Peparation

For the past month and a half, Michael had wholly dedicated himself to training his body as much as possible.

Every week, he would increase the intensity as his body had gotten more capable of handling more load. Michael felt amazed by how fast he felt his body recover and get stronger, and it was all thanks to the constitution enhancing elixir the system gave him. Without it, he would've already injured himself heavily and only gotten weaker.

During this time, Michael felt like he was in auto-pilot. Days and weeks pass as if they were hours, and the only thing Michael had to focus on was training, he didn't need to divide his mental capacity on training and on his studying.

Having only one thing to completely focus on, his felt his mood and mental health skyrocket through the roof. He didn't remember feeling any negative emotions at all.

But unfortunately, all good things come to an end eventually. With the swim meet closing in, Michael had to stop his dry-land workouts, and majorly reduce his swimming intensity. So his body would be at peak form when he would swim the race.

Michael had always had an attraction towards long distance races, so he specifically trained for endurance. He will be entering the 400m, 800m, and 1500m race.

Thankfully, the event organizers have long distance racers in mind, so each race is 2 days apart. Michael will have adequate rest between each race and be able to perform his best in all the races.

As Michael was making himself dinner in the kitchen, he heard the front door open and glanced to see his mother walking in.

Michael greeted her with a quick hug.

"Hey mom, you came earlier today."

"Today had relatively low amount of work, and I wanted to rest a little earlier today so I left the rest of the work to some of my employees."

"Anyways, How's college so far? Are you struggling with any subjects?"

Michael suddenly felt very guilty and nervous, he never told his mom as she would probably heavily disagree. After all, he was always bad at swimming, and she wouldn't believe him of he said I have a way to become the best swimmer in the world.

'I don't want to worry her, I'll tell her after I get a medal in the swim meet. She'll believe it when I say I can become a professional athlete.'

"So far so good, nothing disastrous happened."

"That's good to hear." Emily responded with relief in her voice, which made Michael even more guilty for how much his mother cared about him.

"Alright I'll go take a shower, can you make me an extra serving?" Emily asked.

"Sure, no problem mom." Michael responded.

After Emily finished showering, Michael and her ate together. After finishing up their food and brushing their teeth.

"Goodnight mom."

"Goodnight sweetie."

Entering his bedroom, Michael sighed heavily and started to do his stretches. After doing stretches so many times before bed, Michael struggled sleeping without them.

*RING RING*

While finishing up his last stretch, his phone started to ring. Glancing at it, he saw that Kai was calling him.

"What's up Kai?"

"Nothing, I just wanted to ask you what races are you picking and what heat are you in?" Kai asked curiously.

"Oh, I'll swim the 400m first, heat 14. Then the 800m, heat 7. Then the 1500m, heat 8."

"Alright man, I wish you the best of luck."

"Thanks, oh by the way.. what races are you picking?" Michael asked curiously.

"Oh, I'm not participating in that race. I'm training for the 2024 Olympics, I won't participate in any races until the Olympics. But I will make sure to watch you."

"Alright, thanks Kai. Bye."

"Anytime, Bye."

Laying down on his bed, Michael decided to check his stats. Despite his obvious curiosity, he had never checked his stats since starting his training plan, as he knew getting stronger takes a lot of time. So if he were to check on it everyday, he would get discouraged from not seeing any change in value. He wanted to see the changes at the end.

'Status'

[SWIMMING SYSTEM

NAME: Michael Alexander

SPECIES: 89.9% 'Homo sapien', 10.1% 'Homo aquatilis'

AGE: 22

SYSTEM LEVEL: 1 (15/100 sport points to level-up)

SPORT POINTS: 15

TALENT ASSESSMENT: D+

EVALUATION: An up-and-coming decent swimmer, unfortunately the phrase 'frog in a well' perfectly fits.]

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[USER MENU

*USER STATS*

*SKILLS*

*MISSIONS*

*SHOP* (locked)

*WHEEL* (locked)]

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[USER STATS

Strength: 1.4

Agility: 1.6

Stamina: 1.7

Constitution: 1.6

---------

[USER SKILLS

Freestyle technique: LV.2 (194/200)

Breaststroke technique: LV.1 (20/100)

Backstroke technique: LV.2 (78/200)

Butterfly technique: LV.1 (97/100)]

'Nice! very good improvements for my stamina. Though I wonder if there is any natural way to improve constitution.'

After scrolling through until he reached the skills menu, Michael felt very frustrated.

'Seriously?! 6 points of? that could've guaranteed me silver or maybe gold.'

Michael clenched his teeth in frustration, but eventually decided to let the matter go. He knew very well that he did his very best in training, so now all he has to do is swim in the race and his efforts should reward him.

After calming himself down, Michael turned off the light in his room and fell into a deep slumber.