The battle began!
Since the virtual battle system was set in such a way so the virtual character would not attack first, Xiao Lin picked up the sword and made a provocative stab. After that, he maintained a defensive stance throughout. The virtual character immediately attacked with the training sword, but Xiao Lin did not counterattack because his purpose was to train Phantom Steps as quickly as possible.
The biggest difference between the battle systems in Dawn Academy and New Washington was the weapons. Physical wooden training swords were used in Dawn Academy instead of harmless laser-like energy swords. A person with no armor or defense would find it quite painful if they took the sword to bare skin.
In particular, Xiao Lin’s setting for the virtual character was Basic Swordsmanship LV9. It was a level which he could not block, and he would certainly be hit unless he dodged completely.
The first round of attacks ended quickly. Xiao Lin’s health bar dropped to zero after hanging on for less than 10 minutes. After all, he was in a state of completely passive defense. After the replication had ended, his body’s remaining memory of Phantom Steps had just barely reached standard LV1 or so, making it rather tricky to deal with.
Xiao Lin rubbed the red sore spot on his arm that had been struck by the wooden sword. He pressed the start button again without hesitation, and the second round of the match soon began!
However, the second round ended even quicker than the first. It ended unsurprisingly after only eight minutes. The entire battle could be likened to be a process of self-abuse. Xiao Lin could not even dodge the virtual character’s attack. He glanced at the completely emptied health bar and frowned slightly. He had somewhat underestimated the practical difficulty of Phantom Steps, and it would be ineffective to continue training like that.
“In that case, let’s lower the difficulty first.”
Xiao Lin adjusted the virtual character’s skill setting to Basic Swordsmanship LV1. He stepped into the battle room again, and as the lights dimmed, the new virtual character was projected into the center of the room.
Compared to LV9, the swordsmanship movements of LV1 were extremely simple. Each attack was the most basic technique, such as thrust, stab, and jab. Each movement was also very monotonous, and it was difficult to achieve several complex connections of movements. At Xiao Lin’s present level, he could easily see through the virtual character’s each and every movement and intention. Dealing with them was a piece of cake, and the effect of Phantom Steps was finally displayed.
Xiao Lin could easily defeat an opponent with Basic Swordsmanship LV1 in the past, but there was no way to guarantee that he would not be injured. With Phantom Steps, he could dodge each of the opponent’s attacks. That was the biggest benefit of the skill. Every successful dodge in actual combat equaled avoiding the possibility of injury or death.
10 minutes later, Xiao Lin ended the training. Basic Swordsmanship LV1 was no longer difficult enough. He adjusted the virtual character’s settings again to LV2. The increase in difficulty from LV1 was negligible, but the virtual character’s swordsmanship moves had changed slightly and were not too rigid.
Xiao Lin’s dodge rate immediately suffered a significant drop. The biggest difficulty of that skill was dealing with constantly changing attacks. After all, no one would deliver rigid and monotonous attacks in a real battle.
This battle lasted for about half an hour, and Xiao Lin’s health bar was emptied again. He still needed some time to adapt to the change, so the fifth round started almost without pause.
The sound of fierce fighting in the battle room was endless, and Xiao Lin’s reduced his physical exertion to a minimum because he was on the defense throughout the entire process. That prevented him from taking breaks and wasting time, but the price to be paid was waves and waves of attacks from the virtual character. His bones seemed to fall apart completely and he ached all over, especially the bare part of his skin on the back of his hand that had been beaten by the wooden sword.
Xiao Lin stayed at the LV2 stage of Basic Swordsmanship for more than two hours. He persisted for longer and longer each time until he could almost avoid more than 80% of the virtual character’s attacks. The room then fell into darkness all of a sudden, forcing him to stop.
When Xiao Lin walked out of the battle room and looked at the dim energy stone, he realized that the energy stone was completely spent. The reason why such battle systems could not be popularized was because of the energy stones that were required whenever it was used. Moreover, Xiao Lin was only engaging in a battle below Black Iron-rank. Any higher and the energy stone might have to be replaced in 10 minutes. The speed of its consumption meant that not even the richer academies would dare to popularize it.
Xiao Lin searched the room and found that there were only five spare energy stones, barely enough for a day. After lunch, he stopped by the dormitory and checked his attribute changes through the central computer. His Phantom Steps skill really had reached LV1, and what surprised him was that his agility attributes had actually increased by one point.
The speed was faster than he imagined, but on second thought, Phantom Steps was purely dependent on body techniques, which almost undoubtedly proved beneficial for his agility attributes. They were very low to begin with, so the effects of an increase would naturally be more obvious.
The improvement effects were more prominent when a person with low basic attributes learnt various elementary skills. It was a well-known fact in the academy. When a person’s basic attributes were high, the effect of learning basic skills was minimal–nonexistent even. Of course, learning low-level skills with high-attributes would also make the learning speed quite rapid.
As a result, Xiao Lin decided not to go for afternoon classes that day. He continued to stay in the battle room to train Phantom Steps, and his goal was to increase his low agility attributes to at least 10 points, seeing as he was only shy of another three points.
For that afternoon’s training, he directly changed the virtual character’s setting to Basic Swordsmanship LV4, which was followed by a similar repetition of that morning’s self-torture. Basic Swordsmanship LV4 had more complex movements, and a simple Phantom Steps was either very difficult to avoid or completely impossible to avoid in time.
Xiao Lin had to link up the different basic footwork and make a complete set of footwork sequences. That was the real Phantom Steps. He did not know how much his Phantom Steps skill proficiency would increase with each successful dodge, but it was certain there would be a higher increase in proficiency if he managed to dodge a stronger opponent.
Although the proficiency was digitized by the central computer, from Xiao Lin’s experience, each successful dodge gave him a deeper understanding of that set of footwork movements.
Such was the case on many occasions. As long as he executed it and practiced it, he would be able to have his body remember those movements thoroughly. If he were to face a similar situation in the future, he would then be able to react much quicker.
