Extra And MC-Chapter 103 - 99 - VR Training

The burning atmosphere of an active volcano!

The flowing hot red magma!

The blisteringly hot steam that could cook an individual in an instant!

That was the place Flynn was currently at.

Sweat constantly dripping down his face, the youth nimbly jumped from sinking platforms of reddish hot stones, onto the other, doing his absolute best to not waste any time in an effort to escape the volcano that was about to erupt!

’Okay, maybe we shouldn’t have turned the immersion experience all the way to its max this time...’ the youth thought to himself as he jumped onto another sinking platform.

If not for the fact that Flynn was maintaining a thin layer of mana, covering the entirety of his body, his skin should have been cooked and sizzling like a slab of meat on a barbecue by now.

Just as he gradually kept making his way up the deep slope of flowing magma with multiple sinking platforms, about ten creatures with reddish-hot, irregularly-shaped rocky skins, began to jump out of the slow streams of flowy hot magma.

Their amalgamated hands extended into insanely sharpened, needle-like pointed digits and the same could be said for their legs.

On their rocky visage of a head, were also two mid-length horns that protruded out of it, adding more to their already menacing figures.

Their red eyes were also dimly lit and hollowed, containing strong hints of danger and malice within them.

Immediately they appeared out of the magma, while simultaneously spraying the molten hot liquids about, Flynn inwardly groaned with a curse.

"Damn Magma Fiends!"

Without a moment’s wait, the creatures lunged at him with their ridiculously sharp claws, intent of making his journey out of the volcano that would soon erupt a very difficult ordeal.

"{Moonveil Art – Second Form: Twilight Waltz}" the youth had muttered the moment they lunged at him.

-Swoosh…

Dashing whilst also slowly melding into the mana in the atmosphere by having his body vibrate at the same wavelength and frequency using his weapon art, Flynn blinked in and out of existence.

The moment this happened, the head of a magma fiend would drop one after the other and back into the magma wherever he appeared, the creatures completely unable to react to the formless shape of his katana instantly beheading each of them.

Leaving a tiny, wavy thread of pale blue hue in his destructive wake, the youth finally reappeared properly and landed at another sinking platform that was far closer to the top of the almost erupting volcano.

’Far better now! I can at least maintain that form for one minute at most!’ Flynn commended himself at how much better he had gotten at using his weapon art over the past two days that he had constantly been using the VR rooms to train his weapon art.

-Grrrggg…

Turning his head to look downwards at the oppressive presence of the ridiculously boiling, hot pool of magma at the bottom the volcano’s massive gorge that was threatening to erupt at any moment now, the youth turned his head to face upwards again.

With a deep breath, Flynn willed himself to begin progressing upwards with a mad dash.

Even as more Magma Fiends appeared once again, the youth took care of them in a similar manner as he did previously and soon, found himself out of the volcano, narrowly avoiding its massive eruption.

With a sigh of relief, the youth who was now resting while sitting on a weathered rock a fair few meters away from the erupting volcano, had a melodic tune ring in his ears.

" ⸢Congratulations Flynn Belmont. VR Training Level 10 Complete⸥ "

" ⸢Difficulty Level: 10/10 | Immersion Experience 10/10⸥ "

" ⸢Grading: Excellent!⸥ "

"It’d better be…" Flynn said with a tired sigh as the world around him transformed into a large black box of digital codes and then finally, pitch darkness.

***

Aiden was slowly trudging through the scorching hot dunes of the desert while panting tiredly, his body covered in a mix of greenish-blue blood.

He had been in this particular level for over 3 hours now and the sweltering heat of the desert wasn’t helping him in the slightest.

"Ha… ha… why did I… ha… propose to Flynn that… we should increase… ha… the immersion level to its max again?" he asked himself in between breaths of tired pants, completely regretting the choice he had made.

-Crunch…

-Crunch…

-Crunch…

After trudging for a few more seconds, with only the soft crunching sounds of his lonely footsteps and the occasional tumbleweed rolling past the massively-spread desert keeping him company, the youth spotted what seemed to be an oasis of water.

