Reincarnated as an Energy with a System

Chapter 2034: Liam’s Performance

The first name appeared.

A girl walked toward the simulation pod while the rest of the class gathered around the large display.

Once she was connected, the screen changed to show what she was seeing.

Her two-minute preparation period passed quickly, and when the assessment began, the simulated Mecha was released into a field filled with drifting asteroids, ruined machinery, and fragments of destroyed spacecraft.

The environment was deliberately inconvenient.

Some of the debris moved slowly enough to avoid without trouble, while other pieces crossed her path at angles that forced her to adjust constantly. Maneuvering a five-meter machine through it required more than simply moving forward and reacting to whatever appeared directly ahead.

The first Mekharan appeared behind the remains of a broken vessel.

The girl identified it correctly and fired.

Her shot struck the target across the torso, earning her several points before she continued through the debris field.

A second hostile appeared farther ahead, followed by another near the edge of her sensors. She destroyed both, though the second required several shots.

"She’s using too much ammunition," someone nearby murmured.

Ning agreed.

The simulation was clearly designed to punish anyone who focused only on destroying enemies. Fuel dropped every time she accelerated or made a large correction, while ammunition disappeared far more quickly whenever she panicked and fired repeatedly.

The Mekharans began returning fire as well.

The first few shots missed, but one eventually struck the side of her Mecha. She reacted too strongly, overcorrected, and nearly collided with a spinning section of machinery before recovering.

The distraction allowed another shot to hit her.

Damage indicators appeared across the screen.

Ning watched quietly as the situation gradually became worse. Her movements became more desperate, which made her consume more fuel, while the increasing number of enemies forced her to spend ammunition she could no longer afford to waste.

She managed to destroy several more Mekharans before a final barrage overwhelmed her damaged machine.

The screen went dark.

A score appeared a moment later.

<183 Points>

A few students murmured in disappointment.

Lorna looked toward the girl as she emerged from the simulator. "You became too focused on whatever enemy was directly in front of you and stopped treating the environment as part of the battle. You also spent almost a quarter of your ammunition correcting missed shots that you should never have taken in the first place."

The girl nodded, clearly unhappy with the result.

The score was lower than what many cadets managed on their first attempt, though not disastrously so.

The next student entered.

He handled the opening section better, taking more time to identify firing opportunities and avoiding some of the unnecessary acceleration that had drained the previous student’s fuel. He also survived noticeably longer once the Mekharans began attacking in groups.

Eventually, however, the pressure caught up with him.

His Mecha lost one arm after taking repeated damage, and without enough ammunition remaining to compensate, he was destroyed not long afterward.

<201 Points>

It was an improvement, though barely.

Then Lorna called Liam.

Liam glanced toward Ning before entering the simulator, giving him a confident smile as though reminding him about the two thousand units waiting at the end.

Ning smiled back.

The preparation period began.

Unlike the previous two students, Liam seemed familiar with the controls almost immediately. He used the two minutes efficiently, testing the Mecha’s acceleration, turning speed, weapon response, and stopping distance rather than simply moving around.

When the scenario started, that preparation showed.

Liam maneuvered through the first section of debris without taking any unnecessary damage and destroyed the first Mekharan with fewer shots than either of the earlier cadets had used.

He continued at a controlled pace.

More enemies appeared, but Liam did not fire immediately every time he detected one. He checked the radio signatures before committing and used larger pieces of debris as cover whenever possible, letting several hostile shots strike the wreckage instead of his own machine.

Ning had to admit that he was reasonably good.

"Show-off," someone among the group said, clearly jealous of his skills.

"He’s only so good because his father has the resources to let him train," someone else said.

It made sense why he was good. Not exceptional, but clearly better than the two cadets who had gone before him.

As the difficulty increased, Liam finally started taking damage, though he reacted much better than the first girl had. He lost armor along one side and burned through more fuel than he should have while escaping a group of three Mekharans, but he managed to recover without losing the machine.

By the time his run finally ended, he had survived considerably longer than either previous student.

The score appeared.

<288 Points>

The room became much louder.

Even Liam looked pleased when he emerged from the simulator.

"Two eighty-eight?" one of his friends said. "That’s your highest score."

"By a lot," another added.

Liam tried to appear as though the result had been expected, but Ning could see how satisfied he was. He had fallen short of the three hundred points required to pass, though not by much.

Liam looked directly toward Ning.

"Looks like you’re going to need a fairly good first attempt."

Ning nodded. "I believe in myself."

The fourth student entered next, though after Liam’s performance, there was noticeably less excitement surrounding him.

His run went poorly almost from the beginning. He misjudged one of the early obstacles and took damage from a piece of drifting machinery, then spent too much ammunition against a hostile target that he could have avoided entirely.

He lasted longer than Ning initially expected, but his score remained low.

<186 Points>

Lorna gave him several corrections before looking toward the final name.

"Ning."

Ning stepped forward.

Liam folded his arms nearby, clearly interested in seeing whether the transfer student he had just wagered two thousand units against could even approach his score.

Ning entered the simulation pod and settled into position.

The world around him changed as the simulator connected.