Chapter 17:

When I walked up the stairs, I didn't find the training grounds. Instead, I walked into a plain white room, 30 paces by 30 paces. In the center was a faceless mannequin just standing in the center with a halberd in hand.

I looked around and found another halberd resting in the corner. Walking over, I went and picked it up, spinning it around.

"Okay, so what is this?" I asked aloud. To my surprise, I didn't hear Loki's voice echoing.

The mannequin spoke in a very robotic voice. "You have been given 30 days of time-dilated training with a self-tailoring AI. Please commence training simulation."

I looked around. This didn't feel like the rest of Valhalla at all. But it was Loki, so I wasn't too shocked. So he was gonna give me time dilated training, 30 days with the perfectly tailored AI pushing me to the limits. "What about rest and recovery?"

"Time dilation protocol enacted. Rest and recover. Recovery is unnecessary. Please commence training," the AI said.

So I was just going to fight endlessly. That would be way more than just 30 days of normal training. If I never got tired, then each day would be three times as effective.

Pulling up my stats, I took a quick look at my strength, speed, and constitution. My strength and speed had finally gotten above average, but my constitution was still abysmal. Well, if it continued at the rate I've been increasing, I would be pretty damn good by the time I was done. And if my proficiencies could increase, well... then that could change everything.

I slowly approached the training dummy and struck out with my halberd in a probing attack. It was batted away, and a slight slap poked my right knee. "Knee was 15 degrees out of place. Try again."

I thrust the same thing, this time receiving a tap on my ankle. "Rotate foot in 2%."

This continued until my thrust felt much more powerful than it had previously. That took hours. Then, with no stopping for a break, my opponent responded to the thrust. Rather than simply batting it aside, I had to dive out of the way of its repost.

The AI gave a correction, and I did my best to repeat the moves over and over again. Each time I tried something new, it would give me a new correction and a new response. After I got down a few things, it started responding to my initial jab in various ways. Each time, teaching me a new form, a new thing to look out for.

I felt myself improving slowly. It was hard, but I resisted the urge to check my status every few minutes to see what I was actually gaining. Each strike I gave felt more powerful, each motion more economical, so something was changing. I could see the moves the opponent could make and which ones would be good and which ones would be bad. But not only what would be a bad move for my opponent to make but how I could take advantage of it.

I started opening with other moves besides the thrust. Each time I picked a new one to start off with, I was corrected for what must have been hours before I was perfect. Soon, we would dance for minutes before I was soundly defeated, going down branching paths of possible moves I had explored time and time again.

That wasn't to say everything was perfect. I messed up things I had learned and mastered hundreds of times, but each time, it was a little bit different. After what must have been multiple days of training that all blurred together, the AI stopped. "Basics have been learned. Strategy sessions will now commence."

That was just the basics! I now felt like I could move from any stance to any other stance in a fluid motion; each strike would flow naturally after. But I thought I'd been using some pretty good strategy, too. But no, apparently not.

With no more announcements, we started.

I started by copying my opponent. I learned how to throw a feint that looked like I was putting my full weight behind a strike, but it wasn't actually. Then, I was learning from what angles a feint was worth selling and how to sell it better by coming in from the side versus head-on. How to take advantage of my opponent's motions, when to retreat, and so on and so forth.

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The strategy lesson lasted for much longer than the basics, but eventually, I felt like I was very good. With this month of training, I might not have been able to match Bjorn, but I would have been giving him a run for his money.

Part of that had to do with the fact that my stats were increasing by what must have been leaps and bounds. I still managed to stay 100% focused, not willing to waste a second of this time-dilated training that Loki was giving me. Not spending the moments to check the stats made me feel like I was going to carry the full edge this was giving to the Lesser Hall and beyond.

I could feel my stats growing at even a faster rate than they had been the past few days. Whatever the magic of Loki's blessing was, it unlocked my potential to actually grow at a reasonable pace and absorb the knowledge much quicker than I had before.

