Merging with Talents, Increased Vitality Index Score
Merging with Talents, Increased Vitality Index Score
'Ding! Professor Singh has sent you $68,000! Your new balance is $68,342.'
Adam had previously estimated his paycheck based on the market price. But he had forgotten that Professor Singh also needed to make a profit. So, the total amount he got was only $68,000. However, he wasn't complaining one bit.
Adam had never seen that much money in his entire life, or both lives, for that matter.
He then thanked the woman a few dozen times and gave her a thankful hug before leaving.
—
After leaving Professor Singh's lecture hall, Adam went straight to his bedroom. It was still early in the day, and the school day wouldn't start for another 90 minutes. Knowing this, Adam rushed back.
Sagittarius High School wasn't like normal high schools, with only one large main building. It was the planet's best high school, after all. How could it be normal? The planet also had more than 15 billion inhabitants. Sagittarius High School couldn't have one building, even if it wanted to.
Instead, Sagittarius High School was more like a campus. Covering a surface area comparable to some small cities, it was huge. And the dorm house that Adam lived in was one of the buildings that were built on the edge of the campus.
So, following a tiring half-hour-long jog, Adam arrived.
Boy's Dorm House 15
Adam was the strongest and also one of the oldest students living at this specific dorm house. And coupled with his nice personality and reputation, it was only right that he heard many polite greetings once he entered the building.
From simple 'hellos' to more grand bows of respect, Adam just smiled at everything, not replying before picking up his pace. Sprinting up a flight of stairs, Adam eventually arrived at his own dorm room.
Thankfully, as the recipient of a scholarship, Adam was given a dorm room in a prime location and no roommates. So once he entered, he was alone.
Jumping on his bed excitedly, Adam called out his system's status page before clicking the talent shop button once more.
–
Level 1 Talent Shop
Low-Grade Strength Talent ($10,000)
Low-Grade Speed Talent ($10,000)
Low-Grade Defense Talent ($10,000)
–
Without hesitation, Adam clicked on all three of them.
'Ding! Confirm the purchase of three Low-Grade Talents. The total cost will be $30,000.'
Adam was slightly confused about why his system had an accidental press safety mechanism, but nonetheless, he clicked yes.
'Ding! The host has purchased three Low-Grade Talents! Deducting $30,000 from the host's bank account.'
After Adam saw that message, not even a second passed before he got a text message on his phone with the exact same message.
Smiling to himself, Adam clicked the text on his phone to ensure that it wasn't fraud, which calmed his bank.
Done with that, Adam now looked at the new category on his status screen.
—
Adam Courtois
Cultivation Base: 9th Stage of the Body Refining Realm
Vitality Index Score: 91.2
Middle-Grade Cultivation Talent
Cosmic-Grade Alchemy Talent
Level 1 Talent Shop
Unmerged Talents
Low-Grade Strength Talent
Low-Grade Defense Talent
Low-Grade Speed Talent
—
Adam clicked on the first talent.
'Ding! Does the host wish to merge with the Low-Grade Strength Talent?'
Adam clicked "confirm." And instantly, he felt the effects.
Following his confirmation, a sublime feeling no inferior to his breakthrough earlier rushed through his body. Every inch of his musculature felt like it was being massaged and strengthened by a pair of smooth and delicate hands.
It was amazing, and Adam was relishing it. But, sadly, before it stayed for too long, it left. He had perfectly merged with the low-grade strength talent.
—
Adam Courtois
Cultivation Base: 9th Stage of the Body Refining Realm
Vitality Index Score: 91.8
Middle-Grade Cultivation Talent
Low-Grade Strength Talent
Cosmic-Grade Alchemy Talent
Level 1 Talent Shop
Unmerged Talents
Low-Grade Defense Talent
Low-Grade Speed Talent
—
Not noticing the change in his vitality index score, Adam clicked on the next two talents.
Unlike the low-grade strength talent that targeted his muscles and tendons, after Adam merged with the low-grade defense talent, he felt his bones and skin toughen and harden, while the low-grade speed talent targeted his viscera.
Done with small evolution, Adam stood up from his bed and ran out of his room, eager to examine his new changes.
However, just before he exited the room, he noticed something.
"Sh*t, I smell!" Adan cursed aloud.
He hadn't noticed in the heat of the moment, but now that he was done with his merging of talents, Adam felt that his body had become slimy and more scaly, and he was covered in impurities. All three feelings were disgusting and nauseating, so Adam quickly jumped in the shower.
Unaware to Adam, each of those feelings represented something, and something important at that.
The slimy feeling was from his muscles condensing and becoming stronger. It was like when someone wrung a sponge, and all of the dirty water fell out. When they finished, the sponge would become tense and stronger.
