[ System Notification - The third and final stage of the tier5 promotion test is beginning.
It's a test to surpass one's own limits.
Good Luck Adventurer! ]
Max found himself in a room much like the mirror world where he often practised fighting against his clone, and much like the mirror world he was facing someone who looked just like him, but from its demeanour alone Max could see that it was a clone not controlled by Drax, it's opening stance had too many weaknesses which was completely unlike the clone which Drax controlled.
[ System Notification - Defeat yourself in battle under 15 minutes for a perfect evaluation.
Good luck adventurer! ]
Max raised his eyebrow in self-doubt, he had barely managed to hang-in against the clone that Drax controlled the seemingly perfect version of himself at the same tier, which is why he was apprehensive about defeating one in one vs one competition.
What Max did not know was that while the clone that Drax controlled was the peak version of himself at tier5, a full tier above his abilities, the clone the system had put against him now was just someone at the peak of tier4. The same realm of power that he was at.
Max charged at his adversary and used [ Fireblast ] to which the enemy responded with a [ Fireblast ] of his own.
The two attacks of equal power collided and created a small explosion neutralising one another and creating a small smoke screen that made it difficult to see the opponent.
Max jumped over the smoke screen and launched a [ Dragons Breath ] but the clone rolled away from the attack, having already sensed it using [ Way Of The Wind ]
The clone countered with an [ Inferno ] spell aiming at the location where Max was supposed to land, but Max just took that attack head on as he knew that he was immune to flames.
The clone frowned as if it's A.I. system had just crashed, it seemed to have forgotten that it's enemy and itself were immune to fire damage, which made the whole sequence of attacks that it underwent completely pointless.
Just as it was ready to move, it felt that it was bound by blood chains as the clone looked puzzled as to how Max introduced blood in this environment when he was clearly not bleeding?
What the clone controlled by the system had missed was that the moment when the smoke screen was created from the two Fireblasts colliding, Max had used the skill [ Perfect Cloning ] and had summoned his Skill-Clone to whom he had ordered to injure himself and draw blood.
In the few short seconds that the Enemy-Clone was distracted fighting him, The summoned-clone had began to work it's magic and was silently preparing to bind and immobilise the enemy.
From the very start, Max knew that the only chance he would have to win this battle would be if he could somehow surprise and bind the opponent.
Naturally, the enemy clone was also capable of using [ Blood Manipulation ] so he instantly neutralised the spellbinding its feet, but in that split second a [ Thunderblast ] rained down on its body.
*Kaboom*
Max had deliberately not aimed for where the clone was standing, but rather aimed slightly to the right where it might attempt to dodge and his assumption was perfect.
Having fought a superior clone controlled by Drax time and time again, Max already knew what moves could and could not work against himself, and if he did not plan 2-3 moves ahead of his own further actions he would never manage to get a hold of himself in battle.
Max was playing 4D chess in real time performing many complex calculations at the same time as he managed to land a strong blow on his enemy and reduce its HP by 30%.
The enemy clone also used [ perfect cloning ] at this point, understanding the importance of having a capable fighter by its side, so there were 4 Max's fighting against each other now.
If some outsider were to witness this fight, where every Max had the means to neutralise each other's moves and plot for each other to fail in a fast paced battle, they would feel their minds numbing after watching them fight for just 30 seconds.
Nobody was able to get any upper hand on each other as whatever one could do the other could do as well.
Fire attacks were useless, sword attacks were too slow and blood attacks were neutralised instantly.
What little moves that Max was capable of except these were neutralised using [ Disperse ] as what followed was just a nerve wrecking sequence of attack and defence.
While it looked like the fight was even, in reality it was not. Max was feeling more and more in control with every move that he made his enemy expend as he was starting to realise that this match-up was much much easier than his regular fights with Drax.
In reality, this stage of the tier5 promotion test was supposed to be the hardest, one was meant to feel powerless and suppressed while facing the best version of themselves at the same tier, but unfortunately for the system this did not apply for Max who had been training like a freak under this same setting for years now.
To him this was routine, and having been beat over 5000+ times by Drax controlled clone, he knew exactly how to drag his opponent into deep waters and then expose his own weaknesses one after another.
Only 3 minutes had passed since the start of the battle, but Max had made sure that the enemy had expended all of his big moves except [ Buddha's Avatar ] and [ Energy Blast ]
At this point energy blast was the only attack the opponent had that was not a sword attack and could still seriously damage Max as the others went into cooldown, while Buddha's Avatar was a defensive formation which while great for defence was the move that Max was hoping to trigger since his agility in that form was greatly compromised.
The second that the enemy clone triggered the [ Buddha's Avatar ] Max brought out his legendary grade Goldmans Sword that he had plundered from Eden's body and began his final showdown as his clone held down the system clone.
It was time for him to go into hyperspeed drive!