14 - Difficult Choice
After drinking the water Ethan brought for me, I went to shower and took advantage of the time alone in the bathroom to check my Status window after weighing myself.
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| Character Status |
=========================
| Name: Noah Black
| Titles: Persevering, Tuned Ear.
| Level: 01
|------------------------
| HP: 70/70
| MP: 120/120
|------------------------
| Weight: 141.3 kg -> 139 kg
| Strength (STR): 5 -> 8
| Dexterity (DEX): 4
| Constitution (CON): 7 -> 8
| Intelligence (INT): 11 -> 12
| Wisdom (WIS): 9
| Charisma (CHA): 7 -> 8 (7 + 1)
| Agility (AGL): 4
| Luck (LUK): ??
|------------------------
| Skills:
| (Haircutting Lv 24 -> 25), (Walking Lv 1 -> 12), (Bodybuilding Lv 1 -> 16), (Teach Lv 6 -> 15), (Negotiator Lv 4 -> 5), (Sing Lv 9 -> 20), (Guitar Lv 16 -> 24), (Digital Illustration Lv 27 -> 30), (Intermediate Mathematics Lv 22 -> 29), (Intermediate Biology Lv 18 -> 25) (Krav Maga Lv 1 -> 5)...
| -----------------------
| Buffs:
| (Beard and Hair Trimmed), (Aerobic Exercises Lv 1 -> 5), (Muscle Exercise Lv 1 -> 7)
=========================
My Status was very different from the last time I saw it. In addition to the new Skills I received, all of my other Skills had leveled up at least once. With the development of these skills, I realized that every 10 levels was always an important milestone, to the point that Skills from level 10 onwards really affected me a lot, as if it were something I had already been training on for at least a year. The System was greatly accelerating the speed at which I learned and practiced things.
Seeing that I lost 2 kg since the last weigh-in yesterday made me very motivated. Of course, I had done weight training for almost two hours in addition to the Krav Maga training I did, which must have accelerated my metabolism today to an extreme level.
After showering and seeing how the video was going, I had dinner with my family and ended the night with that, feeling quite accomplished with what I had done today.
The next day, despite it being Sunday, I didn't stop my morning exercise routine. The difference was that this morning my father was still sleeping, as it was the only day he had off, so I just ate toast alone to keep up with the habit and went to exercise.
Just like other mornings, I didn't get any missions to exercise, which would have been quite useful for getting some free stats, but that's okay. After an hour of walking, I used my cell phone to watch a Krav Maga tutorial and continued for another hour of training.
With these exercises, some of my Skills leveled up.
[Aerobic Exercise Lv 5 -> Lv 6]
[Walk Lv 12 -> Lv 13]
[Krav Maga Mastery Lv5 -> Lv7]
The Aerobic Exercise Buff now increased the speed of my metabolism by 6%. The Walking Skill accelerated the development of my walking muscles and decreased how tired I got when walking by 13%. In addition to the Krav Maga Skill, it not only improved my learning speed, but it also bolstered how much knowledge about it I retained, and due to this I had learned a lot more about this martial art. If at level 5 I felt like someone who had been training for 6 months, now it was as if I had gained almost 3 more months of training experience.
Applying the techniques that the instructor taught in the videos was much easier, as I also realized that in hypothetical training situations my mind was already developing muscle memory to think about how to react in certain situations using Krav Maga without me having to actively think about it.
Realizing all this, a confident smile appeared on my face. Even without weighing myself, I could see that this workout had an effect on my body fat, as my reflection in the mirror currently looked slightly prettier. Unfortunately, I didn't receive any points in [CHA], but at the rate I was losing weight, I believe that this week I will probably reach the average for a normal person.
'I've already lost 12 kg since I came into this world…' I thought with satisfaction as I looked at my reflection. 'I'm still very fat, but 12 kg makes a considerable difference…'
After taking a shower, I took out my cell phone and checked how many views my video already had.
(4.003 views - 722 Subscribers)
Seeing how the video was, I was very shocked and excited. Looking at the Analytics, I realized that MeTube was promoting my music well. Of these 4,000 views, 1,300 came from MeTube.
Out of curiosity, I opened my Instabram and saw that I had already reached 300 followers, which surprisingly was a very large amount of conversion from listeners to followers, since I was practically convincing other people to leave one social network to go to another.
The photo I posted yesterday on the training equipment Stories had 500 views and 79 likes, as well as some responses that I was curious about and went to see.
The total number of messages I had received was much greater than I imagined, to the point that the messages icon displayed 99+! Curious, I looked at the messages, and incredibly, most of them were grateful.
[Hey, I just wanted to tell you that your music really touched me. It made me feel less alone, you know? Thank you for sharing your art and making me feel understood. You are amazing BV!]
