Chapter 8: The Rumble of Alchemical Triumph

Do I have masochistic tendencies?

I would say, no, I don't.

But that sure as hell would not be apparent to a third party.

What I was doing wasn't so much as bodybuilding as it was bodybreaking. The amount of workouts I did was borderline abuse.

Actually, scratch the borderline part, it was straight-up abusing my body.

What I did was exercising until complete failure, until I couldn't lift my body up any longer and my legs refused to cooperate, and then I took a potion and did it all over again.

Each time my body recovered it was slightly stronger, I did exercises using stone dumbells I made using transmutation, I don't know how heavy they are exactly I just made them heavy enough for me to use.

I did every exercise I could imagine, I couldn't even think of making more spells while working out due to just how hard I was going at it.

I spent several hours without any major rest just abusing the shit out of my body. I only decided to give myself a small break when I started pissing blood(exercise-induced hematuria). 

But it was worth it, I could see my body visibly improving, my thin frame being filled out with muscles slowly but surely, my body currently looked fairly lean. But it still wasn't anywhere near the peak human condition and beyond I was aiming for.

Still, my status looked rather nice now.

____________________________

Statistics:

Vitality: 18

Mana: 49

Endurance: 24

Strength: 22

Agility: 14

Magic Power: 54

____________________________

Pretty good improvement for a day and a half's work I suppose. Of course, even though I was focusing on training my body for now I was not slacking on my alchemy in the slightest. Because you know, I was an alchemist, not a muscleist.

My agility was the stat that had risen the least because I presume it rises the fastest with running and stuff, as for vitality maybe it is raised by food? I don't have too many guesses for that.

Anyway, it was time to start running to increase my endurance and agility. Before heading out with my tracksuit I tied my hair up high and made myself a chicken sandwich A damn good one at that since my novice cooking was at 8(Mixing alchemy with cooking yields great results alongside me being already decent at cooking). I also took some cookies with me too in case I lose their buffs and need a refresher, also the sugars give me the will to live.

Putting my earplugs in I set off to increase my stats through torture again.

✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧

Yep, it's still pretty painful. Yes, it's more tolerable, but that doesn't make it any less painful. The people around town kept giving me weird as I ran like a madman covered in sweat looking like a wet cat but if there was a lesson I had learned from my past life it was that not giving a shit was a pretty valuable skill.

But as I kept running I suddenly felt someone tap my shoulder, which startled me because I was running a solid 35km/h(or 22mph in freedom miles), I turned my head and saw who else but Koneko Toujou, the white kitty tapping my shoulder as she kept up with me with total ease, as if we were walking together slowly. 

She was dressed in the Kuoh gym uniform which was a white shirt with blue bloomers. Very small blue bloomers that nicely clung to her ass.

Man, I want to find the man who designed the skimpy Kuoh uniforms and give him a firm yet polite and respectful handshake.

Slowing down to a slow jog I addressed her.

"What are you doing here?" It was pretty suspicious that we managed to encounter each other in this rather large town and for her to approach me of her own volition right?

"...Exercise." Oh really? I hadn't noticed. 

"*Sigh* Anyways, what do you want? You must have approached me for a reason right?" With a girl as blunt as her it was a better idea to cut right to the chase. Besides my legs felt torn paper at the moment so I wasn't particularly in a mood to humour her.

"...I forgot to ask your name?" Was she serious?

"Isn't it common manners to say your name first before someone for theirs?" Koneko looked a bit startled, probably she was used to all her classmates knowing her name and being called out on her manners.

"...Kone-"

"My name is Takumi Katsuragi, nice to meet you Koneko-chan." Koneko glared at me as I gave her a smirk, huffing she lightly punched me in the shoulder.

*Tumble*

"?" Koneko gave a concerned and confused look as I was knocked like a bowling pin. My legs were already like jelly, and that light punch was like a punch from Mike.

This is rather frustrating...

...

I was now sitting on a bench like a ragdall while Koneko still sat next to me giving me a slight stink eyes but I could see a hint of curiosity in her golden eyes. Taking some moments to catch my breath I downed a recovery potion as Koneko looked on in curiosity.

"...What is that?" Koneko inquired while pointing at the potion I was downing to not feel like death.

"My drink. Duh." Koneko narrowed her eyes and pouted as I laughed and placed my hand on her head which she slapped away.

Cute.

"Haha, I am just teasing you. No need to be so grouchy. Here, my bad alright?" I pulled out a cookie from my plastic bag in my bag and handed it to her as her eyes lit up and she hurriedly snatched the cookie away from my hands and started nibbling on it. Chuckling to myself I gave the hungry kitty a few more cookies as I placed my hand on top of her and started petting her without resistance.

"...Forgiven." Koneko said curtly before returning to nomming on her cookie. While the loss of the cookie will be missed I don't mind sacrificing pastry for scoring some more affection points with her.

