Hank brought them straight into the training hall after showing his identification. The inside of the hall looked like a hotel. The first floor was the business lounge, and every floor after the second were personal training rooms. A tall and muscular man came out and gave Hank a hug.

After Hank talked to him for a bit, the man was introduced to Xiao Lin, “This is Dickens, the manager of the training hall. After hearing that you’re here to help Judge Academy, he’s willing to give you an even bigger discount: 10 percent off! That’s a discount no one else can possibly get!”

The corner of Xiao Lin’s mouth twitched, but he consoled himself by thinking it was better than nothing. “Then how much would I need to pay per hour? Mr. Hank, you know I’m only making four hundred a day.”

Hank smiled. “The prices are actually different for everyone. To put it simply, energy stones are needed to operate the virtual battle system. Different simulations would require different levels of energy, and the price would obviously be higher for simulations that require more energy. However, I think the lowest level of energy stones would be sufficient for you, so it’s only 100 New Dollars an hour, 90 after the discount.”

That was a lot cheaper than what he expected. Xiao Lin let out a sigh of relief and nodded in acknowledgement.

“Then why don’t we have you down for an hour first to test it out? You can decide if you want to continue after that,” Hank said. He then turned his head and asked, “Department Head Song, why don’t you give it a try as well?”

“No need, this toy is too classy for me.” Song Junlang shook his head and rejected. He turned to Xiao Lin and said, “Well, I won’t be staying here to look after you. I trust you remember the way back? Just remember, do not take off your anti-gravity pin!”

“Relax!” Xiao Lin answered resolutely.

Song Junlang and Hank left, and Dickens brought Xiao Lin upstairs. Dickens did not speak Mandarin, so the two of them only used some simple phrases to communicate. He brought Xiao Lin to the last room on the second floor. After pushing the door and entering, he saw that the room was separated into two parts. The first part they saw looked like a living room. It had some simple furniture and beverages; on the sides were two rows of weapons and armor. They were all very common gear.

There was another door in the room which led to the training room. The training room was very spacious, only consisting of four metal walls without any other items.

Dickens gestured around with his hands to explain to Xiao Lin how the system worked. There was something like a tablet outside of the training room which was operated by magic. Xiao Lin needed to place his hand on the sparkling orb next to it for the computer screen to turn on.

The system was quite easy to understand. On the screen were a few options Xiao Lin could adjust, and it was in simple enough English for Xiao Lin to understand. The options were: sex, age and height, followed by strength, agility, intelligence, and physique.

Dickens explained that even race could be set, but that would require a newer model of the virtual battle simulator, which would also be more expensive. Xiao Lin did not need that option anyway. The model he was using was the first model, so there were no settings for different races, but most of the other functions were similar.

The system also had stored data of real people. Everyone who trained there had the option of storing their data into the system, such as their attributes and skills. After that, anyone would be able to choose anyone’s data to spar against. If enough people picked your data, the training hall would even offer monetary rewards.

After all, it was hard to create a realistic character just from setting it by yourself. The best way to get more realistic simulations was to use stored data. Dickens helped Xiao Lin switch to a different interface which had a lot of character templates. Of course, for privacy reasons, the names and even genders were hidden.

However, Xiao Lin quickly lost interest in it. The lowest ranks there were at least at Black Iron or Bronze; it would be foolish for him to choose them.

After a basic introduction to the system, Dickens placed a white conical energy stone into an empty slot next to the tablet. He warned Xiao Lin that it was an energy stone of the lowest grade; it was only enough to simulate a character no stronger than Black Iron-rank. If the character he set exceeded that strength, the energy stone would not be able to handle it and explode from being overloaded. The losses incurred would be borne by the user.

Xiao Lin did not plan on simulating anyone near that level of strength; his main reason for training there was to get used to the gravity, so he would not need an excessively strong opponent.

After Dickens left, Xiao Lin carefully thought out the settings. He would not be charged for the time taken for him to fix up the settings, so he had plenty of them to think about it.

The opponent he set for himself was definitely of the lowest rank. After a few minutes, he quickly entered the stats he wanted into the tablet.

Strength 2, Agility 1, Intelligence 3, Physique 3

Basic Swordsmanship LV1

Basic Blocking LV1

Slashing LV1

Basic Fitness LV2

Basic Perception LV1

Basic Meditation LV1

Xiao Lin basically entered his own attributes and skills but cut them in half. He got a dagger from the weapon rack and started the program. The monitor showed a one-hour timer as he entered the training room.

It was a bit dark in the training room, but it did not really affect his vision in the narrow training space. A beam of light rose in the center of the room. It was the virtual character that was made from drawing out magic from the energy stone.

It was a bit hard to call it an actual person; the blue glowing figure in front of him only had the shape of a human. The face was devoid of any organs; it was just like a blue shadow. Xiao Lin set it to have Basic Swordsmanship and Basic Perception, but at LV1, the Basic Perception was not enough to cast spells, so the shadow had something like a sword in its hand.

Almost at the same time, the walls at the side showed two red lines. Xiao Lin smirked when he saw it; it really was looking more and more like a game. The two lines represented both their hit points, since the shadow could not actually cause any physical harm, it would assign damage based on their attributes and skills, which would then be reflected on the lines.

Of course, the calculations would be quite different from what would happen in real life; it was just there as a reference point for the trainee.

After all, things like hit points and attack power do not exist in actual battle. However, since it was a virtual battle, Xiao Lin just treated it as a game.