Killing Mastering with one blast was awesome, it honestly wasn't all that strong and if I was still a Unicorn I probably would've been much more hard-pressed to finish this particular Illusion Barrier, but with the ability to actually fly I literally had nothing to fear from these guys. A nice chunk of Experience wasn't a bad gain too, I was honestly more disturbed with the fact that it was just too easy for me to finish this whole thing and my guts were telling me that it just couldn't be this simple no matter what my eyes were telling me. There also was the fact that I wasn't sure if I actually finished all the Mobs or some of them were still out there waiting to be found and killed by me, at least they will disappear when I will dispel the Illusion Barrier and that was good.

'And now for the much more pleasant part!' I grinned as I looked at the pile of things that I actually managed to salvage from the killed Mobs, apparently they did drop Loot and a pretty good amount of it. Mostly I gained apples, and I actually now had a lot of them with me as almost every third Poring dropped one for me to collect later on. They only restored my Health and not that much of it, but free food was free food and I just put them into my Inventory for the sake of having something to heal myself with other than relying on [Meditation] all the time. It wasn't such a hard thing to do either, they stacked and I even ate one for a test and damn these thing were delicious! Whatever Han Jee-Han got from actually killing his Legion Zombie had nothing one these apples!

Money weren't an issue anymore either as apparently Porings did drop some, even in small amounts they were just so numerous that I honestly couldn't care less as the total income was still very substantial. This was one problem solved if I ever was going to run out of Bits and that idea I had for the Dragon's treasures wasn't going to cut it, I still didn't have any idea just how much money I would gain by emptying the cave so there was always that.

I also found Cards, and I mean it literally. The Cards that were dropped by the Monsters in the Game were also dropped here and I could collect them for the sake of... doing something with them. I honestly have no idea what I was going to do with these things as they were obviously not for Inserting into garments of any kind, so I was a bit lost while looking them over. I only gained one Poring Card and one Drops Card, and while I knew that theoretically I could just get more via a genocide of said Mobs I didn't want to take any risks and waste something that could help me later on. While these were relatively useless Cards, they were all I had and therefore I had no desire to lose them due to my own fucking incompetence, while I could sacrifice the Poring Card I had no desire to lose Drops Card as it actually gave me DEX for fucks sake. Well, it gave me only one Point but it still was one Point more than nothing, and it was all that counts for me to decide that it was much more useful than the one that gave me LUK.

This is a [Poring Card].
Would you like to Use it?

I sighed and pressed 'Yes' just for the sake of knowing what the fuck did these things do in the end. The Card in my hand glowed and broke down into motes of light and then they absorbed into my body, there wasn't any actual outward changes that I could feel so I really wasn't sure if I should be disappointed or not, the Window that suddenly appeared told me what to do.

Through the Use of the [Poring Card] your LUK has Increased by 1.

'... Bullshit!' I instantly checked my Stats and there was an actual Point added to my LUK without it being a Bonus or anything else! There was some insane crap that could be pulled through sheer convenient cheating like I did with Porings, their inability to fly like I did made it almost too easy to kill them without even lifting a finger, but this was on the whole new Plain of Existence of Bullshit if I could simply gain Stats through fucking Cards. This wasn't as much of a Bullshit as it was a sheer Game-Breaker given form, I wasn't sure if I should be jumping and whooping in joy or feeling kind of cheated because it took me a lot of time that I could've spent killing these things to get to this point. Sure, me becoming an Alicorn was awesome and all that, but this was a true goldmine that would let me gain Points that were literally so hard to come by that I wasn't sure if I would ever find a way to gain some from any other source than using the Points I would get from Leveling-Up.

I instantly pulled the other Card that I got and used it too.

Through the Use of the [Drops Card] your DEX has Increased by 1.

"Bullshit has Officially been Doubled!" I grinned at the Window and then dismissed it.

"Well, maybe not the most efficient way but close enough to it." I mumbled as I slashed at another Poring that tried to headbutt me.

It took me some thinking but I finally managed to find a proper balance of things being done at the same time that wouldn't fully drain my Mana, but at the same time it won't let it drop too low without me being able to regain it through the quick use of [Meditation]. The biggest drain that I was currently having was me using [Telekinesis] to make a rather sizable chunk of a building to hover behind me and follow my progress through the street as I slowly but surely made my way through the horde of small adorable terrors. While I was aware that there were easier ways of grinding this particular Skill I honestly couldn't figure them out myself so I simply went with the most head-on approach I could imagine and just tore a building apart and took a large part of it to put a sizable strain on my [Telekinesis] and therefore make it easier to gain Experience for it.

Another thing was that I actually finally tried out [Nightmare Form] that actually was pretty fucking awesome all things consider, and while I looked scary as fuck and I was pretty sure that nobody would even recognize me with how different I looked I didn't want to risk it. My hair turned fully black and my skin paled to the ash-gray color, my nails became black too and sharpened into claws and my teeth also sharpened giving me a shark-like smile. My tail became a thin long black cord with a black tuff of fur on its end, it looked remarkably like what Ulquiorra had in his [Resurrección: Segunda Etapa], it was really flexible and strong and was about three meters in length. My wings also became black and leathery bat-like, with turfs of black fur at their bases on my back. From what I understood about eh Skill it too the most 'Nightmarish' appearance I had in mind and crafted my form after it, and as a big fan of Bleach I knew the two most awesome fighters there being Ulquiorra and Ichigo in his full Hollow Form, apparently the Skill pulled mostly on those images while making my form and this was the result. The black turfs of fur: two starting from my collarbone and stretching around my neck, one on each of my wrists and ankles also came from Ichigo, while the hair-color, skin, wings and the tail from Ulquiorra, and in the end I also had my eyes recolored with the irises being golden yellow and scleras being solid black. The last pieces of the transformation was the fact that my normal horn vanished as I gained two new long forward-pointing horns on the sides of my head that were copies of the ones that Ichigo had: flat, bone-white with black lines going in the center on their upper sides toward the tips.

