Sean found himself in a vast and fully white world when he opened his eyes. It felt weird to be in a completely different environment so suddenly. He also looked down at his body and just then realised he had his gauntlets equipped. Before he could punch the air for a get a feel for them, he heard a feminine voice inside his head.
.
.
.
There were dozens of Rank 1 Red Abominations listed, 38 to be exact. While Sean was overwhelmed with the number of Abominations, he heard Captain Henry talking this time.
After hearing the time limit, Sean realised he couldn't just survive every Abomination. He had to defeat some of them just to be able to complete the assignment, let alone making it to the first 100.
"EVE, simulate every Abomination on the list by their order, proceed to the next when I'm eliminated."
Sean would fight every single one of them today to get a feel for which ones he could defeat, then strategize which ones he would survive against, and which ones could be defeated with enough preparation. He was just a single unengraved human, simply defeating all of them was out of the question. He was stretching when the first Abomination materialised in front of him.
'No environment change.' Sean quickly noted. If the white virtual world stayed as is, it would make most of the fights harder since he couldn't utilise the environment. The first Abomination finished materialising, prompting him to move.
The first Abomination was the Maced Beaver. It was two meters tall with protrusions on its tail, making it look like a mace. It wouldn't be building any dams with that tail.
"Slow movement and limited attack options, this one is doable." He had a quick fight with it before letting the Abomination maul him. What he didn't expect was to feel pain.
"KUAKH!" He quickly learned that being mauled to death was not a good experience. "It's alright, I can use it to practice fighting while in pain. If I can raise my tolerance it would surely help someday." He quickly decided it was why he had let the Abominations kill him, to cope with the fact that he forgot he could simply end the fight with a command. But he had already issued a command, and changing it would waste time. He had barely four minutes allocated to every Abomination, he didn't want to waste time.
The second fight was with the Precipitous Lynx; it could change directions very fast, deserving of its name. It had dodged every punches while still attacking Sean right afterwards. Although it was difficult to deal with in a short amount of time, it wouldn't be hard to get used to it's patterns. This time, he was shredded to death.
"Heuk! This will not get better will it..."
He realy didn't look forward to spat on by an Acidic Camel. After the Abomination materialised, he quickly attacked the creature. It was large as a pickup, and seemed like it was chewing on something all the time. Sean's fists met with its abdomen, but it just slightly wobbled. Not convinced, Sean sent punches after punches, but the creature was just standing still and taking it all. Eventually, it moved. The abomination turned its head towards sean and...
SPIT
SIZZLE~
It spat a green, fist-sized glob mucus, which Sean quickly dodged. He still had time with this creature, and he wouldn't finish without finding a weak point. After dodging the spit, Sean jumped towards the Abomination, targeting its triple humps. He brought both of his hands together, and slammed them down with his momentum from the jump. The blow stumbled the Abomination, and the hump burst open. From the hump acidic liquid spewed out, besmearing Sean with it. Rest of the content was too gore for virtual world so it censored it. Sean continued to fight Abominations in quick succession until the allocated time ended. After the two and a half hours was over, the trainees stepped out from the capsules. Some looked hopeful, while others looked like they had an exam tomorrow and hadn't studied, playing games instead. Sean had also received several glances because of his pale complexion, surely the fights had took a heavy toll on him. One of the glances belonged to Captain Henry.
'This idiot, didn't he know he could turn down the pain perception? I thought she would've mentioned it. No. If its her, she definitely wouldn't know either...'
Of course he was thinking about Ms. Hudson, Sean's caretaker back at the orphanage and a 4th Rank Evolutionary. As a high rank Evolutionary she had her own EVRST capsule back at the Nitefall Guild, but left it behind when she retired. One of the stories she would tell was her acing the Gate Speed Runs. Gate Speed Runs was one of the popular sports amongst the Evolutionaries, sponsored by EVEREST.
The public, or rather private capsules were different than the ones at the camp, as the latter were prepared for militaristic purposes. In the other hand, the private capsules had more freedom for the user. They could recreate any location and creature they provided the data for, could invite other users to ones own world or do live streams and recordings. This birthed the Gate Speed Run, which focused on raiding a Gate with a cohort. Cohorts would consist of Evolutionaries that would do the fighting, butchers and collectors for collecting Abomination parts and Ether Crystals. Before the release of EVRST capsules there was no definitive way to compare guild's cohorts but with their release, cohorts could compete with each other directly in the same Gate. The competition evolved over time and turned into a sport that even the makeshift cohorts could join to make a name for themselves.
The Leagues depended on the ranks of the Evolutionaries that did the fighting, and their number. A 5 member fighting squad had 10 butchers and collectors each, while the 10 member squads had 25 butchers and collectors each. As the name was Gate Speed Run, the cohorts would try to achieve 100% resource collection as fast as they could. All of this had nothing to do with Sean and his friends yet, as they still didn't own a private one. Maybe except Tyson, being a silverspoon and all.
Sean was absentminded remaining of the day, only in the his free time he had finally collected himself and set out to sort the Abominations. He would be fighting 29 of the 38 Abominations, and would only just try to survive with nine of them. It was an ambititious number, but being massacred by every single one of them did help him better understand their limits, an unexpected boon. Sean slept early this day to recover from his mental fatigue, although the capsule would make his body's condition peak, same couldn't be said for his mind. The 38 different deaths, albeit virtual, had taken their toll on him. He had a deep sleep that night, and woke up fully refreshed the next day.
Second day of the training, the half that would go first had been switched. Sean and his half would be the ones doing physical training first this time. He was alright with it, as he would try to get the nine out of the way first. He would have a little more than four days to get the best time scores on the others as he could after that. After finishing todays physical training, he rested for a moment before the other half were finished with their time. As the weeks had progressed, the trainees could finish their physical training course faster and faster, so the intensity was increased. Every trainee had inhuman levels of strenght compared to the humans before the Armageddon, thanks to the ambient Ether. They could run at the fastest speed an athlete could before the Armageddon with tens of kilograms on their back, could press over 200 kilograms without breaking a sweat continuously.
As the other half exited the building, Sean rose from where sat and stepped into one of the capsules. He skipped the introduction and commanded directly.
"Simulate fight with the Plated Rhinoceros."