At first, he genuinely felt like it was just a mirage and that the heat of the scorching sun was slowly getting to him but the more he kept moving towards it, the more he realized that it was actually real.

With the realization of a spot to rest just before him, Aiden shook of his tired state and found himself motivated to get to the shade beneath the palm trees while also harboring the thought of taking a mouthful of water.

-Grumble… Fuuaaash!

Suddenly, just as he was a few meters from reaching the sweet, comforting respite of the palm tree’s shade, a giant Dune Centipede shot out from the desert’s dune, spraying hot sand all around.

The Dune Centipede, was a creature that resembled an actual centipede greatly but at the same time, greatly differed from it.

Asides from its towering figure that made Aiden look like a small car in comparison, it had ridiculously hardened carapaces and all of its many legs were sharpened to perfection like steel blades, each of them ready to tear apart any prey that was unfortunate to get caught by it.

Its fangs, which were oppressively long and dripping with a green poisonous substance, gave it an extra layer of danger and it’s eight small eyes and massively long antenna wiggled in a very disturbing manner as it stared down at Aiden.

Staring at the creature before him with a slight twinge of annoyance for interrupting him on his way to the palm tree’s shade, Aiden slowly retrieved his greatsword from his spatial ring with a tired sigh.

-Grumble…

-Fuuaaash! Fuuaaash! Fuuaaash! Fuuaaash!

As he did, four more Dune Centipedes jutted out from the ground in grand fashion, their towering figures surrounding him completely on all sides in an instant.

’How many more of this guys do I have to deal with before this level ends…’ Aiden thought to himself, a tired groan escaping his lips.

"Screeeeccchhh!!!"

With ear-piercing cries that signified their need to kill the prey before them, they all ran towards him at speeds that were genuinely super-fast for their long figures, nearing him in a matter of seconds.

The source of this c𝓸ntent is frёeweɓηovel.coɱ.

But that was all they could manage before all five of them found themselves split in equal halves in a split second.

Using {Counterstance} the moment they had all began running towards him with a mad dash, Aiden altered the perception of gravity’s effect on himself with the use of his weapon art, simultaneously also warping space-time around him and resulting in a time dilation where he was moving at an inconceivable speed to the naked eye.

In that fraction of a second, although Aiden still wasn’t particularly sure of how the second form of his weapon art worked and how ridiculous it truly was, he let out five slashes of invisible energy with his greatsword in all five directions and immediately reassumed the prideful knight’s stance.

That was all it took for the massive Dune Centipedes to meet their end and as that happened, a soothing euphonious voice flowed into the youth’s ears.

" ⸢Congratulations Aiden Belmont. VR Training Level 14 Complete⸥ "

" ⸢Hidden Conditions Met: Kill 20 Dune Centipedes⸥ "

" ⸢Difficulty Level: 10/10 | Immersion Experience 10/10⸥ "

" ⸢Grading: Superb⸥ "

"Finally…" Aiden muttered with a relieved sigh as the world around him also slowly morphed into a plane of digital codes of one’s and zero’s before finally turning into pitch black darkness.

A few seconds passed and then, Aiden blinked his eyes open as the virtual capsule pod he was in, let out a cryogenic fog of air along with slight mechanical humming sounds.

Blinking his eyes a few more times to get re-accustomed to the real world, the youth got out of the pod he was in slowly and then looked around the room to see multiple other pods that had other cadets still using them.

As he kept surveying the room, his eyes landed on a silvery-green haired youth who was already grinning while gesturing with a wiggle of his hands, almost as if mocking him for being late and greeting him at the same time.

’First, those darn centipedes prevented me from reaching my sweet oasis in the scorching sun of the desert and now, this punk is mocking me for being a few seconds later than him…’ the youth inwardly commented as his eyes slightly twitched in annoyance at his brother’s gesture.

"Tch!" he voiced as a slight wave of irritation washed over him.

