The Protagonist Already Knows

Chapter 34: Day 1

*BZZT*

Clicking my tongue, I glanced down at my smartwatch and activated Anubis’s ferry.

*WHOOSH*

In the next second, a sword came surging toward me; however, the blade simply phased through my body.

"..."

The AI robot, though it didn’t have thoughts or emotions, paused for a moment and glanced at its blade, which was simply sticking through my body.

Meanwhile, I finally opened the message on my smartwatch.

[Please report to Room 503 in the first-year building for your first Virtual Reality session. Failure to arrive within 30 minutes of this message will result in a significantly lower individual mark on the exam.]

It was already time...was it?

After sleeping on Friday, I had pretty much spent the last two days in this single room, only leaving to grab water and food about once a day.

Floating forward and phasing through the AI dummy, I rematerialized right behind it and, without any hesitation, stabbed my Dao at its defenseless back.

The AI dummy, still glancing forward at its sword, instantly fell forward and crashed down face-first on the ground in front of me.

[User: 10 / AI Dummy: 0]

[Level 2 Complete!]

[Move on?]

Although my sword Art was far from being completed, I could tell I was improving.

My fundamental sword slashes and jabs had finally surpassed those of a grade-schooler, with me easily being able to defeat the level 1 Dummy without using Anubis’s Ferry at all.

However, there was...something else.

It felt as if every time I poured my emotions during the battle into my sword, things...naturally went right.

Instead of relying on pure logic when deciding which attacks or counterattacks to use, I simply moved without thinking.

If I were frustrated, I would rush at the AI dummy, performing all sorts of acrobatic maneuvers like jumping over its sword and sliding between its legs, just to land a hit.

Even if the hit didn’t land and I failed, I instinctively felt that the next time I would be...just a tiny bit closer to winning.

I felt as if I could swing my sword faster and easily parry blades that would have otherwise hit me when I poured my emotions into my sword, allowing them to dictate my battle style.

It also didn’t help that the longer the battle went on, the more disgusted I got with the severe lack of skill, and the more I poured my emotions into my sword, attacking more aggressively.

Was being true to myself, my emotions, and my thoughts the key to creating my own combat art?

Sighing, I finally emerged from my home after the last two days, found the training hall empty, and immediatly headed to my dorm room to take a shower.

...

...

...

Dressed in my usual academy uniform, I walked through an open door and entered a room the size of our normal classroom.

There were countless pods in the room, each resembling a photobooth back on Earth with curtains blocking out the inside of them.

As I entered the room, Professor Sooyung, who was standing by the door, didn’t even look up.

"Far right."

Since I had learned she was the old "Ash’s" sensei, I had been as silent as possible in the classroom, hoping she wouldn’t notice anything off.

But...now, perhaps it was because I had finally stopped marking other people to manipulate my own emotions, I wasn’t as scared.

Even she had noticed the "Ash" she knew had changed... it didn’t matter.

Plenty of people change: in her eyes, I could have just gone through a phase.

Nodding my head, I walked to the edge of the classroom, pushed aside the crimson curtains, and entered my pod.

The room was completely dark except for a single screen on the wall, which illuminated the sole thing in the room: an item resembling an "Apple Vision Pro" back on Earth.

[Once you have entered, please put on the Virtual Reality Equipment. You will be put inside Limbo and be transported when the exam begins.]

Following the instructions, I put on the virtual reality headset, darkness descending as my eyes were completely blocked out.

But...in the next moment.

I found myself...surrounded by nothing.

Everything was a blinding white: the walls, the floor, and the ceiling.

It was as if I were in an insane asylum meant for psychopaths.

Looking down, I found the sole thing in the white room: my sheathed Dao.

Grabbing the sword’s hilt, I unsheathed the Dao and swung it around a few times before finally hearing a voice sound directly in my ears, as if I were wearing headphones.

"Everyone has arrived: you will be transported in a few moments."

*BZZT*

As the notification-like sounds reverberated through my ears, I glanced down for a moment, finding the floor was no longer pure white but glass.

And through that glass, I finally saw our map.

Under a light-blue sky, the entire map was mostly covered by a massive forest, with tall oak trees so densely packed together that sunlight couldn’t even seep in.

Lakes and other various interesting mini-biomes like volcanic regions, deserts, islands, and icy mountains were also littered throughout.

However, standing in stark contrast to the widespread nature, there were countless medieval-style fortresses all over the map, each with a flag standing atop the castle’s keep.

*CRACK*

In the next moment, a crack suddenly appeared in the glass floor below me.

*CRACK*

*CRACK*

Before I could even react, the glass below the floor split wide open, and my body instantly plunged straight down.

And there, looking straight down at the ground, I found our fortress, a crimson-red flag that read "Professor Sooyung" blowing in the wind atop it.

Our fortress lay in the middle of an island, which also stood alone in the middle of a decent-sized lake at the outskirts of the massive forest on the map.

*WHOOSH*

*WHOOSH*

Glancing left and right, I saw the sky filled with human figures as over 1,000 students dropped into their respective castles like in a battle royale game.