'And holy shit did I look scary!' I was pretty sure that I looked like something out of a nightmare that crawled into the living world just for the sake of killing something. I even renamed the Skill, apparently I could do it so I took a great pleasure of now knowing that I had [Murciélago] as one of my own personal Skills that I could call upon at any given moment. Yes, I sounded like a total nerd and an otaku, so what? Nobody here knew about 'Bleach' so nobody would get the reference with the sole exception of Discord, but I had no idea how far his knowledge of the Multiverse actually extended so it was a safe bet that he won't recognize the obvious similarities between me and the Characters.

There were another two Skills that I created solely for the sake of actually developing my Close-Combat department and they were also going pretty nicely. The first one was [Mana Sword] that let me forge an actual sword out of my Mana and as long as I was able to supply more it would remain in existence, the drain wasn't as big as [Murciélago] or my current [Telekinesis] had on my Reserves but it was still far more than what the little happy blob behind me needed to live. Between these four Skills I actually had a decent time losing some of my Mana, even if at a rather slow pace but still there was a very noticeable drop in my Reserves and I even had to use [Meditation] a couple of times to fully restore myself. It was a rather simply straight katana-like blade that I used to chop things with, I didn't possess any actual mastery in wielding a sword as I never even held one to begin with so all I could do was to make sure that the sharp end was hitting the target and that was pretty much it. I also gained [Sword Mastery] and slowly I was able to somewhat turn my wild swings into something that even remotely approached sword-strikes, I still sucked but at least I didn't suck as badly as I did at the start even if by a very small margin.

My tail shot forward and smacked another Drops that tried to jump me away killing it in the process, my sword preoccupied with cleaving the nearby Poring in two. This was going to be a very tiresome several hours and I could feel that tomorrow will be even more of a headache than I could expect it to be.

"What the hell are these!?" Asked Minuette from her position on the floating piece of the wall that I was holding up with my [Telekinesis]. "They look like blobs of jello with eyes and mouths."

"They are so cute!" Called out Shine as she laid on the floating slab of rock and I could swear her eyes were actually sparkling as she stared at the pink mass below. "Can we have one as a pet? I would be able to take care of him, feed him and imagine all the cute clothes I would be able to put on him!"

"Shine, I'm pretty sure that they aren't for taming." Lemon deadpanned as she held her pink-haired friend by the collar of her dress to prevent her from trying to jump down. "I'm not even sure why Moony is showing us all this, they don't look as dangerous as you described them to be." She looked at me. "What are we going to do here?"

"Battle-training!" I grinned as the three girls looked at me with blank expressions. "And don't give me those looks, these things are nothing more than training dummies and not even alive to begin with. They are Magical Constructs that were created from the Mana in the air when I deployed my Illusion Barrier and therefore aren't really living beings as much as solid illusions. Think of it as a test and an evaluation of what you're really capable of, go wild and lets see what we will have to work on."

It was morning and the girls came back as we agreed, they weren't as shocked by my Alicorn status as they were yesterday after they had the time to sleep on it. I wasn't very worried about them actually spilling the beans about me, they were friends and they were also trusting me to tell them the truth about everything today after they finally digested the first bomb I dropped on them. I'm not sure what excuse Lemon was using, but apparently she was able to weasel herself some time off work to get together with us and discuss the pressing matters. While I wasn't exactly sure what these girls were thinking going to happen, they sure as hell wasn't expecting what I was going to drop onto their laps. After the second time I finished off the Poring population and I also got myself one more Poring Card I deemed the thing safe enough to use is as an introduction into the world of 'Grinding and Leveling', I knew that Minuette took some Karate Classes and knew a thing or two about how to throw a punch I had literally nothing on Shine and Lemon.

"... But they are so cute!" Shine went limp with a crestfallen expression.

"... There is something really wrong with you if you think we're going to fight them." Lemon said as she observed the pink population of the Illusion Barrier. "These guy look like they barely can hold themselves together, why would you want us to actually fight them?"

Because I wanted to see them in action, not that there will be any actual fighting involved as they probably won't be able to actually pull anything worth noticing for a while but the point was still there. They will gain Experience and their Levels will grow, this was the main point of me making them actually do this crap instead of giving them the books I had in my Inventory. Oh, I head some very interesting tomes that I was going to share with them, purely theoretical and mostly useless for me but for them they could serve as a very good source to kickstart their own growths and I was going to force developments down their throats by myself if it will become necessary. But to start with the books they will still need to develop at least some form of foundation, without it there wasn't any way in hell there will be any stable growth in the future for them.

"Because I said so!" I smiled. "Girls, you asked me to get you going right?"

