Chapter 2: Adam – One-Handed Blade (Rank I)

Adam wasn’t sure what to make of his newly… ‘leveled-up’ skill. He suddenly felt slightly better at how to stand when throwing a punch… it was an improvement, albeit not as much of one as learning the skill itself. Still, it was nice to have any kind of improvement without doing a damn trial for it.

Speaking of…

Name: Adam

Trials Taken: 2

Trials Available:

-Equipment Trial (Rank I)

-Refreshment Trial (Rank I)

-Rank Up Trial (Rank I => 2)

Good, his Equipment Trial was available. He didn’t waste any time. “Okay, I want an Equipment Trial for a weapon. Let’s say a… sword!”

Adam didn’t have any specific memories of using or learning about swords, but he could vaguely remember thinking they were… ‘cool’? Was that the right word?

Equipment Trial: One-handed Blade (Rank I).

-Trial Details: Avoid 3 of the Training Dummy’s attacks.

-Trial Constraints: Dummy will only attack 5 times.

-Failure Penalty: +1hr delay for next Equipment Trial.

Continue?

Adam grinned. He had been looking forward to getting some measure of revenge on that damn thing. It didn’t say he *couldn’t* hit the mannequin while dodging, right?

“Continue!”

When the burst of light ended, Adam realized he may have made a mistake. He had been assuming the dummy would punch him like before… but the Trial had never specified that.

The mannequin was holding a sword.

“Shit-shit-SHIT!”, Adam declared, as the sword swung out and narrowly missed him. Thankfully, the dummy’s sword didn’t have enough range to get him from that far. A flaw that the dummy soon moved to correct. The thing then did a broad sweep that Adam had to sprawl flat to the ground to avoid. ‘Okay, just need to get away from one more attack and then- FUCK!’

The dummy finished its sideways slash and proceeded to slice downwards, cutting a gruesome gash into Adam’s exposed leg.

“GAHH!”, he yelled. But the dummy didn’t care. It used the same exact attack on his other leg, to painful effect. Trying to think through the pain, Adam knew that if he couldn’t avoid this next attack, the Trial would be worthless. As for what came after… he would have to figure that out later.

As the dummy stabbed towards Adam’s chest, he managed to swing out an attack himself. The only attack he knew. Punch. Thankfully, his timing was true enough that he knocked the sword out of the dummy’s surprisingly well-articulated hands. Sadly, the lunge forward did a number on Adam’s wounded legs. He didn’t even have time to notice that, while the dummy disappeared with a *POP*, the sword was left behind, or the message that appeared in his mind.

Punch (Rank I) Level 3 reached!

Adam had to blink back tears, because the pain was too intense. He had thought he had been hurt just from the beat-down the dummy had given him before, but that was nothing compared to having the muscles in his legs cut into. He… had been treating these Trials too much like a game. Some of that was the fault of how the Trials were presented, but some of it was his own damn fault. He had been hoping that the Trial would heal him if he won, but now…

After a while of dealing with the throbbing pain that just *wouldn’t go away*, Adam managed to have a decent thought. There was still a kind of Trial he hadn’t done yet. Assuming it wasn’t potentially deadly like the last one… maybe it could help him?

“C-can I do a R-refreshment Trial… on… myself?”

Refreshment Trial- Self (Rank I).

-Trial Details: Do not take any action for 5 minutes.

-Trial Constraints: Reward can only heal injuries taken in Rank I Trials.

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Continue?

“YES! YES YES!”

Adam stayed as still as possible for what was apparently five minutes, though it felt like hours…

And suddenly, he felt perfectly fine. Better than fine, actually. The pain was an afterthought, and he even felt full and rested. The worst thing about the situation was the mental whiplash inherent in going from your worst to your best in an instant.

Adam scrambled off the ground and examined his legs. Good as new. He slowly breathed out, knowing that he had narrowly escaped a very serious situation. If he had been unable to walk, how could he have managed to do any more trials other than the one that was literally ‘do nothing’?

‘But, hey, those Refreshment Trials are great! Can I really do one of those every… wait…’, Adam thought.

Refreshment Trial Unavailable for 11:54:18…17…16…

’Twelve hours? Ah, hell. Better than a day or a week or something, but still…’

Adam mentally felt like he needed a bit of a breather, even though physically he was perfectly fine. He found a rocky outcropping to sit down on and thought for a while.