"Come on, what are you waiting for Aiden? Let’s bounce! We have new weapons to receive today" Flynn called over to him as he himself exited the VR Room that was dimly-lit in a dark shade of blue.

"Coming!" Aiden replied quickly, his previous demeanor nowhere to be found as he followed his brother out.

Changing into his cadet uniform and leaving the large doors that led back out into the modern and fairly wide pathways that was present in all of the Virtual Simulation District, Aiden quickly raised his hands up and caught the chilled energy drink that Flynn tossed over to him.

"Thanks!" Aiden gratefully said as he greedily chugged down on his drink.

Flynn just tilted his head in slight confusion as he watched his brother greedily drink the contents of the can while taking his in gentle sips.

Even though Aiden and Flynn had been in the VR rooms for mostly three hours, in actuality, they had only been there for roughly 40 minutes.

They had also been training here for the past three days now, spending mostly three hours there after classes for the day were over in real world while clocking in close to 180 hours in the VR worlds.

Due to the time dilation effect of the capsules, the sense of time when using it was greatly altered depending on the difficulty of the level that a cadet chose or decided to have randomly assigned to them.

That was actually what Flynn and Aiden had done.

Selecting the highest difficulty while also leaving a random level to be selected by the AI of the capsule itself, it gave them a sense of actually delving into fissures because fissures usually tended to have varied environments rankers needed to adapt to on the fly.

Although training weapon arts by using the VR room could never truly be as good as when they trained in the real word, if, for some crazy reason, an individual uses the immersion level to its max, which was always frowned upon and never recommended, one could achieve an almost similar effect to that of the real world.

That however, also came with a detriment too as all of the sensation one would feel in the real world would also be translated over to that in the VR space.

So if someone died in the VR world, one would feel as if they really died in the real world too and it could have lasting mental and traumatizing effects. That was why it was greatly frowned upon.

Not that Aiden and Flynn who had to find a way to mentally and physically prepare themselves for the fissure they would be delving into in a few days could bother to worry about a situation like that even occurring.

By now, they had far left the Virtual Simulation District and were now in the bustling Bazaar District, slowly making their way towards Novier’s store.

Upon reaching the store and entering it, Novier beamed at them happily while exclaiming.

"Lads! Ye came pretty fast, didn’t ye now?!"

"Good day to you Old Man Novier" Flynn and Aiden respectfully greeted.

"Aye! The day’s been as fine as a pirate crew singin’ sea shanties on a wind-whipped deck, it be!" he replied with a bright smile as he added.

"Here be yer forged weapons, me hearties! Used a bit o’ the Eclipsian Prism’s ore, I did! Take care of ’em like they be yer most precious treasure, lads!"

Aiden and Flynn upon having their eyes land on their newly forged weapons, couldn’t help but marvel in awe at Novier’s excellent craftsmanship.

On the right was a mighty greatsword forged with the finest titanium-plated steel, it’s middle portion having a singular thin transparent crystal ore that gently gleamed with shades of iridescent hues and its hilt, perfectly designed in an elegant yet ergonomic manner that the hand could firmly grasp onto.

On the left however, was a beautifully forged katana, its titanium-plated blade seemingly shimmering like the moonlight due to the dimly lit store and upon closer inspection, it became obvious to Flynn that the blade itself was more crystalline than metallic, indicating that the Eclipsian Prism’s ore had been greatly used to temper it.

"This…" Aiden muttered, he and Flynn seemingly contemplating if they even had any right to wield such beautiful and finely crafted weapons.

But knowing fully well that it would be immensely disrespectful to Old Man Novier if they rejected it after all the work he had seemingly put into forging the weapons, Aiden and Flynn couldn’t help but reply in unison with the same words.

"Thank you… Old Man Novier" they finally said, their eyes conveying their genuine gratitude for the old man.

Glad that the two youths realized just how much work was put into forging, the blades, Novier replied with a very warm and gentle smile.

"Yer welcome lads"