4 Shadow [Chapter 4]

Ryan woke up feeling something different about himself, looking his body over it seemed more filled out no longer looking like he could use a good meal. Going into the bathroom he confirmed it, his body was more bulky but he knew that it wasn't anything without training.

Since today was his off day he decided that it was time to do a little training, he knew that his new Diamond body had different stages, first was Copper, second Bronze, Third Iron, then Silver, Gold, False Gold, and Diamond. Each one would increase his defense by 10% so by then end it was at seventy.

Since it was something that was passive he went ahead and worried about his training first, he changed into some baggy sweats that he had. After locking his apartment he went out for a run, he was going to test his body limits for today seeing how it really changed.

As for hacking it was something he was doing even after he left, his Shadow was in the Sewer again hopefully it wouldn't die from a rats nest again since it was stronger. He started his run at the bottom of his building and without even realizing it he had reached the Upper East Side, he noticed that he was a little tired but it wasn't to bad at the moment.

This was something that he could never accomplish before, smiling he looked around and noticed that he didn't know where he was. Sighing he saw that his shadow was still hunting at the moment, he decided this morning that he was going to save his points since it was getting harder to level up his abilities.

Plus he wanted to reach the second level of the System. That was going to take a lot of killing to do.

Going further into the Upper East Side he found a gym that was running a special on memberships, though it wasn't his thing he decided to join. Luckily he brought his wallet with him.

"Hi welcome to Star's Gym, would you like to start a new membership today?" The girl who had the name tag that read Mindy said to him as he walked through the door. It was obvious he was new since this looked to be a small gym which was another reason that he was joining it.

"Yes." Ryan still wasn't a big talker but after hearing his reply the girl gave him the paper to fill out, after ten minutes he handed it over along with two months payment, a loss of one hundred dollars.

"Great here is your membership card and since you have the gold package you are aloud to bring two guest with each visit. Enjoy your workout." She said handing him a red and white card.

Ryan nodded and walked inside he went to an empty area that had punching bags, there was only him and one other person in the room at the moment. The other person was a woman with shoulder length red hair, she was running on the tread mills while watching whatever was playing.

Ignoring her he went ahead and started to train his Renewal Taekwondo on the bag, his speed started slow since he was getting use to it but slowly got faster until his legs were almost a blur. Huffing he stopped and stretched his legs out some, sitting down he did light stretches to help his legs, apparently it was a leg day for him.

He felt a stare on him while he was stretching looking over he saw that the redhead was staring right at him, she had a brow raised and her green eyes held a little shock in them. Quickly as it came it was gone and she nodded at him going back to her running, Ryan thought nothing of it.

After doing some light weight lifting he went to go shower in their locker room, although he would have to put back on the sweaty clothes. Next time he would remember to put bring a gym bag or something so that he could actually wear clean clothes.

Leaving the gym the street was so quiet, so much for the city that never sleeps right? Since he spent all day on his feet and working out his legs he decided to walk home at a leisure pace, plus he had no money for a cab in the first place.

Along the way he heard muffle groans and the whimpering of someone, it was coming from an alley that was to his immediate right. Stopping for a moment he was thinking if he should go and see what was going on or not, before finally going to check it out.

Walking to the Alley he looked inside and saw that there were three guys surrounding a woman, looking closer it was the same one who was running on the tread mill. Ryan stood there watching for a moment the woman she looked scared and was backing into a corner, sighing he rushed in to stop this.

It was the first time that he was using Renewal Taekwondo on someone, before the first guy knew what was happening Ryan was already putting his knee into the guys head. The guy went flying into the wall and was knocked out, the other two looked over only one was carrying a knife.

With dull eyes Ryan went and entered the 3rd Stance before attacking that guy ignoring the other, seeing that he was rushing him the guy tried to take a swipe at him. Ryan lightly moved out of the way before continuing a kick, with more force then he did with the knee, this guy was out cold with a bloody face.

The third seeing what happened to his friends tried to run away but Ryan wasn't allowing that, he kicked the knife that was on the ground into his leg. With a scream he went down, the only sounds that were in the area were his screams.

Ryan looked to the woman who was against the wall watching him, the two just stood there staring at each other. "You should leave now." That is all he said before walking away he didn't need to know the situation that she was in.

"Natalie Rushman, that is my name." He heard her say as he walked away from the alley, all he did was raise a hand and keep walking, she seemed like trouble.

Getting back to his place he checked out to see what his shadow did while he was away, "System show me everything that my shadow did while I was away." Ryan said.

Quickly he was shown everything it had done, it was in the sewer all day and this time it was able to kill the nest of rats it came across. There was a nest of thirty which right away was three hundred points gained for him, along the way though it came across roach's, water roach's, and some lizard and mice.

[While you were away you shadow has died three times, with a lot of effort you shadow has managed to gain you 540 exp points and 540 ability points.]

[Exp Points: 540 Ability Points: 574]

Ryan was so tempted to spend them all but he wasn't use to his current strength so he didn't mess with the Experience points, plus he was thinking to put them all in intelligence. As for ability points he wanted to save those for the first upgrade so he didn't touch those at all, he wanted to see what this store was all about and what he could buy.

Going into the kitchen he decided to make himself something to eat after changing his clothes, there was still some chicken he was marinating from yesterday.

[Congratulations you have repeated an action enough to gain a new skill. Cooking skill has been added to list of skills- Minor progress in Cooking Skill.]

Ryan froze and smiled but he was confused about the minor success, "System what do yo mean by minor success shouldn't it just be a skill?"

[To explain to you, skills that are self mastered you need to progress yourself they can not be upgraded with ability points they are unique skills to you something that can't be obtained by the system or Dimensional box.]

The system explained it and now Ryan had a better understanding, he didn't think further about it, he knew he worked at a restaurant but he wasn't cooking there. At work he was a prep cook so all he did was cut things if anything he should get a knife skill or something for it.

Happy that he could gain more skill with this he wondered if the shadow could do it for him, shaking his head he got rid of those thoughts he would rather do it himself. The shadow was needed to gain him experience points and ability points so he didn't want to make it do something he did for himself.

Since he couldn't hack for the night since the shadow's were all used up he went ahead and went to sleep for the night, tomorrow he was hoping to reach his goal and get the first upgrade. While falling into bed he didn't know that his life was going to be changing faster than he thought, if he knew then he would have put his exp points into his stats.