The Last Day of Peace

-Increasing mental stamina by 0.2 points will mostly fix the problem, but the issue can only be fully resolved by improving mental control with practise. It is advisable that mental stamina is increased in 0.1 point increments.-

Zhan looked at his stamina breakdown and smiled wryly. It was now quite obvious why he was having difficulty. His physical stamina was 4.7, his mental stamina 0.3.

The full stamina stat would be 1.0 for an average adult human male, but this ratio was actually 0.94 physical stamina to 0.06 mental stamina. Even though his mental stamina was now at 0.3, well above the 'average', this apparently wasn't good enough to deal with such an increase to his intelligence.

Intelligence wasn't like strength or endurance, an intelligence of 2.0 was already at the level of the greatest geniuses that mankind had ever seen. These people were born with this intelligence, they learned to live with it and use it. Zhan suddenly increasing his intelligence so much, which consisted of so many smaller components, some of which surpassing what was humanly possible, simply screwed him up.

Personally, he felt like this was the system's fault for arranging things so stupidly. Why the hell was mental stamina not included in the intelligence stat rather than the stamina stat? That would make much more sense!

It was also a mistake to assume that increasing the full stat was a good idea just because it maintained the same ratio of sub stats. Perhaps certain sub stats shouldn't be increased so rapidly, whilst others could actually be increased by ten fold freely. He would need to be more careful in the future.

It was a mistake, and one that he needed to fix quickly. He didn't waste anymore time and increased his mental stamina by 0.1.

Zhan was prepared to endure some more pain, but it really wasn't that bad. He felt extremely tired, like he was going to fall asleep, but he pushed through the tiredness and felt fine just three minutes later. He waited a couple more minutes, then repeated.

After doing this, Zhan tentatively started using his mind again. He allowed his brain to think of whatever it wanted, following multiple trails of thought and processing various things simultaneously. It was a bit disorientating and he was unable to keep up with his own mind, but he at least wasn't overcome by pain and exhaustion.

It took a full ten minutes before he started to feel worn out, but this was ten minutes straight of extreme focus, so it was good enough. He would just keep a slight control over his brain and practise keeping a clear head unless he needed to think.

Zhan opened his eyes and laughed apologetically as he saw the girls' worried expressions.

"I'm fine now." He said. This simple statement was enough for them to feel relief, but they still wanted an explanation. He pondered for a moment, then vaguely explained.

"I have something similar to an ability and I made a mistake. I've recovered and won't do it again."

Miu already believed he had an ability, whilst Shia suspected it after seeing him fight. As for Nui…

"You have an ability Zhan? Amazing!" Her eyes shone with awe. She'd secretly been keeping up with the recent 'celebrity superheroes' and was a big fan of this rapidly rising topic. To think that one such person was actually living with her!

"Ah, but don't do that again…please…" She mumbled. Zhan smiled and rubbed her head, attracting Miu's ire.

Eh, she would just have to get used to it.

There was now less than a day remaining until the second wave. Zhan spent some more time exploring the capabilities of his mind now that his intelligence had improved, and just what exactly it meant to have a 'better' intelligence.

It seemed like part of it, was simply possessing a more powerful brain. His memories were more vivid, both long and short term. His ability to calculate was like…well, a calculator. Both consciously and subconsciously, his mind was burning through much more energy as it processed more of the world around him.

For example, when he caught Nui earlier. A simple action of catching the girl turned into a dozen different calculations, resulting in her falling so smoothly that she didn't feel any impact at any point. This simple action burned his mind out this morning, but his mental stamina was now good enough to handle this sort of thing.

It would also most likely be of benefit in battle.

In the end, Zhan decided to increase his mental stamina by another 0.1 points. He might also need to separately alter his mental and physical stamina in the future, otherwise an unnecessary amount of points would be sunk into mental stamina now that the ratio was different.

Zhan made the best use of the following 24 hours as possible. Firstly, his enhanced intelligence led him through a few new ideas. First of all, something that should have been obvious, was to improve his eye sight.

