As I ran at the Snallygaster slinking around at the edge of my halo of light, I thought of its weaknesses.
"The weakness should be the giant eye on its head, but the problem is that the tentacles coming from its mouth are always swaying around protecting it."
As I reached the edge of the range of the tentacles, I tried throwing the kusarigama at the eye, but the tentacles would always hit them down.
'Yeah, like that was gonna work in the first place.'
'Hmm, it seems like it can't come into the light, so should I just keep launching ranged attacks with the kusarigama? No, the tentacles are too sturdy and I'll tire out a lot quicker than the Snallygaster anyways as my rank is lower.'
'Is my only option really to get up close and personal with it?'
'No, I have that still up my sleeve, but if I use it, it would be about the same amount of danger as facing the Snallygaster up close.'
'Yeah, I'll just end it quickly.'
Positioning myself perfectly with my OCD, I prepared to release the most powerful form that I could muster in my current state.
'A seemingly limitless wave that splits the night in two, A Whisper in the Night, Form 1: Boundless.'
As if the darkness had split in two, a white light streaked across the scene like a rip in a painting.
When the light died down, all you could see was a sickle in the eye of a terrible beast, and a boy collapsed on the floor, coughing out blood.
"Cough, cough."
'Fuck, even though I'm (D-) rank, this little body makes it so that I can't handle the power in forms yet.'
Forms represented the absolute mastery over a star rank in a manual and once you had mastered it, you would be able to start on the next star rank.
Of course, as the first two ranks of a manual were for learning basics, forms only appeared at the third rank and afterwards.
As I still couldn't use the first form without coughing up a bunch of blood, it meant that I was still inadequate and that I would need to train more before moving up to the next rank.
'But at least it was still really effective.'
If I had tried to battle it out up close with the Snallygaster, then I would have probably suffered severe injuries. Of course, using the first form also gave me a pretty huge injury, but it was only internal, so I wouldn't be perceived as being weakened by the others on this train.
"Hmm, the First Form: Boundless, overall, pretty useful."
Just like its name, boundless was a form that made it possible for the user to ignore all defense that their opponent had and strike them, creating a fatal injury. Of course, this was only if the opponent was no more than one full rank (the status one, not the star one) above them.
As I propped myself back up with my hands, I wiped the blood of my chin and started limping to the next carriage.
In the next carriage, I was faced with a swarm of (E) ranked monsters, and, although it wasn't hard to kill them one-by-one, the swarm made my job infinitely harder, resulting in an extremely sweaty me walking into the next carriage.
In this carriage, I was faced with a death puzzle, in which, if I hadn't solved it in time, I would have died.
Luckily, it had only been a slide puzzle that I had been able to solve after thinking about it for a few minutes.
I moved onto the next car, and then the next, before finally reaching a slightly different carriage.
Once again, a childish voice rang out.
"Congratulations examinee 3477, you have gotten to the second carriage in this whole train. Please patiently wait for the remainder of your teammates before starting this test."
Hearing this, I knew that it would take at least a day or two before my teammates that survived their tests would get here, as even though they could complete each test with more people than me, I was still superior to them in terms of rank and tactics.
So, I just laid down and closed my eyes on one of the rows of seats, trusting that the AI wouldn't let harm befall me as I was an important first place candidate.
...
It took three days for them to arrive at this carriage.
Before them, two other teams had already passed through, but, judging by the screams that I heard, they probably hadn't gotten past the 2nd carriage test and so hadn't advanced to the first carriage.
I watched them with a calm expression, using my OCD to review all of their injuries.
"You guys, rest for a day. We'll be heading in tomorrow."
Too tired to argue with me, the remaining 4 of them immediately collapsed in a row or seat before quickly falling asleep.
Looks like Markus survived, just like in the original story. Well, of course, we'll have to wait until the end of this hellish ride before being able to confirm it fully.
...
After I waited exactly 24 hours, I shook each of them awake before pointing at the door in front of us.
We all silently gathered in front of the door before opening it and rushing in.
"You guys finally opened the door. You should know that I've been waiting on you forever!"
A familiar cheerful voice greeted us as we entered the room.
"The final test is simple, play a game of blackjack against me. If you guys win, then you'll be able to move on to the next floor."
"It's simple, no?"
"Oh, I forgot to mention, anything is allowed in this game, except that the dealing will always be fair."
!!!
We all looked around at each other, trying to mentally plan with each other so that we had the best chance of defeating the AI.
The AI was definitely going to use its immense computational skills to count the cards, effectively making it so that it would be invincible after the first few rounds, but, as I knew how to count cards too, and had spent a period doing it for fun once back in my original world, I was confidant that I wouldn't lose that badly to the AI, and that the rest of the money that my team got would make up for it.
"As you're all ready now, let's play a game of Blackjack!"