Surprise Gift

My cheeks flushed. "May I retake the test?" I asked politely.

The reply was a simple "Yes." It was almost as if this 'System' couldn't be bothered to deal with me. Shaking off my shame, I threw a punch as hard as I could toward the boxing bag.

It shook a little more this time. 

"The contestant is judged to have a strength of 0.65," said the System.

My shoulders drooped. "Thank you, System," I said dejectedly. I knew my strength was terrible, but seeing it in numbers made it much harder to ignore my glaring physical weakness.

Suddenly, a rock dropped out of nowhere and landed neatly before me. "Please lift the rock," stated the now familiar voice.

I raised it up with a single hand; it couldn't have weighed more than five hundred grams and could fit comfortably within my palm, though to be fair it was much heavier than it looked.

"The mass of the weight will now increase."

The rock suddenly got heavier, though it did not grow larger. I nearly dropped it in surprise, but held on. 

"The mass of the weight will now increase." 

This time, I had to use two hands to hold the rock. Before I could even adjust to the new heft of its weight…

"The mass of the weight will now increase."

Before two minutes were up, I was forced to drop the horrendously heavy rock, which could still theoretically fit within my palm.

"The contestant has been judged to have a strength of S=0.75. Adjustments have been made: the contestant's strength is now gauged at 0.7."

Next came a series of tests related to how far I could throw an object, how high I could throw an object, my ability to push and pull heavy objects and many others.

In not a single one did I score above 0.8. In the end, the average came down to 0.72. Gritting my teeth, I asked the System to proceed with the next set of tests, only to receive the following response.

"Proceeding to the Trial of Agility."

Then the floor opened beneath me and I fell once more into that space where time held no meaning.

____________________________________________

When I exited, I held my eyes tightly closed against the blinding light, waiting patiently for the pain to subside before I slowly opened my eyes. This time, what awaited me was something I had never seen before - at least, not in person.

Before me was an obstacle course, with metal bars to be jumped over and blocks to be climbed. I could even discern a section in the distance which seemed to require me to accurately jump from one platform to another. 

However, before I could ponder how I was meant to do so with my stunning bad hand-eye coordination, the aggravatingly monotone voice asked me politely to proceed with the test.

Initially, things went… as well as could be expected. It was only after I crawled under a metal bar and got up too fast that my usual bout of torturous nausea struck me, and I was forced to lay back down, predictably slamming my head on the aforementioned metal bar in the process. 

"The contestant seems to have an impairment. Upon further analysis, it seems that this stems from a fluid buildup within the inner ear. Proceeding with treatment…. Treatment successful. The contestant should not experience further symptoms of this impairment," said the System.

Somehow, I felt my dizziness disappear, and a persistent feeling of discomfort I had hardly been aware of vanished with it. Stunned, I got up somewhat slowly, trying to process what exactly had just occurred.

"T-thank you, System?" I said in disbelief.

"The contestant is advised to proceed with the test," stated the System, with the ghost of something akin to gratification changing its tone almost imperceptibly.

I did as I was told. Despite my terrible results on nearly every test (save for endurance running, where I somehow managed a 0.98 score), I couldn't feel any disappointment or dissatisfaction - I seemed to be floating on cotton candy clouds, over the moon about the absolvement of my longstanding disease. It was only when the announcement for my final score came out that I returned to reality.

"The contestant has been judged to have an agility of A=0.8. Congratulations! The contestant has received a gift for their results. Would you like to see what your prize is?" asked the System.