I

Eva awoke bleary-eyed. She reached towards her nightstand to check the time. There was no clock! A shot of adrenaline jolted her awake. She took in the room where she was, and the previous day's trial flooded her mind. She threw another curse Alexandra's way before getting up and getting dressed. A bowl of cereal later, she cleaned up the kitchen and she was ready for the day.

As with the break room after the 5th level, she donned her medium armor, shortsword, and shield. This shield and armor were replacements for the ones that had been discarded. She tucked away the available potions into her belt and checked the remaining safe time. [0:1:12:09]. She psyched herself up for the fighting to come and decided she was as ready as she'd ever be.

“Continue.”

The familiar light engulfed her body, and she appeared in a similar space to the one from the first five levels. It was small, slightly rocky, and surrounded by an impenetrable wall of foliage.

Prepare to defend yourself

[0:0:0:3] remaining

The countdown ended and the light disappeared to reveal a slime. Eva could recognize it right away as it was something from several games she'd played in the past. The goblins the other day weren't as recognizable simply because every game had its own idea of how they should look. The slime was round, wobbly, and blue with a darker blue core floating near the center.

The slime immediately bounded towards her. It was slow. She took her time in preparing her stance. As it neared, she slashed across its body. Liquid gushed out. The slime just deflated. It could still move, but not well and not quickly. It finally stopped moving when she destroyed the core. Unlike the goblins she’d face before, the slime was a much easier monster to deal with.

Slime killed

1 Stat Point gained

Level 11 complete

Prepare to defend yourself

[0:0:0:27] remaining

The next three levels were downright easy. Sure, it was two, then three, and finally four slimes, but slimes were straightforward to kill once she knew to hit the core. Eva might miss a few times, but even near misses would devastate them. The last level before the next break room was an actual challenge.

Out of the light for the 15th level came a much larger slime. This one was almost her height and a little wider than she was tall. Like the other slimes, it was blue with a core in the middle. Although she couldn’t see completely through the slime, thanks to its relative transparency, she could at least make out the core. The core was a little larger and a little more solid-looking. It presented a more difficult target than the others had due to the depth at which the core resided.

With little in the way of mana—relative to the cost of her own spell anyway—using the new Skill was something she'd held off on doing. She'd only get about 10 seconds of use before she'd be out of mana. Against this giant slime, she was willing to try it. The fact that the slime was still slow made the choice easier.

“Infuse Weapon✦!” she declared.

Choose an affinity.

[Fire/Water/Earth/Air].

Thinking quickly, water was out as that was what the slime seemed to be made of. Air wasn't likely to be useful either, and earth gave her the impression of trying to spank a balloon. That left fire. Fire could go either way. It could flash the water to steam and blow it up, or it could get drenched and sputter. Still, she thought fire was a better option so she went with it.

Her shortsword glowed red. She felt a tug against her mind when the Skill clicked into place. She ignored that feeling for now to concentrate on the slime in front of her. Ten seconds. That's all she had to bring it down with magic.

Eva readied herself for the slime. As it grew near, tendrils came out of the surface of the slime towards her. She slashed at them as a reaction. Suddenly, the tendrils exploded in flame when her sword passed through! Flaming liquid spilled from the slime where it had been cut. Some of it caught her and burned on her body. She turned and fled from the slime as far as she could while it spewed fire over everything like some kind of living napalm.

Despite the narrow clearing she was in, she managed to avoid more pain from the fire. Eva kept her distance, and the fire spread to the rest of the slime. She could feel the heat from it as it writhed. She'd have felt bad for it if it wasn't both an enemy and scaring the shit out of her with its imitation of a flamethrower. She cowered behind her shield, taking occasional glances its way to make sure she was as far away as possible and moving when she wasn't.

Eva was lucky to have hidden behind her shield as much as she had. Without warning, the napalm bomb formally known as a slime exploded. The sticky, flaming slime juice stuck to everything. She threw her rapidly burning shield to the ground. Hopefully the next break room would have another one for her.

Giant Slime killed

1 Stat Point gained

Basic Skill Shields▲ now Level 7

Level 15 complete

Prepare to rest

[0:0:0:20] remaining

Flames licked her armor and body where it hadn't been blocked by the shield. Those twenty seconds were a long time to wait while being on fire! Mercifully, the break room appeared at the end of it and the flames were extinguished by her being transported. Eva drank part of the health potion she carried from the break room after level 10 before looking at the Challenges completed.