His perception was extremely high at 2.8, but his eyesight was actually slightly below average, or at least his long range vision was. Each of his other senses were above average, whilst his '6th sense' pushed the number up drastically as it was so high.

Even though he was careful with increasing his vision, it still burned his eyes like hell. After adding in 0.2 points, his vision was already razor sharp and he worried that something weird might happen if he pushed it further.

After considering it some more, he ended up placing 0.5 points into defence. The stat points spread across his body, strengthening his flesh, skin, tendons, bones and organs. A small boost to each sub stat, but noticeable when combined together.

It was necessary to strengthen every part of the body when it came to defence. Defence rarely caused problems, except when too much defence was placed into flesh and tendons, then it could limit flexibility.

This left him with 0.7 life-points. He decided to keep these life-points for any emergency situations.

Shia was feeling more and more that Zhan was changing. Some days, like today, he would just seem…bigger. She would do a double take and realise that he wasn't actually any larger physically, but his presence was more intimidating and vast. He gave her a strange and powerful feeling, that she could only describe as an 'aura'.

"Wow, Zhan's ability is really amazing, I feel like he keeps getting stronger!" Nui said to the two girls as Zhan continued to sprint around the track for the entire 1500m.

"So you feel it too Nui?" Shia asked in surprise.

"Mm." Nui nodded.

"I feel it too, he's definitely changing. I suppose this is a good thing, since he will be able to fight more beasts without getting injured." Miu added.

"That's true. Though, with all of the weapons he stockpiled, I'm not sure if that's even necessary." Shia sighed.

Miu and Nui blinked.

"Weapons?"

"Ah, that…" Shia realised that she had misspoken and coughed. She tried to think of a way to cover up her blunder, but couldn't think of anything in the end.

"Never mind." Shia sighed.

Nui dropped the subject immediately, but Miu pondered for a moment and quickly linked two things together.

"From the syndicate?" Miu turned to Shia and asked. Shia froze. How did Miu know that Zhan had dealings with the syndicate?

"How did you know?" Shia narrowed her eyes and asked.

"Hmm…where else would you buy weapons from in this city?" Miu smiled.

Shia paused. What she said made sense…but she still felt like it wasn't so simple. As her mind was whirring, Shia suddenly thought of something.

"Miu, you're Zhan's doctor, right?"

"Mm." Miu nodded.

"Then I take that you know why he gets injured so often?"

Miu shook her head with a faint smile that wasn't really a smile. She knew that Shia was probably really curious about this and was trying to catch Miu out, but Miu wasn't so easy to manipulate like this.

"If Zhan hasn't told you himself, then I'm not going to explain it either. Doctor patient confidentiality and all that." Miu lied, she wasn't even a licensed doctor.

Well, Shia didn't know that though. She had no choice but to accept Miu's decision to remain silent.

"2 minutes 15 seconds!" Nui suddenly cried out in shock. Since she started training with Zhan, she came to understand what could be considered a 'good' time, and what could be considered average.

2 minutes 15 seconds was well above the human record…in fact, Zhan actually beat the 200m record for every lap he did around the track, only he repeated this seven and a half times without stopping, also beating the 1500m record!

"Not bad." Zhan's breathing was a bit rough, but he basically recovered by the time he stopped and walked across to the girls. He grabbed a bottle of water and chugged it, then proceeded onto the weights area.

"Shouldn't you rest up until tomorrow?" Shia called after him dubiously. There was less than a day remaining until the second wave, so why was he tiring himself out now?

"Don't worry, I won't train for more than four hours!" He called back.

Shia rolled her eyes. He said this as if he was compromising, but most people would be dying after training hard for four hours. Well, Zhan clearly wasn't 'most people' though.

However, even Zhan was feeling the pressure of the impending second wave now...he knew that today would be his last day of peace. Tomorrow, the cataclysm would continue!