"Attack the dummy with your chosen weapon as hard as you can for as long as you can."

Despite his apprehension, Aiden walked towards the dummy. He had to grip the sword with two hands due to its' weight - he wouldn't be able to use it with one hand for quite a bit.

Fortunately, once he set his mind to it, he quickly found himself thinking about the best way to achieve the task. In this case, he decided to proactively decide on his approach to combat - this was a course, after all. He would take whatever he could learn from it.

'I avoided the blunt and big weapons because I didn't want to simply smash things, but also somewhat out of fear. If I had to choose a style of combat, I'd like to stay back and simply kill my opponent before they get to me, but in all the games I've played, mages were really squishy - I don't want to have no options if the enemy gets close to me.'

'I ended up picking a weapon with a medium range, so I could stay out of my opponent's reach, avoid direct confrontation, and deal damage as I dodge. Perhaps daggers would be better for such a style, but to use them, I'd have to get in too close for comfort.'

'In short, I picked a weapon that would allow me to dance around an opponent, killing them before I received as much as a scratch. I don't think I will be able to achieve such a level any time soon, but despite that, it's the fighting style I want to eventually achieve.'

With all of his focus on the task that lay ahead, Aiden advanced, in his best imitation of a combat pose, and struck at the dummy with the sword in his hands, trying to remain as far as he could while still being in range to strike.

Despite the apparent sharpness of the blade, after the strike, not even a mark remained on the dummy that looked as though it was made out of cloth. However, Aiden had other concerns - up until now, he had an irrational fear that the dummy would attack him for some reason.

To his relief, it didn't react, and with no more fear, he started swinging. At first, his strikes were clumsy and inexperienced, but with every swing, they became a little bit more refined, and he put just a bit more strength behind it.

The act of hitting a dummy proved to be rather cathartic, and before long, Aiden let all of his worries go for just this moment, and focused on hitting the dummy.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump, thump.

Thwack.

Without him realising, Aiden's swings were becoming faster and stronger with each and every swing. In part, it was because he was releasing all of his fear, anger and frustration at the dummy, thus using as much strength as he could muster, but even then, he was improving faster than he ordinarily would have any right to.

10 minutes.

Despite the emotions fuelling his strikes, Aiden was starting to feel the strain in his muscles, especially his arms. His breaths were getting deeper and heavier, and he had begun breathing through his mouth.

20 minutes.

By now, his muscles were starting to burn and his arms were seemingly on the verge of giving out. He was also breathing heavily, almost panting. Despite this, all of these sensations simply annoyed Aiden more. First, he was dropped on his ass when he was supposed to be sleeping, was woken up in what was basically a prison, had several world-shattering revelations dropped on his head and told he had to fight to survive, and then, his own body was refusing to obey him?! Aiden was absolutely incensed.

'Fuck this system, fuck the tutorial, fuck the courses, fuck this trial, -'

With each hit, he mentally swore at something that annoyed him. With each strike, his emotions grew, and he tried to hit harder. Even though his body should've given out a few minutes ago and was trying desperately to communicate that to him, he somehow stood and kept hitting the dummy, now nearly in a fit of rage.

Thwack. Thwack.

Thwack. THWACK. THWACK.

At the beginning, the dummy would barely react as he hit it. And now, with every hit, the dummy would violently rock, as though it would tip over any moment now, even though it never did.

By now, Aiden was definitely on his last legs - even that strange energy supporting him was about to be exhausted. Despite his exhaustion, he somehow managed to strike the dummy one last time, directly in the head, all while screaming mentally.

'And fuck this motherfucking bastard of... fucking... fucking system!'

THWACK!

After the strike, Aiden fell back on his ass, completely spent, his sword clattering on the stone floor off to the side. He barely had the energy to catch himself with his hands, avoiding having his ass bruised a second time this day.

The dummy teetered for a while, seemingly on the verge of falling, but after a few seconds, it tipped over, falling back onto its' base. At the sight, Aiden released a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding. With the adrenaline wearing off, he realised he had been striking the dummy relentlessly for the past 20 minutes, if not more.

Stolen novel; please report.

With his attention returning to his body, Aiden came to realise how much pain his arms were in. Fortunately, it wasn't a sharp pain - it was more like they were extremely sore... Which to be honest, they were. And straining the, by letting his upper body's weight rest on them was only worsening the ache. Thus, he tried to lay down on the floor, as gently as he could - which was not very gently, considering how exhausted he was right now.

On the floor, while remembering the insults he had spewed mentally, he couldn't help but cringe.

'I really should expand my curse vocabulary... 'motherfucking bastard fucking fucking system'? I can't even... Whatever. At least I didn't shout it out loud. If I did, it'd be embarrassing as hell, and I don't know whether the system would react to me insulting it. Or the AI, for that matter. I don't think they would, but it's better not to tempt fate.'

As he was right now, he barely had the energy to move a finger, let alone get up from the floor, so he had some time to think, and maybe plan.

Trying to recall the process of striking the dummy, he realised something strange.

'That's weird, I shouldn't have been able to pummel the dummy so long. With my strength and stamina, I should've collapsed from exhaustion not even halfway through...'

