TESTS

Several days passed as she trained under Ronald and recovered quickly. She improved at a steady and fast pace, having been working with Ronald to improve her equipment as well. There were already several upgrades done to them in just a few days, the material arranged by Ronald who had a great number of contacts.

"So, instead of training, let's make this a test." Ronald offered after over a month of training. "If you pass in this test, you will be free to go as you have recovered already."

"I am down for it." Reese accepted.

Ronald led Reese to the first test, the room where she practiced swinging her katana. There were several objects lined up in the room. A wooden pole, a iron pole, and a Cyber-alloy pole.

Cyber alloy was a special type of extremely tough alloy created through nuclear fission and fusion processes using actinoids and lanthanoids. While Reese never researched about it in detail, she was well aware her father's research was based around them and using them to improve existing materials and energy. The Cyber-alloy was not one of her father's foundings, but it is something he helped in the improvement of, creating a more stable and generally usable type of Cyber-alloy.

"Cut through all of them to pass the first test." Ronald informed.

Reese looked at him from the corner of her eye.  Cut? Through Cyber-alloy? With this katana? It's not tougher than cyber metal. What do you mean?

She put her hand on her katana, which she was getting used to carrying in her belt at all times. Taking a deep breath she stepped forward to try. She started with the wooden pole, smoothly slicing through it, inflicting a diagonal slash, the most effective angle to attack anything with a katana.

She moved on to the metal pole, slicing it with minimum effort too. She finally moved ahead to the Cyber-alloy pole, breathing heavily due to her anxiety. She slashed towards it diagonally with all her strength, but the katana collided with the pole and was stopped completely, not even inflicting a dent. Reese lowered her katana in defeat.

"You think too much." Ronald observed. "Don't expend your energy on thinking so much, whether you can cut it or not is not for you to decide. Keep your worries aside and attack with complete focus. Confidence is important, if you yourself don't believe in your abilities do you think you can achieve anything? Think of that pole as a hurdle in your path to avenging your father and cut it down as an enemy."

Reese calmed herself down, gripping her katana tightly. She took a deep breath and exhaled with her mouth, her breath leaving a slight trail in the air. Closing her eyes she raised her katana into the air and brought it down towards the pole, her mind perfectly still. She opened her eyes as she heard a thud, knowing she didn't cut through the pole

As she opened her eyes she realised her katana wasn't stopped by the pole, the sound was of the upper part of the pole hitting the down, the clattering sound ringing in her eyes as she looked at the pole. She stood still in that position for a short while, somewhat shocked but victorious. After a while she sheathed her katana and gestured Ronald to lead her to the next test. He nodded and led her to the next room.

It was the room she practiced dodging bullets in, the previously installed guns having been replaced with more real looking guns, most likely gesturing to faster bullets.

"The test is simple, dodge every bullet. If even one bullet hits you the test will be stopped and who knows how long it will take you to recover." Ronald explained with a shrug.

"What do you mean?" Reese questioned, already having figured out the answer.

"This time, you have to dodge real bullets." Ronald informed

Reese gulped audibly.

"They will have the same speed as the fake bullets, and there will be the same number of guns with same firing rate too." Ronald informed before walking away.

Reese stood at the center with her eyes closed. Ronald stood by the switch and waited for her to be ready.

"What are you waiting for? Start the test." Reese questioned.

"You are going to do this with your eyes closed? These are real bullets, remember?" Ronald gasped.

"Start. It." Reese ordered.

Ronald sighed and started it, keeping his hand at the switch to stop it the moment things went south. The first bullet was fired and Ronald held his breath, his heart skipping a beat or two as the bullet travelled towards Reese. At the last second she ducked under the bullet and moved quickly around the platform, dodging every bullet by twisting her body or stepping away entirely.

Ronald was perplexed, he was not expecting her to have gotten skilled enough to dodge bullets with her eyes closed. Reese efficiently dodged every single bullet, several of them getting very close to her but none making a mark.

Ronald stopped the test after about 10 minutes. 500 bullets were shot, and none hit Reese.

"That was truly splendid." Ronald congratulated.

"Fairly easy after having gotten used to this. It felt easier with my eyes closed." Reese shrugged.

"How exactly?" Ronald inquired.

"There is not much a person can do with their eyes when they are being shot at, you can look at your attacker but a bullet is too fast for you to be able to see it properly, only reliable sense is sound in this scenario. I have done this training several times and I have gotten much better at judging distance and direction with sound, and guessing how long it will take for a bullet to get to me, and my reflexes have improved a lot as well." Reese explained.

"Marvelous. I am looking forward to seeing how well you do in the next test." Ronald cheered and led her to the next room.

Ronald brought her to the next room, which was used for accuracy training. Reese didn't need to be told what to do for this one.

