White space.
"Alright, it seems I've made some progress, but I'm still far from the Trainer," Liens murmured softly.
The continuous victories in the instance had made him a bit overconfident, and he had thought he could exchange a few blows with the Trainer, but he didn't expect to only block one sword before he couldn't continue.
One force subdues ten skills; the power gap was too great. The force-deflecting techniques he had practiced before were like a mantis trying to stop a chariot in front of the Trainer—completely useless.
"But speaking of which, this is my first time killing someone, even if it's in an instance."
"At the time, it might have been because I had to be wary of the Trainer, so I didn't feel much about it."
"However, now that I think back… it doesn't seem to be that disgusting."
"Am I too heartless? After all, I often treat the people in the instance as highly intelligent NPCs, so it's normal to seem a bit heartless."
"Of course, it's also possible that I've seen too much. Whether in reality or in instances, I've seen many people die in front of me, and I've even died many times myself in instances."
"So, it's possible that I've already started to become numb to the deaths of others, even if I was the one who caused their death."
Liens kept muttering, as if explaining his actions to himself.
After his murmuring, the white space fell into a period of silence.
…
"For now, the gap between me and the Trainer is too large. It's hard to gain any 'experience' from him. I should continue to look for others."
How about the guards?
Liens pondered. He had never seen a guard draw his sword before.
Most of the time, when facing Trainers like them, the guards would respond with whips or fists and feet, and basically no Trainer dared to resist.
This might be one of the reasons he could easily take the guard's longsword.
The guards had a great sense of contempt for the Trainers they constantly physically punished.
It was just like the thugs at the Slave Exchange; because they had oppressed and beaten Slaves for years, they viewed Slaves as objects to be arbitrarily ordered around and beaten.
It wasn't that they hadn't considered that Slaves might resist, but that possibility had been subconsciously ignored by them.
The scene changed.
Liens entered the instance again, this time choosing a random duel.
At the start of the match, Liens raised his sword and slashed at the nearby guard.
Perhaps not expecting someone to attack him, the guard was directly struck in the chest by Liens.
He staggered back, wincing in pain. When he saw that the attacker was actually a Trainer in a duel, his expression became exceptionally ferocious.
This indicated his uncontrollable rage at the moment.
Liens did not take the opportunity to attack the guard, because what he needed was for the guard to pick up his sword and fight him, not to beat a dog when it was down.
As for Liens' opponent, he had also stopped his wooden sword that he was about to swing.
He didn't understand why Liens would do such an irrational thing, but he immediately made the normal choice.
He quickly distanced himself from Liens, avoiding being perceived by the guard as being in league with Liens.
And in the other dueling grounds, perhaps others had noticed the situation just now, but none came to interfere.
The Trainers had no intention of being nosy, while the other guards believed their colleague could handle it himself.
Moreover, that guard had already drawn his longsword, so it was not appropriate for others to interfere at this moment.
Sometimes, trying to help with good intentions might offend the very person you want to help.
Liens watched as the guard swung his longsword at him, dodging to the side and hitting the side of the longsword with his wooden sword to deflect its trajectory, allowing him to dodge more freely.
Then, he thrust his sword casually, counterattacking, but was blocked by the guard.
Liens continued to swing his sword at the guard, while constantly dodging the longsword's slashes and thrusts.
Soon, in just a few rounds, he had another cut across his arm. However, he dodged in time, so the wound wasn't large, but blood still flowed from his body.
From the amount of bleeding, his artery hadn't been cut, and Liens felt that the problem wasn't big.
There was a significant difference in mass between a wooden sword and a real iron sword.
This made Liens dare not have too many direct collisions between his wooden sword and the longsword, lest his wooden sword be cut off.
Coupled with the guard's skilled swordsmanship, which was much stronger than the opponents he had encountered before.
This made Liens' dodging very difficult; one careless move and he would be cut by the longsword.
As the sword fight progressed, Liens suffered more and more injuries, and the continuous bleeding from his body made him feel a bit dazed.
Eventually, he failed to dodge in time and was pierced through the throat by the longsword, dying.
During this duel, Liens had also hit the guard with his wooden sword, but due to the wooden sword's low lethality and the non-fatal location of the hits.
Even when hit, the guard could continue to attack Liens with little effect.
Liens had experienced this kind of situation before with the large opponent.
People who are tall and strong not only have an advantage in strength but also have good resistance to blows.
After dying, Liens re-entered the instance and engaged in several death matches with that guard.
The results always ended with his death.
From this perspective, those guards should be able to serve as experience packs for him before he can challenge the Trainer.
Time gradually passed. Although Liens still wanted to continue challenging the guards, it was almost dawn in reality.
To avoid oversleeping, he could only leave the instance for now.
…
"Woo woo woo…"
The sound of the horn rang out, signaling that today's training was about to begin.
As the training progressed, Liens found that today's training intensity was heavier than before.
Whether it was the running time or the targets for other training items, all had increased to varying degrees.
This also led to a significant increase in the number of people punished during this morning's training.
Liens even saw a few people who were beaten so badly that they seemed to be breathing more out than in.
He felt they might not last much longer.
The increased training intensity caused many people's faces to fill with worry, and some even showed expressions of despair.
They didn't know how much longer they could last if the training intensity continued to increase?
At noon, after Liens finished eating and returned to his dormitory, he lay directly on his bed and entered the instance to practice his sword.
Wooly, who was beside him, saw Liens' behavior and sighed, "I somewhat envy his ability to fall asleep instantly. If I had that ability, would I also be able to be as relaxed as him, not thinking about anything?"
In the past few days, Wooly had also noticed Liens' progress.
Previously, Liens' training completion was even worse than his, and he received more punishments than him.
But now, Liens was no longer at the bottom. Whether it was the physical training in the morning or the sword training in the afternoon, Liens' performance was already much better than his.
He felt that Liens might be able to continue persevering in training, while he might soon be eliminated.
"You know, we can't hold on much longer. When will the action begin? I can't wait any longer."
Wooly seemed to be muttering to himself, but he was actually speaking to Wendell next to him.
"There will be a general meeting tonight for everyone," Wendell responded to Wooly in a low voice.
Hearing this, the expression on Wooly's face seemed to lighten as if a heavy burden had been lifted.
He gently exhaled, and a sentence escaped his lips: "Is it coming?"