It took a few hours to get through the whole pile on the table as well as hand to hand, but Dix learned a few interesting things. First, he wasn’t getting tired. No matter how hard or fast he swung his weapons, there was no muscle fatigue, or loss of breath. Second, he had made good first choices. The only polearm he thought about switching to was the staff that had been placed with them. It was similar to the weapon hafts that Roanoak was so fond of, but the only head it had was a spearhead. Although it could raise one on each end, adding some small variations into how it could be used. Ultimately, however, he decided to stick with his glaive. The only changes he made was to add a bastard sword and the axe with the pick counterweight. Both were nominally single handed weapons, but he could double up to really increase his striking power. As for the debate between the bladed bat and the axe, well, the bladed bat just didn’t cut it on damage, but the axe was surprisingly easy to use and packed a wallop, so it was going with him. The sword was just to make sure he would have the skill when he got to Mantra.

After a last look over the table of weapons, Dix turned back to Roanoak. The centaur had been patient, and answered all his questions on the weapons available, complimenting him on how well he used them. When Dix asked about maybe getting a shield, Roanoak had laughed and reminded him it was a test of melee combat not blocking, and would hear no arguments to the contrary. He had also explained that all Dix would be taking into his test was weapons, so carrying a small arsenal was perfectly fine.

Sadly there was no mirror nearby, so Dix couldn’t tell if he looked ridiculous or badass. Either way it felt like a missed opportunity. The bastard sword was sheathed along his back for a left hand draw, and the axe tucked back a bit on his right hip. The stiletto was strapped to the side of his right thigh, with the bowie knife lying just along his belt, hilt to the right. One of the karambits was on his left side, the other two were on his chest, and the boot knives where they belonged. The spear he would have to carry. Luckily Dix was ambidextrous, so his murderhobo setup would be usable.

“Ready?” Roanoak asked, rising from his bench. Dix simply nodded. And then once again, they were somewhere else. This time it seemed to be the entrance to a cave filled with mist.

While Dix was inspecting the entrance, trying to see into the cave, Roanoak went over the situation, “So, let me explain a few things before we get started. The test is a series of caves. There will be one or more enemies in each cave, and they must all be killed before you can move to the next. Killed, not knocked unconscious or avoided. The enemies will vary between sections, and you won’t know what each cave has until you step inside. You might fight five caves of goblins in a row, or only one before it changes. They will get progressively harder, so keep your guard up. The good news is that you can’t die in here. That doesn’t mean you should just charge in swinging, getting hit still hurts. A lot. The other testing sections have exactly the same setup.

“Now remember, this is the melee combat test. That means you don’t get to throw any of your weapons at the monsters. Anything you throw will disappear the instant it leaves your hand, and stay gone until that cave is cleared. Dropped weapons stick around though, so be aware of that. And again, the most important thing here is to give it everything you can. The purpose of these tests is to determine how high your stats will be once you get to Mantra. Results are based on your actual physical abilities without whatever skills you may have. So if you are using your sword the whole time, you will gain stats on how hard you hit, or how long you can keep swinging it, rather than how well you do against the enemies. Same thing with everything else. The test ends when you stop making progress in stats, against a particular type of enemy, or through the caves. And it starts as soon as you walk inside.

“Good luck,” with a final pat on the back Roanoak disappeared again, leaving Dix standing alone in front of the mist filled cave. With a final check of his gear and a shrug Dix headed toward the cave, spear at the ready.

The mist didn’t seem to have any substance or purpose beyond obscuring his view of the inside of the cave. As he drew nearer it started to fade somewhat, and he could see a single vague form in the center of the cave. Pausing, Dix studied the cave first. It seemed to be almost perfectly circular and without a ceiling, more arena than cave really. He figured the gods made it look like a cave for the ambiance, but left them circular due to laziness or for easier combat. Either way, as his eyes drifted to the figure in the middle, Dix sighed. Goblin, of course. And here he was with a spear. Might as well see if he could make it work now that he had a real target. Besides, he needed to test how much it really hurt to get hit while things were still simple. Better to know now, than finding out in the middle of a harder fight and getting distracted.

