Chapter 08

The next day was a day off from delving. Michael needed to unwind, if anything, and being exposed to dangerous and potentially life-threatening situations every day was not healthy even with all the possible gains factored in. Especially since it might, and probably would, expose him to even more risks during his delves, which in turn would make each run much more dangerous.

The morning began with a quick burst of healing to get rid of any stiffness from sleep, and some stretching. Then a delivery boy arrived, delivering two large bags of bulking powder Michael had ordered online with express delivery the night before. He got back home with a smile, carrying the bags filled with precious nutrients.

The real fun begins now.

He was not an expert on the sorts of exercises one could do at home, but a quick search on YouTube revealed loads upon loads of calisthenics training plans, ranging from beginner to advanced, targeting every muscle without the need to hit the gym and pay for a membership. All he needed was the floor, something he could use as a pull up bar—and the railing of the second floor’s balcony above him was perfect for that—and patience.

Well, if I didn’t have cheat skill, that is. With healing, he didn’t need to be patient. The problem with bodyweight training was that it built muscles slower than using the machines at the gym, while at the same time allowing for more balance in the body. A problem easily fixable with healing and a lot of bulking powder.

Michael quickly began going through the beginner exercises: push-ups, jumping and negative pull-ups, dips using two chairs to support his weight, abs, squats and all the basic movements to get him accustomed to his new training routine. The first set was horrible, legs being his only saving grace due to his passion for hiking, and even then the squats finally got to him before he even reached fifty. But it was no problem. Writing down the sets and reps for future reference, he activated [Healing Aura] with a grin.

A copper worth of mana well spent.

Absorbing one coin to replenish his mana back to full, he repeated the same exercises all over again and compared the numbers.

Nice. It would be even easier to tell how much I improved if I had an appraisal skill or a status or something. Hell, I wish I could level up like in video games, not just have skills.

The gains were not impressive, but they were enough to put a smile to his face. The skill was working as intended, allowing him to train again as if he had spent a whole day resting and was perfectly refreshed, with his muscles and tendons conditioned by the single workout session. His squats had gone up by five, his negative pull-ups by two, and his push-ups by three. No gains in doing dips, but he felt much less pain and his form was better, which was good.

Another advantage of having a healing skill? I can be a little less strict with the form. Even if he got injured, or he pulled a muscle, all it would take were a few seconds of healing and he would be back in proper form. After all, his skill was able to mend broken bones if given enough time, anything short of that was easy work.

The morning passed quickly, the euphoria of gaining literal levels of physical fitness making time pass by in a blaze. By lunchtime, Michael had burned through most of his bulking powder, painful as it was to see more than a hundred dollars of dehydrated food disappear in a day. He had moved from beginner to intermediate exercises and then to advanced level ones, but had stopped before he went too far. It was summer, and already his body looked much more ripped and his muscles bulkier, and even thought he barely interacted with anyone, people were bound to notice if he overdid it. Still, he could now do things he couldn’t even dream of doing even a few hours before, and he felt strong.

It’s a great feeling. People who don’t work out have no idea how much better it feels to be strong and flexible.

Indeed, he had not skipped the mobility and flexibility part of working out, his healing skill allowing him to push through the pain without worrying about tearing his muscles if he went too far. Which he did, more than once, but it had never been more than a mild annoyance. By lunchtime, he was twenty pounds heavier, but also much leaner, and his stash of 45 coins had been reduced to 30.

Worth it.

It wasn’t the only gain. He had also gained some knowledge about magic. His total capacity was now 7 Copper. It had grown from between 5 and 6 Copper to 7 in the span of a single morning of use.

I spent fifteen coins to increase my total capacity by roughly one and a half Copper. I would like to experiment some more, but I don’t want to get my stash of coins too low.

In the end, he spent another ten coins experimenting. He was left perplexed though, and almost wished he hadn’t wasted the ten coins like that, because now his mana had not grown by any noticeable amount, and he was very confused as to why it had happened. Usage meant growth, but only if some conditions were met, and with only 20 coins left he could not really afford to play scientist anymore, a thing that irritated him quite a lot.

