spells. She can’t see me, doesn’t know where I am, so she’s swinging blindly in the hope of catching me without my powerful magic shield up. The problem for her is that I make a shield with extra durability that can take 50 million damage for five to ten seconds.
Next, Miridia throws up a protective barrier that I take out with a simple arrow of darkness. I have to conserve my mana. She’s able to get a thick, semitransparent diamond shield above her, though I’ve already gotten around behind her back, so she just encloses us both in the dome. A slight breeze clues her in to where I am. As she swings her arms in an attempt to catch me, I study her armor carefully. The spell effect doesn’t do anything to me. Her elbows and knees are protected with flexible plates. Her shoulders and hips only open up at a certain angle, and her eyes are covered by a bone strip of the helmet with multiple holes cut out. I can see her eyes through them, though