"Well, not exactly." Lemon blinked at my phrasing. "We asked you to show us how you reached the point where you managed to get yourself a pair of wings."

"You also displayed the desire to get yourselves these things too, right?" I saw them nod, Shine was still laying on her chest and being held by her collar by Lemon so her nod came a bit awkward. "My way of doing things is getting better until you will literally surpass yourselves, and that means that you would need to grow to do so. As I already told you, my Ascension was a fluke where I managed to push myself too far and over the edge by pure accident, to repeat something like that you would need to managed to recreate all the circumstances of how it happened to me. That's imply impossible to achieve, there won't be a second set of such convenient thing aligning together for anyone else to pull this off and believe me, I know!" I sighted at their looks, Shine and Minuette were already on-board but Lemon looked a bit skeptical with [Observe] confirming it. "Girls, if things happened even a tiny bit differently, I would've either died or turned into an insane monster that would've ravage Equestria until one of the Princesses would've put it down."

"What?!" Minuette and Shine were looking at me with wide eyes, but only Lemon voiced her disbelief. "You could've died?! What did you do?! What were you thinking while doing something that could potentially kill you?!"

I actually was telling the truth, without 'The Gamer' my body would've either failed under the strain of the Mana invading it and either broken down or detonated liked a bomb, or Nightmare Moon's influence would've shattered my mind and left me a monster that would retain basic functions of the mind and all the malicious intent of the Mare of the Moon. Many people actually never took into account how fucking old Nightmare Moon was, one thousand years of bathing yourself in malice and hate doesn't simply leave you untainted and even her own Essence alone would've shattered my feeble in compassion Mind like glass with its invasion into my brain. Nightmare wasn't a physical being, she was a Spiritual one that covered Luna like a body-tight suit and her Essence carried all her malice and insanity in it in the form of a basic imprint and I actually was fucking terrified when I learned what could've happened to me without my bullshit Power. I had to read at least three very thick books about the mechanics of the Magical Possession and how Spirits worked to get the general idea of these outcomes, I was pretty fucking lucky that at least there was no actual Mind backing all that Power that I absorbed.

"Something incredibly stupid, and potentially really dangerous that I did upon a hunch and ended up with more than I could ever hope to gain." I answered with a bitter smirk. "I know you want to know, but please trust me on this one that there is no danger anymore and I'm never going to do something like that ever again. It was a spur of the moment thing and I couldn't wait as the chance was literally slipping through my fingers, I decided to perform a metaphorical 'Leap of Faith' and ended up better off in the end. I know that you want to hear more about that..."

"Damn right we want." Muttered Minuette.

"... but what matters right now is for you to actually listen to me and hear me out." I grinned. "I promised you to make you all Alicorns, right? Well, seeing as we really can't spend next several decades developing enough new Types Magic for you all to Ascend and I'm not sure that Celestia will lend us Elements of Harmony to actually provide the whole thing with enough Power to happen... Well, we will need to do it the old-fashioned way, through a lot of hard work and pushing your limits!"

"And how beating-up living jello will help us with that?" Asked Lemon.

I was glad that they agreed to drop the subject for now, but I could see in their eyes and read through [Observe] that they all were far less than satisfied with that. I would need to come at least partially clean at a later date, telling them about [Murciélago] will be especially interesting. But it wasn't here nor now, so I could at least relax for now.

"Good question!" I smiled. "The harder you will push yourselves, the more you will eventually gain through effort and through strain that you will be put under. We don't have the resources to make something like a training room and this whole thing around us is the closet thing I could come-up with for now. We will have to make due here, training will be hard and I'm sure there will be some very harsh things that I will be requiring you to do in the future, but it will all be for your own benefit."

"You do understand that we aren't fighters, right?" Lemon asked. "I never fought in my life, Minuette knows Karate only because she wanted to find some outlet for her energy and Shine barely can utter a bad word. The three of us aren't actually all that fit for the whole thing, I see what you're trying to do but it won't cut it with us."

"Oh, but it will!" My grin became a bit more malicious. "The most someone grows is when they are put under the pressure, combat is the best thing for that and I'm pretty sure you won't feel all that bad about it once the results will start showing. Think of it as one of those Role-Playing Board Games that are so popular with the geeks, but only turned real and with you being the Newbie Heroes at the start of your Epic Journey." It worked in 'Dungeons and Discord' so I honestly hoped that the lightning will strike twice. "I'm pretty sure if you try you'll like it."

"Wait, you mean like one of those Games where you have to come-up with your own Character and then play using your own imagination?" Minuette scratched the back of your head. "I actually played one of those once, it was kind of fun but I had to think a lot and it was hard to keep everything inside my head at once. In the end I ran out of paper to write all the things down to actually remember how to properly play."

"... Wait, where is Shine?" Lemon suddenly asked.

"Eh..." I looked around and saw the pink-haired girl standing on the nearby roof. "I think she became much more enthusiastic about it than you two."

Both girls looked at me and then followed my line of sight, their faces became rather deadpanned as they watched their friend with her horn aglow casting some kind of a Spell. It made small glowing spheres of Magic materialize in the air and then fall down onto the Porings on the street below, each shot leaving behind a small glowing trail akin of a falling star. The projectiles weren't bigger than peanuts, and it took about three or so of those to finish off each of the Porings that she apparently aimed at, but at least she was making progress...

"Anyone saw that one coming?" Asked Minuette.

