Chapter IX: Virtual Training

Opening his eyes, Kenneth soon found himself in the middle of an empty white room. The room itself looked as if it went on for miles, but upon closer inspection, Kenneth found that there was an invisible wall that forbade him from moving any farther.

Kenneth found the room astonishingly similar to one he had heard about inba documentary somewhere. It was a pure white room that served as a torture area for hostages. 

He thought he too would go crazy if left alone in here for an extended period of time. Fortunately for him, his siblings soon materialized as their bodies started appearing from the foot up. 

"Oh right. I forgot this was here." Lucas gazed in amazement at Kenneth, who was able to walk around without the aid of his walking stick. 

"I totally forgot as well! How does it feel to be able to walk around normally, little brother?" 

"I'm not quite used to it yet. My habit of bringing my walking stick with me everywhere I go even shows itself here." Kenneth, too, was surprised that he could move.

The toddler took this as his chance to get used to his Virtual body, and ran laps around the 20 meter long square room. 

In the middle of his test walks, Tyrone too had materialized into the corner of the room and soon joined Kenneth in running around, as he got used to the feeling the more he moved.

Meanwhile, in the middle of the room, a holographic screen had started forming. It didn't go unnoticed however, as Lena spotted it descending to her head level.

"Good morning, customers. I am A.I "S-14" and will be your personal guide for the Virtual Training Grounds. Please feel free to ask me any questions, and I will make sure I provide you with an appropriate answer." 

Alongside the screen, a robot-like voice had sounded across the room, prompting Kenneth and Tyrone to stop their running.

The siblings brought their attention to the screen, where the voice of the A.I was seemingly coming from. 

Taking the reins on the whole situation, Kenneth broke the silence and started questioning the A.I.

"Hey, we're here for training. Is there anything you'd recommend for magicians willing to test their power against practice dummies?" 

After a few seconds, the A.I responded. 

"In that case, might I point you to the Practice Range." Just as the A.I said this, another screen three times the size of the first one had appeared behind it. 

"The Practice Range offers a wide variety of gear to allow customers to test their skills. Options to add dummies are within the power of the customer. Alongside this, we offer other types of artifacts to measure your strength. Might the Punching Bag or the Mana Meter be to your interest?" 

As the A.I said this, more screens had popped up beside the ones before, showing the various training gear the A.I was talking about.

A silence descended upon the room as Lena and Lucas both stared at Kenneth. It was like they were saying to him, "choose what you want." 

"Ahem. Then we'll just go with the Practice Range." Catching their signals, Kenneth soon broke the uncomfortable silence and announced his decision. 

"Certainly. Please stand by, as the room will now begin to change to your desired mode." As the A.I said this, the white room began to look blurry in the siblings' eyes.

Feeling a bit dizzy, Kenneth rubbed his eyelids in the hopes of removing his lightheadedness. It was only a bit later that the blurry white room had started to fade away into the darkness.

Soon the white background was replaced by a reddish wallpaper. Looking around, Kenneth could finally get a clear view of how large the room was. 

It was over five times larger than the white room. On one side of the room were multiple dummies, modeled after humans. They had no facial expressions, and instead of skin, they were made of metal. 

They stood absentmindedly, and did not look like they would be moving anytime soon. Still, Kenneth's fear of humanoid objects like these dummies caused some butterflies to start fluttering in his stomach. 

"Whoa! This is sooo biggg!" Lena gasped in surprise as she started running around the Range akin to a child on their first day at the park. 

"Well, while she's doing her thing, I'm going to practice my hits on that punching bag the A.I had told us about earlier. Good luck on your magic, little bro." 

And then there were two. Tyrone didn't seem like he wanted to go anywhere else and was staying beside Kenneth's side.

"I guess I'll do my own thing as well then. Let's see… I can still remember the spells we've done, so why not practice them on those dummies over there?" Kenneth pointed towards the group of dummies in front of them. 

As the two approached the dummies, another screen appeared. Fumbling through its holographic surface for a bit, Kenneth soon realized that this was the modifier for the dummies in front of him. 

Clicking on an option that allowed him to change the number of dummies in front of him, Kenneth inputted the number "20" into the text box that popped up. 

After a few seconds, a huge number of dummies were instantly teleported right in front of them. Standing there in the same position as the others, Kenneth began fiddling with the screen beside him a little more as had fun watching the dummies randomly appear and disappear.

Eventually he got tired of it and decided to focus on what he had come here to do, which was to train. 

Standing before a dummy, Kenneth held out his palm to the dummy's forehead. Concentrating his mana to his hand, the cold metal soon started to feel warm from the mana pressing against it. 

Kenneth was interested in seeing how his spells would work without chanting them. Ever since he was able to cast magic he'd always call out the name of the spell. He didn't know why, but it just seemed right to him. To not do so felt like he was violating a rule.

