'This system really hates me, doesn't it.'
With the thought in mind, Aiden approached the next stage's entrance. He couldn't forfeit the choice - the known punishment, decreased rewards, was already bad enough, but he couldn't be certain there weren't any other hidden consequences for forfeiting a course.
Ten minutes seemed to be enough to train a bit more, but Aiden knew that he wouldn't be able to achieve anything meaningful within these ten minutes - so, he decided to proceed.
After approaching the door to the next stage, and gingerly started to open it. As always, he knew nothing about what was behind the door - he doubted he would be ambushed immediately behind the door, but he knew better than to trust the system.
Fortunately, the next room proved to lack an ambush, but the lack of any apparent danger only put Aiden more on edge. Still, the dummy in the middle of the room, practically identical to the one he had just stopped abusing, relieved him a bit - why put a dummy there if the task was supposed to involve fighting, after all.
Upon entering the room, the AI spoke once again.
"Attack the dummy and knock it down to pass."
Alright, so actual fighting was even further back. Aiden's tensed nerves relaxed. Still, achieving this task might prove quite difficult - despite all of his training, he had never managed to knock the dummy down. Though he wasn't putting all of his strength behind every strike, his technique had improved throughout his training, to the point that the actual force he exerted was actually higher than when he used the sword as a club with all of his strength.
'Well, there's no better time than now to test if I can knock this thing down.'
Walking to stand before the dummy in a combat pose, Aiden recalled his training. It wasn't that hard - he had done it just minutes before, though his emotions made him forget about that.
While breathing in, the budding swordsman raised his blade above his head, and with an exhale, the blade fell. Despite the build up, the blade didn't achieve much - the aim was a tiny bit off, and the angle of the blade made it more of a slash than a chop.
Aiden pulled his blade back, already anticipating the skill's inputs, just to remember that he hadn't activated it. Feeling a bit silly, he quickly activated it, and struck the dummy again.
And again.
And again.
Despite having managed to gain the skill's approval once, which seemed to lead to a level up, Aiden felt as though he returned to the beginning - the skill's disapproval was much more severe than just a few minutes ago.
He was sure that he hadn't forgotten how to strike, so only one possibility remained - the skill's requirements had become higher.
The thought of his achievements and skills being invalidated should've put Aiden down, but strangely, the thought that he had new heights of skill to reach only reinvigorated him. With newfound strength, he resumed the training that had been rudely interrupted by a level up just minutes ago.
With each strike, Aiden saw tangible improvements in his skill with handling the sword, and tiny improvements in the overall power of his strikes. However, after a while, he realised that despite that, he was nowhere close to toppling the dummy.
Before, he simply relied on the skill to plan his strikes for him, but now, looking at his actions critically, he saw what the problem was.
In short, the sword was meant to create wounds by cutting through flesh, and a good way to improve the sword's cutting power was to slice. The combat skill focused on this aspect of combat, and much of the force behind his strikes didn't go directly into the dummy - the sword impacted the dummy at an angle, not directly, and dragged the sharp edge along the dummy's surface, aiming so slice through flesh.
This would be a rather effective way to kill someone, but the goal here was to knock the dummy over, not kill it - the approach he was using was wrong for the task before him.
'It seems like I can't rely on the skill for everything... Now that I think about it, it's obvious though.'
Looking at the dummy, Aiden decided to use a different approach. The skill directed him to use his sword as a sharp weapon, and focused on maximising the use of the sword's sharp edge, but the best way to knock a dummy over was to use the sword as a makeshift club.
Also, hitting the dummy over the head wasn't the most efficient place to deliver force - most of the force would be driven towards the ground. The best way to knock it over would be horizontal swipes, aiming at the dummy's head or chest. Aiming for the head also wasn't the most reliable way of doing it - despite seemingly being made of cloth, the dummy was quite springy - hitting the head would transfer most of the force to the material, making the dummy's entire body wobble.
The chest was the perfect place to strike - it was high enough that most of the force would be used to topple the dummy, it was close enough to the dummy's centre of mass so it wouldn't wobble hopelessly.
