Assessment

Although Daniel had thought that learning as many defense skills as he could before joining the EU Military Academy would at least give him a foundation, as soon as he started fighting against the professional hand-to-hand combat specialist in front of him, he was instantly proven wrong. It seems Daniel's experience is truly one of 'jack of all trades but master of none'.

In fact, one cannot even call Daniel a jack of all trades since he barely had the foundations for any of the martial arts he practiced for the past few months. One should know that a martial art cannot be learned in such a short time, especially when learned after the initial few years of one's adolescence.

Therefore, the second the fight started, Daniel was immediately grabbed by the teacher, thrown into the air, before getting slammed back first onto the cold hard ground. It is lucky that the training field within the gym-like room had quite the soft padding, or else Daniel imagined that he would have at least gotten some micro-fissures in his carbon fiber-reinforced spine just from that one move.

Unfortunately, it seems that the initial move is just to put Daniel in his place, in other words, to instantly crush a new student's delusions of grandeur before even attending their first class. It seems that such treatment from the teacher is a tradition for all new students who enter the EUMA.

However, as Daniel is a rare newbie to the entire field, he wasn't even able to resist when the teacher suddenly grabbed him, causing his already low self-esteem to instantly be crushed along with the physical pain he felt from all the muscles along his back.

To make matters worse, Dr. George forced Daniel to stand up again after only 30 seconds of rest, abruptly grabbing Daniel by the hand and pulling him upwards without the latter's permission. Before Daniel could even complain, the teacher gestured for Daniel to come forward and hit him as hard as he can.

Already feeling incensed from the sudden rough treatment by the teacher, Daniel, who is usually a more docile and taciturn kid, could not help but to get angry, flushing his cheeks red as he tried and punch the teacher in front of him as hard as he could. But for Daniel, his nightmare has just gotten started.

Without even straining himself, Dr. George directly stopped Daniel's punches with both his palms before throwing them back again, stating, "You're being way too obvious with your intent! Not to mention how slow your punch was! Anyone could see where you're aiming from a mile away and could already think of multiple ways to dodge and counterattack before you even finish that pathetic punch! This time, at least try to feign an attack or something!"

The teacher criticized the many flaws in Daniel's foundations that became more and more visible the longer the two of the sparred, which mostly consisted of Daniel throwing punches at the teacher to no avail as the latter either dodge or easily grasp upon Daniel's fist time after time after time.

Just when Daniel thought that his soul would leave his body soon if the teacher continued to humiliate him like that, the latter finally took a step back and asked Daniel to stop.

"That's enough." Dr. George said with a solemn tone while also giving Daniel a frown. "From what I've seen, you seem to have no experience in hand-to-hand combat at all. Were you never taught that back in your previous school?"

"I...*pant*... I was just a Social Sciences student back in my previous high school! Of course I've never been trained in hand-to-hand combat. If I didn't register for those extra-curricular activities, giving me a slight experience in martial arts before coming here, I wouldn't even be able to last until now." Daniel panted as he complained to the asessment teacher before him, completely disregarding how pathetic he looked.

With that being said, Dr. George's frown grew even deeper. "It seems that we really need to assign a rigorous full-day training routine for you if you really want to catch up with the other students within the elite class. Although you are the son of a hero, no teacher in the elite class would let you in to their lecture hall if your foundations are that low..."

After Dr. George drifted off in his thoughts, looking a little worried for the new student who just joined the academy, Daniel finally got the chance to get ahold of himself. Fortunately, it seems that Dr. George had finally finished with his assessment so he could head towards the food synthesizer located by the edge of the gym and get some electrolyte-filled water for himself.

Only after chugging down a litre of the nutrition-rich water did he turn around to find his teacher standing motionlessly in the middle of the elevated cushioned platform where he previously 'tortured' Daniel. Obviously, the teacher must be engaging in a private call with someone when Daniel saw the blank look in the other person's eyes.

Not knowing what to do in the meantime, Daniel simply waited by the food synthesizer and gazed at Dr. George for a while before he finally could not take it anymore and started browsing the net within his biochip while he waited for his teacher to finish with his call. Finally, after about half an hour, Dr. George jumped down from the elevated platform and walked towards Daniel in a rather serious manner.

"Student Daniel, I assume that you wouldn't have any experience in using a beam saber either?" The teacher asked in a slightly hopeless tone.

Scratching the back of his head in embarassment, Daniel could only give out a disappointing answer. "The only times where I've engaged in combat with a beam saber is when I had a test drive of a mech the last time I had a student tour here, and also from the many VR games I've played before."

Shaking his head, the teacher began to stare blankly at nothingness again, obviously doing something with his biochip for a moment. After a few seconds, he returned back to Earth and spoke, "Since you have no experience with using beam sabers, we will directly skip your assessment of that and have you go to the shooting range, where we will test your precision and accuracy rate when shooting different projectile and beam weapons."

Just as Daniel was about to remind the teacher about his lack of skills in that department as well, Dr. George added, "Since youngsters like you would mostly likely play a lot of FPS games in your free time, such experience will somewhat help in a real life situation. Though, since we do not know if you have absorbed any experience from the VR games, we still need to test you on that."

Just like that, Dr. George simply escorted Daniel towards the entrance of the training center before another admissions officer took him towards the main train terminus where they took a cable car towards the middle level of the campus where Daniel had previously tested out his 'Second Chance' skill before.

It seems that during that half hour when Dr. George was 'offline', he managed to get Daniel a slot within one of the shooting ranges as well as an invigilator who would assess his performance. The new teacher who is already waiting for him by the entrance of the shooting range simply scanned Daniel with his full body scanner without saying anything before turning around, heading through the entrance of the shooting range in silence the entire time.

Feeling somewhat confused, Daniel decided that it would still be best to follow this new teacher, so he immediately increased his pace and kept behind the teacher's back as the two of them walked past row after row of students shooting at their targets using all sorts of guns, whether using bullets or using laser beams. Finally, the two of them arrived at the very back row of the entire target range center and headed towards the very corner.

Taking out two earmuffs and a Desert Eagle, the teacher handed one earmuff and the gun towards Daniel before stating in a monotone voice, "Student Daniel 0777. Your first short-range weapons assessment will consist of shooting one magazine from the Desert Eagle against a target located 100m away from your position. Successfully impacting against the vital areas would give you 10 points, other parts of the body would give you 5 points, and missing the body would result in the deduction of 10 points. Please go ahead whenever you are ready."

After being thrusted with such a situation without warning, Daniel could only put on his earmuff and hold the Desert Eagle in an awkward manner as he could not have the help of Minerva during the assessment. Sloppily aiming his arm towards the head area of the target in front of him, he tried his best to remember the position he needed to be in from his previous training before taking a deep breath.

*Bang!*