A new experience

Kai laid on his oh so precious mattress while he panted and stared up at the bright celling. He had just finished his second and final round of experiments with Umbra, finding out quite a few valuable pieces of information.

Honestly, Kai was shocked with how much he had grown. Just the growth between the final battle and now was absolutely monstrous. It couldn't even be compared, he was at least twice as strong than he was previously.

Even though it didn't really look that way, the percentage boost from his new bloodline and the small boosts offered from other sources all added up. Kai was just excited to get into a situation where he could test out his upgraded future sight with all these boosts.

If there was anyone in any other tutorial that could compete with Kai, then they would have to be a monstrous entity themselves just to match him.

But sadly, there was one feature of his innate ability and bloodline that turned out not to be compatible. Even though his bloodline gave a twenty percent boost to all soul related abilities, it didn't count Will of the Kaiser. Turns out, borrowing powers doesn't count as a soul related ability, which was a shame as Kai really hoped that it would.

It wasn't all doom and gloom though, Kai already got a lot of help from that twenty percent boost so he was willing to let it slide.

The only way to get his innate ability to work with his bloodline was to either find some sort of loophole or upgrade it once more and add some sort of feature to do with souls.

Another one of the downsides however was the sudden increase to Kai's height while in the humanoid wolf form. Previously, Kai had gotten somewhat used to the way the body moved, how to use all its innate power to an acceptable degree.

But now, Kai had to restart from scratch and get used to it all over again.

It probably wouldn't take that long, considering it didn't take that long for Kai to get used to in the first place, but it was still a minor setback.

Kai sighed as he gazed up at the padded white roof wistfully. It had only been a little under two months ago that he thought this would be the place where he died, now look at him, super strong with a cute wolf and a talking sword for sidekicks.

Would his parents be proud of him?

Kai blamed the bright lights for the fact that his eyes started to tear up as he sat up off the mattress, quickly wiping the wetness away and composing himself. What was the use in crying? The only reason he had to cry was how badly he needed a haircut.

And maybe the fact that he still had no idea if his parents were alive or dead, but Kai didn't want to think about that.

There was a little over ten hours remaining, meaning Kai did not have enough time to test anything else and had all that time to himself.

He could just go to sleep to pass the time, but he inwardly knew that he wouldn't be able to. He was too awake, too stressed, too paranoid.

What's gonna happen after this? I swear to god if it's another tutorial I'll find whatever bastard created these tutorials and beat them up myself.

Obviously Kai was exaggerating. If it really was a god that was in control of creating these, then Kai had absolutely no chance in fighting them.

However, there was one thing that Kai could potentially help calm him. It was what had started this whole journey, so it may as well be the thing that ended it. It was a poetic story of sorts.

Exercise.

Pushing himself off the mattress, Kai done a few stretches before he began jogging around the white room.

Noticing the noise, Umbra's ears perked up as she opened her three eyes. Seeing that Kai was running around, she quickly pounced up and joined him in the act, her tail wagging and sometimes hitting off the padding of the room.

Kai grinned as he started to race against Umbra, not wanting to lose to his familiar. There was no way he could lose, he was too petty for that.

Not wanting to have them feel left out, Kai summoned Esurient and carried the crimson blade as he continued to dash around the room. It was good practice as well, running with the sword. He had always been told not to run with scissors or knives, but now he was practising to. How times changed. After all, if Kai were to end up in a situation like that war where he was surrounded by people, he would much rather not accidently stab someone while running.

Soon, the race had turned into a free for all as Umbra kept trying to knock Kai off balance while Kai kept trying to trip her up. It seemed that Umbra had adopted part of Kai's petty personality, which was something that Kai himself wasn't sure if he should be proud of or not.

Esurient himself didn't have to do anything, but Kai could sometimes feel the blade tremble with glee, happy that it wasn't being left out.

After tiring themselves out from running, Kai quickly dropped to the floor and started doing pushups.

Esurient laid beside him while Umbra attempted to copy him, pushing her body up and down at the same time.

However, she quickly got bored of that, so she chose to do something else instead.

Climbing onto Kai's back, Umbra positioned herself so she wouldn't fall off and tried to go to sleep.

Previously, Kai would have been crushed under the heavy wolf instantly, but that was when he only had six Strength. But now, now he had over a hundred.

That didn't meant the act was easy though, Umbra weighed quite a bit after her evolution, only making the push-ups even harder for Kai.

Still, he did not give in. After every push-up, more and more sweat dripped onto the padding of the floor and onto Kai's robe. His arms and muscles started to burn, but he ignored the pain of reaching one hundred push-ups without stopping.

While that number may not have actually been that much considering Kai could do fifty when he had six Strength, he also didn't have a heavy wolf weighing him down at that time. If Umbra was on his back, Kai would be able to do minimum two hundred push-ups, no doubt about that

After seventy, Kai started to struggle.

After eighty, Kai inwardly cursed that Umbra had evolved, so far the evolution had only made these push-ups harder.

At ninety, Umbra shifted on Kai's back, nearly making him fall to the ground.

Kai's whole body was in pain, but he pushed on. He had survived much, much worse than some muscle pain. At this point, Kai wondered if there would be anything worse than the things he had gone through in that forest. Still, he didn't say any of that out loud in case he jinxed himself.

Finally, Kai reached the beautiful number of one hundred. Instantly, Kai grinned as Umbra climbed off his back, relief instantly washing over him.

While he wasn't tired before all of this, he was more than tired now and instantly fell asleep as his head hit the padding.

"Eugh"

Kai woke up thirty minutes before the timer was going to run out. His whole body ached after what he had put himself though, but did he regret it?

Absolutely not, it was fun to do.

Still, there was a few things Kai wanted to do before time ran out. He had no idea what would happen once the timer ran out, so he may as well get prepared now.

Kai stood up and took off the robe he was wearing. It stunk of sweat and was clinging to his body, so Kai had do hesitation when he tossed it to the far side of the room.

He then quickly summoned his Tunic of Remembrance and slipped it on. The white fur was soft and comfy, making Kai wonder why he had worn the robe for the last few days instead of this.

After he was dressed, Kai summoned his Pretty Good Boots. He realised now that it was a little weird to wear footwear like this without socks, but Kai had long gotten used to having them and he always made sure to keep his boots in tip top shape. Plus, they were comfy so there was no harm.

For the last item of clothing, Kai summoned the ring Failure had given him. A nice little trinket that only had question marks for its description. Kai had no idea how bad the Corroding would be or if there was even Corriding where he would be sent to, but it was better safe than sorry.

After he was fully dressed, Kai returned Esurient back to his soul for the time being as he made Umbra return to his shadow. It was better to have her as a trump card rather than something everyone could see, just incase anything went wrong.

That was everything that could possibly be done. Of course, Kai could shift his stats a little in the remaining time, but he was fine with the way they were for now so he saw no reason to change them.

He simply just leaned back against the wall as he watched the time tick down. Second by second, minute by minute, the timer got closer to zero.

And finally, when all the numbers had reached zero, a blinding light enveloped Kai as he disappeared from the white room.