After my dream began to distort I was back to where I once was, just darkness and that strange figure. “Interesting, you rely mostly on instincts and fight or flight responses. They seem to work finely for you in situations. I don’t know how to grade you on how well you do against other mages, but I surely think you should be fine with using your dagger knuckleduster combo presuming you would know how to punch and stab. I know you know punching but do you know how to stab like a pro boy?” The figure asked.

I shook my head. I didn’t know what the figure was meaning. surely he knew that I was a child right? suddenly, in a sound that could only be described as two metal clocks rubbing against eachother vigorously, a whip spawned in his left hand. The figure threw the whip to me. I caught it.

“Do you know hw to crack a whip?” He asked me. I shook my head. “No I don’t” “Very well then, observe,” the figure said before spawning another whip into his left hand.

The figure then. Let out a devastating crack of the whip and I. Legitimately shuddered. The crack made me feel very on edge. ”Now you try” I swung the whip down as hard as I could. Nothing.. I swung The whip upward as hard as I could. Nothing. The figure facepalmed and let out a dreadful sigh. “That’s not how you crack a whip you idiot your supposed to put many different factors” the figure said “okay firstly your whip is untangled so that’s fine.

You should make it straight and trail behind you” I did so. “Okay well since you’ll be using this thing quite a bit more than you’ll be using your weird dagger knuckleduster thing you should probably learn the many different types of whip cracks. Try a sidearm crack, it's the simplest method. Thi motion is most familiar to skipping stones across a big pond. With the whip in starting position behind you, and your hand holding the whip facing palm out, away from your body, bring the whip forward in a horizontal motion.”

I tried what he said. The first few times it was unsuccessful and I ended up accidentally hitting myself in the back which certainly hurt. After a few more minutes, I got some ability with the whip to the point where I could do it three times in a row, although after that I would end up messing up. I guess I’d get too cocky or usual to the point where I would look over simple things with the whip, like it wrapping around my leg and making me fall or me accidentally dropping the whip mid throw. The figure seemed to be bored as he put his hand to his face and sighed somehow even though he had no mouth which was weird. This new world was quite confusing to me. It would take a while before I get used to it. It wasn’t even my first day and I had already died so many times I might as well be cursed.

Eventually I got good enough to where I could crack the whip six times but only with one crack directly after the other. “That’s good enough boy, have you remembered everything I taught you?” I nodded and told him that I could not do cracks consecutively to which he told me that it really didn’t matter since I’m a lightning mage and by the end of the month I could just shock my opponent if the whip doesn’t work, or pretend I’m facing a large group of opponents to track my brain into attacking multiple times. It was an interesting suggestion. I made a mental reminder to keep himself idea in mind.

The figure snapped his fingers and the whip disintegrated off of my hand. I gasped. The figure chuckled I guess, there was a chuckling sound that seemed to be across the entire area but not from his mouth because once again, he didn’t have one. Suddenly with another sound that sounded like two strips of metal rubbing vigorously across eachother, my secondary weapon appeared in his hand. The figure lazily threw the dagger at me. I caught the dagger.

“Okay well the first thing you would want to learn about your weapon is that it is mainly a weapon meant for fishooking and gutting your enemies like the fish they are.” I cringed at the mental imagery of what was being  describedd.Suddenly in the blink of  an eye, I was in what appeared to be a karate dojo, at least the walls and roof were like a karate dojo, the floor was straight up glass. And beneath the glass were rows upon rows of thin spikes. I nearly stumbled over in schock  when I noticed that the  realization of what was beneath the glass. Then I walked over to the dojo wall and waited for my orders from the weird figure.

Suddenly, a big and burly man in chainmail armor appeared about four or five feet in front of me. Almost instantly after the man appeared I heard the voice of the figure saying: you have 12 seconds to kill this man or else either he will break the glass and you will fall to your death or he’ll rip you  you in two. You have access to your whip” After he finished, the burly man charged  towards me and swung his axe in a downwards arch at my groin

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Thinking on my feet, I jumped over the axe, and winced as the wind created from the attack ruffled my pants and shirt, and noticed my whip hanging on the wall all the way on the other side of the room. But there was a  bo staff on the floor underneath me. When I landed, I grabbed the staff just in time to block another attack from the man,  using all my strength. Then I ran around him and threw a hard  jab at his wrist, and heard a crunch as it twisted. The man’s hand grew red as he screamed in pain, before throwing his axe away. My eyes widened. I threw the staff at the blade of the axe. There was a ping like sound as the axe made a full 360 upon hitting the staff. The handle of the axe hit the glass and made a small crack. I was about to let out a sigh of relief but was interrupted as I felt a sharp pain in my back, moments before air  practically flew out of my body as I was sent flying into a wall.