[Your music really made me reflect on my relationship with my parents. Your lyrics are so honest and real. I feel like someone finally understands what I'm going through. Thank you for being so authentic in your music, I hope we can both get through the problems we have BV.]
[Black Velvet, how about you send me a picture of you and I send you a picture of me however you want?]
This last message was sent by a girl, just out of curiosity, I clicked on her profile and saw what a problem she could be. A girl my age, tattoos all over her body, more than 10 piercings on her face and shaved hair on her sides? That was the definition of a problem.
But I couldn't deny it, she was hot...
Shaking my head, I just ignored this message and responded to the other messages with thanks and messages of strength for these people to be able to overcome the difficulties they were facing. While I was replying to these messages, the rest of the family also woke up and we went to have breakfast together.
"Are you going to cut my hair too, Noah?" Ethan asked excitedly when he saw that I had cut my hair today.
Smiling, I nodded at him and replied, "Of course! Things are already organized in the yard, so I can cut your hair before you go take a shower."
This wasn't the first time I had touched up his haircut. The first time I touched up my cut to renew the Cut Hair Buff's timer, he saw what I had done and also asked me to help him by cutting his hair too, since according to him, he wanted to look as handsome as his brother. So I imagined that whenever I renewed my Charm Buff, I would also have to renew his, which wasn't much work, since despite the agony he felt because of the scissors, he still remained very well behaved.
Hearing my response to Ethan, my dad looked at us and I could see the pieces turning in his mind. "You were the one who cut both of your hair?! That looks really good!"
Laughing, I nodded and Ethan explained that I cut mine and his.
Glancing up, my father saw that his hair was already long and messy and he asked a little shyly, "Can you cut mine too? I haven't had time to cut my hair in the last few weeks."
Nodding my head, I agreed. "Of course, but first come, first served. Ethan will have to come first since he was first in line."
Hearing this, Ethan had a big proud smile on his face as he looked at me, while my father looked at us with a smile as proud as Ethan's, but for different reasons as he tried to feign sadness and accept that he couldn't be first.
After breakfast, the three of us went to the backyard while my mom sat in a chair on the porch and Olivia went up to her room. Since our yard faced the street, some neighbors saw me cutting Ethan and my hair and asked me if I could cut their kids' hair too. Honestly, I was planning on refusing, since I didn't even need their money. I especially didn't want to do it when I saw the neighbor's son. He was one of the children who were playing that day when Ethan was excluded. Why should I give a [CHA +1] Buff to a kid I don't even know, and worse, who treated my brother badly last time?
So I just politely declined, saying I had something else to do later. I could train my Haircut Skill more by cutting other people's hair, but I don't want to be a professional barber, so why bother?
"Which cut do you want? Something more social or a cooler cut like mine and Ethan's?" I asked my father while laughing.
Looking at me and Ethan, he replied, "I think I want to go for a younger look, just like you!"
Surprised, I looked at my mother on the porch, who even more surprisingly had a smile on her face upon hearing this, which she quickly tried to hide when she saw me looking at her. But it was too late.
So she too liked my haircut, haha?
"Okay, with this haircut you will look at least 10 years younger!" I said, laughing as I started cutting his hair.
What I noticed was that well-cut hair gave a [CHA +1] buff to anyone I cut. Even Ethan and my dad also looked a little better after I cut their hair, and to a greater extent than it should with just a normal haircut. Maybe higher level Skills have a bit of magic in them?
Leaving that doubt for later, I put away my barbershop stuff and went to my room to practice my guitar and my singing a little more.
[Singing Lv 20]
[Guitar Lv 24]
Since I could train Singing anywhere, I had trained it much more than my guitar in the last few days, so it was not surprising that this Skill had already almost reached the other. But as soon as Singing reached level 20, the difficulty of leveling up had doubled.
At that moment I had a doubt. What song would I sing next? I had already posted a song on MeTube, but I wanted to maintain a high frequency of songs posted, since now I would be able to keep buying the copyrights of all the songs until I created a first album. This way I would increase the chance of going viral and being successful.
But I had to keep something in mind. I currently had a few hundred followers, and these people were following me because they liked my music which was in a rock style, telling them about something sad that related to their lives. If I decided to sing an upbeat, happy song it would be like shooting myself in the foot, as my current audience probably wouldn't like it very much. They wouldn't listen to it as much as they did the first song, and consequently, MeTube would recommend my songs less.
On the other hand, I could sing different things from the beginning and not let my audience think that I only sang one style of music.
If I chose the first method, I would have faster growth in the short term. However, the other option would take longer to grow in the beginning, but in the future I would have more openness to do what I wanted. So I was in doubt as to which one to choose.
////NunuNote/////
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