"The targets are much faster than before, you better be prepared." Ronald warned.

The first target sprung up at the left corner and quickly moved rightwards, but fell down as it was shot in the head by Reese within a second. Her eyes were unfocused, which Ronald found very odd. She shot every target at its head within a second of it appearing. She missed none and shot each precisely at its head, having shot the last one thrice on its head, forming two eyes and a small mouth.

She laughed at the face she created and shot at a target that suddenly popped up out of nowhere.

"Was that a trap or a malfunction?" Reese questioned.

"A trap, it was to check if you are prepared for surprise enemies, best to remain vigilante and never fully trust the number of enemies without confirming." Ronald explained.

"Sounds good, and I passed, so let's move on to the next one, shall we?" Reese offered with a slight bow.

Ronald laughed cheerily and led her to the next test.

Reese was led to the room she trained with the punching bag and wooden dummy in, the punching bag and dummy both lying at a corner of the room. In the middle of the room stood a metallic dummy, several soft pads like the wooden one marked on its body at the same spots.

"So I do my usual thing but with this?" Reese inquired.

"Pretty much, go ahead." Ronald answered.

Reese shrugged and walked to the dummy. She heard the sound as a switch was pressed and ducked, hoping to dodge an attack from behind but dodging a punch from the dummy. The dummy kicked at her head but she dodged it by rolling backwards, the foot almost scraping her chin. She jumped back to her feet and took a fighting stance, not having expected the dummy to retaliate.

The dummy punched towards her several times in quick succession, but she dodged the first few hits before being forced to parry and block the others. She spied a pad at the dummy's head and also figured from how it moved that the visual sensors were at its head. Parrying a punch she ducked under the other punch, spun around and kicked the dummy under its chin with the bottom of her feet, knocking it's head backwards. Stepping forwards she hit the soft pad at its stomach with both her hands knocking it away and sending it rolling across the room.

The dummy didn't take long to spring back to its feet and continue it's attack with renewed vigor. It punched towards her with a right hook but she ducked under it. Instantly turning before she could react the dummy hit her across the head with the back of its right hand, knocking her off her feet. Grabbing her by her coat it swung her around and tossed her into the punching bag and other dummy.

Reese was bleeding from above her brow and she also realised that, but she wiped the blood off and got back on her feet. Planning to be on the offensive this time. She stepped forwards the metallic dummy approached her, and was instantly hit on the head from behind, not by metal, but something softer. She stumbled forwards towards the metal dummy. It punched towards her face but in the blink of an eye Reese spun on her heel and roundhouse-kicked the metal dummy backwards before jumping and front-kicking her surprise attacker, which was the wooden dummy.

She stood between the two, willing to end the battle soon. The wooden dummy recovered first and attacked her with a roundhouse-kick, but she ducked under it and grabbed it's leg, throwing it off balance. Swinging it around she hit the metal dummy with it as the metal dummy was about to punch her. She lost her grip on the wooden dummy and it got flung into a wall and Reese stumbled backwards.

The metal dummy jumped up and punched at her but she spun around and stepped sideways dodging the punch. It kicked at her but she ducked under it and roundhouse-kicked it, but it was able to block the hit with both its arms. Reese stepped backwards and bent her body backwards as the dummy punched towards. Ducking under a punch from behind she stepped sideways and both the dummies crashed into each other. The wooden one knocking the metal dummy over.

The wooden dummy continued it's attack and ran towards Reese. Reese took a deep breath and stepped forward while lowering her body, hitting the dummy at the wood at its chest with both her hands with all her strength. The dummy's body broke apart from the force of her hit, splinters flying around everywhere.

The metal dummy appeared behind it's broken friend as the wood pieces fell to the ground, revealing some wires inside. The metal dummy punched at Reese but she kicked its lower jaw the back of her foot, lifting it off its feet. She kicked and punched it several times as it landed back on its feet, pushing it backwards and overwhelming it completely.

The dummy swung at her, aiming at her head but she ducked under it. Springing back up to her feet Reese spun her body and kicked the dummy's lower jaw with all her strength using the back of her leg and knocked it's head clean off its shoulders. The head knocking into the ceiling and fell a short distance away from the dummy as the rest of the body hit the ground.

Reese was breathing heavily and looked towards Ronald whose expression was one of surprise and pride. He walked upto her and gently placed his arm over her head.

"You did very well." He congratulated. "I am sure your father would've been very proud of your skills."

Reese lowered her head trying to not let her eyes water from the rush of memories of her father.

"Anyways, with that aside, let's get you patched up so you will be able to depart soon." Ronald cheered.

"Thank you very much for everything you did for me." Reese bowed.

"There is no need for that, you are like a daughter for me too afterall." Ronald smiled and led her back to her room.