New Skill Unlock

Michael didn't complete the encyclopaedia replacement in the morning, so he had to finish it now. He also had a lot of shelving to do. However, he was feeling better than he had earlier in the morning, so despite the aching in his arms, he put his bag down behind the desk and got to work.

It took him about 30 minutes to finish replacing the encyclopaedia and then another 15 minutes to shelve the books from the morning. He then only had around 10 minutes left to finish lunch and get to computer lab.

Though his body was tired, he pursued his speed improvements for typing as he always did. His Limit Pusher continued to move forward. Afterwards, he continued to work on his project, solidifying some of the data on the growth of the major cities of the empire under the reign of Empress Julia. The System didn't make any additional comments or generate any new missions, but he hadn't forgotten the earlier requests. He decided to try to find some of those books during his after-school shift at the library.

Eventually, Michael couldn't avoid it any longer, and had to return to the changing room for gym. He was dreading the run after the day he had, but it couldn't be helped. He got changed quickly and joined the ranks of students forming out on the field.

He also tried not to think about the debacle last class. Luckily, even keeping up with the pack would be a struggle this week, so he couldn't try to push the envelope and potentially embarrass himself even if he wanted to. When the tesserarius called for the beginning of the laps, Michael set a pace he could handle, something around the middle of the pack, and maintained it. Surprisingly, it was not nearly as difficult as he'd expected, though he did find himself puffing a bit by the end.

Afterwards, they were introduced to the five lifts that constituted the weightlifting component of the Regional Games. One of the other members of the "top five" was used as the demonstrator this time, a rather stocky girl who was clearly extremely practiced. The weight she threw around casually made Michael blanch. They were also introduced to the scoring components for the weightlifting component - a person's best performance out of three attempts for each lift would be totaled, and then included into a formula that incorporated a number of physiological factors to determine their final score. The logic was that the performance should measure how a person did versus what their theoretical best performance could have been, which would prove the level of technical expertise and physique development that person had achieved.

Michael paid attention to this, but was reasonably familiar with it since he'd seen these rules explained in some of the books he'd scanned. He was just glad that they weren't made to perform the lifts themselves today, as he was reasonably certain that he'd show so poorly that he wouldn't be able to even lift his head out of shame. He also realized that he'd need to figure out a solution to being able to practice and train - he didn't have the weight equipment needed at home, and wasn't sure how much it would cost. "Maybe I should take Jeremy up on his offer to train together sooner rather than later," he decided.

After class wrapped up, he said goodbye to Jeremy and Valeria, who were heading to the cafe. He explained about his new job and duties, and Jeremy promised that he'd review the proposal and get back to him in a couple of days. With that, Michael made his way back to the library.

There was some minimal shelving to do, and then Michael went to the desk and worked on his Latin homework while he helped the occasional individual sign out or return books. When the library closed at 5, he said goodbye to Mr. Maddox and started to walk home. By this point he was pretty refreshed, though he was sure he'd be aching quite badly in the morning. He decided to have a bath that night with the salts he'd picked up the week before. He then continued trudging home at a steady pace.

He arrived home at 6, in time to help his parents with dinner and prepare his own. Dinner was a half-dozen eggs, a large amount of wild greens and several chicken breasts. He also asked his parents whether they had plans for the slow-cooker overnight, and when they said no he set aside a bunch of offal and spices for use after dinner. He wasn't particularly looking forward to it, but the System insisted that it was highly nutritious and that the various nutrients within the meats would assist it in recovering and improving aspects of his body. At this point Michael was inclined to listen to the System, especially when it said that it would help make him less sore than he would be otherwise.

During dinner the family shared their days, as usual, and he discussed the design he'd started working on with his parents. They agreed that his approach made sense, and he planned to start working on it after dinner. During the conversation, his mother recommended he examine a new programming methodology some of their other contractors had been working with. Apparently it had made things much more straightforward when interacting with their clients. Michael agreed to check it out before getting too deep into the project, and his mother said that she'd email him some literature to review.

It wasn't his turn to clean up, but he kept his sisters company and prepared the slow-cooker meal that would be running overnight. His sisters complained at the grossness of it, and Lou even claimed that his meal had made her decide to turn vegetarian. Michael rolled his eyes helplessly, poured himself his evening shake, and went upstairs to take a bath. While he soaked, he had the System scroll through the scanned work document once more to prepare himself for the preliminary code. The combination of the familiar work and the chemicals in the water started to relax his sore and aching body and soothe his mind. He almost didn't want to get out, but as the water cooled he had to admit that there was more to do for the evening. Then, once he'd showered off and rinsed out the bath from the salt residue, he went downstairs and started working on it.

Once he fired up his computer and opened up his favourite text editor, he transcribed the project plan in his head into a formal document, and was about to create the project structure he'd need to complete the work when he remembered the conversation at dinner. He then opened up his email and found the literature his mother had mentioned. She had sent him three entire books! Michael shook his head and started to scan them with the System, quickly scrolling through the pages. He'd review them during his Lucid Dream time that evening, though he lamented that his other plans would once again be put on hold.

Since he didn't want to have to do additional work if the new methodology required that he adjust his project structure, he decided to hold off on any additional work for the time being. Since it was around 9:30, he decided get ready for bed and spend the last few minutes performing the breathing exercises the System had previously guided him through. The combination of his earlier bath and the exercises helped to adjust his mental state significantly, and he was able to lay back and close his eyes with a very calm mindset.

When he reopened them in his Lucid Space, he got up, stretched and was quite pleased to see that he didn't feel any of the aches and pains he felt in his actual body. This made sense, since he wasn't actually feeling any of this. The soothing sounds of a storm could already be heard in the background. If it weren't for the harsh artificial light the System had reproduced, the scenario would be even more relaxing. Sadly, the best he could do at the moment was to reproduce his bedroom. Based on his understanding and the System's description, some day he might be able to alter his environment in the Lucid Space even further. He looked forward to that.

Regardless, it wasn't good to be too greedy, so he sat down at his work desk and had the system produce a physical copy of the books he'd scanned off of his computer. Luckily the total of all three books was only around 400 pages, so he figured he could get through it all before morning. He cracked open the first one and started reading. The contents were something he found quite interesting, since it talked about a different, more methodical and intentional approach to programming that he was used to.

As he'd been tinkering around on computers since he was a young child, programming had always just been second nature. Like a native speaker trying to explain the rules of their language, there were a number of things he did simply because "that's the way it's done", as opposed to being able to explain the formal rules behind it. He became more and more pensive as time went by and he thought about how he could adjust his project process.

Soon, he received an new notification from the system.

<<'Programming' skill unlocked. Previous experience has been added to latest progress.

'Organizing' skill => +0.5

Intelligence-??? => +0.1>>