Slowly, laboriously, I made my way. By the time I reached the stairs, I was feeling a tiny bit better. As I'd planned, I half-walked, half got pulled by Chen Huan up the spiral flight of stairs. I had just enough time to spare to reflect on the humor in the situation that I, someone who loved making clever battle plans, difficult, precise combos, and just lately, routinely coordinated dozens of projectile trajectories per second as my auto-attack, had now gone so far as to make a detailed plan to be able to get up a set of stairs.
The plan worked, at least. Not only that, I had still managed to keep my internal track of time going, so I knew that I'd made it with about 20 seconds to spare.
About at the same time I realized that, I noticed that my environs already looked different from the usual dojo floor. This time, I was in a peaceful meadow rather than a barren field.
In the next moment, I saw the "special opponent."
