"Every one of you will now receive a number, which will correspond to your arena. The only permitted items you can bring inside are over there." Miss Mallor gestured to a wall lined with panels that they could use to select various melee weapons. "This is a test of your basic fighting capabilities, so armor, gadgets, and weapons with additional capabilities, like those shock gloves, are not allowed."
"You will be judged based on your performance against a training dummy, whose skill will gradually increase. Your goal is to put up a good fight while lasting as long as you can." The teacher continued by explaining more rules, and a notification then appeared in front of the students, prompted by Miss Mallor's words. Victor quickly skimmed it, finding it was essentially the same as her explanation. He quickly skipped to the rewards section, finding that the rewards scheme was just like the last challenge.
'Let's see if i can get first this time.'
Among the students gathered, Victor was quite confident about his chances. While he might not be the strongest in the school, none of those who could beat him were in the room right now. At least among the original students. He shot a glance at the transfers, who had little to no clue about the upcoming trial, before he dismissed them.
'They shouldn't be too much competition.'
All across the grey gym, around 100 grey humanoid robotic figures rose up from the floor as glowing blue zones appeared around them, indicating their respective arenas. The robots were completely featureless besides having conformed to the average size and shape of the human body.
Like most of the crowd, Victor walked over to the weapon wall and scanned through the options before making his selection. Beside the panel a wall opened up, revealing Victor's weapon of choice: a staff almost reaching his height with a blade on each end.
Victor had trained with various weapons, but he had grown a little fonder of this one. In a couple of short minutes, each student was in an arena armed with their weapon of choice.
Victor warmed himself up with the staff as he stood across from the metal robot that would be his opponent in just a moment. Having trained with them numerous times, Victor knew that no matter how long he fought, he would eventually lose and earn himself multiple bruises. After many fights he had been thoroughly convinced it was impossible for anyone to beat them in a fight. Even so, because of his experience, he and many of his other classmates over the years knew the best way to earn a high score in this type of match. A challenger would face the robot, as it would switch between various weapons and combat styles to gain a comprehensive evaluation of their combat ability. The challengers simply had to force the robot to unleash as much of its skill as possible in battle.
Over the years they had discovered the best way to earn a higher evaluation was to land hits on the robot. Even if they didn't actually deal any damage to the robot, its combat level would rapidly increase, allowing them to skip portions of the fight and earn a better score. Obviously, striking vital areas increased their evaluation much faster than others.
Obviously none of the transfer students were told about this, but that just meant there was a better shot of the rest of them earning a higher ranking.
Today, when he stared down his metallic opponent, he couldn't help but have a thought.
'Now that many people have special abilities, how long would it be before I get to see someone smash those stupid bots to bits?'
Victor shook his head as a countdown timer flashed in his vision, quickly steeling himself for the upcoming fight.
When the timer hit zero, the metal figure raised its head and began to move.
'The first round begins.' Victor sighed inwardly as he approached his opponent, ready to strike.
The moment the robot entered his range, Victor swung one side of his staff towards the robot's legs, causing it to retreat, while Victor followed with a successful strike to the torso. Given that the robot was entirely unarmed, many students were able to use the reach advantage of their weapons to trivialize this portion of the test.
After earning a hit, he didn't hesitate to press the advantage as he delivered a flurry of rapid strikes, alternating between both sides of his staff. While the first few attacks landed smoothly, Victor remained keenly aware that the robot's reactions were faster with each strike. As Victor anticipated, a metal forearm soon interrupted his combo, blocking the way between him and his target.
In response, Victor used the recoil to then disengage, creating a couple of steps of distance between him and his opponent.
This time it was the robot's turn to attack. The grey metal figure stepped forward as Victor swept his staff in an attempt to stop the advance. Although the robot could have charged through Victor's attack and reached him directly, none of the bots did so, as that would undermine the purpose of this test. Instead, the robot stepped just beyond the reach of the staff's blade and raised one of its forearms to intercept the shaft.
Knowing he couldn't allow his metal figure to advance any closer, Victor smoothly transitioned into a flowing series of strikes while retreating. For a short moment, the battle entered a delicate dance, with the advancing metal man taking consecutive strikes on its arms and legs while Victor carefully kept his opponent's fist out of range.
But such a dance could not last, as with each strike the robot took, it got better at deflecting the strikes in a way that dealt less and less damage each time. The robot launched an attack of its own toward Victor. Already expecting such an attack, Victor didn't bother blocking and slipped under it, sending one of the blades of his staff streaking across the metal area under the arm that punched before continuing the motion and stepping behind his opponent. If this were a human opponent, he would have just disemboweled them.
Another strike of the staff quickly streaked towards the metal back of the robot, who ducked out of the way while trying to turn and face Victor.
Victor tried to maintain his superior positioning by stepping to one side of his opponent and swinging to the back of the robot's nearest leg to disrupt its balance. Before the shaft of the staff could hit, the robot braced its leg and took the strike, not falling as Victor had intended.
Before Victor could deliver a proper follow-up attack, the robot stepped closer, forcing Victor to retreat to maintain his attack range. Unfortunately, the robot was just a step too quick. When Victor's attack arrived, a fist was already before him.
Two distinct sounds were produced as the robot's left arm blocked the staff, and its right fist reached Victor's shoulder, knocking him off balance. Victor tried retreating to recover, but the metal figure was faster, stepping forward and delivering a punch right to Victor's chest, sending him tumbling to the floor.
After landing a heavy strike on Victor, instead of following up with its attacks, the robot stopped moving and turned to the closest side of the arena. From that direction, a long metal object was shot into the air before sailing down toward the robot, who held out a hand. Smoothly caught in the palm of the robot was the handle of a short sword, which held the same metal texture as its wielder. Armed with a new weapon, the robot turned towards Victor and held a neutral stance, unmoving.
Victor sighed as he slowly pulled himself to his feet. He knew that being knocked to the ground was one of the conditions that triggered the end of the first phase, so he didn't bother jumping to his feet. There would be a small pause until he initiated his second attack, so he took a small chance to rest as he raised himself from the ground.
A couple of moments passed as the robot waited until Victor was back on his feet before coldly making its metallic approach.
Knowing that its combat level had reset, Victor wasn't too afraid and walked forward in kind. When the pair reached effective range, both simultaneously made their moves. Metal clashed against metal as Victor managed to parry the sword and stab right below the armpit. Since the robot's combat level was still low, Victor daringly spun his staff for another strike before it could retreat.
Just as he predicted, the robot's reaction was unsatisfactory, so he easily blew past its defense and struck the same spot a second time before retreating a step.
Having been struck twice in succession, the robot's combat level rose rapidly as it stepped forward for a second exchange of blows.
Landing a strike was not as easy this time. Once again, Victor took advantage of the superior range of his weapon to fend off the attacks of his opponent while landing the occasional stab on its metallic body. Eventually, just like before, Victor was pushed onto the backfoot while fighting a losing battle against the combat robot.
With unnaturally smooth movements, the robot disrupted Victor's rhythm and then stabbed forward before he could raise a proper defense. The tip of the blade made contact with Victor's chest as a thin energy shield lit up, keeping him from getting cut as he crashed to the floor.
Victor lay on the floor and momentarily stared at the ceiling. He knew that the trial would only truly end when he was beaten so badly that he was unable to stand. He slowly stood up in an attempt to preserve his stamina, watching as the robot threw its sword to the edge of the ring, catching a spear in exchange.
'Second round down, countless more to go...'