Already, without fighting, he can see why no one has passed the second level of the fighting excellence test. But he wasn't deterred.
He glared at the golem just as they glared at him. Then, as soon as the fight started, he rushed forward with brimming confidence.
His confidence was briefly shaken when the two golems both brought out their bows and prepared to shoot at him. He realized that he couldn't suppress both of them right from the beginning of the fight. So he had to change his strategy.
He murmured to himself, "This is worse than I thought."
He continued to shoot his arrows, but he was ready to learn from this battle and become a better fighter.
The fight ended 55 seconds later. When it ended, Arthur stood there in shock trying to figure out what had happened.
FIGHTING EXCELLENCE TEST.
#Level 2: Passed.
#Completion Time: 55 seconds.
#Choose one option.
1. Exit.
2. Retry.
3. Advance.
He didn't look at this notification at all. His mouth was ajar, and his eyes were glazed because of the shock to his cognition that he just received. He simply couldn't believe that he defeated the two golems in 55 seconds.
He expected the fight to be difficult. He expected it to be drawn out. But it wasn't. It was nowhere near difficult. It is why he was so surprised by the outcome.
The golems just couldn't hurt him. Not even the fire-wielding one could hurt him.
He was simply too fast and too strong. He could dodge attacks easily, and those he couldn't dodge could be blocked by his energy shield.
But the golems weren't so lucky. Once he came close to them and made contact with them, he would take too much damage and deactivate.
So there was no danger of him losing throughout the whole fight. The entire fight was simply about how fast he could kill them.
When he realized this, he began laughing. He bowed over and laughed. He laughed so hard that he fell to the ground.
As he laughed, he said to himself, "What a fool I have been."
He knew that he was strong, but he always had the preconceived notion that if he didn't take the challenge seriously, he would fail it.
It took him fighting two golems at the same time to realize that being defeated wasn't possible as long as he didn't stand around like an idiot.
He realized this because there was no essential difference between fighting one golem and two golems. The extra golem only meant that he would need to spend more time to defeat it.
He can vividly remember when the fireball created by the second golem had crashed into his vines. The vines had been scorched, but they were mostly fine.
Only the surface of the vines was singed. They didn't take any significant damage despite clashing with fire, something that they are supposed to be weak to.
This is what shocked him the most. Now that he understands why the vines were fine and remembers how scared he was of the fire golem, he couldn't help but laugh.
He wiped a tear from his eye and said, "I am too strong. I am only just realizing that now."
Everyone said that the fighting excellence test was the most difficult test. Even the guide he read emphasized that.
He learned a lot from the guide, some of which was good and some of which was bad. The bad thing was that he gained a subconscious fear of the test.
He knew that he was better than most people. But it was at this moment that he understood to what extent.
This realization enlightened him. He decided to rest and give the fight another go.
When the second fight of the second test began, he shot towards the golems immediately. He didn't use a bow, and he didn't prepare to use his wood spell.
He only had two spells on his mind. There were the swift body spell and energy shield spell.
The swift body spell enhances his speed by 90 meters per second because that's the power of the spell when he casts it. The spell lightens his body and makes him faster.
But instead of using the extra speed just to approach the golems faster, he intends to use it for the whole fight. He has decided to rely on only his body for victory.
That is the one thing that the guide he read told him to not rely on. He was told to use spells only, preferably elemental spells. But he has realized that the guide is for normal people.
Normal people should be scared when they fight someone with the same cultivation as them. But he shouldn't consider someone with the same cultivation as him as an opponent worthy of caution.
A cultivator at the tenth transformation of the first mortal coil can move at 20 meters per second. This speed increases by 20 meters for every transformation that someone has at the second mortal coil. In general, 1 unit of power is converted into 2 meters per second.
So a cultivator at the first transformation of the second mortal coil with a power of 20 should normally have a speed of 40 meters per second, and a golem at the second transformation with a power of 30 should have a speed of 60 meters per second.
He too should have a speed of 60 meters per second. But that's not the case because of Mountain Karma.
Because of Mountain Karma, he has a speed of 180 meters per second. The effect of the swift body spell makes that 270 meters per second. Compared to the speed of the golem, he is 4.5 times faster.
He knew this before. But it was only a quantitative understanding.
It is only now, when he fought the golem in close combat and saw how it struggled to react to his attacks, that he finally gained a qualitative understanding of just how fast he is.