Chapter Three: Daily Routine

And here I am with chapter three for you wonderful people. First chapters have been pretty dark, but this one should be a bit more tame in comparison. More of an info dump and introduction to new stuff rather than anything substantive.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

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Chapter Three: Daily Routine

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When I woke up, it was with my right arm sore, and a piece of good news.

—

After surviving a near death experience, your Vitality has increased by .1! You have rested for 8 hours! HP and MP fully recovered!

You have gained the Skill: Physical Resistance.

Physical Resistance

Level: 1/10 (50.0%)

Rank: Basic

Rarity: Common

Effects: Reduces damage from physical sources by 1% per level. (Passive)

—

Even with sleeping, I still felt mentally terrible. Physically? I felt as good as ever. I even got a skill! But I just can't find it in myself to care right now. Maybe I'll look into it when I'm not feeling like shit.

Flexing my arms to get some feeling into them, I washed my bloodied arm under the bathtubs still running water before turning it off. There was a bit of blood in the tub where the water didn't get it, so I'd have to clean that later.

In fact, maybe I should do that. Maybe some mindless cleaning would do me some good.

'Oh shit. I need to feed my cats too.' I finish up cleaning myself, and head for the cat food, stumbling because my legs weren't responding. 'I know how girls feel now!' Chuckling aloud, I continue walking.

When I accepted becoming a gamer, I didn't expect this insanity to unfold, but it's my fault in the end. Maybe I did know subconsciously that some shenanigans would ensue, but definitely not the murdering my pet shenanigans.

Opening the cabinet with the cat food, I take some handfuls and put them in separate bowls for each cat. I know that they'll just eat from whichever one, but they haven't starved yet, so it'll be fine.

With that done, I start cleaning.

I grab the broom and sweep, dust off some of the less trafficked areas in the house, and wash the tub of the blood. When I'm done with that, I go about cleaning up all of the blood around the house. The rug, the floor, the counters. Wherever I may have went while bleeding out.

I also do my best to clean out that towel I used as a bandage with judicious use of water and soap. It was crusted and gooey with blood, but I tried to ring it anyway. It would likely be red until I properly cleaned it.

I toss the towel into my inventory. May as well hold onto it, I don't want to get anything else bloody while it washes in a washing machine. Just to be safe.

When I finally finished cleaning the house, it looked like it always did, just minus stuff on the floor. The house was pretty damn cluttered with items. On the counter, in the living room, sunroom, even my room had some random totes of shit. I'm lazy, so I never bothered fixing it up, and my grandmother was in the hospital, so I was alone with the animals.

All alone in this house.

Minus a dog.

I flop onto my bed with a tired sigh, looking at my blank TV.

Usually when I'm depressed I play video games, but I don't think I should. My life is a game, and I have all I need to become great. I just need to preoccupy myself with something.

I let out an irritated grunt before sitting up. I noticed that the pop ups are rather extensive, and when I want to bring up my stats, I get everything when I don't need it. So...

'Settings?'

What shows up is simply a list of fine tunings that I can make. It seems that I've found exactly what I need. That being notifications  being extremely simplified. Stat increases can be displayed differently, and more.

After a few minutes of selecting different options that feel more friendly and less obstructive, I feel better about it. I basically made everything much more simple and straight to the point, and fewer words. It should mostly be numbers and arrows from now on which I'm thankful for.

'Well. Now what?' I look around my room idly.

I could do a few things I suppose. Figure out my magic more without murder. I could workout. Actually yeah I'll do that. I should workout as much as possible while I can!

I get onto the floor and get into a resting push-up position. With the buffs to my Power stat, I should be able to do a few push-ups at least. Right?

I push against the floor as hard as I can, breathing as evenly as possible. Keeping a good form, but I just don't move.

I stop abruptly, gasping for breath. How the hell does this shit even work?!

If I can't even budge myself, how the hell can I even walk? That doesn't make shit for sense at all! Is it the system doing it? Am I supposed to struggle like this on purpose?

Wait a second. Could I try using magic to help?