"Nope." Said Lemon.

"I honestly didn't." I agreed.

"Girls, what takes you so long?" Called out the girl who could be Celestia's Stunt-Double. "I call dibs on Range-Support!"

"... This is far more bizarre than I could've expected it to be." I admitted. "I never knew she was a fan of those things..."

"Me neither, but apparently we find out things like that every day." Agreed the toothpaste-haired teen.

"Well, it won't be fair if only she will be having fun, right?" I grinned at my two friends as their heads snapped in my direction. "Good luck!"

I used [Teleportation] to disappear and then appear on the nearby roof, as soon as my feet touched the stone I started lowing the improvised platform down. These two were going to fight and there was nothing that they could do about it, I was honestly unsure how to proceed with the whole thing at the beginning so all I could do was Power-Level them until something will come up and then use it for the intended purpose. Maybe the Alicorn Amulet? I could wait for the Elements of Harmony to be placed into Golden Oak Library and then borrow them for a night and try to use them as an Energy Source for the Ascension, but it will probably attract a shitload of attention and lead to me being discovered. Would it be worth it if I will also discover why Twilight have a crown and other girls have necklaces? Probably no, it was just a cheap hint about how things will progress further and how they will be for Twilight, her own Ascension made the whole tiara-thing hit her future Princess-hood a little bit too on the nose.

'Whatever. Foreshadowing. You are amazed!' I thought with a snort.

The only other thing I could think of was the Crystal Heart, but it would be really hard for me to get it before Twilight was to find it and then return it so they will be able to save the Crystal Empire. Sombra will be dealt with, I will raid their libraries and there also will be no actual way for me to remove the Crystal Heart without provoking a huge indiscrimination snowstorm from killing everyone in the Empire via hypothermia. Would I be able to use it without removing it from its pedestal? Probably no, and I really didn't want to try as there was a big chance of me activating it on pure accident and possibly either damaging it or draining it fully and by that leaving the population to die from the mentioned above snowstorm.

"Wah?!" I watched as one brave Poring jumped high enough to land on the platform and then proceeded to headbutt Minuette's knee. "Damn it! What are you made of?!"

I knew the feeling, but with my very high VIT it felt like I was touched by a feather rather than a very sturdy water-balloon that surprisingly was launched at you from a canon. This guys had enough STR to actually hit, and Drops had even more so these two weren't there for an easy fight. It only made thing much more fun to watch as the cute little blobs of jello were assaulting two teen girls and actually winning as far as I could tell, I held back my laugh with [Gamer's Mind] so not to distract them from the whole thing.

"Oi! This is gross!" Lemon shook her hand as a Drops actually tried to bite her. "Moony! You'll pay for it!"

By this point I already released my [Telekinesis] and just let the pice of concrete land onto the street, luckily I managed to avoid crushing any of the Mobs so not to steal any Experience from the trio of girls. Watching as Lemon stomped one of the pink balls into the ground and Minuette punched one of the jumping ones into the face made my day, it was both amusing and entertaining to watch them struggle at first but with each killed Mob they were becoming better at it. Shine, to my utter shock, was having a blast as she shot one Poring after another and actually was having fun as far as I could tell, maybe she into Role-Playing Games? I'll ask her later on, right now I was more interested in the Spell she was using and how come the most peaceful of the three girls actually knew Combat Magic. Well, at least what could be used as Combat Magic and I wasn't sure about that in the first place with how freaking diverse Equestrian Magical System was. It looked like she was simply making these floating things and then hitting Porings with them, whatever this was I was pretty sure that it wasn't a real Spell that had its actual goal in harming someone.

Minuette was simply kicking and punching things, I could see with my untrained eyes that she actually knew what she was doing and therefore could keep-up with the horde of Porings and Drops attacking her. And for the fact that these things were literally like jello and she could kill them relatively easy with how she was going right now, it was interesting to see that at least someone knew what they were doing here.

Lemon fought... like a girl. She stomped the attackers and kicked the around, mostly trying to fend them off while standing on the slab of rock that I levitated them on. Well, she had the height advantage versus the advantage in numbers that her opponents had, while I was sure they won't be able to kill her I also wasn't sure that they couldn't actually harm her and therefore I was ready to come to their help. Oh, and she looked kind of angry at me, probably for the whole thing with me dropping them into the fray of things and all that.

This was going to be fun.

"Hate you..." Lemon wheezed while lying on the now again floating platform. "Hate you so much..."

She was sweaty all over, I was pretty sure that she couldn't even stand by this point as she just crumpled on the ground as soon as I started lifting the thing up and didn't even bother to stand or roll over. She was just laying there on her side and groaned in pain from time to time, it was kind of understandable as she really didn't have all that much physical exercises in her life and a pretty passive work so her stamina was pretty low. Minuette was better off as she simply sat nearby, trying to get her breathing under control and looking rather pale but still able to move around at least somewhat. Maybe I acted a bit cruel to them, but at the same time I was amazed how far they moved during the whole thing as I looked them over with [Observe], all of them gained at least a Level and Shine gained three in a span of several hours of hard work. I could only speculate, but apparently their Stats were automatically distributed towards Attributes that they actually used to take down their opponents, which would explain a very noticeable growth in Twinkleshine's INT as she just bombarded everything with Magic.

"... Hnya... All the cake..." Shine mumbled.

