Charging towards the raging orc as it hobbled off the throne, causing the cave to shake furiously as the orc stumbled forward. Andrew was now a lot closer to the giant orc, its rough belly protruded the rough cloth as it jiggled with each stomp.
"Gross" Andrew commented as he neared the giant monster, its club already raised high to smash him to pieces. Andrew dove to the right as the towering orc slammed down its weapon. The swing was slow, real slow.
'huh , maybe this isn't so bad after all.' Andrew thought as he watched the weapon collide with the ground
BAM
The sheer force of the impact caused the cave's floor to become a crater, its jagged edges threatening to stab Andrew at the slightest poke. Sending shards of rock flying across the large enclosure at mach speeds, a couple slicing through his clothes.
"Holy shit, never mind then." He called as he lounged for the orcs leg, stabbing his sword in forwards. The sword slid in slowly, like pushing a stick through thick honey.
The tall orc let out a screech in pain as Andrew pushed the sword in with all of his strength. His arms trembled in resistance as he kept pushing the sword forward. The orc started to swing the club at him again, but this time Andrew ran around its leg. Causing the strike to collide with nothing, once again a crater formed. Shards forming once again, He grabbed his sword and leapt away from the orc.
'I've got to get a better strike than a leg wound. One in a more vital spot and one that can actually cause some damage.' The throne sat in front of him now. Its smooth edges were like a large pyramid brick as he ran towards it with full force, jumping on rocks and carved stone to get the height advantage.
The orc was slow to get up as it turned towards Andrew, its stomping thundered through the room as it ran forward. Andrew saw this chance, it was a calculated plan. Andrew used the thrones armrest as a platform to jump off the throne and onto the orc. He collided with the Orcs shoulder as he landed, The orc confused stopped running. Causing him to shake and stumble in place from the momentum.
Andrew picked up his sword and ran towards the orcs neck, before it could collide the orc threw his shoulder back like shaking off a bug. Flinging Andrew across the cave.
He landed on the ground with an audible thump as he rolled over multiple times. His arms flailed as he slowed to a stop.
"Shit, that might be a sprain or two" he said as he stood up, picked up his sword and ran right back at the orc. It's dark blueish green body swayed as it turned. Its face contorted with annoyance and rage.
His leg throbbed with pain every time he took a step, but he didn't have time to worry about such a minor issue.
This time Andrew reached its legs before it could swing, he sprung to gain some momentum and tried to slice the orcs leg. But it was barely effective as it rubbed the orcs leg, like stabbing a rubber eraser.
Andrew ran under its legs to avoid the potential attack as well as being extremely careful to not look up. Sliding on the rocky floor as he turned around, his sweaty brown hair almost blocked his vision. He ran forward to stab forward once more, this time puncturing the back of the orcs thigh.
Its loud roar of agony rang through his ears. As he took the sword out, and impaled it back into a different place. The orcs leg shook as its knee reached the floor, causing the floor to vibrate. Its remaining leg was used as a crutch as the orc struggled to ignore the pulsating pain as blood poured out. Andrew didnt let this chance slip as he dove at the orcs back, managing to stab just to the right of the spine. Impaling the orc as it coughed up blood, Andrew used the leverage of the stuck sword to swing him self up wards, barely managing to withdraw the sword from his landing point on his shoulder.
The orcs resistance was almost minimal as its ragged breath coursed around him. Everytime it tried to move its legs it was met with no strength as it just stood there, using its free are to try and swat away the bug on its back to no avail. Andrew reached the blade around its large head and gave it a nice slice, causing blood to pour out like a waterfall onto the ground below him. Its body twitched multiple times as the life drained out of the orc
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Awesome job! Floor (1,10) cleared
+1 on all stats
+1 Dex
Would you like to continue?
--------------
"No" Andrew said through patterned breaths, he was not one to lose his breath. He had run miles at a time, but this towered over that accomplishment. The surrounding area morphed and he was back in the large warehouse building. Its silver outline gave him a sense of relief as he felt the stress evaporate and legs became weak. He turned around as the doors behind him opened.
The outside blue light shone in like an overpowering flashlight as he looked onto the modern campus, the cobbled paths were stained in a couple bouts of blood. Looks like he wasn't the only ones with struggles. Multiple students were around either waiting in line or sitting around just watching the people who leave to help gain more intel on what's to come.
Looking around he saw Zoe on a small wooden park bench with her face down and pale with worry.
"Yo, Anything wrong?" He teased as he walked forward limply, the adrenaline was running out and the pain of heavy impact started to seep into his muscles.
Zoe looked up at him, her blond face lit up slightly then returned to normal as quickly as it broke through. Replaced with a hint of worry crept its way into her eyes. She had a slight amount of freckles that sprinkled around her nose and cheeks.
"NOPE, just waiting for you," She said quickly as she shifted out of her seat awkwardly. Causing Andrew to smirk a little.
This made him a little happy
Zoe walked up to him and put her arm on his shoulder to help him walk.
"Alright then, how was your trip?" He asked her as they walked together towards the middle of the park. Their pace was abysmal, about as fast as a toddler jog.
"Fairly well, I got to the 4th floor. From what I heard, that's not too bad. Most people got to around the 3rd to 5th floor. The highest I heard was John." She caught herself with her words and looked at him apologetically. Seems she knew about the sour spot.
"You don't need to worry about it, I don't have a problem with john. Just his priorities are a little misordered."Andrew reassured her lightly.
