Rating Zero (Alpha LitRPG Book 5), page 9
“So, no questions, then?” the master asked. “Fine. The Will Test begins now.”
Will? What did will have to do with it? I didn’t remember such an ORDER parameter.
It was an interesting question, but I decided against asking.
* * *
The passage that we used to get to the arena closed slowly. The walls just came together, and you couldn’t push a needle through the gap remaining. There wasn’t really one. And we were talking hundreds, if not thousands of tons of monolithic rock. The place sure was impressive.
We somehow stuck together, my roommates and me. We had gone through the tunnels side by side and were still that way here. This was not particularly surprising since we didn’t have any other acquaintances among the students, after all, so we tried to find a modicum of comfort in each other’s already familiar faces.
As Akhshot watched the passage walls close, he clasped his huge fists together, stretched out, with some of his joints popping, and proclaimed in an incredibly self-assured and resonant voice,
“I’ll earn lots of points today.”
“Well, if the dick guy earns lots of points, there’ll be plenty left for us too,” Guerra, who was standing nearby, sneered. Many of the students laughed at this, even though the general atmosphere was rather tense. The fat guy’s humiliation was the main item on the list of the day’s entertainment. Akhshot himself didn’t find any of it funny and opened his mouth for what would probably have been a vitriolic reply, but at that moment the walls surrounding the arena began shaking, and barely noticeable gaps between the enormous blocks grew wider, revealing the hidden passages we had been told about.
In the meantime, I was hastily pondering what Master Byogg had said, throwing sideway glances at those among the students who seemed to act with more confidence than others, clearly being privy to something the rest of us were not.
The school’s resources weren’t infinite, and you didn’t just find heaps of fighting dummies piled up anywhere. Therefore, this wasn’t the first time a challenge of this sort was taking place; it must have been held time and again in one form or another. The students whose relatives studied here earlier may have had important knowledge imparted to them. I noticed some of them flex their fingers, but that didn’t tell me much. Anyone would do that before a fight. But the fact that some of them started wrapping belts, kerchiefs, and even the Southerners’ traditional banded headwear around their knuckles, was much more interesting.
I remembered street urchins doing the same before a fight: anything you tied around your knuckles lowered your chances of damaging them. But this wasn’t the Earth, after all, and being well-endowed by ORDER offered many bonuses. For example, there was a wide variety of incredibly useful passive talents that weren’t hard to come by. Some of them were considered mandatory for anyone who had to fight often, and Iron Skin was one of those. My mother had desperately hoped that her son would eventually become an able-bodied human being and be able to unlock the necessary skills, and so she had about a dozen marks stashed away until the end, never selling them despite the family’s dire circumstances.
Iron Skin was a common enough talent even among commoners. Of course, in their case it was never developed well, similarly to other talents that weren’t vital for their day to day subsistence. The name itself implied that the talent made one’s skin harder. It didn’t become any harder to the touch; you’d never be able to tell someone who had that talent from someone who didn’t by mere palpation. However, you could feel it perfectly well during a strike. If the talent was developed well enough, one’s skin instantly hardened in the areas exposed to a harmful impact, softening immediately once the danger passed. A talent like that made it really difficult to hurt one’s knuckles. Besides, if you weren’t a poor commoner, but rather the eldest child in a family whose wealth allowed it to send its scions to study at the Imperial school, your knuckles would be hard as a rock.
So what was the logical conclusion to make observing such scions wrap them up with such haste? Just one: you would be expected to hit hard. So hard that the talent might fail to protect you sufficiently. Therefore, I couldn’t afford to be complacent and had to take precautions. I was experienced enough to rely on other things but knuckles, but southerners were really keen fist-fighters, and I didn’t want to look out of place among them.
The stone blocks froze in place. The passages yawned with sepulchral darkness, and no motion could be seen inside. However, we all formed a ring at the center, instinctively staying by each other’s side and watching the walls intently without talking.
Something stirred in the darkness. A moment later, the warrior dolls stepped out.
Their appearance made me tense. I instantly remembered a certain recent experience that was still fresh in my mind. Master Byogg was right: I encountered many such creatures at the Primordial Temple that lay at the bottom of the Black Well. The figures that came out of the passages resembled temple warriors like twin brothers: not exact copies—there were enough differences in their appearance—but fundamentally the same. Walking suits of armor with closed helmets, that’s what they were. The ones I had fought before had fine black dust inside, and I wouldn’t be surprised if these here did too.
The key difference was that these dummies were unarmed. Their hands were just as empty as ours—but not quite. Bare knuckles weren’t the same as a heavy gauntleted fist, especially to someone on the receiving end. Back at the Primordial Temple, my opponents mostly attacked me with weapons, but on one occasion I got such a hard elbow jab that I could barely get my breath back afterwards. And I had been protected by a special chain mail then. If these walking suits of armor were just as tough, this wouldn’t be a fair fight. Teenage aristocrats weren’t like regular youths, but they were still not strong enough to dispatch moving metal figures with their bare hands, either.