With those thoughts in mind, Aiden stepped to the dummy's left, and reactivated the teaching skill, this time focusing on swiping at the dummy from his right.
The skill initially tugged at him to perform an overhead chop, but when he didn't follow its' instructions, it didn't deactivate, and started providing instructions on how best to perform such a swipe.
When Aiden's sword made contact with the dummy's chest, although the skill instructed him on how best to utilize the force to slice the dummy, he tightened his grip and powered on, trying his best to topple the dummy.
The skill proved its' malleability once again, giving up on the parts of its' instructions that dealt with slashing, and instead gave tips on how to maximise the pure force behind the strike, while still keeping the blade stable.
As Aiden pulled his sword back, he felt quite satisfied with the skill - it seemed that it didn't contain only a single strike, but rather the instructions on swordplay as a whole.
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Still, the end of the task was nowhere within sight - the dummy seemed both heavier and more stable than the previous one, and toppling it would be a hard task indeed.
Despite that, Aiden didn't feel discouraged at all - the time limit had only come into play after he finished that room's task. Now, he could train as much as he wanted. If he came close to finishing the task and toppling the dummy, he could even use a bit less strength, to maximise the amount of time he could train. Of course, when he felt ready he would move on.
Without time to waste, Aiden set out to pummel this dummy as much as he did the previous one, while perfecting his strikes.
With each strike, he saw improvement in his own skill - he learned how to maximise the amount of force carried with each strike by relaxing his own grip a bit, the way to strike hard while avoiding causing himself too much pain, how to keep the sword's blade on track despite relaxing his grip - in short, he absorbed all of the knowledge the skill gave him like a sponge.
Of course, this improvement didn't come without a cost - at first, he felt light and full of energy, but with time, that energy waned, and muscles started aching. Even the muscles he was sure he didn't use seemed strained - his face, neck, back - every muscle in his body started to protest.
Eventually, those protests started getting to Aiden, as involved in training as he was. After all, he was no superman - his stamina was limited.
When all of the various aches and sores finally managed to get through to Aiden, he could barely hold the sword still while he struck the dummy, and the force behind his strikes was merely half what it was when he started.
Despite being so exhausted, this time Aiden didn't drop his blade, and took care to put it into the scabbard, which hung at his side. Still, he couldn't resist laying down on the floor afterwards.
While laying down, Aiden slowly regained his breath, still ruminating on the perfect form of a sword strike. After a while, though, he remembered to open his status to quickly check the changes.
<<<>>>
Name: Aiden Moore
Level: 1 (2 AP)
Status:
Vitality - (126 / 130) (+4/h)
Stamina - (15 / 131) (+76/h)
Mana - (0 / 0) (+0.0/h)
Cultivation:
[none]
Attributes:
Body:
Strength - 13
Dexterity - 15
Agility - 13
Mind:
Intelligence - 12
Wisdom - 11
Willpower - 11
Spirit:
Control - 10
Perception - 16
Qi - 0
Skills:
Basic sword fighting: Rank 1, Level 3
<<<>>>
Looking over the changes was rather enjoyable. His strength and dexterity had both risen by two, and his agility rose by one. His willpower had also increased, as did his perception?
'Willpower rose once when I did the previous task, so another increase is understandable, but why did my perception rise? It's been my highest attribute, and now it rose even higher? Why?'
After exhausting all of the options he could think of, Aiden still had no idea as to what might've caused this, so he ignored it.
The rest of the status was easier to understand. Vitality really seemed to just be strength times ten, but vitality regeneration still eluded him. Stamina and its' regeneration were similarly impregnable.
Aiden was ready to close his status, and only a last glance at the top reminded him of something he had ignored thus far - the level. Or rather, the content in round brackets behind his level, which stated '2 AP'.
'AP... What could that mean... AP, AP, AP... Wait... AP, Attribute Points?'
When he thought of this, Aiden felt incredibly stupid for a second. For some reason, he was ignoring levels - the biggest similarity between the system and RPG games. Granted, he wasn't that familiar with games as a whole, but that was no excuse in this situation. He should've thought about this ages ago!
