"By Jove!" Bobby cried, "So it also works here. Then Cynthia, can you hear me, too?"
"Yeah-yeah, loud and clear." Cynthia's sweet voice echoed inside his head.
"Now tell me, what should I do now? " Bobby asked, seeing Cynthia in his mind again.
"You can start by either choosing one of the two options. Oh, time here runs differently from outside in the real world. A half an hour in the outside world adds up to half a day in this Martial Art Training Virtual World. So you have at most 11 hours left to train yourself here." Cynthia explained meticulously and said, "Master Bobby, select one option which you prefer the most."
"Fine," Bobby replied and further asked after pondering for a while, "Cynthia, can I also train in both of them?"
"Sure, but you have to choose one option for now. " Cynthia replied unhurriedly.
Bobby contemplated, looking over the two options in his mind and finally, he made his mind and clicked on the Weapon Training bar, using his mind.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Another notification popped up as,
[ Weapon Training Mode, activated!]
Just after that, a large armory made from the wooden shelf materialized at the near corner of the white wall.
Bobby stepped up toward the armory. "Wow!" He exclaimed as he passed by it step by step. The armory contained various types of weaponry, consisting of two rows; in the first row, he saw various types of range weapons ranging from highly advanced laser beam guns to the traditional bows and arrows. The second row was filled with melee-type weaponry mostly consisting of various types of weapons such as throwing axes and javelins, pole weapons and spears, knives, swords etcetera…
"Choose one of the weapons and the particular training mode will be activated itself." Cynthia reminded him again.
Bobby had a particular interest as his eyes vyed over the slightly curved long swords. On the bar, he read: "Samurai Katana!" He picked up the one with the red-handled.
"Good, it's at least 1 kg in weight, 30 inches, and single-edge," he said while swinging it.
[ Host choose Samurai Katana! ]
[ Level 1 training, activated! ]
[ Host should strike the dummy's head 50 thousand times in a single type of stance, using all your strength in every strike. ]
[ Reward: 50 experience points.]
"What 50 thousand times?! Are you nuts?!" Bobby shouted out loud.
"Hee hee hee, so this cowardly attitude must be your true nature then. Hah, I expected something more from you." Cynthia taunted, trying to get on his nerve again.
Bobby heaved a long breath out and said lazily, "Fine, at least I could still get 50 experience points."
At that time, a dummy with a man's posture appeared in the room. "So that is my target," Bobby muttered and walked toward it.
"Then happy training. I shall enter into a gentle slumber for a while." Cynthia bid and then she disappeared from Bobby's view in his mind.
Bobby stopped before the dummy making a gap between them about his katana length. He then gripped around the handle of the katana with both his hands tightly and struck it directly over the head and continued…
And a new status bar came up in his mind as he continued hitting the dummy with his katana.
[ 1/ 50,000]
[ 2/ 50, 000]
[ 3/ 50, 000]
...…..
Bobby continued hitting it over and over again. Even though his way of training looked very simple and unchallenging, after half an hour, he began to feel that his katana began to weigh more and more. But still, he continued hitting the dummy with all his strength. It kept going on until two hours, his striking rate slowed down unsteadily.
Sweat pours down wetting his clothes and those from his face and hands sprinkled at the dummy as he struck it continuously.
"Puff! Puff! Puff!..." Bobby gasped as he breathed in and out heavily. He was all tired out but still persisted gnashing his teeth. As he continued, he began to realize that there were hidden energies within every cell of our body and he was able to draw them out gradually.
Like that several hours pass, and…
Beep! Beep! Beep!
…a new notification came out in his mind.
[ Number of strikes left: 101; Time left: 29 minutes 45 seconds ]
"101 strikes left! Ah…, stop bullshitting me!" He screamed in his head and continued hitting the dummy with all of his strength as every strike would not be counted if they didn't reach the power of his very first strike. Now he paused, gasping for air after every full-power strike. But he still gathered all of its determination and began to bash the dummy with everything he got.
[ Number of strikes left: 5; Time left: 2 minutes 23 seconds ]
All the muscle in Bobby's body went into spasm at this very moment, his legs began to shake and he had trouble moving his arms. Something inside his head began to shout aloud telling him to give up or he would die, and even his will dwindled down, and almost thought of giving up as his hands gripping around the sword handle slowly loosened up.
" Coward! Coward!...Co-ward!" The sweet voice of Cynthia echoed evoking the beast inside as Bobby retained his consciousness, jolting back awake from his slight stupor state of hallucination. "Ah! I'm not a fucking coward!" He bellowed out and his eyes began to turn golden. Then he gripped the katana firmly with his hands and began striking. These times, with every stroke the momentum increased.
[ Number of strikes left: 1; Time left: 25 seconds.]
Bobby halted and raised his katana high above, making both his eyes shut.
"What now?! Just strike one more and….er… that's… " Cynthia said, clenching her both hands tightly and she then stopped on seeing Bobby entering a strange state. "...that's..he's having an epiphany. " She muttered below her audible voice. "Hahaha…Not bad!. Not bad! "
But the time kept ticking and only 10 seconds left, still counting down.