Disastrous New Age

A week later...

"I can't go on..." Walking back to his room George couldn't say anything else. He was way too tired to say anything else.

Beside him was Lucian, who was helping him on the way.

"This wouldn't be happening if I had any items to make runes. Because of that I have become a fighter. I hoped that I the academy would notice me more but it seems everyone is way better than me. What should I do?" He continued talking about his worries.

"Here we are. I'll just put you down on your bed." Lucian brought him to his bed. "Now I got to sleep myself. Be sure to sleep well because we have one more week ahead of us."

George smiled and said, "Will do."

Now that Lucian was walking back towards his room he thought of an idea. Since George was having problems, why not hire him to his team? He could get all the materials Lucian got from monsters to make runes and then infuse them into weapons and armor.

It was decided. He would talk to him once this training is over. It would be good if he wanted to join.

Lucian actually got some materials for making runes before but he didn't sell them since it was really hard to get them. It is true that you could earn quite a lot of credits with them but since he was planning to hire a Runemaster, it was better to keep them for himself.

The market price was constantly changing these days since the guilds have started going up to the second floor of the portal.

After people reach tenth floor if that even exists, these materials right now will be really cheap because people will be able to easily kill goblins at that time.

"Attention everyone!" An announcement could be heard from the academy's headmaster.

"Tomorrow, there will be a basic test. The test will include everything that you had to do when you joined the academy but now since you are all higher levels, both workers and fighters, the tests will be upgraded. Remember, workers in workshop and 9:00 and fighters in gymnasium at 9:00. Enjoy your day and sleep well."

"Oh and good news for everyone! Since there is a test tomorrow, you won't need to train."

When the headmaster finished speaking, students expressed all sorts of emotions. The most common one was relief. They couldn't help but think again what the headmaster said. They couldn't believe it themselves.

But students still couldn't help but be jealous of someone. Ricky, the student who had gotten the upgraded bolt recipe, was recruited by Sakamoto. Even though he was one of the better Rouges, he still decided that he would rather craft bolts from now on.

After being recruited, he directly went to Japan Guild and didn't need to participate in this training.

"What a b*stard!" They couldn't help but curse at him every day while training and experiencing pain after a whole day of training.

...

Next morning...

"Good morning everyone. As you know, I am Instructor Smith and I will be testing all of you today. Now follow me to the testing facility."

As the Instructor headed into the testing facility, so did the students.

While walking, they were talking to each other about the testing that will occur.

"What kind of machines do you think will be used today?" asked one of the students.

Other thought for a while. "Probably some kind of a stronger version of those machines. Lets take that baseball machine for example. As you know, Instructor Smith is crazily interested in machines. He could probably upgrade that machine so the balls could split up, start burning midway..."

Every student who heard them talking suddenly realized, that the test maybe won't be without any danger.

If this Instructor upgraded those machines too far, it was possible that people could get seriously hurt.

The thought of that sent shivers down everyone's spines.

"Let's not jump to conclusions okay?"

The others looked at that student and nodded. "You're right."

Everyone went quiet and waited until the upgraded machines are presented. Maybe they were just overthinking things.

Then they arrived into the main testing room inside testing facility.

"Now that we are here everyone, let me present you the new testing machines."

Instructor Smith turned around and got near one of the machines. "This is a new strength testing machine."

There was a chair in the middle of the machine. Above the chair was a pole that was stuck into both sides of the machine. On the top, there was a digital indicator.

"It's called Strength Master v4. As I said before, it is for testing your strength. The bar above the chair is set so that can move and can be repositioned."

Then he picked up the list of all fighters and called the first one. "Mark, you first."

Mark was very nervous at this moment. He went to the machine and sat down then grabbed the pole. He suddenly got a bad feeling. "Instructor, why is this once called v4?"

Instructor Smith looked at him flabbergasted not knowing why he would ask such a question. But he didn't mind. "It is the fourth version of this machine. The other three were either failures or they needed more improvements."

"Then how many tests have you done on this machine?"

"On versions before, I did some tests. But not yet on this one. So you could say that you are the first person to use this machine," he replied.

Then he saw Mark's scared face. "What's wrong? Do you not trust me?"

Hearing the question, all Mark could do was to nod his head. 'I don't trust you at all.'

Instructor Smith could not help but be speechless.

"Ahem! Anyway, this machine really doesn't have any problems. Just put your all strength into it and it will be okay."

Mark was already at the point where he just wanted to go away from this machine but he also knew that he needed to finish the test.

He lifted the bar up with all his strength. As he was lifting the bar up, it got heavier and heavier.

Then after he couldn't go anymore he looked at Instructor Smith wanting to know, what to do now. He couldn't just release the bar could he? It would just fall back down.

Seeing his gaze, Instructor Smith explained, "You can just release it. The bar should stay where it is right now."

Mark heaved a sigh of relief and released the bar. Nothing went wrong and it stood in place where it was released.

At the same time, a number had shown up on the digital indicator.

"Quite good. Ok, next one..."

Students kept coming up and down with different results. The strength test was to only see how much they have improved after joining the academy but nobody could know how much stat points had one allocated into their strength stat.

It was almost meaningless but they were still doing it anyway.

Now everyone was finished with the strength test.

"Now we will be moving on onto the endurance test. You will be tested on my new endurace testing machine. It's called RH Running Machine 2000."

When the students looked at it they had no idea that they were looking at a endurance testing machine. It looked more of a platform than anything else.

It was wide about twenty by twenty meters and there was a screen in front. It seemed that it was there to set the speed and everything else.

Basically a control panel.

"You will stand in the middle of the machine and just start running when it starts. But there is a catch to this. This machine allows the track to move forwards, backwards and to each side. It can even go diagonally. There is also an option where a part of it can split and start going in a totally different way that the rest of it."

The explanation was quite long but all of the students listened attentively. They couldn't believe what was just explained to them.

"Holy cow! Isn't this machine one of a kind? What kind of a monster is our Instructor to build something like this?" They also wanted to know how this machine was made but the Instructor probably wouldn't tell them anything.

However this machine was really interesting and they couldn't help but take more looks at it.

Then one student said with a bit of excitement, "I wonder what kind of feeling it is to stand up there."

Hearing him being excited, Instructor Smith could not help but laugh. It was his creation after all. Every creator likes to hear someone praise their creation.

He looked at that student who wanted to go up first. "Since you want to go up so much you can go first. Since it is your first time using your machine, you can also have a free try before doing it for real."

The student could not help but feel excited. "Are you for real?