'Wait, what?' I looked at her again and noticed that she actually fallen asleep... while still leaning against me and apparently started to drool sightly onto my left thigh. As adorable as it was, I wasn't in the mood to be drenched in slobber and we really needed to move as I had to dispatch from the Mastering myself. Girls were too tired and there was no chance that they would be able to actually do something rather than glare hatefully at it, one of my [Cero] would solve the problem without any fuss and for today they did a wonderful job in actually showing me what they could do. This opened as whole new set of possibilities, all I needed to do was to test things out and make sure that I have all the needed information to start their little trip to Ascension and on the way I would be able to search for answers to my really crappy problem with going back home.

I also had some books in my Inventory that I wanted them to read, I had no need for them and there literally wasn't all that much I could do without actually having a base for my little search. Crystal Mirror was one thing, but I had no idea where it was and scouting the Canterlot Castle would lead me to some very bad encounters in the future with how good the security inside was, or at least how I perceived it to be with how many valuable things Celestia had hidden in there. I also had to visit some other places that may or may not hold a certain items of value, Alicorn Amulet being one of the things that I needed to obtain before Trixie would get her hands on it because there was no chance in hell Twilight will let it go after that.

'But not today, today we need some relaxation and girls need to feel the difference.' I smiled slightly and then turned towards the incoming Boss Mob and ten of his bastards. I lifted my right hand, a small sphere of Magic blooming just above the tip of my index finger.

[Cero]

"This is absolutely fantastic!" Minuette called out as she sat on the couch with her nose in the book. "I mean, I know that you took this from that old castle in the Everfree Forest and all that, but damn!"

She was currently reading the book called 'Theory of Time Streams and Temporal Fields' by Professor Pendulum, the guy apparently was an Earth Pony from a long time ago and studied [Time] Magic in incredible depth. Minuette was one of the people who had trouble understanding what her Cutie Mark actually meant, and while Time Turner was more into the Scientific side of the whole thing she literally was more in tune with the Mystical one. I actually asked her about what her Special Talent was and she answered that it was about her incredibly precise sense of time and how she had the feeling of the Time Stream constantly jammed into her head. I had to face-palm at this, and then explain to her in details just what she could do with her own Magic and how it was really much more broad thing than some really simple thing as Passive Awareness.

"I agree, this is actually is rather interesting and I can see how it can help." Lemon was sitting behind the table, drinking from a cup of strawberry tea that she made. "I understand just where from you're coming with this, but I'm honestly not sure if this is actually safe. You literally pushed us so hard I could barely walk, then you explained to Minuette how she misunderstood her own calling and then you also presented us with the only copies of books that literally have no price when it comes to the worth of knowledge on their pages. I know that you want to push us, but this is some really serious things here!"

Her book was called 'Fire and Ice of your Heart' by the man named Broad Specter, the guy was actually a Captain in the old Equestrian Military and wrote a book about Magic of Emotions after retiring from combat. He literally fought with his emotions out and about, the Unicorn that could literally make Love burn like fire was one of those things that you would tend to avoid with all of your power. I actually tried to see what was written in there, but even with my IQ seriously boosted and with Moon Dancer's rather prodigious understanding of Magic I kind of came short when it came to comprehending the whole thing. My mind kind of went blank after trying to digest the whole 'Flow of Emotions' concept, apparently it was somehow connected to the Magic held inside the body of every person in the World and I had a sneaking suspicious that he somehow managed to interview Changelings on their own Magic to write this book.

"Don't worry, this is basically your homework until tomorrow that I honestly feel you will need to work on." I waved her off as I sat behind the table and wrote down things that I needed her to buy for me, I couldn't go out in public so Lemon would be buying me clothes with the measurements that we did earlier. I supplied her with enough Bits so she could buy me enough underwear and some light clothes to last, I just needed to be careful and not damage them. "You girls are really talented, and you weren't even tapping into your full potential, which in my book is a bad thing so I'm just doing what any friend would do in my position and helping you. I know that this whole thing looks rather fast and I'm pretty sure you didn't expect anything like this from me..."

"Don't mention it." Minuette interrupted me. "You know that two of us don't really have a job and on some days it's really boring to simply wander around the city on your own. You really made things interesting for us, and I'm honestly liking it so far. Just several days ago you was barely crawling out of your shell, and then you started dropping one bomb after another on us without stopping." She looked at me with a raised eyebrow with a smirk. "I'm honestly suspecting that you're an imposter that took Moony's place by this point."

"In school you decided to trying to be rebelliously outgoing and wore some outrageously frilly panties for a day, that was pretty much all that you did because you managed to rub yourself raw with them and for the second half of said day you was walking funny." I said without missing a beat, the reddening of the Time-Attuned girl's face and how she tried to hide behind the book was all the answer I needed about her little dig at my identity. "Any more takers? I was sitting on the crate with ammunition for years and I'm not afraid to take a few shots."

"No, I'm good with my dignity intact." Lemon said as she tried to stiffen her laughs from spilling out, she actually covered her mouth and her shoulders were shaking as she looked at Minuette. "So that was why you waddled for the whole afternoon back then?"

"Please, stop." The girl groaned with her face literally buried into the book. "Moony, you traitor!"

"I never said that I wouldn't tell anyone, I just said that you shouldn't try things you aren't comfortable with and that I'll help you." I smirked back.