“ 8 seconds left Luke” the voice of the figure said. I cursed in my head and grabed the axe. The man ran toward me like a charging bull. I jumped to the side and threw the axe at the man to stop him from running in case he was quick enough to track to my new location. The man fumbled the axe in his hand but eventually caught I. Unfortunately for him he was still running towards the wall. The man released a mighty swing and the entire dojo shuddered violently. More cracks appeared in the floor.  The man then strained greatly as if hetrying to retrieve the axe. “5 seconds left Luke you must kill him!” The voice said. I felt strange. I didn’t even announce that I was intending to not kill although I was thinking about it. It’s the main reason I didn’t just take the axe and chop the guy’s head off during the other test.

The man I was facing now, clearly had no care for my well being, as he grabbed me by the leg and began slamming me from the roof of the dojo to the glass flooring. I was beginning to grow scared.

With every slam into the glass it cracked a little bit more. At one point the glass cracked all the way and my hand fell and almost touched the blade. I had to do something or else I would die. And I couldn’t kill the man. Even though he was trying to kill me and wasn’t real he still looked and felt as real as can be. So he might a well be a real person, at least to me.

Then I realized something, he was holding me upside down to make all the blood rush to my head. That way I couldn’t end up trying to go into my lightning fast reflexes because I wouldn’t be able to think.

I would be amazed if I wasn’t scared for my life. Suddenly my secondary weapon fell out of my front pocket “4” the voice went. I chocked 4 seconds left. 4 seconds left to decide wether I live or die. Suddenly my knuckleduster dagger combo fell out of my front pocket and I instantly grabbed it I looked down at the man’s feet, the only part of his body other than his head and arms.

I jammed the blade down into the man toe and twisted the blade, accidentally breaking it. The man screamed and dropped me. “3” the voice continued. The man kicked me in the ribs and sent me rolling into a wall. I slowly got up to see him eerily walking towards me. I had to do something big or I would die for sure without a doubt. Suddenly the whip fell. I began sprinting towards it.

I punched him squarely in the face with the knuckle duster portion of my weapon ,Them butabut be grabbedtgrabbed itmit andsand threw my weapon on the floor, making more cracks. I grabbed the whip. "2” the voice said.i had to end this fight. Suddenly then man threw a punch at my face. I was able to divert the attack  so it hit my ear, and jumped back. I  threw a sharp crack across his face, creating wide streaks of blood on both cheeks. At the same time, he brutally jabbed both my ears, creating a ringing in the ears and making me see spots. Fury bubbled inside me and  the desire to live overtook my fear of killing. And although I couldn't see the gore, I could hear the whip smash through his lungs, ribs, and spine in one well placed attacked. The  man fell to the ground, falling through the glass and slamming into the spikes.

There were spikes all through his body. And each one was surprisingly bloodless, which I found even more unnerving. One tall spike went right through his neck in perfect timing with the voice booming "0" Confetti seeped through the walls. “Okay....guy can I go back now so I can finally leave I mean you’ve trained me with the whip and said I didn’t need to really learn that much about the Knuckleduster dagger thing?” I asked aloud. Silence. Then suddenly a glistening blue portal opened up near me. I was an to walk towards it when there was a single crack. Small at first, but over time the cracks spread and got bigger and bigger. I grew tense. “I thought I won” I screamed, slowly climbing on the gear on the wall just in case the glass shattered which was becoming more and more of a possibility with each and every passing moment.The confetti coated my hands, and within  moments tens of hundreds of pounds of confetti were right on my fingers. The pain was unbearable and I let go. I fell off the wall and struck the ground. The instant I did, I screamed as the ground shattered and I fell right into the blades!