"Well, I thank you esteemed lady for granting me the gift of your mercy." Koneko shot me a look that said 'Don't push it.' as I ruffled her hair for a bit.

Man, she truly looks so cute while chomping down my sweets like that. Almost makes it feel worth it to lose my cookies.

Eh, I can always make more.

"Whelp, it was nice seeing you here Koneko-chan but I have things to attend to. You can keep the cookies though, think of them as a gift from me." Koneko nodded as I resumed sprinting. Nothing can get in the way of me and my stats.

...

~Koneko Toujou~

As Takumi's figure vanished in the distance Koneko felt like she had forgotten something as she chowed down on the delightful sweets she had been gifted.

Then it clicked.

''Oh right, I was supposed to question him.'

Rias had explicitly told her that if she could she should learn more about him. And she had forgotten somewhat between his annoying teasing and his annoyingly good cookies and hands.

She shrugged her shoulders.

'Well, at least I know his name now. And that he has good sweets.'

Really, was anything else that relevant anyway? Not to her at least.

✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧—•✦•—✧

After finally arriving back home I took a shower and went down to my basement before entering my work mode.

Alchemy or more specifically potion crafting is fun. But I can only get so far with my current ingredients, and dabbling in other areas seems useful.

Besides, it's not like potions are the only thing under alchemy, transmutation and its family abilities also count under it. And I had a very, very useful idea.

You see, I have an idea of how I can acquire the enchanting skill.

First of all, what is enchanting ?

It is permanently or semi-permanently applying a magical effect to an item.

Sacred gears are things that are both conceptual and dependent on the user too. And if it is relying on concepts for skills(it must considering how transmutation and alchemy work)...

Remember Roy Mustang's glove from Fullmetal Alchemist? By all means it fulfills the criteria of an enchanted artifact. After all, it is an object imbued with a permanent magical effect.

It will be rather easy for me and give me yet another way to defend myself too. Profit baby.

But first I needed durable gloves, because imbuing mana into them over and over will wear them down fast. But I had an idea for that too.

That's why I popped down to the tailor and grabbed a lot of silk using the donated funds.

But silk isn't that durable right? Well unless it was spider silk of course. Why would I use it for my gloves and how would I even knit it?

Hehehe...

Alchemy.

You see, what is the difference between commonly available silk and spider silk?

In terms of materials? Functionally nothing. It was all about how it was structured. 

What did transmutation specialize in again?

You get the picture. It took me a while to figure out and a specialized transmutation circle but now I could improve the structure of store-bought silk to be more like spider silk, significantly improving its durability.

So now, basically on demand I had access to silk stronger than steel. You better believe I am replacing my clothes when I have the time.

After figuring out the way to convert it it was pretty simple to create the gloves too by just shaping them with transmutation. For the circle on it, I simply mixed in some ink and voila.

In my hands was a white silk glove with a dark grey transmutation circle on the back of the hand. I put it on, it felt rather comfortable actually. 

Of course, it wasn't the combustion gloves Roy had, I can't quite get that design made currently(Researching how to make combustion gloves would take a bit of time) so I settled for the earth transmutation I always use.

Curious I used inspect on it.

[Transmutation Glove]

-A durable silk glove with the transmutation circle for earth drawn on it. It is capable of performing transmutation on most earth and stone materials.

I put my hand up against the wall and was easily able to perform the transmutation that was familiar to me, pulling up a stone spear from the wall before letting it sink back in. And then I heard a familiar chime ring in my head making me grin evilly.

As expected.

____________________________

You have created an enchanted object without help! 

You have acquired the skill [Enchanting(Novice) Lv.1]

You have acquired a secondary specialization [Enchanting]

____________________________

My hypothesis.

Was correct.

What was my hypothesis you ask? It's simple, when I get a skill Iter Melius tries to help me with that skill by supporting that skill by providing me its own data and helping hand.

So, while I have got the enchanting skill what I do isn't exactly enchanting. But Iter Melius doesn't care about that, it cares about the fact that I can enchant so it gave me the skill to.

So now, I know how to enchant things.

Adapt, improvise, overcome.

A/N: Takumi is slowly training the kitten to be receptive to his head pats and taming her using his treats, it won't be long until his evil plan is complete and the kitty will come to him out of her own volition demanding pets. Muhaha!

Also, while not exactly the Roy gloves(Maybe those will also be made later who knows) Takumi has started producing his own alchemy equipment. Also, he has finally started abusing how the system works to get himself the enchanting skill. 

What did you think about the developments in this chapter? I would love to know.

_______________________________

If you like my works and want to support me and my works you can do so at my P*treon at: p*treon.com/BronzDeck. You can also read up to 10 chapters ahead on all of my works there.

Just replace the * with an a.