Through all our talk I could see from the corner of my eye how Tinkleshine was sitting on the chair and reading, her attention solely on the book in her hands. Her passion about stars and the night sky wasn't a secret to me, but at the same time I wasn't sure why she wasn't going all head over heels over Luna's return, and I didn't feel like asking as it will be rude. She actually told me what Spell she was using to kill Porings and I actually was impressed, the whole thing was nothing more than a prop from an old book about how to perform a falling star in miniature. Those small things were suppose to create small pretty explosions upon impact, harmless and pretty for the public but with Shine putting more Mana into the Spell and basically making the improvised projectiles more durable than they originally were suppose to be and it resulted in them hitting their targets pretty damn hard.

Also, her answer on why she was so proactive about the whole thing stunned the three of us into silence.

"Well, it's like the beginning of an Adventure, and we're not strong enough to go with Moony so we have to train hard to catch-up to her as soon as possible! I wouldn't want to slow her down and prevent her from finding what she's looking for and as her friend I must do my best to help her!"

Such a simple and sincere answer made me almost tear-up, right up until the moment that I remembered that I had to pull her out from Mastering's path so wouldn't have gotten trampled over by the Boss Mob and his bastards. I certainly wasn't all that pleased when she said that she 'had him', considering that her shots just bounced off of him like actual peanuts. If she was at her full capacity then I would've been required to flip a coin to see who would win there, but with her basically running on fumes and adrenaline there literally was no chance that she could've ended him. Also, after I brutally killed it and made sure to collect all the loot that the girls managed to get I sat them down and decided to have a nice long chat with them on how to properly utilize their Special Talents. [Observe] was useful like that, I knew their Specializations and also could tell if they were understanding them incorrectly while only partially comprehending what they were all about.

"Hey, if we're going to run with this whole 'Role-Play Game' analogy here, what about going on Quests and all that other things that Heroes do there?" Minuette actually kept the straight face as she asked it.

'That's actually not a bad idea, but I'm not sure if they can gather Experience from Quests.' I pondered on the question and then decided to just answer it as it was.

"Honestly? There is not much we can do while in Equestria as it's not that popular when it comes to interesting things with how peaceful it is." I pretended to think about it. "Originally I was going to take a leave and travel around while gaining the so much needed experience, like a small journey for the famous landmarks along with it being my own research on several subjects that I'm currently working on."

"What about money?" Lemon asked with a raised eyebrow. "And while your little income from those blobs, and I'm honestly still can't believe just how convenient the whole thing is, can probably sustain you for the time-being..." She frowned a little as she probably did the math in her head. "... but any more than that will require some very substantial funds. While I have a nice paycheck with my job in the Castle, I'm not rich and there are thing that I would never be able to buy myself no matter how hard I will try with additional shifts and even a second job. What you're talking about is basically a huge gamble on how far you would be able to go and how often you'll need to go through trouble of getting money through these Porings of yours."

"I'll think of something, it's not like I'm going to leave now or something like that." I shrugged, there was still several issues that I would need to address here that I simply couldn't ignored. "Right now I'm just making sure that all my bases are covered and all things would be taken care off while I'll be away, I'm pretty sure that there won't be much of a problem with transportation with me being now able to fly and all that. Of course I won't be able to fly over bigger distances, I don't possess limitless Stamina and therefore I would probably require some form of transportation like a ship or something like that."

"And where are you planning on getting one?" The teal-haired girl looked rather skeptical. "They aren't cheap and renting one will only give you a limited amount of time you'll be able to use it before you'll have to return and there is no such thing as a stable timetable in a distant journey."

"I'm already on my way to figuring things out!" I smiled as the image of all the treasures I will get when I'll look that Dragon's horde flashed in my mind. "It will take some time but I'm sure I'll be able to acquire enough funds to sponsor the purchase of my own ship, in the worst case scenario I could always claim the ship of some pirates that will be stupid enough to try and pillage the boat I will be on."

And what a surprise it was, apparently that nonsense about pirates being present in the World was true. That also meant that I was sharing the same World with that cheap imitation of a pirate, this fact alone made me feel rather negative about actually using the ship and considering that flying wherever I would need to go. It wasn't that I had some kind of hate for him, it was just that he was mocking a truly interesting Fictional Character with his existence alone and that actually rubbed me all the wrong way. Also, the only pirates that I will ever respect will be the ones from 'One Piece' as they were actually more than just scumming lot or cannon-fodder to kick around, sure they weren't perfect but they were far better than in any of the other Stories that I had ever read.

"You really think that you can take on a whole pirate crew?" Minuette asked. "You know, if they are still out there then they were skilled enough to actually remain in the open sea and not get captured or arrested for their debauchery, right?"

"And?" I raised an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure I would be able to fight them off."

Simple thugs? Easy. Something more powerful and actually capable of hitting back? I'm probably going to be screwed.

I flew over the woods, making sure to keep the rails in sight, I didn't have the correct coordinates and using Equestria's map proved to be kind of useless. I knew the general direction and how only one railroad lead there. It was near Manhattan's equivalent of this World, and I was kind of flying blind here, but at the same time there was nothing like a good old search and destroy when you needed a good workout. Some thing I would be fixing as they come, my presence alone would probably turn several events on its head and I would need to tie most of the loose ends before something even worse than Canon would happen because of my lack of awareness about the consequences of the butterflies I kicked into flight. My [Flight] was slowly crawling up and I was much more stable in the air now, and could push for even more speed with how far I had to go without actually landing, the problem was that I wasn't using Illusion Barrier and therefore I could be seen flying around and actually be caught. Normally I wouldn't leave my new house without deploying one, but now I couldn't be sure that I will get a proper reading on the place if I were to go there without being able to actually sense the presences of others, or at least their Magic.

