Same Suit?...

Eden first smiled looking at the power of the shot, until he saw the soldier tweaking the angle of the laser.

"Does he know the entire simulation map or something?" Eden questioned, before seeing the soldier shooting at three turrets with one shot, "Whatever."

Suddenly, he saw the soldier running towards the end line.

"Huh! That's unexpected." Eden mumbled looking at the feed. Soldiers being "soldier", never actually rushed forward towards the end goal. Instead, they focused mostly on destroying as many obstacles as they could, rather than reaching the end line.

How did he know that? Well, he concluded it after, looking at how the previous soldiers before him performed.

Their achievement was always more than fifty percent.

If it were like before, where the cadets performed, more than half of the competitors would have already passed the current task. However, the achievement would have been below thirty percent.

Instead right now, even though, no-one has crossed the end line, the achievement never got below fifty percent.

As the soldier on the feed, started running while shooting as many obstacles ahead as he could, two rifles on top of his both shoulder also started shooting at those obstacles that appeared on either side, based on the results provided by the suit's heat and metal detector, and scanner, which was spotted more than twenty meters away from the soldier's position.

Comparatively, the achievement Eden received because of the automated weapon was three times the achievement of the soldier.

Looking at Eden, who valiantly used the AI to cheat through the entire process, the general was very pissed but was forced to do comply, after all, the use of AI wasn't banned.

Of course, some audience too started noticing the strange video feed of Eden's combat suit rushing forward to the end, from the hundreds of other feeds.

However, they didn't think too much about it. After all, someone has just now crossed the path all the way to the end.

Everyone was too focused on the mechanic, who was able to come up with the design that was able to cross the entire map.

Eden too looked at the feed and found that the person who built this new suit was none other than, Laffey.

Of course, many people recognized him, because of the previous year's competition. However, the result of the task competition didn't stop there. Within ten seconds, another person was able to cross the end line.

That was when the list of those who will probably be able to enter the top started appearing on the screen, one after another. Of course, Eden too was confident about being on the list, however, because his suit was chosen only after the previous got destroyed, he still had to wait for some more time.

In the virtual simulator, the soldier wearing Eden's combat suit, was having a blast. As more time passed on, the more he started appreciating the design.

First, it was all about reaching the end line. However, as he moved forward he began to understand the amazing feeling he got when he was able to shoot down one target with only one shot.

At the same time, those two weapons on top of his both shoulder shot down any target that appeared on his blindsight. Hence, he was sure that he was probably the only soldier, who was probably going to achieve a hundred percent success rate in the entire simulation. Also, the fastest one on top of that.

He was starting to feel the same rush, that he got when he was a kid and while playing Battle Glory, on the gaming pod. Trying to achieve the highest competition rate or fastest competition time.

Eden also had already understood, what was happening. Hence, even though he wasn't sure about when the person was going to finish the task, he was sure he was going to achieve the highest achievement on the match.

In the end, after waiting for another twenty or so minutes, the soldier reached the end. Just like what he had expected, even though he was ranked at forty-seventh, he was able to achieve both a high completion rate and the fastest competition record under his name. The soldier was also pleased with the suit, and mostly the weapon. After all, it didn't heat up much even till he reached the end. Hence, provided Eden with additional full points.

It was too bad, that the ranking was done primarily based on the completion time and not the achievement points or additional points.

Those points were mainly required for those contestants whose design was not able to reach the end line.

In other words, the only reason Eden wasn't able to achieve the top position, was because the military didn't choose his design on the first selection process, too bad he could do nothing about that. Instead, wait.

Just like that after an additional hour, finally, one thousand contestants were chosen for the next match.

.....

"And now for the third match, the contestants are only allowed to do some minor tweaking on their current design." The host started mentioning the topic for the contestants.

"The Time allotted for you all is fifteen minutes. After that, your design will be sent for random selection, which will select your next opponent. You can see your comm for further instructions."

Hearing that everyone jerked.

"Wait, we have to use this same suit?" A contestant asked turning towards the host.

"Of course," host smiled, "that's exactly what the title says."