What… was this place? He felt like he had been walking towards… somewhere, for an amount of time that boggled the mind. Had he… died? He remembered the word ‘afterlife’. Was this it? He wasn’t sure he liked it, but he supposed it was better than not existing at all…

Wait, if this was the afterlife, what would happen if he had died to that mannequin? Would he just end up right back here? Or would he just be… *really* dead, then? Of course, that was assuming this *was* the afterlife, maybe it was something entirely different.

Adam wasn’t sure what to make of all this, but he did come to one conclusion: if he wanted to find out anything, he would have to keep performing in these Trials and keep getting rewards. And to that effect…

He had to look around for a while, but eventually found it. The sword the mannequin had dropped. Except… it seemed a little different, now. Had the Training Dummy’s really been that short? And that rusted? Adam had the distinct feeling of being ripped off, just like with the shoes. ‘Rank I’ equipment really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Still, Adam wondered about something. He had received that booklet that taught him how to punch… but it was through practice that he improved the skill. Could he gain a similar skill through practice alone?

Adam decided to swing the sword around as best as he was able. He imagined all sorts of shadowy enemies coming from all directions, and that the sword was the only thing able to protect him. And, after several hours of this…

He still didn’t have any new skills. Yes, he felt a bit better with using the sword, but nothing from the whispers hinted at that fact. He supposed that either they only recognized skills granted through Trials… or that he needed to fight against real enemies.

Adam considered his next move carefully. He wanted something to defend himself with but wasn’t sure what. ‘A shield? …No, then both my hands would be taken up. I didn’t learn Punch for nothing! Armor, then? Hmm… or should I try to go for a sword technique…’

In the end, Adam decided to go for another equipment Trial first. He had an idea that maybe by being more specific in his request, he might get a better reward.

“I want a set of armor… for my arms. I don’t know what they’re called, but I want the part of the armor that protects my arms.” He had considered asking for *leg* armor, considering what happened last time, but he hoped to avoid such situations in the future.

Equipment Trial: Vambraces (Rank I).

-Trial Details: Don’t let the Training Dummy’s attacks hit your upper body.

-Trial Constraints: Dummy will attack 10 times.

-Failure Penalty: +1hr delay for next Equipment Trial.

Continue?

“So, they’re called vam-braces? Huh. Anyway, yes. Continue.”

The mannequin appeared once more. Adam examined it a little more closely. Other than the total lack of a face, it was surprisingly similar to himself. It wore the same tunic, the same shoes, and wielded the same sword. Curiously, it was the shorter, rusted sword that Adam had ‘won’ as a reward, rather than the far superior one that the previous dummy had used.

It was also, as Adam had somewhat been expecting, wearing a set of polished metal arm-pieces. And after that point, Adam wasn’t able to notice anything else about the dummy, because it was on the offensive.

The first attack went wide, something Adam was ever-so-slightly getting used to. The dummies didn’t seem to recognize when they were just a little too far away to attack properly. He figured he would have to use that to his advantage in the future.

The next attack, Adam managed to backpedal away from. Could he really just keep going like this, dodging backwards? Unless he tripped on a rock or something, it seemed possible.

But was that really what Adam wanted to do, was the question. He had spent hours practicing with his new sword, the sword he had almost died getting. It didn’t seem right to let it go to waste like that…

When the dummy attacked a third time, Adam brought his sword to meet it. The clash of metal was surprisingly loud, but Adam held firm. The dummy pushed rather hard, but in the end, it aborted the attack. Adam grinned.

The fourth and fifth clashes went similarly, though Adam’s arms began to feel a bit weary at that point. He decided to go for broke and dodged around the thing as it wound up for its sixth attack. It started to turn around, but it was already committed to striking forwards. Adam didn’t let it as he sliced into the mannequin’s neck with his sword. The sword didn’t go all the way through, but it came close. Adam slid it back out and watched as the dummy gave a half-hearted swing of its own sword, totally missing him. Another swing at the dummy’s neck decapitated it entirely.

Adam wasn’t entirely sure what was going to happen after that point. Could the dummy function without a head? Signs pointed to ‘no’ as it collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. But the Trial description said he would be attacked 10 times… Adam quickly put his guard up, looking around for a possible second dummy that could attack him.

What happened instead was rather unexpected. At the same time that the dummy disappeared in a *POP*, the Whispers gave Adam a new message.

Training Dummy incapacitated.

Critical Success for Equipment Trial: Vambraces (Rank I).

-Additional reward received: Greaves (Rank I)

-Training Dummy difficulty increased.

As Adam pondered that last line, and what it could mean for his future, he observed not one but two bursts of blue light. They revealed 4 pieces of leather armor: two meant for the arms, and two meant for the legs.