Unaware of our real thought the caped woman believed the stupefied look on our faces was due to the astonishment and admiration for her achievements.
With a proud smile, she even nodded her head and took our astonished looks as a compliment.
Her grumpy mood just improved a little by all the bootlicking from Clark and astonishment from the otherworlders. Then with a smile that was almost no existing, she lead us towards the section of the room filled with Pods.
Only when we were just a few meters from the pods I was able to see how delicate and flawlessly these were made and even the steam that it releases seems to be not a faulty but an inbuilt mechanism to maintain the mechanical pods.
The Caped woman soon stopped in front of the pods and for the first time started speaking to us in a blunt tone,
" I assume all you had been briefed about the rules and instructions had been given to you about the experiment,
And then without any further ado, the first ten start to enter the pods based on the informed order. "
But as soon as she said that all of us had a confused look on our faces. Looking at our stupid faces Leonie immediately turned toward Clark.
Seeing her turn toward him Clark made a sheepish smile and scratched his head.
This 'acting cute' action Clark eroded her slightly improved mood, with an irritated eye she gave him an annoyed look before stepping away from our group to continue her conversation with her fellow scientist.
Seems like the look was a reminder for Clark to do his job properly, and with the way they behave, I have a feeling that the relationship between these two isn't simple.
*ahem*
"The trial I announced earlier, about you facing me isn't true, well technically you will be facing me but not the real me but stimulation of myself, inside our academy scientist and Mrs. Leonie's new invention the 'Soul simulator'.
And after giving us the name of the machine, Clark went on and on explaining it and the end conclusion is the thing in front of us was a 'VR Pod'.
But instead of using the word consciousness, they seem to call it a soul and that is not right because I don't believe we humans can actually touch a topic as delicate as Soul, well that's what I think.
Some may say that both soul and concessions are the same things but I beg to differ if you ask me how? I have no answer for that, just take it as one of my institution's assumptions.
But this is a magic world with a possibility for humans to evolve maybe they were able to find more about the nature and mystery of the Soul that we earthlings are still trying to find a proof of existence.
Leaving the topic about the soul and stuff for later,
The challenges have two levels,
- the first level is an everyone must.
- the next level is for only a selected few.
The first level of the challenge is that we should face a simulation copy of Clark in a random environment and the Clark clone would be nerfed to the same level as the participant.
And for the second level of the challenge not all of us can participate the top ten of us who had defeated Clark's clone the fastest will be selected for the next challenge.
And these ten will face the real Clark who will be using a VR pod, like us but the guy will be nerfed to the average of the participants.
Soon after explaining the rules, Clark immediately ran to the bald lady and once again start his ass-kissing.
[Author: The more I see the Character development of this guy, the more I feel that 'Henry Cavil' would just kill me if anyone asks him to act in this role.]
After a few minutes of being unable to tolerate the annoying Clark content bootlicking, Mrs.Leonie stopped all her work and came to conduct the challenge and chase the annoying pest named Clark out of her lab.
The moment she arrived with the highly enthusiastic Clark, she called the lab assistants to help the students get into the pods.
The lab assistants gave us a new set of VR must suits which looked like skin-fit underwear and they asked us to change into them in the changing room in the lab.
The men's innerwear looked like a brief and tank tops while the women's looked like a pair of sports underwear.
In the beginning, people wanted to complain about the VR suits but the glare from the bald Lady gave them the chills. Soon with no complaints everyone changed and waited half-naked in a line of ten in a row for their turn.
Since I was the last person during the awakening I was made to be the last person to participate in the challenge as well.
Well good for me I can watch how others are fighting, collect information and come up with a strategy to defeat the opponent.
Soon the first batch was taken to enter the Vr pods, people were made to wear a wire to monitor their vitals by the assistants.
And when the Pods were opened, people were astonished to see the interior of the pod which was actually spacious but plain, it looked like it was made out of marbles instead of any cushions.
The assistant made the students enter the pod and made them wear an oxygen mask and after making sure there isn't any technical issues they closed the shuttle doors not minding the questioning look the students gave them.
Seems like it was different types from the ones that we earthlings have imagined it to be.
As soon the door was closed the shuttle started filling itself with a strange liquid and by now the students have already had their consciousness enter the simulation.
And suddenly the big screen at the lab lit up and start live-streaming the challenge by dividing itself into ten sections. And each part of the screen had a different student standing in different environments.
One guy was standing on a beach, another guy was on an ice plain while another was on grassland and so on but all of them had grounds for them to fight.
Seeing this I felt relieved because if there is a chance that people will fight in an environment that was so absurd that people can't even show their skills then I am sure that I would lose this challenge even before the battle begins.
Soon when the participants and the clone appeared the waiting timer went zero and the battle begin since it was the first round except for the confident ones or stupid ones the rest of the students fought with caution.
Most of the battles were mostly the participants fleeing away from the clone and straight clash between the weapons of both parties none of these idiots had any strategy. It was mostly a showdown of blunt force, and the clone was also unable to counter them due to its limitations.
If there wasn't a limitation to its set of movements I'm pretty sure that the outcome would be completely different.
The first person to win the battle was a guy from our school but I don't remember his name or class but since he is the same age group as us he must be a student from our school.
And his time was 6 minutes and 34 seconds. It may look insanely fast for a newbie to defeat a veteran even if it's a clone. But as Clark had mentioned earlier the clone only performed the specific set of moves he taught us during the first week.
As soon as I saw that I muttered to myself,
" This is doable "
Soon after him, within a few seconds, another guy won his battle, and with a millisecond gap, another woman ended her battle followed by two more, a man and a girl from the public visitor group.
And as for the rest of the group that either lost their battle or just gave up. When the last battle was over all the pods opened up after a few minutes of delay after draining the strange liquid in the shuttle.
After everyone was out without giving them any time to talk the assistant helped the next batch to suit up and made them enter the pods in seconds.
Under the skill full work of the group of assistants, the students were sent in batches and bought out without any delay, and before I knew it was my turn to enter the shuttle with my batch.
With the assistance help, I entered the shuttle with all equipment attached, and as soon as the shuttle door was closed the oxygen mask they gave me shined, I lost consciousness.
And before I knew it I was already in the desert standing in front of a burly middle-aged man who had a salt and pepper long hair with a broad sword on his back. With a mocking smile on his face.
" Let me see how you're gone keep that smug on your face after I beat the crap out of you."