I finally started to mix in things other than the halberd. It was when I got frustrated. I've never actually been able to land a decisive hit, this stupid dummy. To change that, I went with one of my old standbys, entangling our halberds in a much more fluid and unavoidable method. But the basic concept was still the same. I got in close and drew my knife to try to ram it through the AI's chest.

Of course, it managed to duck to the side, but the training changed after that. Now, I had to use these tricks. Otherwise, it would punish me. If I wasn't trying to surprise it or trying new things, I was getting too repetitive and not mixing it up.

Whether it be coming in from weird angles, using my dagger, letting go and grappling with the other's halberd, or even punching with the free hands occasionally. If I tried the same thing too many times, I would be thrown on my ass and told to "be more creative" in the emotionless, robotic tone that had been with me for days, if not weeks.

The sameness of the training was driving me insane, but finally, I just tossed down the halberd and got in close with the dagger. The AI also disarmed, and we were in close trading dagger strikes and heavy blows.

The mannequin never moved faster than I was able to unless it was proving a point. But it was always a bit ahead of me. Its fighting style was perfect, and it never moved an inch out of place. Every parameter was taken into account, and every feint was carefully responded to. It was an appropriate response even though it pretended to not know if it was a feint or not.

How could I beat this? I tried letting it strike me and using the openings, taking some damage to give more. Still, it was always good enough to avoid the majority of any damage I gave out or to take advantage of the opening. I gave myself far more than I thought would be possible and grievously wound me to the point where I had to back off.

Of course, the wounds weren't real, and they healed almost instantly as part of the training boon. The fact that I never needed to eat, sleep, or use the restroom was baffling, but the training continued.

I spent forever trying to get a hold of it, and every time I got a little faster, a little stronger, a little more durable, it did, too. I was starting to come to terms with the fact that there was nothing I could do to actually beat this. I could only get better, and it would grow with me. I would take every advantage if I could, but I wanted to win.

Finally, I had been losing for so long the time didn't quite feel real. It didn't exhaust me the way it should have, but that didn't mean I wasn't tired of being humiliated by a stupid mannequin. I had tried with halberds, and I tried throwing in all the dirty tricks I knew, every unconventional style and every unpredictable angle. I work with those, and I got better with them.

After some time, I could clearly feel the AI helping me develop a style of traps, feints, tricks, off-angle approaches with not just a halberd, not just with my fist, not just with my dagger, not with grappling, but with an entirely complete fighting style. But it wasn't enough to beat it. It just knew too much.

So I had to do something stupid, something to let me get past it. I had one idea that I hadn't tried before, and as I could feel my mind starting to slow down as the time ran out, I charged forward with the halberd couched like a lance. The AI dodged into one of the three paths I predicted, and luckily, that's also the path I had thrown my knife.

It deflected it as I rolled to the ground. Still, it missed blocking the boot that I launched into its midsection, flinging it a yard or two farther away, the halberd leaving its hands. I chased it down, pummeling it with my shoulder as I dropped onto it, and it simulated knocking the wind out of the person.

I hoped my dagger was within reach, but it wasn't. So I bit down on its thumb with all my might, and I could feel the mannequin crunch underneath as I ripped its digit off. I stood to slam my halberd down into its head when the whole thing faded from existence, snatching my victory away from me.

The room disappeared around me, and I stood in the center of the training yard, watching a few people leave the feasting hall of Valhalla, holding a halberd. I was not sweating a bit but panting hard. As I looked around wildly, ready for the next attack by the mannequin. Had I done it? Had I defeated it, or had it just run out of time? I couldn't tell. Why did it take me so long to force it into a position where it had only a few options, one of which, if I guessed right, I could disable it? That was such an obvious thing that it was probably trying to get me to do that very thing for what must have been 30 days.

But now I had the idea of how to win against someone who was better than me. I just had to get lucky sometimes. Something that I just didn't understand about fighting before clicked, and suddenly, everything seemed a lot more possible. But as I watched a few of the people who I had recognized as strong fighters starting to warm up each other, they looked slow and sluggish, and their moves clumsy and unrefined. How much had I changed?