Curious, Aiden opened his status.

<<<>>>

Name: Aiden Moore

Level: 1 (2 AP)

Status:

Vitality - (108 / 110) (+3/h)

Stamina - (9 / 117) (+92/h)

Mana - (0 / 0) (0/h)

Attributes:

Body:

Strength - 11

Dexterity - 13

Agility - 12

Mind:

Intelligence - 12

Wisdom - 11

Willpower - 10

Spirit:

Control - 10

Perception - 15

Qi - 0

Skills:

Basic sword fighting: Rank 1, Level 1

<<<>>>

After opening it, he found a big surprise waiting for him. His attributes had risen!

Previously, his agility and dexterity were at 10 and 11, respectively. Now, they had both increased by two. His strength had risen all the way from 8 to 11. And, his willpower had increased... If the attribute was as it was named, the increase was most likely the result of his persistence in pushing himself.

Other notable changes included the updated values on his status, the vitality and stamina. Vitality seemed straightforward enough, with the max value being simply his strength times 10. Stamina seemed weirder, and at the moment, Aiden couldn't bring himself to try and derive the function behind his max stamina from merely two points of reference.

The other strange part was the regeneration of both vitality and stamina - if his memory served right, his vitality regeneration had been 8 per hour after getting healed by the system, and now it was only 3? Stamina regeneration had also not increased linearly with his maximum stamina. As it was now, he simply didn't have an idea of how they worked.

Mana was, as expected, zero.

The strangest thing was, though, the fact that he had gained both a level and a skill. This game had functioned so much like a game, so the lack of a notification surprised him.

A bit of mental communication with the system led to him opening a new tab, off to the right of the status window.

<<<>>>

Notifications:

Congratulations! You have levelled up. +2 AP points.

Congratulations! You have received a skill, Basic sword fighting.

<<<>>>

Based on the name, and the vague feeling he got from the system, Aiden could tell that it was a log of all his notifications.

Unfortunately, it didn't come with a timestamp; Still, knowing that he wouldn't get distracted by notifications during combat and could review them later was useful.

Also, the skill he had received seemed useful too, though he couldn't ascertain its' effect from the name. Was it merely an indication of competence? He received a skill for being able to fight with a sword on a basic level? No, that couldn't be right.

Aiden was sure that even though his strikes had decent strength behind them, he simply used the sword as a glorified club. There were even times when he had struck the dummy with the flat side of the sword because it had slipped in his hand...

In short, it was definitely not an acknowledgement from the system. So, it must've been some kind of reward.

"Why did I receive the basic sword fighting skill?" Aiden asked the AI.

"For completing the first part of the basic combat course with a good score, you have been awarded with additional Experience. For completing the first part of the basic combat course, you have been awarded the basic sword fighting skill."

Aiden had learned a few things from this. First, he had finished the first part of the basic combat course with a good score, which was good. Second, the sword skill was a normal reward for completing the first part of the basic combat course - he could only assume that people who chose other weapons would receive different versions of this skill, like basic bow fighting or something like that. Third, he had merely finished the first part of the course.

Straining his neck, which was far more exhausted than it should've been, Aiden scanned the room. As he had expected, a second door had appeared in the wall, on the opposite side of the door he had entered through.

After a few seconds of trying to comprehend just how this door had appeared there, Aiden gave up. None of the weapons he managed to recall as being where the door now was were missing, and were merely hung on the walls around the door. It was as though the door had always been there.

Without even trying to comprehend the weird design decisions of the system (why did they waste their time and energy on concealing the door instead of simply locking the door? If the challenger was strong enough to break through the door, they would've easily passed this test, which involved pummelling a dummy as hard as one could...), Aiden turned his mind to more pressing matters.

On the other side of that door would be another test - or course - that he knew nothing about, and the uncertainty was killing him. So, he tried to ask the AI.

"What's the next part of the course?"

Unfortunately, the reply he had received didn't shine any light on the situation.

"To proceed with the course, please enter the next room."

'As robotic as ever.' Aiden thought sourly.

So, what else could he do? Right now, he was basically powerless - attempting to complete the course like this would result in bad results at best, and his death at worst. Right now, he could only wait until this strange state of weakness passed.

'Oh right, I haven't checked out the description of the skill I got.'

With that thought, Aiden quickly opened his status, navigated to the skill section, and read the skill description.

<<<>>>

Name: Basic sword fighting

Level: 1

Rank: 1

Category: Martial Arts, Teaching passive

Attribute category: Body

Effect: Based on the level, slightly increases the power behind sword attacks. If activated, teaches basic fighting stances. Is a requirement for many sword skills.

<<<>>>

As he read the effect description, Aiden's eyes lit up. This skill could teach him how to fight! It was just what he needed!

'So, slight change of plans. Instead of immediately going to challenge the next part of the course, I should grind... no, train a bit.'

Aiden was definitely not doing this because he was scared of the next part of the course - definitely not. It was cold hard logic! He had a reliable way of getting stronger here, in the form of a skill that could teach him. Charging forward without getting as strong as he could would just be stupid! He was definitely not scared. Definitely not.