He forced himself to drop the matter and cook a nutritious meal for himself to further fuel his muscle growth. Today was a bit of an aberrant day, and he would need to really dial down the amount of cheaty training he did every day to more normal levels. It was fine if people thought he was on gear, but any more than that and he would attract attention he was not ready to deal with.

Two rounds of healing and training every morning, plus bulking powder. It should make me grow in strength at about four times the speed of a normal athlete without it being too evident.

He also knew that he would soon hit plateaus in his growth. Especially with the size of his muscles and his weight, but he was fine with it. He didn’t want to be a walking giant.

It’s going to be a long time before I hit those kinds of walls, though.

Before today, his only redeeming quality was his height. He was skinny-fat, with only average strength and much work to do. Even after a whole morning spent bulking, he was only at the level of someone who had been going to the gym for a year, tops.

Later that evening, it was finally time to show up at the karate dojo for class. After having skipped training last time, Michael failed to come up with an excuse not to go, despite knowing that he was in for an unpleasant experience. He was a bit frustrated with it, not just because the atmosphere was getting toxic around him due to lawyer-guy and the others, but also because fighting with the skeletons had shown him that unarmed hand-to-hand combat arts like karate had very serious and, frankly, stifling limits.

At the same time, he was just a beginner at it, and his dojo was inexplicably cheap at only $40 a month for three classes a week. Not going would be folly, at least for now, and any training overseen by a professional was better than just watching YouTube videos.

“We are going to practice Seichin kata today,” Sensei Stephan said, after the customary half hour of warm-ups and preliminary exercises. There were not many people at the dojo today: the sensei, Michael, Phillip—the lawyer—Marc and his wife Charlotte. They had brought their twins too, and the two girls were mewling on their stroller just outside the training room, watching videos on their phones at ludicrous volumes. When Phillip had asked Marc, with little tact as was usual for him, to take away the phones since they was distracting the class, all he got back was a shrug, leaving the man fuming.

Not the best start for the day. Michael thought as he got in row with the others. He was about to open his mouth to ask a question to his sensei, but the man beat him to it.

“You too, Michael. You learned Kanshu already, but you’re the chosen one, if you want to inherit this dojo the least you can do is learn forms ahead of time, right?”

There was a snicker coming from the far end of the room, where Phillip was standing at attention. They were in order of rank, with Phillip being the highest after sensei Stephan, then Marc and his wife and lastly Michael, who was still a white belt.

“Yes, sensei.” Michael replied. Already he was feeling a headache coming.

“You three, start practicing,” the sensei said, “while I show him the moves. Then, we shall go over it together.”

It did not take much time at all for Michael to learn the new kata. The moves were many and fairly complex, but he had always had a knack for it even though his heart had never been into it, and now it felt easier than ever. Perhaps it was because he now had real life experience, and could easily imagine how some moves could be used to hurt goblins or defend himself from a strike coming at him. It was harder if he imagined skeletons, of course, but he could really see how it would be effective against a goblin. In the end, he surprised even himself with the speed with which he learned the kata, and soon after they were practicing all together, with the sensei singing his praises.

“See? I told you all he’s the chosen one. 8^th kyu and already knows Seichin better than some people here. If only you all could be as good as him.” Then he looked at Michael, half-jokingly, “I’ll leave the dojo to you when I retire.”

It was only playful banter. Michael was actually friends with the sensei, having helped the much older man with moving some furniture and having met his family. The others all knew each other and the sensei as well, all of them roughly of the same age of around forty, but they didn’t really see the much younger Michael as part of their friend group. Some of them had been stuck and unable to progress for a while, be it because their private life made it hard for them to reach the required number of hours to be eligible to take the exam to progress, or because they failed when presented with Master Taiko’s ruthless examination.

“But of course,” said Phillip in a mellow, sickly-sweet tone that hid a sadistic grin, “after all, he even has Taiko’s blessing, doesn’t he?”

