Chapter 37: Stuck in the Sandbag Storm

Eric checked how much time he had left out of his half an hour rest time and found out that about 20 minutes remained. Seeing this, he got straight to meditating and stabilizing his body for the entire time in order to be at his best possible physical state while initially challenging the obstacle course.

In order to measure his current ability and plan his goals for the next month of attempting the obstacle course, his initial standing would definitely be very important. If he didn't get an accurate measure of his current ability, he may not even be able to finish the course about a month later.

'If I underestimate myself, I will most probably go about it too slowly and the chance that I fail to complete the challenge will be pretty high. However, if I overestimate myself, it can lead to getting injured which can cause a huge setback to my progress.' Eric contemplated as he readied his body for trying out the obstacle course for the first time.

He looked at the first part: the sandbag formation. For an area of about a hundred meters in length and thirty meters in width, there was an incredible amount of jute bags filled with sand swinging at quite the fast pace.

They were present all around the first section of the course, at each and every corner; and they also swung in all directions.

One of the first things Eric figured as he observed these sacks was that there was no way for him, at his current level of ability, to run through the entire 100 meters. Initially, he considered a possibility to be able to run along the corners or while ducking without getting hit; but upon further inspection, he came to know that those methods weren't possibilities for him.

There was practically no easy way out of this, as the sacks filled with sand covered all areas of their section in the obstacle course. These included the two sides which bordered the walls, higher areas, lower areas and a lot more areas that were in between.

After ascertaining that there was no easy way out, Eric started to think about any simple ways to clear this part of the course. He had previously thought about how likely it was for him to succeed if he just ran at his fastest pace in a straight line while focusing fully on speed and not on dodging the sacks. This, however, obviously wasn't possible, as the path itself was a hundred meters long and the sacks didn't follow any sort of easily predictable pattern and were placed all around the area.

He would face quite a few difficulties if he tried to brute force his way through them only with speed; and therefore, that was obviously not the best approach.

Since running through them wasn't the most optimal way, the next thing that came to Eric's mind was to slowly make his way through while primarily focusing on dodging the sacks. This was possible, but would take way too much time and would also severely increase his chance of getting injured if he wasn't fast enough in dodging.

After taking all of this into account, Eric came to the conclusion that he would just have to try and improve himself as he finds flaws in his dodging skills and agility. There wasn't a clear cut method that he could apply to effortlessly solve this part of the obstacle course. No matter how he decided to approach it, he would still have to rely on his speed and dodging abilities instead of trying to exploit flaws in the system.

Other than that, taking the potential easy way out wouldn't really do Eric much benefit in this scenario, as he was attempting the obstacle course as training. Even if he were to complete it by 'cheating the system', it wouldn't do him any real benefit as none of his physical body's capabilities would be improved in that method.

This served as a type of realization for Eric to stop unnecessary thinking about the obstacle course too much and to actually attempt it.

With this, he finally decided to attempt the swinging sand bag formation of the obstacle course.

The strategy that he decided to use for charging through the swinging sacks was running through the formation of sand bags at a fast enough speed where he could dodge or move when a sack came too close to him.

He knew it won't succeed at the first try, but attempting it would do no harm and would help him know its flaws better so that he could formulate a new strategy which didn't have such flaws.

With this in mind, he took a deep breath and ran into the midst of the swinging sacks of sand.

The speed at which Eric ran was quite decent. He spotted a path that had enough space for him to run through before he went inside the array of sacks and he continued on this path for the time being. Even before he had made it ten meters into the formation, a sack swung right at Eric's face, which he was barely able to avoid by nimbly stepping backwards.

This, however, was not the smartest decision. In less than a second after dodging the first sack, another one wildly swung itself at his side. Unlike the previous one, Eric was unable to dodge this sand bag and was sent flying a couple meters back.

Eric was able to land properly on his feet, slightly ducked, right at the entrance to the obstacle course. His body was quite sturdy and rigid, so the sand bags didn't do any notable damage to him.

This setback didn't stop him, as Eric stood up once again and ran into the maze of swirling sand bags. This time, he tried to move along the walls, so that he was sure that one side didn't attack him and he had less dangerous zones to worry about.

For the second time, he ran straight, as he didn't really have much maneuverability due to there being a wall on one side of his. This time as well, he was able to make it roughly the same distance before a problem occurred.

A couple sacks of sand flung in front of him and to his open side one after another. It was quite close, but he was able to dodge both of them. Getting ready to move once again, he now noticed the greater problem. He was trapped.

Since one entire side of his was completely barred off due to a wall, he already had limited space to avoid the sand bags. With one of the three possible ways for him to go already blocked off, it was way easier for Eric to get stuck in a position where he will get hit if he tries to advance.

In this situation, he could temporarily stay safe in his current position if he didn't move, but it was only a matter of time before a sand bag came at him again.

Even if he were to be safe in this position forever, it wouldn't really benefit him as the objective of this part of his training was to complete the obstacle course, not stay hidden inside it.

The only sure way for him to get out of this situation was to back out and rethink his approach. The last option is what he proceeded with as he slowly backed out of the section of the course making sure he didn't get hit.

Eric tried entering the maze another time and this time he decided to be slow and make sure that even if it took him significantly longer, he would make it way farther than the previous times.

He entered the formation through a rather empty looking spot where no sand bags were currently swinging and started to slowly step forward, as he looked at and analyzed the area for other safe spots to move to.

For a short amount of distance, similar to the previous two attempts, this plan went forward pretty smooth and didn't have any disturbances. He took a bit more time, but he also covered the area more safely.

This changed, however, when it took him a couple seconds to find a safe spot and while focusing on where to move to, he almost got hit by a sandbag which flung itself at him from the back and slightly towards his side.

The main flaw in this approach was that if he only focused on the area in front of him without moving, he would be left vulnerable from behind and at his current position.

After evading the initial sand bag, Eric got stuck in a defensive and evasive position along with facing the chain attack from another couple sacks of sand, the latter of which knocked him back to the entrance.

Eric got up once again, as he wasn't really hurt and recollected the major issues with each of his approach to clearing the sand bag formation in the obstacle course.

'If I put all my attention on going fast, I won't be able to dodge the sandbags. If I focus mainly on dodging, I wouldn't be fast enough. Finally, if I try to take territorial advantage such as walking by the walls, I will end up getting cornered and stuck.'

Eric thought about a way to incorporate the advantages of all these methods in one single approach which he could use to clear the sand bag section of the obstacle course.

After about a minute, he came up with a plan and rushed into the swinging sack formation once again.