'Super useful Skill.' I smiled inwardly as I strained my sight to see where I was going. that little nameless village wasn't going to free itself, and Starlight Glimmer wasn't someone I could take lightly while I also couldn't actually leave her be with there being even the slightest chance that she wouldn't be stopped in the future. I honestly wasn't sure if I even could defeat her, there were things that spoke of her sheer Skill and Power louder than anything else in Canon. She actually was able to go on equal footing with Twilight, and that was when the purple Element of Magic was an Alicorn of all things! Well, there were also the the little differences in our approach as I wasn't going to pull my punches as Twilight did, there was no chance in Hell that the girl had any intent to kill in any of her blows and even then she wasted more Magic by simply using that Time Traveling Spell that Starlight cooked up.

"Ichigo, what's the difference between a King and his Horse? I don't mean kiddy shit like 'One's a person and one's an animal.' or 'One has two legs and one has four.'. If their Form, Ability and Power were exactly the same, why is it that one becomes the King and controls the battle, while the other becomes the Horse and carries the King?! There's only one answer. Instinct! In order for identical beings to get stronger and gain the Power they need to become King, they must search for more battles and Power! They thirst for battle, and live to mercilessly, crush, shred, and slice their enemies! Deep, deep within our body lies the honed Instinct to kill, and slaughter our enemies! But you don't have that! You don't have those pure, base Instincts! You fight with your brain. You try to defeat your enemies with Logic! And it doesn't work! You're trying to cut them with a sheathed sword! That's why you're weaker than me, Ichigo!"

Well, with [Gamer's Mind] being able to suppress any hesitation I may feel there will be nothing left but Instinct and that what will make my blade sharper and Magic much more potent that what Starlight will throw at me. In the end, behind all that bravado and strong Spells, behind the Skills and knowledge that she accumulated with years of learning and practice, she was still a Pony and therefore she was far softer than any normal human raised in a Real World. Sunset was going to literally wage War on Equestria with students of the School while using the Element of Magic to turn herself into a Demon, and even then she was mostly harmless when it came to real Evil and even her planning was downright faulty with the fact that she obviously didn't account for fact that zombielike kids won't stand a fucking chance in Hell against trained Royal Guards and would be rounded up and crushed in less than ten minutes. Celestia herself would probably be able to finish them off with one fucking Spell, there really wasn't all that much for the sense of scale in her mind when she came up with her little scheme, was there?.

I would also need to get rid of the 'Staff of Sameness', I really didn't care about the Cutie Marks but mine gave me a nice boost in learning Magic and therefore I wouldn't want to lose it. I also had no idea why it made the Main Six physically weak and slow, and whatever Negative Effect they suffered from was one that I really didn't want to experience for myself. The plan was simply in essence, I just needed to sneak into Starlight's house and then deploy the Illusion Barrier while also dragging her with me inside and confront her where she won't be able to call upon help or take anyone hostage. She would be fighting back, and that was one of the things that I really didn't want to happen in the populated village where innocent misguided civilians would be in danger of dying from the crossfire. Some may think that I could prepare more, learn some restraining Magic or even get myself a Magical Inhibitor for the occasion but at the same time they would be wrong simply because I had no desire to wait any longer and risking something bad happening that would affect me. I was also actually curious if it even could affect me, [Gamer's Body] should prevent it from do shit to me but that was in theory only. I wasn't sure how the damn thing functioned, and the fact that I had no clue if it was even real to begin with. On the Wikia there was a very transparent explanation about hot it actually functioned and mostly it was written off as a dud while Starlight actually was the one who was using the Spell herself, I couldn't be sure if it was still true in this World so I would need to be cautious about coming even close to it. One good hit should be enough to take care of the holding mechanism and release all the Cutie Marks, but the main issue would be preventing Starlight from escaping when she'll see that her plan has crashed and burned with my intervention.

'This is going to be one big headache.' I grimaced and pushed myself to fly faster, making sure to keep myself as high as possible without losing the sight of the ground beneath me. I couldn't risk missing the nameless village and then getting lost, it would be a big problem for me if I would end up flapping back and forth like a confused magpie at the aluminum foil tennis championships trying to find my way around the desolated landscape. I knew that it was a very long flight from Canterlot, but taking a train was out of question and therefore it left me with nothing but my own wings to carry me there. At least I warned the girls that they don't need to worry about me as I will be away for some time, and will probably be retuning with an additional person in tow that may or may not be friendly.

I grimaced as I saw the rails end, from here I would be on my own and the only actual landmark that I will be having here would be the mountains where the vault was. And I didn't fucking know which of the mountains contained it! There was bullshit and then there was this. I sighed and then chose a random mountain and flew towards it, it was going to be a very long night.