Dix shifted the spear so the blade was near the ground and off to his side, then started forward. He tried to walk as quietly as he could, no need to alert the little shit if it could be avoided. As soon as his foot crossed the entrance of the cave the mist vanished as though it had never been. Sadly, goblins have big ears for a reason, and its head whipped towards him immediately. With a screech, it leapt at him, dagger in one hand and sharp, filthy nail tipped fingers on the other. Obviously fighting real goblins was much different than fighting the dummies. They were much faster, uglier, and smellier, but almost equally stupid. As the slavering goblin sailed through the air, Dix whipped the glaive around with an almost contemptuous swipe, neatly bisecting the tiny, green monstrosity at the chest. Two thuds announced the goblin’s fall. With a quick twirl of the spear, he flung the blood off the blade, and set its butt to the ground. He was a little surprised at how easy it had been, but he had more important things to worry about at the moment. Leaning on the spear, he crouched down to study the first of what would probably be many goblins to come and die by his hand.

The goblin was almost exactly as myth and legend had described them: green, ugly, and wearing a loincloth. He noted that his strike had actually torn through the heart, which was located in roughly the same location as in a human. The nails of its hand were much thicker than he had expected, almost claws, something he would have to watch for. Considering the ease with which his blade had passed through the creature, they were rather frail. They had a very limited bone structure, seeming to have no ribs whatsoever, and their spines were so thin they might shatter at a dirty look. Completely useless in a one on one fight, but goblins were rumored to be swarm fighters. Though fast, they weren’t insurmountably so. The horned rabbit would be much worse.

The “dagger” was barely even a pocket knife, having only about two inches of blade, although the rust and filth on it would leave a nasty infection or poisoning. No real edge on it either, and enough knicks to basically be serrated. After some thought Dix dropped the knife back on the goblin, and pulled out one of his own. Looking down at his own body, he tried to decide where the best place to stab himself would be. Hands and arms could lead to blood leaking down and fouling his grip on his weapons. Legs would do the same, but could cause slippage. Although Roanoak had said he couldn’t actually die, he hadn’t mentioned wounding. With another sigh, he decided to slice a strip off of his shirt if he actually bled. Clenching his jaw, he slashed a small cut into his forearm, a pain he was very used to from previous knife fights. But this time the pain was much more than it should have been. Hissing out his pain he stared in shock at his arm. It felt like someone had branded him with a red hot poker, but there wasn’t a mark on him. No blood, no cut, nothing. After about two seconds the pain just vanished as if he had never been cut at all, leaving only the memory. Yeah, this was going to suck.

For the next twenty minutes, Dix simply sat on the floor with a dagger stabbed into himself. He wasn’t a masochist, he just needed to familiarize himself with the heightened pain response here. After a little while it seemed to lessen, until it was finally back to the levels of pain this sort of injury should actually give. By the end of it Dix was sweating and cursing up a storm. No matter how you look at it, it was still twenty minutes of excruciating pain. Finally readjusted, he decided to rest for a moment, closing his eyes and just breathing to get back to a calmer state.

Eventually he once again rose to his feet, and turned to the exit. As he walked into the first tunnel leading to the next fight the mists rose again, once more obscuring his view of the inhabitant of the next cave. As he neared it the silhouette of a goblin showed itself once more. Time to pick up the pace. I’m already tired of this testing shit, and I have who knows how many more of these things to go. Forcing the irritation of being tested out of his mind, Dix focused on the fights ahead of him, and moved into a jog. This second goblin was no smarter than the first, choosing to charge straight at Dix while waving its hands in the air, not even drawing the dagger stuck into its loincloth. Just before impact, Dix sidestepped and flicked the glaive upward. He didn’t even bother to slow down or look back. He knew he’d decapitated the idiot. The next three caves were much the same. One goblin, a quick twist of the arm, then onto the next cave.

Arena number six is when things finally changed, although it didn’t get much harder. And the next four caves after it were the same. Giant spiders come in a number of variants supposedly, but all of the ones Dix had to fight here had the same attacking method. Leap into the air and try to either land on him or stab him with their legs. Both types had the same vulnerability, once you are in the air you can't change direction or speed. A quick overhand slash downward took care of all of them. Just to change things up a bit, Dix killed the last two with his sword and axe respectively.

He was beginning to wonder when the test would begin. With a bit of thought he realized that most people from Earth would actually struggle with this. They had to actually kill things, something that most people in the more “civilized” nations hadn’t done once in their lives. Not to mention the things they would have to kill being the stuff of nightmares. Still, these warm up fights were mostly pointless for a trained combatant. The next ten caves also had only a single enemy, although they changed types to giant rats followed by slimes. The rats were annoying just because they were about the size of a mid-sized dog, so he had to strike low again. He did discover that he could do a low backhand with the axe as he ran by to make it quick. The slimes just took a well aimed thrust to the core floating inside them before they dissolved.