The scaly feeling was from his skin. He had literally shed his previous layer of skin. So the scaly feeling was from the previous layer of skin that needed to be shed.
And the final layer of impurities came from his viscera being purified.
Adam underwent a complete metamorphosis on an internal level. However, he didn't know this.
Yet
—
After showering, Adam quickly went back down to the first floor of his dorm, where special strength testing equipment was held.
From the standard treadmill to the more advanced punching strength machines, everything that a potential martial artist needed was there.
Stepping into the gym, Adam didn't waste any time and quickly grabbed a booth for himself and locked the door behind him.
Along the way, he was also forced to shoo away any of his peers who tried to talk with him. Adam was far too excited about his new strength to converse with people.
Inside the booth were three machines. Mainly an extremely high-tech-looking treadmill, a punching bag the size of a person, and finally, a large separate chamber that could contain even an elephant.
Adam knew what each of them did, and without a pause in his steps, he walked toward the punching bag.
"The last time I was here, my fist strength was 812kg. But now that I've advanced a stage and I now have a low-grade strength talent, I should have no problem having a 1,500kg punch strength, right?" Adam thought as he positioned himself to throw a punch.
The average human's punching strength was around 150kg, and the average strength increase for each cultivation base advancement was anywhere from 75 to 150kg. So, without using any talents, the strongest person in the Body Refining Realm should have a punching strength of 1,500kg.
Thinking this, Adam first tossed out a punch without using his new low-grade strength talent.
Balling up his fist and twisting into the punch, Adam sent out a blow that seemed to cut through the air before connecting with the punching bag.
Bang!
The punching bag took the punch like a champion and barely even budged, but Adam really wasn't disheartened about this. He knew that the punching bags here could withstand the punch of even a martial master, let alone a Body Refining Realm pup like him. If anything, the fact that he made it budge a little with his punch made Adam feel happy.
The numbers above the punching, which were just 0000, soon started to change, and they rose quickly. Easily surpassing the tens, Adam's fist strength soon carried on to hundreds.
Another 2 seconds later, Adam's fist strength score stabilized, and he was given his answer.
1,119kg!
"That's more than a 200 kg advancement!" Adam was incredibly happy about his newfound strength.
And that was without the strength talent—just his pure strength! Moreover, he had yet to undergo foundation training under the principal. Maybe Adam could push his fist strength to 1,300 or even 1,400kg in three months!
However, seeing the abnormal strength increase, Adam got curious and quickly pulled his status screen back up.
—
Adam Courtois
Cultivation Base: 9th Stage of the Body Refining Realm
Vitality Index Score: 96.4
Middle-Grade Cultivation Talent
Low-Grade Strength Talent
Low-Grade Defense Talent
Low-Grade Speed Talent
Cosmic-Grade Alchemy Talent
Level 1 Talent Shop
—
"My vitality index score increased so much." Adam mumbled, confused.
He hadn't done anything to increase them. Moreover, it had increased by so much.
Don't look down on the small 5-point increase. It was extremely hard to increase a percentage that was already in the nineties.
Curious, Adam clicked on the vitality index score to see if he could check out the advanced metrics, and lo and behold, he could.
—
Skin Strength: 98 points out of 100
Blood Strength: 96 points out of 100
Bone Strength: 88 points out of 100
Viscera Strength: 100 points out of 100
Muscles and Tendons: 100 points out of 100
—
"They all went up so much! And my viscera, muscles, and tendons are perfect now." Adam was elated at his new and improved stats but, at the same time, confused.
"Was it because of the talent merging?" Adam thought.
That made the most sense of all the possibilities he could think of. And eventually, after not finding another more reasonable one, he decided on it.
"But how can I improve my bone strength more?"
Adam still felt the schadenfreude from Principal Smith's smile. But now that he merged with the low-grade defense talent, his bone strength had been elevated by more than 10 points. If he could improve it just another five or so, it would no longer be an outlier in his vitality index.
With high hopes for the future, Adam brought his focus back to the punching bag. He wanted to see how strong he was when he used his low-grade strength talent.
The base strength for a 1st stage Martial Apprentice Realm martial artist was 2000 kg. And from what Adam knew, by activating a poor-grade strength talent, one would be able to increase their strength by 1.5x. A low-grade strength talent would multiply it by 3x, while a middle-grade would do so by 5x.
Adam didn't know how much a high-grade strength talent did, but he could guess it would be around 10x. As for the supreme-grade, he didn't have the faintest clue.
So now that he figured out that his base fist strength was 1,119kg, Adam guessed that his strength was already superior to that of a martial artist in the 1st stage of the Martial Apprentice Realm.
Fixing his position once more, Adam did the same punch movement, but this time he activated the low-grade strength talent.
And with another banging sound, the four zeros started moving.
3,357kg!
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