“Oh yeah!” Stephan said enthusiastically, heedless of the true meaning of his old acquaintance’s words, “he even got the certificate autographed. It was the first time Taiko personally insisted someone skip a belt. Straight from 10^th kyu to the 8^th. Truly the chosen one.”

There were laughs, but of them all, only Stephan’s was one of true mirth. The others were mere facades. And why would they not be? They have all been training for much longer than me, and even though I literally spit in the face of this dojo, skip exams, skip the extra training days they all struggle to fit into their schedule, I am still bound to overtake them sooner or later.

It wasn’t intentional, it was just that he was good at it, and only getting better.

They practiced in silence, the only voice being the sensei’s botched Japanese counting numbers as they moved almost in unison. Michael messed up a couple of times, but as the saying went: practice makes perfect, and they took that to heart, doing the kata more than forty times before the sensei was satisfied.

There was a brief pause after that, during which Michael heard lawyer-guy ask the sensei if they were going to do 1-on-1 spars today. There was an eagerness to his voice, and for a moment Michael hoped that they would indeed do the spars today, a sadistic desire matching that of Phillip rising within him. But he held his tongue, knowing that even though if he asked for it perhaps he could have swayed the sensei, he wasn’t yet ready for it and would have received a beating like usual.

“Not today. Today is conditioning day.”

“Even better,” lawyer-guy said with a grin.

Indeed, it’s better. No matter how I would have liked to beat the prick up, I don’t really have much more on my than I did before, although the kimono hides my new muscles. I doubt they would be enough anyway. But conditioning? I can have some fun with that.

He decided not to do anything drastic just yet. Conditioning was about hitting each other to get used to the pain, and to make their forearms, legs and abs stronger by hitting them like the Japanese supposedly do in Okinawa. Only that today Michael wouldn’t just take the hits, he would take them and then heal himself. Healing a bruise didn’t take much mana or energy, and he was topped of. 7 Copper worth of mana were overkill. Then he would hit back. Of the two, it would be lawyer guy who went home bruised today. As for Michael, every time he got hit and healed, he would learn to handle the pain a bit better. The healed part of his body would come back stronger and more conditioned. Layer-guy didn’t know, but he was just another obstacle to overcome, making Michael stronger.

“Okay. Form rows! And… bow! Good. Now, ten minutes of body conditioning drills then you can go. Michael, you go with Phillip today.”

They bowed to each other, then the real fun began, if one can call it that.

Shit, he hits like a smith today, harder than usual.

He did not miss the slight grin on the man’s face every time he winced under his savage blows. This was not conditioning, this was tenderizing his arms and legs. However, he had 7 full Copper worth of mana hidden within his body, somewhere not even he could see, and a healing skill. Careful to only designate himself as an ally to be healed, he slowly trickled mana into the skill, and a grin matching Phillip’s appeared on his face. Each blow there was pain, but then the healing kicked in, and he could feel his arms and legs growing tougher, his bones denser and his ligaments and muscles more conditioned.

“What’s got into you today, chosen one?” Phillip taunted him, “you learned to like the pain perhaps? Why don’t you ask me to go gentler on you like you usually do?”

Michael only smiled, which made the layer-guy only hit harder. “I realized just how useful this training is for me. And here I thought you were doing it because you liked hurting me!” he tanked a blow that should have rocked him, barely flinching, his skill immediately fixing all the damage and pain.

“You put some muscle on your frame, skinny boy. That’s good. Means I can hit harder.”

Michael only nodded. Five minutes had passed, and he had barely used a single Copper worth of mana. This was nothing compared to the goblins and the skeletons, the feeling of his bones breaking and his flesh rending. In fact, this was free training.

“Do it.” He said. “Hard as you can.”

This is already a victory. But I want more. I put on some muscle, yes, but my punches aren’t really all that stronger than they were before. I wonder if there’s a skill stone to help with that.

Still, Michael went home with a smile on his face and, for the first time since he got on lawyer-guy’s bad side, no bruises. Quite the good day, enough that he felt primed and ready to challenge the dungeon again tomorrow, first thing in the morning.

After my stretches and daily training of course. Speaking of, I need to order more bulk powder.