Seconds passed by. Suddenly the dummy shifted from its position and started moving its joints in ways human limbs shouldn't be able to move. 

The metal was somehow able to bend to an absurd degree. The flexibility in the material seemed top notch.

As this was a dummy modeled after a human, the dummy would do its best to simulate how a normal human would react when they were hit with spells. 

Kenneth had chosen to use Frighten, the same spell he had used on Lena earlier, and the one that he was unable to control. 

Still, wasn't this too excessive? The dummy was clearly breaking its joints as it struggled across the floor, rolling around frantically in the hopes that the spell would stop. 

Of course, the dummy did not take any damage from this. Kenneth had set their resistance against physical injuries to the max, and was just testing his Mental spells on them.

"I don't recall Lena rolling around like a maniac. Is my magic really that potent on normal people?" Having had enough of the dummy's display of agony, Kenneth cut off his mana connection with the spell, and soon the dummy had stood up from its place on the ground and returned to its position from earlier. 

An alarm sounded on the screen beside Kenneth. Peering to his side he found a detailed report of his spell. To his surprise, it even went into things that he didn't expect the system would scan.

Spell Name: Frighten

Spell Information: Frighten, a spell designed to prey upon the fears of the one it is cast on. The spell will proceed to modify the person's fears to be even more frightening. Possible chances of normal people's minds breaking, 35%. 

As the spell has a high chance to permanently scar its victims, it is forbidden to be used in public areas. 

Element Type: Mental

Mana Cost: 10% of user's. 

Additional Information: At the user's current level, the spell is set to drain them dry if used in quick succession. 

"Well, that surely went in-depth. How about you try, Tyrone?" Looking to his side where Tyrone was wagging his tail, Kenneth proposed the dog test his own spells out.

"Woof." Perhaps wanting to try as well, Tyrone walked closer to the group of dummies. 

"Since Earth is generally a destructive element, then let's try clustering up the dummies." Kenneth said as he looked through the options in hopes of finding one that allowed him to change where the dummies would spawn. 

"Ah, there it is. Let's try five first." Tinkering with the screen, he eventually found the option and chose to go with five dummies, and placed them within a short distance from each other. 

Giving Tyrone the green light, Kenneth watched as the dog channeled the mana into his voice.

"Woof!" 

The echoes caused by Tyrone's ear-piercing bark had mana laced in them. The sound waves moved through the arena akin to gas in the air, but were directed towards the ground below the dummies. 

The moment the sound waves touched the hard metal floor the dummies were standing on, multiple pillars of rock began to rapidly pierce through the seemingly impenetrable floor. 

The rock pillars were modeled like that of a spear, with the pillars' bodies thinning the further it went. It eventually stopped at a certain point, as now every one of the pillars were structured like stakes.

This sharp edge allowed them to pierce through the metallic husks of the dummies, and bring them to the ceiling. 

Almost like a snake, the pillars each wriggled in peculiar ways, looking unobstructed by their hard build.

For each dummy there was one pillar that shot through them, leaving them to flail about helplessly on the tips of the rock pillars. 

It was only later on that the pillars stopped to an abrupt halt, due to Tyrone having cut off the mana flow between him and the spell. 

The tough and almost unbreakable pillars soon found themselves disintegrating into dust, as the mana powering them was no longer there. 

Once Tyrone's mana was no longer evident in the air, another tab popped up in the holographic screen. Kenneth did not miss this, and instantly tapped it to see the results. 

Spell Name: Rock Pillar(s)

Spell Information: A spell designed with a wooden stake's shape in mind. Rock Pillar possesses extreme durability, allowing it to pierce through the densest of metals with ease. 

Element Type: Earth

Mana Cost: 3% of user's. 

Additional Information: The spell has been modified such that each of the pillars possess flexibility unfitting of rocks. Its increased bend allows it to thrash and flail about akin to a snake. This opens up for various methods of killing.

Reading the words, Kenneth was dumbfounded the moment he laid eyes upon the Mana Cost. The sharpness and killing power normal Rock Pillars presented was already enough to warrant it as deadly, but added with the fact that only a fraction of Tyrone's mana was required to cast that abomination of a spell, Kenneth didn't dare imagine what Tyrone would be if he became serious. 

"Now you're just flexing, haha. You're strong, Tyrone." Kenneth praised the dog as he patted him on the head. 

"Woof." 

"You're surprised by Tyrone's power, right? I was, as well." Lucas' voice came up from behind Kenneth. 

"Yeah. Remind me not to make him angry unless I want to die." Turning around, Kenneth replied with a nervous look on his face.

"Don't worry about it. A King's Guardian will always be there to protect their King. And from the way I see it, you are his King."