Chapter 34 - Another Change?

 

 

“Good! You made great progress!”

Clarke remarked as he observed Chrome raising and lowering the barbell holding 15KGs of weight at each side before nodding.

“Thanks coach… hah… hah...”

Finally resting the barbell on the stand, Chrome replied back as he let out a few rough breaths…

“I was originally planning to let you continue with the same routine till the end of the month since you had no foundation, but I believe you would be good to move on to the next step, you did well for a newbie!”

Clarke said with a big smile on his face as he gave Chrome a few hard pats of his back.

Tap! Tap!

“Cough… cough, thanks coach…”

Being patted violently like this, Chrome couldn’t help but let out a few coughs as he repeated his words once again. He had just finished the last set of his 25th day in the gym. 

“Your body should have built enough endurance by now and your muscles went through a preliminary strengthening, starting from tomorrow we will cancel the whole cardio training in the morning aside from the warm-up jog on the treadmill and replace it by your usual general muscle training that you used to do in the evening…”

Chrome nodded without much questioning, he was already fully trusting of his coach’s methods, he was also acknowledging the results of the last 25 days of training himself by staring at the scroll in mind!

_________________

Physical status:

--------------------

Strength: 9 (+0.71)

Agility: 10 (+0.23)

Vitality: 9 (+0.02)

Endurance: 7 (+0.77)

Intelligence: 19 (+0.49)

Perception: 14 (+0.36)

Charm: 10 (+0.10)

 

_________________

Taking the first jump Endurance took to 6 into consideration, the stat’s main integer value has increased twice since the very start of training, and even his Vitality had gone up by 1 as well, when comparing his current ‘Physical Status’ section with the one that the floating quill drew...

All of his stats had currently reached the minimum average value at the very least!

“As for the evening’s training, it will be replaced by specific muscle training. You will also be increasing the amount of the protein you intake per day, it’s about time you bulk-up and build some muscle density.”

“Understood.”

Chrome nodded once more, he was no longer his knowledge-less self who just came in today, he had already searched deeply into the stages of physical training at the gym in the last two weeks.

The process of physical training was pretty simple, the first step was to tear up muscles by doing heavy workout and the second one was rest to repair these torn muscles and build them to be even stronger with enough protein as a base.

Judging by normal standards, he shouldn’t be working out over 8 hours of his day and only resting for 5~6 hours, but the Exos stimulation waves already solved that problem by allowing the muscles to handle more tearing yet require less resting time to repair and build.

However, what Chrome has been doing for the last 25 days didn’t utilize this advantage to its maximum, he was using half of the time for cardio to build up his endurance and the other half to do general training that didn’t tear his muscles to the maximum acceptable limits.

That was exactly why his Strength stat’s growth was so slow in comparison to Endurance and Vitality along the fact that they were the lowest to begin with…

Nonetheless, now that he finally got the ‘ok’ of Clarke to move on to the next step, he would be capable of experiencing the benefits of this special environment even more!

But… currently, although Chrome seemed to be anticipating the results of the next level of training, Clarke noticed that his excitement to discuss this further was obviously dimmed, he seemed to be in a hurry to do something…

“Alright, alright, you are obviously eager to go have an early night of comfortable sleep so that you could be in best form for tomorrow’s new schedule of training, off you go.”

“Thanks coach.”

Nodding for the third time as he slightly scratched his head, Chrome dragged his aching body and he went to the shower room as he shook his head deep inside, he was indeed eager for something but Clarke’s guess was far from it…

‘I wonder if I would get something useful this time as well…’

`~~~`~~~`~~~`

[ Welcome back, Palace Lord. ]

‘Eh?’

Chrome was surprised to find the floating scroll holding these welcoming words. He had only received a similar welcome on the second day he obtained his ability, since he started asking the questions related to the world exchange and such the floating quill has gone passive till now.

Unexpectedly enough, it went back to being interactive at the end of the day…

‘Could it be because of that…?’

__________________________

- [Basic Energy Emission +] - (Point Consuming Growth Ability) (+ )

+Emission rate: 2.45EP per hour

+Energy Emission Capacity: 49

+[Basic Energy Body]

⇒ Can be modified, current possible modifications:

1. Basic Enhancement. (Low-grade, Overall) 

# Cost: 1 SRP.

__________________________

Looking at the capacity which was only 1 point shy of a total of 50, Chrome wondered if this was related to the quill’s attitude, but he soon shook his head since the same thing didn’t happen in the day his [Basic Energy Emission] got upgraded to [Basic Energy Emission +].

While this enhancement still showed no effect on his normal reality, it at least made him eager for another similar enhancement to take place. Who knew? Maybe one or two more enhancements would allow him to bring back his ability?

“Thank you, Quill.”

Replying to the welcoming words, Chrome grabbed the ink pen as he scribbled 1 into the scroll, it had already become his routine to do it before he went to the gym and after he returned since the cooldown has changed.

‘It’s happening again!’

Looking at the scroll with anticipation, Chrome rejoiced once he found the [Basic Energy Emission +] had turned into a pool of ink once more, enacting the same process that took place last time.

However, he had already noticed that something went amiss before the words completely took shape.

‘There is no change to the usual expansive feeling this time…?’

Before he could even give it some proper thought, the words had consolidated once again, acknowledging what he has been doubtful of…

‘So changes are not necessarily to my benefit…’

This time, the only part that changed other than the usual changes was...

 __________________________

⇒ Can be modified, current possible modifications:

1. Basic Enhancement. (Low-grade, Overall) [<Currently in a 12h00m cooldown>]

# Cost: 2 SRP.

__________________________

Unlike the very first time that removed part of the limit on his daily enhancement bringing along good benefits that accelerated his progress, this time it was the opposite!

The cost of the enhancement had increased instead!

“Quill, do you have any explanation regarding this change?”

Trying to wash away his disappointment, Chrome immediately asked the floating quill for an explanation.

[ Affirmative. Self-Reliance Points are but a distinct form of energy that is used for various purposes such as ability modification and it has its own limits, thus the cost naturally increased due to the higher amount of energy required for further enhancement. ]

‘So it’s give and take…?’

The last time, his body’s adaptability had increased due to his energy capacity and emission rate’s rapid increase, accelerating his advancement. This time, the cost of the enhancement had increased for the exact same reason. It seemed like every coin had to sides to it even when it came to this.

‘Well, at least it isn’t enough to hinder me yet…’

It made much more sense for this to happen. He already had his doubts about it, after all, if it only required 1 SRP per enhancement without limits, then he would simply become the person with the highest Exos rating in the whole world with enough time, he obviously believed that it wouldn’t be as simple as that, It was just that he didn’t know what the limit would be nor did he expect for it to happen this soon.

Either way, considering that his current daily SRP generation rate had already reached 6 by now, Chrome still wasn’t worried about how he would sustain his advancement for the time being, but he didn’t know if that would still be the case in the near future...