Against a more technical opponent like Leslie, his raw talent and brute force were not enough. His first "death" was a valuable, if painful, lesson.
He opened his eyes. He was back in the clearing, the golden portal shimmering before him. He frantically checked his body. The wounds were gone. Not even a scar remained.
"Huh? What the...?"
He was confused, but then he remembered: this was his teacher's creation. It stood to reason that it wouldn't actually kill him.
The thought made a strange sort of sense. In Takson's mind, everything I did had a purpose, a hidden lesson. He trusted me completely.
"Alright," he said, his voice filled with a new resolve. "I can't disappoint her."
Understanding, or what he thought was understanding, dawned on him. He picked up his axe and his holy book and stepped back through the portal.
And found himself face-to-face with Zera again.
"Aww, come on," he groaned. "I have to start over from the beginning?" He could already imagine the grueling ordeal ahead of him.
But this was what he wanted. He knew that theory alone would not make him strong enough to fight demons. Only real combat experience would.
He steeled himself and charged. I've already beaten this guy once. I know how to win. The formula for victory has been established!
That was his last thought before Zera's axe cut him in half at the waist.
He reappeared in the clearing, this time with a puzzled expression on his face. He didn't rush back in. He stood before the portal, stroking his chin in thought.
That Zera... it remembered our last fight. It learned. It didn't fall for my feint. It knew I couldn't match its strength, so it came at me with pure speed, then switched up its attack pattern to trick me. That was how he had been lured into the fatal blow.
The enemies in here... they adapted.
Hiss... this is going to be harder than I thought.
But the difficulty only strengthened his resolve. Don't worry, Teacher. A little challenge like this won't stop me. So what if the enemies get stronger? I'll just have to get stronger, too!
His eyes burned with determination. He stepped once more into the gate.
….
While Takson was locked in his virtual struggle, I did not spend the entire time waiting. After two hours of continuous observation, I was satisfied that the combat arena was functioning perfectly.
The "barrier" was merely a physical anchor; the simulation itself was running in a pocket dimension, invisible and intangible to the outside world.
Only I could open a path in or out.
The armament's only real drawback was its initialization process. It required a full environmental scan to establish the arena's parameters, and a target scan to allow someone entry.
As a single, standalone Ex-Machina, even with the system's assistance, my processing power was a pale imitation of the entire linked Cluster from my homeworld.
This was the primary reason my scans and analyses always took a non-zero amount of time.
Trying to trap an enemy in the arena mid-battle, for example, would have a very low probability of success.
But for a controlled training environment, it was perfect.
Confident that everything was running smoothly, I left a single clone behind to monitor Takson's physical condition and departed. His training, after all, was going to take a very, very long time.
….
While Takson was being tortured in the Virtual Combat Arena, I made my way to the city.
This was the fourth major human settlement I had encountered in the past six months, and it was my original destination before I was sidetracked by the demon encampment. I walked its streets, doing what I always did: scanning, observing, recording.
Eventually, I found what I was looking for: a villager, come to the city to hire help. It was a classic RPG quest trope.
This world had "heroes" and "adventurers," but strangely, no formal guilds to organize them. Commissions were handled personally, with clients seeking out adventurers on the street.
I had no need for money, but I took the rolled-up parchment the villager offered. I had chosen this particular commission for a specific purpose. It was a test.
[Task: Exterminate the spider-fiends lurking in the deep mountains.]
….
Noon, Three Days Later:-
In a remote mountain forest...
"Hm? Finished already?"
I was sitting in front of the entrance to yet another labyrinth, reading a grimoire that was resting on my lap. Across from me, Takson had just stumbled out of a golden portal.
He was used to this by now. Whenever he was engaged in a long training session, his teacher would leave a clone to watch over him while her main body went off to do... whatever it was she did.
When the training was complete, a portal would open and transport him to her location. He had long since stopped being surprised when he stepped through a door and found himself in a completely different part of the world.
"Ugh... Teacher..." he groaned. "I feel... sick..."
Inside the simulation, with his adrenaline pumping, he hadn't felt the passage of time. He had no idea that he had been fighting, without food, water, or rest, for two full days. The moment he stepped out, the exhaustion and hunger hit him like a physical blow.
I had already completed a full scan of his physical condition.
"Here. Take this," I said, closing the book. I produced a small canister of liquid from... somewhere... and tossed it to him. He caught it instinctively.
"What is...?"
"Explanation: Nutritional supplement. It will alleviate your current condition."
"Okay..."
He trusted me completely. He downed the entire canister in one go.
It tasted... sweet? And whatever it was, it worked. He could feel strength returning to his limbs, the fog of exhaustion lifting from his mind.
How is that possible?! he thought, staring at the empty canister. But then he remembered who had given it to him. Right. It's Teacher. Of course she can do that.
I offered no explanation. I simply tossed the grimoire I had been reading to him. He caught it without looking, a practiced motion.
In the months he had been with me, he had become a walking, talking storage unit for the various grimoires I collected and recorded.
….
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