Twenty one was a sign of changes to come. There were two goblins, and they had a short sword and a club. Not a lot harder, and he finished almost as fast. But the next cave had three with varied weapons. Then four. Finally he had to pay attention and fight.

When the next section only had three goblins visible in the mist, he stopped in confusion. Why would there be fewer goblins when the fights were supposed to get harder as he went along? Approaching the cave entrance slowly, he hugged the wall to the right, searching along the left wall of the cave ahead of him. A small smile showed on his face before it mutated into a vicious smirk. It seemed the real test had finally begun. Time to have some fun.

Dix decided that if he was going to have to fight an unknown number of goblins, he might as well make a bit of a game of it. So, each goblin needed to be killed with a different weapon. Since he only had three non knife weapons, they would need to be used first. After that would be the knives. If there were enough goblins to get through those he would try to pick up his previous weapons and start over. Boot daggers were for emergencies, not fun and games.

He backed off from the opening, and loosened his blades in their sheaths. With his spear in his left hand and axe in his right, he ran towards the entrance of the next cave. Knowing that there were goblins waiting beside the entrance, he planned an altered approach vector. Just before the entrance he leapt to his right, kicked off the wall back to the left, leading with his spear. The wall kick slowed his forward momentum enough that he didn’t go flying into the middle of the room to be surrounded by goblins. Instead he drove his spear into the chest of the goblin to the left of the entryway as he flew overhead, releasing the spear as he went. The goblin charging in from the right side stumbled over the falling corpse of his buddy, only to catch Dix’s axe in his skull as it was swung in a spinning turn that left Dix facing the center of the room, and the three goblins charging at him. His left handed draw and swing of the bastard sword crashed through the outside goblin on that side, who was just a little ahead of the others, hurling his body into their legs and tripping them up. Once again, Dix let the swing of his heavier weapon help spin his body around before letting it go. The stiletto had already been drawn into his right hand, only to be punched into the side of the next goblin’s skull with the force of the spin. Tugging on the stiletto planted into the goblin, Dix pulled himself into a lunge across the goblin pile, crossing over the third goblin just in time for the karambit he was drawing to slash through its throat. Rolling off his shoulder, Dix stood and looked for more goblins.

After a few seconds of silence he calmed enough to look over what he had just done. He stared wide-eyed at the carnage he’d left behind him. Five goblins in about that many seconds. Yes, he spent a lot of time training before he died. Yes, he had killed before. Yes, goblins were weak as hell. This was still way beyond what he should have been able to do. They had been in ambush positions, reacted fast, and were quick as hell. This was the first time he should have had an actual fight, instead of just mopping up the idiot patrol, but instead he slaughtered them even faster than ever.

“What the fuck just happened?” He wasn’t sure who exactly he was asking, but he knew he wouldn’t be getting an answer anytime soon.

Fights are chaotic things. Passionate things. People struggling to live rarely do things that make sense. They will dodge out of the way of attacks, real or imaginary, or charge into certain death. Those new to fighting are likely to freeze or run, and even veterans can make stupid mistakes when the adrenaline starts. Some people get tunnel vision causing them to see only the enemy directly in front of them, which often results in their death from the enemies to the side. Others go the opposite way, and seem to see everything. But no matter who it is fighting, the first things that die are reason, logic, and the plan.

Thinking back over the fight, he noticed some changes to how he used to do things. For Dix, fights had always been a matter of the proper application of force. When they were just cruel children on the playground all he had to do was find the leader. Once that was accomplished, a quick shot to the nuts, and a knee to the face usually ended the fight. But when he started studying martial arts all of his teachers had ingrained the practice of studying his opponent while defending, and then taking them down when they gave you the opening you needed. Even street fights had been similar, defend and dodge, exercise patience, then crush them. All of his fights throughout the test so far had been fought in exactly the style he trained. Wait for the goblin to do something stupid, which they did immediately, or the spider to jump, the rat to lunge, or the slime to just sit there, then strike.

But this fight? It had been totally different. He didn’t wait. He didn’t study. He barely even looked at any of the goblins at all. There was a strange awareness of their positions and actions. Not perfectly clear, but none of them really had the chance to do much of anything. And it was less a matter of trying to attack to hit the goblins while they were moving, but more just making sure his weapon was where it needed to be when the goblin got there. Each attack he made flowed, one into the other. Turns assisted by the weight of a weapon during a swing that killed. The strike with one arm needing his body to twist in such a way that the next weapon he needed was closer to his other hand. It was a sublime feeling, a Zen of motion. It was terrifying, and awesome. And he had no idea how he had done it. But no matter the cause, he couldn’t wait to do it again.