I kept looking around me as I wrapped up my knuckles. Even a nail or a rock would be better than nothing. But the only thing in the arena was sand and the torches stuck into it. They were as long as I was tall, but not thick enough to serve as a club. Trying to sharpen one quickly would be pointless since a spear so primitive would not get through the metal plate.
On the other hand…
I took a good look at our opponents, which stood still for the time being, and focused my attention on their helmets. After a while, I resolutely headed towards the nearest torch. I pulled it out of the sand and tossed the brightly burning ball of fabric out of the narrow basket-like wire contraption at the top. I frowned: the poles were flimsier still than I expected. Not that I had that much hope they’d allow students easy access to such obvious weapons, but it was still a disappointment.
With a sharp crack, I stepped on the basket part of the torch, breaking it clean off, and touched the edge of the split part. Thin and apparently brittle, it was still angular and sharp enough. It would have to be it: one had to make do with what was available.
The blond giant Dors, who was watching my efforts closely, chuckled.
“You can use that as a toothpick. That’s the only thing it’s good for.”
“Yeah. Fists are the ultimate weapon,” Akhshot concurred.
Speak of treacherous roommates.
“How about we bet I drop one of those buggers with this toothpick?” I asked. “It’s a bit boring to just stand around, waiting for them to make the first move. We might as well have some fun while we’re at it.”
“What would you wager?” Guerra seemed interested.
“Whoever loses becomes the winner’s wingman for the night. As in following their orders during the test.”
“If you drop a dummy with this stick, I will sure be listening to what you have to say, bet or no bet,” Ogron said calmly.
That was more like it. Unlike Akhshot, this guy was a roommate I could trust.
“You’re on,” I nodded and took off.
It took awkward commoners at least a dozen paces to speed up. True aristocrats reached decent running speeds almost immediately. Most still couldn’t get to their top velocities in a split second, but still, not even the best sprinters on Earth could dream about such acceleration.
It took me just a few feet to become a virtual cannonball. Were I a regular person, crashing into a wall in that manner would cause multiple fractures. However, I was nothing like a regular person, and why would I want to crash into a wall anyway?
Judging by my experience with temple warriors, it would be incredibly easy to dupe them with even the simplest tricks. I had no idea about how those things functioned, but they did have the intellect of a dummy. When I was fighting through the twelfth and last room, I managed to hold my own against the crowd for quite a while, surviving primarily by making unexpected moves that my rather dim opponents didn’t always anticipate. I didn’t know what kind of reflexes or smarts this new cohort had. But I would find out.
The bronze warrior I targeted reacted predictably enough. I didn’t know how advanced their intellect was, or whether the algorithm that made them move could be called an intellect in the first place, but they behaved just like the Primordial Temple’s dummies. The one I chose interpreted my maneuver as an attempt to use my entire body weight and the momentum it gathered for knocking it off its feet. The sheet metal figure did not try to evade. That much was predictable too. A carelessly clenched fist came up to meet me. Dummies didn’t have to worry about their knuckles, so they could hit any way they liked. They didn’t need any special technique. Even if I just crashed into the dummy’s arm, I’d get a serious injury.
However, I didn’t plan on getting injured.
I feinted left, then right, and then jumped. I thrust a knee forward and moved it to one side, blocking the metal arm and pushing it aside, and then drove the snapped-off torch into the slot in the visor. Unlike most helmets that had a bunch of small holes in the faceplate, this one had a long horizontal slot. It would have been too narrow for the torch, but the thin edge of it worked perfectly.
To be honest, I didn’t expect to defeat the dummy so easily. I remembered just how resilient they were from my experience with the temple warriors. Only a serious head injury could take them out at once, and nothing of the sort was to happen as per my calculations. It would be good if the wooden pole got into my opponent’s head—whatever was inside of it—some two or three inches deep. My makeshift weapon would get stuck in the slot then, and I doubted I’d be able to pull it back out. That was fine, I’d just keep fighting with my bare hands and make the enemy bleed—or, rather, vent dust—and finish what I started.
But it seemed luck was on my side that time. Instead of getting stuck, the wooden stick sharpened itself, shaving off the excess width along the way and penetrating deeper into the helmet— by about a palm and a half—before it broke off with a loud crack. As I kept going forward, I managed to elbow the helmet sideways, using my other arm to slow down the momentum of my body, sliding across the wall and pushing against it to change direction. All of which took less than two seconds. About a year earlier, it would have taken me three times as long, and a year before that, I wouldn’t have even dreamed of doing anything of the sort. I had indeed come a long way.
However, I only expected my move to be the initial salvo. Temple warriors ignored their wounds. They would become less agile as they took damage, but they didn’t seem to feel any pain and persevered to the end. This one here would be totally capable of giving me a back jab in the kidneys, given the opportunity, except I never gave it any. Having pushed off the wall without injuring myself, I turned around quickly and dodged, setting myself up for the next round. Keeping track of the opponent from the corner of my eye, I dashed back towards the rest of the students to avoid any payback—and then relaxed and held my horses.
