Test Prep

Back to the present

Alesha flicked the fingers of her left hand, causing the transformed claws to clack together with a satisfying sound. After reflecting on all that happened in the last week, she'd come to the conclusion that the System was a devil, and its forced bond to her soul was why she was able to be bound by the Demonic Contract magic of this world. Not because she herself qualified as a demon, but because the System certainly did. 

The System was just too damn devious. Its quests were designed to force her into certain paths, with punishments tailored to ensure that whether she succeeded or failed, it didn't really make a difference. The quest rewards rarely felt like gifts, yet were still somehow preferable to the failure conditions. It was maddening.

No matter what she chose, Alesha felt she could never come out on top when it came to the System and its quests.

Though the System made no noise in her mind, Alesha could almost picture it trembling with laughter, glorying in her frustration and reveling in her emotional distress. 

"I hate you, System," Alesha whispered.

Laying on her bed, she reflected again on the last six days, and wondered how she would do during the Exam. She continued clicking her claws together, worried.

Seth, Delilah and Flynn had worked hard to prepare Alesha for Seth's coming exam. Since it would be Alesha taking the exam instead of Seth (due to it being a Summoner's Exam), they all insisted she needed to become as strong as possible within that short time. 

It had… been a mix of results. 

None of Delilah's potions had been able to enhance her permanently, despite the student's best efforts. They'd helped somewhat during Flynn's battle training, but not much. As for Seth's part, the too-formal kid had been in charge of giving her the necessary theoretical knowledge for the Exam. It wasn't too hard. Basically, she'd learned about Dark Summonology's purpose and history, as well as the various stages of the exam.

Funnily enough, preparing effectively for the exam was actually a part of the exam itself. The exam consisted of 3 tasks and a Final. The first part was the preparation. If a Summoner couldn't cooperate with their demon to prepare for the exam, then for safety concerns, the student would have their exam terminated and fail automatically, if a subsequent demon summoning (the student's only second chance) ended the same way. It was dangerous to allow uncooperative demons to continue the exam.

This was because of the nature of the second and Final tasks. The second task involved the Summoner keeping their demon under control while the demon wore a Demonic Instinct Amplification Collar. After graduation, when out among commoners, a Dark Summoner wouldn't be able to control the environment -- and as such would never know when some outside stimulus could cause their demon to go berserk. The 2nd task was a toned-down version meant to simulate such a circumstance. If a Summoner couldn't reign in their demon and/or their demonic instincts in time, many people could be hurt or even killed. Testing a student's ability to do so was therefore the purpose of the 2nd task.

The third task involved finding and retrieving 5 tokens in a field. This simple task was designed to verify the ability of the Summoner to cooperate with their summoned demon to perform a mundane activity requiring focus. Apparently, there was more that could be gleaned from this than it seemed.

As for the Final task, this was the one where the Summoner could either have their demon fight to the death with another demon, or kill beasts in the Owlbear forest. Seth, Flynn, Delilah and Alesha were all in agreement that Alesha was entirely unsuited for single combat against another demon and that she should hunt beasts instead.

This was because of how terribly Flynn's battle training had gone.

It had always ended in her losing -- spectacularly, at that. No matter what she'd tried, Alesha hadn't been able to even scratch the man, not even in her pink panther form. As it turned out, he wasn't human either. He was half-vampire. That meant that, like Seth, he could somewhat see her, and for the Captain of the school's Fencing Team, "somewhat" was more than enough.

As for Alesha's combat ability, it was next to nil. She found that outside of CT-VR, where she had almost always had at least some sort of basic combat skill to auto-assist her movements, she was incredibly uncoordinated. It had taken days for her to stop tripping over herself. It turned out that being so used to having "fighting crutches" in-game was having an incredibly adverse effect on her ability to fight in real life. 

Another thing that bothered Alesha was that during their fights, Flynn had flirted endlessly, teasing her for her clumsy attempts to hit him. He snuck in surprising flirtatious gestures whenever her focus slipped. He'd snatch and kiss her hand, whisper in her ear, or lean in close when she was pinned to the ground. It wasn't that she minded, per se, since Flynn was incredibly handsome. However… Flynn was 17 years old, and Alesha was 22. Not to mention that she was from an entirely different world, meaning that after the Summoning was over, they'd never see each other again. She'd tried to explain that to him, of course, but to no avail; he didn't seem to care about the age gap (or the impossibly long distance) at all. 

She just didn't get it. He was obviously very close to Delilah, who was easily one of the most gorgeous women Alesha had ever seen -- and that was saying something, considering that genetic beauty enhancement (although strictly controlled) was responsible for most of the models'/actresses' appearances back home. Yet Flynn was clearly uninterested in pursuing Delilah romantically.

Why her? Why did this incredibly handsome half-vampire, who believed she was a summoned demon, flirt so incessantly with Alesha? 

Alesha gripped her head in frustration. "System, is there some sort of invisible Charm stat that I'm unaware of? Did you bewitch him?"

The System let out a burst of laughter. [What? You think I bewitched him? You're hilarious! Hahaha! Oh my word, do you really think so little of yourself? Sure, let's say you have a charm stat, why not? Ahahahhaha!]

Alesha rolled her eyes. 

Then, she realized that she was dwelling on something pointless again. "Damn my distractible brain," she muttered. 

Looking out the window, she saw it was dark outside, so she rolled over, pulling the blankets further over herself. The tasks and the exam were tomorrow… then she could go home. 

She wondered what effect Korak had had on her brother's friend Marshall, what her parents had done when she disappeared, and if Toltura had launched another attack on Elantris.

Thoughts of home spinning in her head, it took Alesha a long time to fall asleep.