The Martial Unity

“The second round will soon begin…” Even as he said that Rui could see assistants bringing out thousands of boxes.

(‘Something to do with the second round no doubt.”) Rui noted as they finished bringing everything they needed seemingly.

“Your performance in the second round will be graded by points.” Master Aroanian continued. “Those of you whose number of points are lower than that of the average will fail this round. As for the actual test itself, all of you will be locked in this training hall with bouncing slimes. Bouncing slimes are a species of slimes that hunt animals, humans included, in dungeons by slamming into them repeatedly by bouncing in enclosed spaces. These slimes will be released in here with all of you, and they will hunt to kill you. Blocking or parrying a slime while incurring minimal damage will earn you one point, dodging a slime will earn you two points and killing a slime will earn you five points.”

(‘Hmmm. This is not what I expected, I pictured a more straightforward testing of physical and performative attributes.’)

“There is more important information and rules, so please pay attention. Firstly, the number of slimes in the training room at any point in time will be maintained at one hundred.”

(‘That’s a fuck ton.’)

“Secondly, you are prohibited from entering a two-meter radius of your fellow applicants, every violation of this rule will cost you five points.”

(‘Makes sense, it prohibits uncontrolled violence between the applicants.’)

“Thirdly, you will be required to wear a special weighted suit at all times.” Master Aronian explained as the assistants took out said suits from the boxes and began offering them to the applicants.

“These suits are quite heavy and will strain and hinder your body, allowing us to evaluate your capability more objectively. The weight in these suits come from an extremely dense and heavy liquid present in the outer layer of the suit. You will not be allowed to remove these suits during the exam.” Master Aronian warned.

(‘Wait, so we have to block and dodge a hundred bouncing slimes that hunt humans, while wearing these heavy suits??’) Rui was stunned. Yet even as fear crept into his heart, a nervous smile broke onto his face.

“Fourthly, you may not be within ten meters of the walls of this exam center.”

(‘Tsk, that kills an obvious strategy.’)

“And the final and most important rule: Once the second round begins, it will stop only after the first applicant among you dies…”

All the applicants in the room froze; Rui included. Master Aronian just increased the stakes. Even though the probability of them being the one to die was low, just knowing that one of them would inevitably die made the air macabre.

“All of you will be required to sign a consent form in order to appear for this round and the next. You will be unable to withdraw from the exam once it has begun, so please make up your minds carefully. Good luck. The second round will begin in half an hour.”

(‘So this is why the exam is known to kill a few applicants every year.’) Rui realized. (‘This year, atleast sixteen applicants will die because each of the sixteen branches of the Kandrian Martial Academy is holding the exam. I’m going to have to give this round my absolute best.’)

As Rui put on his suit, he noted how strange the fabric was.

(‘Extremely elastic, yet it doesn’t exert a high restorative spring force despite large amounts of strain and its thickness, I don’t think even Earth had such a remarkable material.’) Every substance had something called a Young’s Modulus, it was a property that described how much stress was needed to strain a certain material or substance. The suits that were provided had an exceptionally low modulus, allowing to be stretched with great ease.

After he and many other applicants put the suit on, one of the assistant invigilators inserted something into the suit from an opening in the back that instantly added great weight to the suit while simultaneously began shifting its center of mass. The drastic shifts in center of mass and gravity made both Rui and most other contestants fall, losing their balance.

(‘I see! This isn’t just meant to hinder our movements; it’s meant to hinder our balance as well. Master Aronian had mentioned that the extra weight came from an extremely dense liquid in the outer layer of the suit.’)

Liquids did not have a defined shape allowing them to flow within the suit, every time Rui tilted it, furthermore Rui’s movements were hindered by the inertia of the liquid, reducing his agility.

(‘This is no joke, this will be quite difficult to handle.’) Rui gritted.

His balance wasn’t bad, but with a dense liquid flowing around inside the suit, he had a hard time getting his bearing. He spent the remaining twenty minutes testing how much the suit hindered his movements.

(‘It deviates my movements roughly twenty-percent.’) Looking around, he noticed that the other applicants didn’t have an easy time adapting to the suit, most of them had to perform every movement with caution.

(‘It seems they’re doing their best to get used to its feel as quickly as possible before the exam begins… How crude.’) He tutted.

Rui had already prepared a set of tactics to make the most efficient use of his body under the current circumstances. He’d made use of the rotational and fluid dynamics he’d learnt thoroughly in his last life.

(‘Because of the extra torque caused by uneven distribution of the liquid every time I bend, I need to reduce the degree to which I tilt or bend my body. I’ve already determined that my legs can’t handle full-body motions due to the pre-existing torque of my body in addition to the extra torque caused by the liquid, I need to reduce the net torque acting on my body by ensuring I don’t tilt or bend as much as I normally do. Doing this will keep the balance and distribution of liquid in the suit even and uniform.’)

This was a very fancy and technical way of saying; ‘I’ll trip if I bend too much, so I should stay steady’, this might sound like common sense, but the difference was that Rui had determined at exactly what angle of tilting and bending did the torque become too much. Due to his physics background he could clearly estimate and extrapolate whether or not a certain maneuver was safe and what the likelihood of losing his balance was.

(‘I’m not talented… I wasn’t born with great strength, speed or durability, or exceptional balance and flexibility or body-eye coordination… But I have the wealth of knowledge of a lifetime and a mind growing past its ordinary limits… I won’t succumb to this challenge!’)