"What did he get too?" he continued on to change the subject as a couple of pinecones rolled across the pathway by a warm breeze
"I think around floor 8 before he had to leave because of exhaustion, not injury which is surprising. What did you get too?" she continued, clearly interested.
Andrew nodded at her statement.
'John may be stronger than me and has more fighting experience. His endurance is phenomenal, but it pales in comparison to mine. He knows I'm smarter than him too, so if we got in a brawl. He would need to end it within 2 minutes or I would win. He also can't fight me twice, because I would memorize his moves. So in simpler terms, I'm his worst possible matchup for people.' Andrew thought to himself as he paced forwards slowly
"Remember to keep this between us, okay? We have an agreement." Andrew responded, it was a rule among everyone. NEVER reveal your friends progress, it could bring unwanted attention that they didn't want. Luckily, no harm is to be done outside of agreed matches.
She nodded frantically
"I would never!" she shook her hands at his suggestion.
"I completed floor 10, i'm onto the second group." he laughed as he gave her shoulder a little shove.
"Now, can you tell me where I can get some pain killers and some food?" Andrew continued as he saw her pale face, pure amazement shown through her eyes as she looked at him. A smile rose on his face as he looked at her face.
"Uhhh…. Yea, let's just head to the cafeteria. I think they have some remedies for sale there, But i don't have any credits."
Instead of money this school and almost all boarding highschools require credit usage instead. Where you earn through progression and exam scores. Especially exam scores. This helps with keeping the playing field even and only shows the potential of each student and not how much money can be stuffed into a garbage bag.
"Oh you don't need to worry about that, I have that under control." he told her, taking out a couple of small bronze tokens.
"OH, that's right! You're first in exams!" she exclaimed with a slap to her forehead, her eyes gave a light of amazement and also jealousy.
he nodded towards her as we walked towards the cafeteria. The campus wasn't very ginormous, around 10 miles long and 20 miles wide. Compared to colleges it is very mediocre, but luckily all of the main needs like library and cafeteria as well as training areas were located within a 2 mile square. They walked south for about 20 minutes, talking and admiring the radiant campus of dire wolves. Soon they reached a large white building with two separate floors, it hosted a variety of small restaurants.
"WOAH" Zoe was ecstatic, we both came from a very large middle school. But that was just in numbers wise, other than that we were a very poor middle school. Getting a set school lunch was normal, with very little benefits and anything too tasty. But here we have luxury restaurants.The best food for the best students was plastered on the front of the doors.
"They really love splurging on us huh." Andrew told her as he opened the front door to see a large amount of people. The tables were located in the center like the food court at a mall.
He looked at her face, she was super excited. Drool coming out her mouth landing on her petite rising chest.
"You're drooling" he said to her as he walked by, walking towards a small med stand.
Her face turned a slight hue of pink, barely noticeable. But Andrew saw it , he grinned. the stand was run by a lady in her mid 20's. Her black hair stretched past her shoulders.
"Sorry, you need credits to purchase from this stand." she gave him a slight bow, clearly apologetic. Normally credits were only possessed by upper classmen of the next years, who haven't arrived at the school yet as they were coming tomorrow to let the freshman have a look around.
"Oh, you don't need to worry. I have a few." he told her as he looked through the small selection of products, my sight landing on a small container of painkillers.
Her face showed no change, but her gaze changed to that of a predator. Staring at him with hope as he looked at the painkillers.
"Ill take these" he said pointing to a small bottle that had some painkillers that healed wounds quicker.
"Of course, 5 credits please." she said respectfully.
He handed her 5 bronze colored tokens with a nod, they exchanged items. Andrew could see a small post-it note on the side of the bottle and a smile crept on his face as he stashed the bottle away.
He turned to find Zoe with a small pout on her face as they went to look for some food to eat.
Andrew and Zoe wandered around and looked at all of the small arrangements of food, including all western,asian and some european style restaurants.
They sat down at a small table near the outskirts of the bustling cafeteria, where most of the students were indulging in a large array of expensive foods. Both Andrew and Zoe had a meal in their hands as they talked about their plans for the next two weeks. The next two weeks were given to students as training time to get used to mana and get stronger so they can actually learn in school. Giving fighting lessons was pointless if the learner didn't even try.
Andrew popped a painkiller as he took a small painkiller. He was finished with his food and looked around the large court of restaurants. It was like any school cafeteria, all tables smashed into one place. But this time they had popular food places lining the outside so students could order what they wanted. Andrew was surprised to see some rather unhealthy options, for such a strict and competitive environment, you would think the food would be for benefit.
Andrew picked up his tray and walked over to a large trash can, pouring his contents inside. He looked up and found John walking towards him.
"Hey!" John said, giving him a wave.
"Hey." Andrew responded back like a robot and turned around to walk away.
"Wait, I just want to talk. Uhh" he frantically thought of a conversation talk as Andrew raised an eyebrow at him.
"OH! What floor did you get too?" he asked finally like he had found the greatest subject to talk about, in the history of mankind.
'Once a musclehead, always a musclehead' Andrew thought as a small smirk crawled onto his face.
"Not the best idea to share that information." Andrew replied coldly as he turned his eyes away from him.
"Now, I really have to get going. Have a nice day." he continued as he walked forward slowly. While they ended on good terms, things weren't really smoothed out yet.
John slumped over and turned back his own way.
"Guess that's how it's going to be," John sadly mumbled.