18 Training in Dreamworld (1/2)

Sebastian shuts his eyes as his mind enters the void of sleep. Unexpectedly, a dim white light began to appear in the endless abyss. The white speck of light began to expand rapidly until the whole void turned into an empty dimension of white. He was never a believer of prophetic dreams or visions so he just considered this very normal.

Suddenly, he stopped floating and realized that his feet could step on an invisible floor. A dual voice of a young woman and a young man spoke, creating loud echoes, ”Sebastian Adrian Cain, player number 11286. For becoming an Immortal-8 rank and activating the system update, you have been favored and will be trained to become far stronger than you are now.”

A notification appeared in front of him.

You have been given the Fragment System. Player can now train skills and techniques to gain fragments and combine them to produce the skills or techniques or produce a new one through combination.

Another one then appeared immediately after.

Your Fragment System has been elevated from iron rank to silver rank for possessing a bloodline monster. Now player can get monster and item fragments from killing monsters, using items or gaining items. Hybrid monsters can be produced from the complete fragments of different monsters and user will create a new monster species with a 10% chance of possessing a bloodline.

'Whoa, is this real?' He thought. He expected the system to be harsh and unforgiving like other games he used to play. Then again, it was probably because he purchased the God Package. He never wanted to return to the hell of his old life ever again anyways, so it's a massive profit for him. After closing the notification, the dual voice spoke, ”You are now under training. You may not use any of your skills. This training is aimed to push your techniques to an expert's level which will push your combat ability up to 2 ranks and give you free skill fragments.”

The voice paused momentarily before it continued, ”Stage 1, Basic Apprentice. Defeat all enemies with your sword.” A human like wooden puppet appeared a few yards in front. It held an iron sword and an offensive stance with the blade pointed at Sebastian. 'This shouldn't be too hard.' A basic apprentice's skills should be very simple, his experience on watching sword wielding anime characters should at least give him some insight on how to fight.

An iron prompt appeared before him, asking him if he is ready. He quickly pressed the ready button and a mechanized voice coming from the puppet's head spoke, ”Challenger is ready. Initiating Basic Apprentice techniques. 3 offensive techniques and 1 defense technique.” The puppet then charged towards Sebastian, pointing it sword at its combatant. When it arrived, it swung its sword, aiming at his head. The puppet moved at an average person's speed, due to his upgraded intelligence and reaction speed, he quickly blocked the hit and pushed it sideways.

Since it was training, he purposefully only blocked the hits. Since its opponent is a basic swordsman apprentice, he could learn the basics from its attack patterns. Even though he had overpowered swords, it would eventually require him to add techniques onto those swords to reach the higher levels. It wouldn't hurt to learn the basics. After a 5 minute span of blocking attacks, he observed that the puppet only performed a horizontal slash, a vertical slash and a stabbing attack at random order.

After observing its stances and the way it executed each technique, he copied it and started to fight on the offensive. The dummy only dodged the attacks. After another half minute of observing its dodging patterns, he immediately countered it and slashed it into 4 pieces. The moment its butchered, wooden body touched the invisible floor, its body faded into nothingness. ”Congratulations for defeating the Stage 1, Basic Apprentice training. Your techniques have officially reached the Basic Apprentice rank. You have received the passive technique skill, Sword Apprentice (Basic) and 100 fragments of the double slash technique.”

A notification rang and spoke in Hirani's voice.

You have received the passive skill, Sword Apprentice (Basic)

Sword Apprentice (Basic) [Common Rank]

Effect: Slashes and Stabs deal 25% more damage.

Another one followed after he closed the previous.

You possess 100 fragments of the double slash technique. Would you like to synthesize it into a technique?

He pressed the confirm button without hesitation. He would take all the benefits he received in order to complete the training and get stronger. A third one then rang after a second from pressing confirm.

You have received the technique, Double Slash.