Pop Goes the Balloon▲

Kill 10 slimes

Reward: 1 Stat Point

It Burns!▲

Kill a monster with fire

Reward: 1 Stat Point

Mind the Gap▲

Injure yourself with your own skill

Reward: 1 Stat Point

One Shot▲

Complete a section without dying

Reward: 1 Stat Point

Rabbit▲

Complete a group of 5 levels in under 30 minutes

Reward: 1 Stat Point

She put the ten Stat Points she had available evenly into Dexterity, Agility, Endurance, Vitality, and Willpower, bringing them all up to twelve. There was nothing pushing her to focus on one attribute over another—they all seemed important.

Unlike the first two break rooms, this one didn't have a note waiting for her. With her limited time, Eva used the bathroom and replaced broken pieces of her gear with those from the closet. Her chainmail armor was ok still, but she didn't want to take any chances.

For the half hour she had left, she looked through the other Challenges available to see if there were any worth going for. Like before, there were some that were impossible. These were things like reaching level 25 in a day or not dying through many levels. These challenges gave greater rewards, but they were long gone. There were others that she could easily get. Killing 10 of any monster type was rewarded with a single Stat Point. The same was true for 100 kills using a certain type of weapon or element.

There were some larger targets that Eva might be able to get, however, that came with the requisite bump in reward. For example, if she were to complete 20 levels in a day, she'd get 5 Stat Points. Completing 50 in a day would give 25 Stat Points. This was in addition to the regular rewards for completing those levels! If she kept the basic sedate pace of 10 per day, she'd complete 300 levels before the end of the allotted month, netting somewhere around 400 or 500 Stat Points with completing the challenges she knew about already. Not bad, but not as much as she could get.

Though she was not convinced about this ‘war’ Alexandra said was coming, she came to the conclusion that she would much rather take the chance that Alexandra was right. If she was truthful, Eva would be prepared. If not, it would be a waste of a month. Eva would need years of therapy to work through it all regardless of how the Training turned out, so that was a sunk cost.

She realized that her life had been missing a challenge for a long time. Work was a boring routine. Hobbies got boring as soon as the challenge went away. While being forced into combat wasn't her thing in the slightest, she had to admit that she relished the opportunity to do something new and get stronger doing it. That there were numbers showing her progress made it all the more easy with the dopamine hit every time she saw the numbers go up. It was then that she decided to give it a go for real. The Stat increases felt real. There was magic, too. Even if she was someone's guinea pig now, maybe she'd be able to kick their asses if she worked hard enough!

Eva opted to continue the fight early. Her resource pools were filled at 120 each, and she was eager to hit the next milestones. She hoped the next few levels would be as easy as the slimes had been.

II

Level 16 showed just how wrong she was. The levels wouldn't be as hard as the lead up to the hobgoblin had been, but they wouldn’t be easy like the slimes either. Her next opponents were skeletons. They were pretty easy to kill since they moved slowly and had obvious weak points: their bones. Good, hard slashes with an earth Infused✦ blade would cleave right through the bones. Her mana was limited, but she had three mana potions to work with. If that wasn’t enough, she could shut off the Skill as soon as she finished attacking. Eva’s mana would also regenerate a bit between encounters, so she was able to deal with the next five levels expending only one of the mana potions.

The pattern remained like it was for the slimes. One to four skeletons followed by an upgraded version. The upgraded version was more difficult for her, but in the end, she managed to make it through the fight with minor damage and a new Skill.

Basic Skill Learned: Medium Armor▲

Upon reaching the rest area after level 20, she prepared lunch, checked over her armor, and waited for her resource pools to fill back up. She used the chance to check her Challenges again, netting only one this time. It was for killing 10 skeletons. She put the six Stat Points to bring all of her Stats to 12, with the remaining point going into strength.

The final bonus she got from the first 10 levels of the day was the upgrade for Swords▲ to Novice✦.

Choose a Novice rank upgrade for Swords▲

2% increased damage when using [Short Sword/Long Sword/Rapier...]

0.5% increased damage using swords

0.5% reduced damage received when using a shield

1% increased damage from sword skills (Stamina)

1% increased damage from sword skills (Mana)

Eva's choices were fairly simple. The first required her to specialize in a type of sword. It would give a lot more damage in the long run for that one type, but she would have to use that kind of sword. She liked the shortsword but didn't know if that's what she would always use. The next was if she didn't want to specialize ever. It boosted damage for any sword like the Skill already did, just half as much. The reduced damage from using a shield was similar to the first one. It required her to always use a shield in the future. Finally, the last two dealt with boosting other Skills. The only one that would matter now was the mana version since Infuse Weapon✦ used mana.

Ultimately, her choice was between 0.5% damage to swords in general or 1% to sword skills using mana. Eva chose the latter.

Novice Swords✦ Lv 1

Sword damage increased by 11%

1% increased damage from sword skills (Mana)

After taking some time to prepare herself, Eva was ready.

“Continue.”