Reincarnated as an Energy with a System

Chapter 2038: Final Score

Ning changed his angle at the last possible moment, allowing the shot to pass beside him while maintaining most of his forward momentum. He was still moving quickly when he reached out and caught a long piece of metal debris drifting nearby.

The object had once been part of a larger machine, though now it was little more than a jagged length of reinforced alloy. Ning gripped it in both hands and closed the remaining distance before swinging the piece of metal across the enemy’s body with the full momentum of the charging Mecha behind it.

The impact struck near the enemy’s central core, causing its armor to collapse.

The Mekharan’s body jerked violently before all movement stopped.

It died.

For a moment, nobody outside said anything.

Then several students began talking at once.

"He killed it with debris?"

"That shouldn’t even count as a weapon."

"It doesn’t matter whether it counts. The target is dead."

Before they could say more, they saw Ning do something instead of leaving. He grabbed the dead Mekharan and pulled it close, causing everyone else to freeze in confusion.

Then he tore the weapon out of its hands.

The room outside went quiet again.

One student frowned at the display. "What is he doing now?"

Lorna understood instantly, and her expression shifted from surprise to disbelief.

"He’s trying to use the enemy’s weapon."

Several heads turned toward her.

"Can he do that?"

Lorna said nothing and simply watched.

Ning examined the weapon quickly and attempted to connect it to his own Mecha’s systems. However, there was no system to help him do that.

Nothing happened.

The Mekharan weapon had been designed around a completely different control structure, and the simulation offered no simple way for a human Mecha to recognize it.

Ning tried once more, confirmed that the connection would not work, and discarded the gun.

Outside, someone let out a disappointed laugh.

"That would’ve been ridiculous."

Ning continued forward.

Without ranged weapons, the nature of the simulation changed completely.

Every new enemy now required him to either avoid the engagement or close the distance fast enough to fight directly, and as the number of Mekharans increased, neither option remained easy.

The next one came toward him aggressively.

Ning used the remaining piece of metal debris as an improvised weapon, blocked one strike with it, then drove the other end into the enemy’s torso before following with a kick that sent the machine spinning away.

Another Mekharan approached from the side.

Ning abandoned the damaged metal bar, caught the attacking arm with both hands, and redirected the enemy past him before striking the back of its body hard enough to damage several systems.

The students watching had stopped talking about whether he would pass.

That question had been answered a long time ago.

Now they were simply watching to see how far he could push the run before the simulation finally overwhelmed him.

Ning kept fighting.

He destroyed one enemy with a direct strike to the core and disabled another by damaging a leg before using its body as temporary cover against incoming fire. Every close-range engagement cost more fuel than his earlier fighting had, and without a firearm, he could no longer deal with enemies before they reached him.

Eventually, there were simply too many.

A shot struck his shoulder while he was fighting another Mekharan. Ning turned and avoided the next attack, but the movement exposed his side to a second enemy.

Another hit landed.

Damage warnings spread across the cockpit.

His Mecha’s movement became slower.

Ning still managed to bring down one more opponent, but a third enemy fired from too far away for him to reach.

The attack struck the torso.

Critical systems failed.

The Rank 1 Mecha lost power as several more shots hit before the simulation finally ended.

The battlefield disappeared.

For a moment, the main display remained dark.

Then the final score appeared.

<469 Points>

The entire room went silent.

Liam stared at the number.

Several students looked toward the academy record displayed elsewhere on the screen, as though checking whether they had remembered it incorrectly.

428 had been the highest score any cadet had received in the simulation at that academy. Ning had blown past the all-time record.

Lorna looked at the result for several seconds before turning toward the simulation pod as Ning walked out.

When Ning stepped out of the simulation pod, the reaction waiting for him was very different from anything he had received since arriving at the academy.

Students who had barely noticed him earlier were suddenly gathering around, asking how he had managed certain sections of the course, whether he had used a similar simulator before, and how he had identified the Mekharan so quickly during the encounter where the friendly Mecha and enemy had been spinning around one another.

Several people were speaking at once, and Ning found it mildly amusing that a single simulation score had apparently done more for his social standing than anything else.

He answered a few questions without going into much detail, mostly because there was no simple explanation he could give them that would be especially useful.

Telling someone to calculate the future trajectories of dozens of moving objects while simultaneously accounting for their own momentum was technically accurate, but it was not something most cadets could immediately reproduce simply because he explained it.

Eventually, the crowd shifted enough for Liam to approach.

He looked considerably less pleased than everyone else.

For several seconds, Liam simply stood there with an expression that suggested he was considering whether pretending the wager had never happened would be worth the humiliation. In the end, he apparently decided against it.

"Congratulations," Liam said. "Four hundred and sixty-nine points on a first attempt is far beyond what I expected from you, and whatever else I might think about how you got into this academy, I cannot argue with the score."

Liam accessed his account through his helmet and completed the transfer. A notification appeared for Ning a moment later, confirming that two thousand units had been added to his balance.

"There. The wager is settled, so you cannot say I refused to honor it."