I grunted as I deployed an Illusion Barrier and then took a sharp dive towards the ground, I actually managed to get a Point VIT and DEX for the sheer persistence and for the fact that I pushed my body beyond its limits when it came to speed. With a heavy thud my feet connected with the ground, there was a certain sensation of numbness in my wings as I stretched and then folded them so they would rest a little, I had no idea how Rainbow Dash did her routine of always flying around but she she as fuck now has my respect for that! I looked over the edge of the cliff that I landed on and saw the village, thirteen building with twelve standing in two rows by six and one being in the end of the improvised main street. All bleak and absolutely identical save the the main one, all built only for the sake of sating the twisted understanding of how the World works of one girl that had a grudge and was to bitter to move on.

'Damn this place looks creepy as fuck.' I shuddered a little, it was about half-an-hour before the sunrise and I had no desire to waste time trying to suppress the reaction I was having to this crappy place. There literally was no life here, none of the vibrant bright colorful shine that everything in Equestria had, this was something akin of a creepy cultish settlement that I wanted to be as far away as possible. Well, technically it was a cult-town with Starlight being the main priest of the shitty religion that promoted loss of individuality, it was like a huge reference to 'Equilibrium' but with a far softer angle and almost none of the fighting.

Without any reason to hold back while I was in the Illusion Barrier I just used [Teleportation] to appear right in front of the door to Starlight's house. I didn't want to jinx it, so I would first need to use [Observe] on her to find out if she was really the Villain here or if this World was different ans she didn't change into a psychopath that would soon decided to destroy Equestria due to her own desire for revenge. I still couldn't even fathom why these hip-stamps were so important, but I also knew that this was my Human mindset talking and nothing else. Moony was happy to gain hers, so were the others and I wasn't sure just how Starlight felt about it due to me no actually having a clear picture of that part of Moon Dancer's memories.

I raised my right arm and clenched my hand into a fist, with one straight punch the wooden door shattered into splinters and I walked in. There was no point of keeping quiet as nobody could hear me right now, I actually had to restrain myself from pulling out my sword and just cutting my way in but that would be too much even for me. I looked around and noticed that the room on the first floor had stairs that were going up onto the second floor and the middle wall that separated the second room at the back of the house and the stairs on the right side was probably the hollow dud that had Starlight secret escape passage inside of it. No matter how many times I saw it in the Cartoon, i was still baffled by the sheer stupidity of the whole thing and how a secret passage the led underground had to be entered through the second floor. I didn't see any of the pictures or anything that actually spoke of Starlight's character as a whole, but that was probably because I was in the Illusion Barrier and those thing didn't carry-over here. Without a pause I made my way up the stars and shattered the door to the bedroom with one solid kick, my STR was more than enough for me to not even feel the resistance of the wood against the tip of my shoes.

As I walked in I looked around and saw that at least the bed was still here, I could guess that the trapdoor was under it and therefore I would need to remove Starlight from here before talking to her. There was no point in stalling and I dropped the Barrier and instantly I could hear the white noise of Nature around me, along with quiet little snores coming from the now present occupant of the bed. I looked around and saw that there literally wasn't much difference between Reality and Illusion Barrier, for whatever reason Starlight's room looked rather spartan in its nature and, with only the bed, the table with a chair and a wooden wardrobe being present, I could honestly say that even Moony in her depression had more than this. Either she didn't really care about the decorations, or, and this was a more likely reason, she was more concerned with upholding her image as the leader of the Equality-Cult and therefore had to cut her own living arrangements to bare minimums to not stand out and to make sure that nobody would question her dedication to the cause.

I looked at the bed and my eyes budged out, I knew that she was powerful and I actually was much more aware of it since she managed to actually pull out a tie with Twilight, but what I saw was bullshit. There were cases with extreme grinding, and then there were cases like this, at least using [Observe] on her revealed that she was as close to Canon as I could understand and was actually hurting because of her own delusion. Well, this at least sealed the case, she wasn't going to be de-horned and left to rot in Tartarus as I originally planned for her to be, being a good person and an actual possessor of Meta-Knowledge left me being aware that she was capable of better things. Starlight Glimmer was capable of being a better person, simply removing her as a threat and then throwing her into the Pit wasn't an option after what [Observe] revealed to me.

'Fuck my bleeding heart.' I grimaced as I looked at the sleeping girl that was actually about a year older than me.

<Self-Deluded Equalist>
LV51 Starlight Glimmer

Author's Notes:

A/N: Well here it is! Several thing that I would like to point out here:
1. About Jessica's Ability to Transform, it came from the fact that Luna used the same thing when she became Nightmare Moon and basically manifested what she perceived would be the 'Intimidating' characteristics of her image. That's why the whole deal with black coat and snake-eyes was done, she was simply doing her best to look scary while staying true to her Nature and all that jazz. The Skill took the Images of the scariest beings in Jessica's Mind, blended them together and used them to create itself a Form for Transformation, nothing more and nothing else.
2. The Sword... Yeah, I was planning on it from the start, so there wasn't anything new to the whole thing as she would be going through an extensive training to actually make use of it.
3. Porings and training the Girls... Well, if you think it happened too fast, don't forget that they were friends with Moony for years and have no idea that their friend is not longer behind the helm of the body that they are speaking to. They think that they are supporting their friend, while Jessica is played her role to repay them and out of guilt for replacing their friend and in some form actually killing her in the process.
4. Starlight Glimmer... Yeah, next Snip will be a pain to write. I added her to the list of Characters, see for yourselves!