Miri stood at the starting point of the test. As soon as she did, all the wooden dummies from the surrounding area started coming to life, imbued with a pale-blue aura that seemed to act as the magic of their reanimation.

  In addition, all of them had pale-blue ethereal weapons equipped in their hands, ones that materialized themselves out of thin air. The weapons they possessed were quite varied, ranging from swords and spears to bows and staves to everything in between. Judging by the numbers, there seemed to be about a dozen or so of them, all scattered throughout the area that was designed like some sort of medieval-styled obstacle course.

  Seeing all this, Miri’s heart felt heavy with anticipation. Here goes nothing.

  The receptionist stood beside Miri as he began to give out the starting signal. “On your mark…Get set…Go!”

  Miri rushed forward at her full speed. As soon as she advanced further down the path, the dummies began raising their weapons to attack her. One of the nearby dummies charged at her with a sword and shield in hand, which she kept at bay with a Crescent Arc—damaging it and pushing it away with the force of a tidal wave.

  Then, a dummy archer at one of the higher platforms began shooting arrows at her. She dodged the first two incoming arrows, but the third one managed to nick her in the shoulder. Miri promptly retaliated by firing a couple of Starlight Bolts at the archer, which swiftly ended him.

  As the dummy archer fell from the platform, it let out a cry that somewhat resembled a Wilhelm scream. Miri didn’t even know that dummies could scream. How interesting.

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  Like the receptionist had said, the pain was so minor that it was barely noticeable. If anything, Miri was more worried about how it affected her armor’s durability rating.

  She looked down to her wrist to check the rating of the armor:

  [Armor durability: 29/30]

  She winced a little as she saw the numbers go down. So much for a no-hit run. Regardless, as long as she could get to the end of the test in one piece, she should be good.

  Miri continued sprinting forward, taking down more dummy enemies along the way while trying her best to avoid getting injured further.

  When a dummy spearman tried to jab her with its spear, she fired a Crescent Arc to split the spear in half before whacking it right in the head with the heavy end of her staff. When a dummy axeman tried jumping at her with a downward swing of its axe, she dodge-rolled away before following up with a series of Starlight Bolts aimed back at it. When a dummy mage tried firing a volley of fireballs at her, she quickly hid behind a stone wall before casting Meteor Impact to blow it into smithereens.

  For each and every enemy she faced along the way, she had a plan of attack to deal with them. Soon, she started adapting with the flow of combat to the point where she was able to take down all of the enemies without receiving a single additional hit herself. Her previous gaming experience over the years combined with her actual adventuring experience these past few days had transformed her into a force to be reckoned with.

  Finally, right at the last quarter of the test, she encountered what was perhaps her strongest enemy thus far: a gigantic dummy, about two to three times her own height, wielding an enormous two-handed club made of ethereal, pale-blue mana.

  This one was going to be a tough one to take down.