The enemy was virtually done for. The suit of armor made loud noises as it fell apart at the seams, its entire sections getting eaten by corrosion right before my eyes, with weightless black dust coming out of every gap.
The picture was familiar. This one was done for. I didn’t know how these metal dummies were made, but their heads were delicate, similarly to their human counterparts, and didn’t react well to rough treatment.
The warrior dummy was still coming apart, scattering bits and pieces with a loud clangor, when I suddenly noticed Akhshot fly by me, with the kind of agility I would never have expected from someone of his bulk. Shrugging off a punch from a bronze fist, he slammed into the next dummy with his entire body. The collision was hard, and both of them toppled, entangled. The big guy grabbed his armored opponent by the neck and strained, jerking a few times and ignoring the metal-clad elbows pummeling him. Putting his all into the chokehold, he also roared with frustration and excitement.
Black dust poured out, and the metal figure began falling apart.
“This one’s mine! Mine! I get a point!” Akhshot cried hoarsely.
“They’re not attacking! They’re just standing there!” one of the students interjected, sounding surprised.
Most of the students just watched the enemy ranks intently, trying to verify whether or not it was true, and the suits of armor were indeed standing still. However, the quickest on the uptake and the most reckless among us ran forward, approaching the nearest enemies.
A foe that stood still was not all that dangerous. Under such a scenario, the small metal army wouldn’t stand a chance against the children of distinguished parents, even if those only had their bare hands to rely on. Besides, the metal itself was of dubious quality. Those dummies were unlike their Primordial Temple counterparts, so whenever one got damaged, it crumbled into a pile of debris.
I could be slow at times, but I tried to think on my feet when there was a prospect of personal gain. My exorbitant Measure of Order was perfectly useless here, so I had to hurry. Turning away from Akhshot I dashed to the right. There was another warrior dummy there, and no one seemed to be claiming it yet. But I had my doubts about applying the big guy’s tactics even though, I figured, I would have enough strength to break off the helmet too. My physique may have looked inferior to my roommate’s, but looks were deceiving, and my attribute embodiments were up there, in the clouds. One would compensate for the other, without a doubt. However, none of my glorious parameters would save me from bruises and other injuries, and what I wanted was not just to win, but to do it with sufficient flair and without any damage myself.
I was really grateful to Great Master Tao for what he had taught me. I still had a long way to go in terms of reacting to quick changes in the flows of chi swiftly and decisively, but some of my actions were already becoming almost automatic. The dummy’s fist came up to meet me, but a simple block deflected it, throwing it off course. But I made sure that the enemy would not evade my own fist. Clenched in just the right way, it not only went home, but also landed in between the volatile flows of the universal energy, making some of them part gently, letting my blow reach deep into a gap in the structures that held up the very world of Rock and every form of matter it consisted of.
My knuckles and my shoulder shook with a momentary wave of tension, the destructive force dissipating across my body harmlessly, at the cost of a small amount of my Shadow Chi. Master Tao would be able to go further here and actually absorb the recoil, compensating for any drain from the reservoir, but I was nowhere near that level of mastery yet. The Great Master could fell the hardest trees in his wasteland with such blows. I couldn’t; his parameters were a far cry from mine, but I could still do a few things.
The dummy warrior lurched. Its helmet clanged as it swung backwards, and the flimsy neck joints parted, instantly driven inwards by my other fist. That blow was a little more awkward, especially since I was right-handed, and this was a swing with my left. Still, my plan worked: the metal deformed, and trickles of black dust began wafting out of the gaps that were not there a moment before.
The dummy flailed its arms clumsily as it tried to keep its balance and grab me at the same time. However, I dodged easily, moving behind the metal figure and kicking it hard below a knee joint. That was when the foe finally lost its balance and fell—or, rather, started falling. The process would have been perceived by the uninitiated as something happening quickly. To me, it stretched out for quite a while, and I made good use of that while, punching the dummy in the head. Were it a soccer ball, it would have gone up by a few hundred feet—provided, that is, it withstood the collision without bursting in the first place.
The helmet held, but the much-abused neck could withstand no more blows. A cloud of dust came out, and the metal body twitched and convulsed.
I took a deep breath, trying to clear my mind and become part of the master flow comprised of an infinite multitude of smaller ones. I could have done a better job of it, to be sure, but not much was required at that point. I kicked again, this time with my leg, and with more force applied. I knew my strength and hoped the kick wouldn’t just be deadly, but look good as well, with the dummy’s neck snapping and the helmet flying through the air like a cannonball, for everyone to admire.
However, the metal combatant surprised me. Even my three circles of power, well-developed as they were, and the knowledge I had acquired from the Great Master, were not enough, as it turned out. The foe still kept its head, although it did get badly twisted sideways. But my next blow finally finished the automaton off. Without delving deep into Chi, or anything, that time I just whacked it hard, with plenty of angry mechanical force, like a strong but inexperienced ball player might. Fortunately, my ORDER parameters prevented me from damaging my foot when I hit the metal. Gee, thank ORDER for small favors.