'There's no use dwelling on it... Also, I didn't even lose that much time after all.'
Throwing his stupidity behind him, Aiden tried to find a way to apply these points. After some time of trying to interact with the status window, he turned to that strange mental space where he could mentally poke at the system itself.
And, it worked! After flipping a strange... 'switch'? He didn't know a better way to describe it. Anyways, after mentally flipping a strange switch in the system, his status changed, and after each attribute, he could see a small '+'.
Now that he had a way to allocate his attributes, Aiden needed to think of how he should distribute them.
So far, he had two. He wasn't sure whether he would receive two with each level, but it was safe to assume he would receive at least some.
With that in mind, this decision couldn't be an extremely important one, so he shouldn't worry too much about it. So, Aiden turned to think of his current circumstances, and the obstacle before him. He needed to knock over the dummy, but with his current strength, success seemed quite far.
'Increasing my strength wouldn't be a bad idea... But I'm not sure if increasing my attributes would slow down the rate they increase with training... Also, having mana would be great. Though it wouldn't help at all with the current problem.'
Aiden cast a glance over the room, searching for the door to the next room.
'After all, this stage of the course is definitely not the last one. There's a reason challengers are fully healed upon completing a course - the risk of injury is present within all courses, but so far the only way to hurt yourself was to fumble with a weapon...'
That reminded Aiden of something. Even now, he still hadn't checked the sharpness of his sword. This was a weapon he would be using throughout the tutorial, after all - it should be able to damage enemies, but despite his best efforts, it didn't leave as much as a scratch on the dummies. It couldn't be that sharp, right?
After laying on the ground and thinking, he could now move somewhat, so Aiden reached for his scabbard and detached it, bringing it above his eyes, his neck too sore to hold his head for long.
Partially unsheathing his sword, Aiden lightly touched the edge with a finger, before quickly raising it and bringing it up close to his eyes. He wasn't certain of it, but he thought he could see a tiny wound where the sword touched the skin, but it might as well have been a crease in the skin.
'Injuring my hands would be quite problematic for handling the sword... I should use another method to test.'
A bit concerned about injuring his hands, Aiden instead decided to test the sharpness of the blade on hair. His hair was rather short, so using it to test the sword would be cumbersome at best, but there was a better way - try to use the sword as a razor and cut his arm hair.
Gingerly, he unsheathed a bit more of the blade, and brought his right hand near the edge. Then, he carefully used it to shave off a bit of the hair on his right forearm.
His wariness paid off - the sword proved to be practically razor sharp, and his hairs couldn't even resist being cut. As the blade passed above his skin, it left clean shaven skin in its' wake.
Aiden couldn't help but bring his arm closer to his eyes, to get a better look. His eyes hadn't lied to him - the patch of skin was perfectly shaven.
Seeing this, Aiden felt newfound respect towards the sword, carefully sheathed it, and hung the scabbard to his side once again.
'I need to be really careful using it... It would slice through me like a hot knife through butter.'
After resting for a bit, Aiden stood up once again. A quick glance at his status showed him that his stamina was full... And that he forgot to assign his AP.
Seeing this, Aiden didn't know how to feel. He forgot what he was doing in the middle of thinking about it.
'Am I really that easily sidetracked? Good god...'
He couldn't help but shake his head.
'No matter, I should return to assigning my attributes. Final decision, now.'
Quickly running through his logic in his head, Aiden came to a conclusion.
'Two points in strength - I need to get through this task. It will also let me hit harder.'
With the conclusion made, Aiden immediately flipped the mental switch and assigned both points into strength.
At first, he didn't feel anything, but after some time, it seemed as though a strange energy was making its' way through his body... Improving it somehow.
With that energy, it seemed as though his energy was further replenished, though his status showed no sign of it. However, despite the lack of changes, Aiden felt much better - the sword at his hip had previously weighed down on him quite a bit, but now, it seemed a bit lighter. It felt much easier than he would've expected to rise up from the floor.
The challenges before him also seemed just a bit more doable.
So, with newfound confidence, Aiden walked up to the dummy, and prepared to introduce its' head to the ground.