Mentally grasping for that analogous Scrying ball in my mind, I feel a tug just below my heart. I mentally push it around like I did when I first unlocked my magic. On command, magic flows out along those pathways from earlier, causing much less pain this time. When my pitiful amount of magic saturates my body, I let go of the Scrying ball in my mind.

Like a puppy, the magic stays along the pathways.

Time to try again!

This time when I do my push-ups, it works. I can feel my mana saturating into my muscles. With more push-ups, my mana drains rapidly, and my muscles hurt like hell, but I push on, cranking out as many push-ups as possible. When my mana finally taps out, I collapse in another heap. Breathing hard, aching and sore, but victorious!

—

0/60MP

40/100HP

—

'Holy- what the fuck? How did that do so much damage to me?' Magic is definitely dangerous. But at least I didn't die, but that's good to know for the future. Reinforcing my body with magic in the way I did so definitely fucked my body up, else I'd have taken less or no damage.

When I relax a bit more and begin to catch my breath, I get into a crosslegged sitting position and look at my new boxes.

—

PWR: .3+.2=.5

VIT: .5+.3=.8

SPT: .3+.2=.5

Skill Acquired: Body Reinforcement

Body Reinforcement

Level: 1/10 (82.6%)

Rank: Basic

Rarity: Uncommon

Effects: Allows you to reinforce your body with magical energy. More magic causes more damage and increases the bonus. Amount of mana used determines physical boost. Every level increases the damage threshold by 1MP, decreases cost by 1% per level, and increases buff by 1%. (Active)

—

Well. That's certainly a skill. Gotta admit though, looking back at the other skill I got, the level caps sure fucking sucks. A whole 10% cost decrease at max? That's trash. But I'll admit, every little bit helps, so I won't complain too much. Even with the sad excuse for skills, the attribute gains are fucking insane!

I guess killing yourself to improve is a good way to go about things if these are the buffs I'm getting! I don't even need to cut my arms anymore.

I look down at the long scars on either arm, and chuckle.

''These scars look gnarly, I really hope I don't have to show anybody or they'll be very suspicious." I mumble to myself, idly looking at the scars at different angles.

Forgetting my scars, I call back the screen for the physical resistance skill, and note the odd wording of the skills effects. 'Reduced damage from physical sources', instead of something like 'reduced physical damage'.That wording is very particular, because technically damage to my body is physical, so it should've been reduced by that skill, but it wasn't. It says 'physical sources'. Magic was the cause of the damage due to reinforcing my body with it.

Although, the damage reduction of 1% would've reduced only .4 damage. It could've been a rounding issue, but if that's the case, my health would've been higher earlier when I first cut my arm open. Although, that damage could've been caused because the system simply marked the bleeding damage of one point of health per minute as an easy number rounding, and I actually take damage per second.

Whatever the case may be, I'm going to assume it means that when I use reinforcement again, physical resistance won't help me. It's moderately annoying that I can be harmed by my own magic, but I'll figure something out in the future to mitigate it.

I mentally swipe away the skill pop-ups, and get up off the floor. I stretch a bit, listening to the few pops with a contented sigh.

My stats are incredibly lackluster. I need to buff my stats properly. If I consistently fuck my body up and heal every day, I should become powerful enough to branch out into new things.

I sit on my gaming chair rubbing my face of fatigue.

I should figure out a daily routine that I stick to. Adjustments pending any bottlenecks.

First, I should figure out a good way to buff all of my stats in a short amount of time, and make that a rep, and do multiple reps a day.

Reinforcing my body increases my vitality, power, and spirit by an incredibly high amount so that should be fine as is. Next is speed. I could probably go for a run without using reinforcement. I should probably switch out reinforcing my body for push-ups and running every other day so I get a decent buff to both of them.

My mental attributes are going to lag behind, so I should probably do something to improve them. Maybe watch some informational videos? Do mental math? I could do an incredible number of things to improve my mental capacity due to the internet.

An idea comes to mind, actually. While I do those physical work outs, I could do mental exercises at the same time!

It would only take a few hours per rep at most. I just need to stick to it, and do multiple reps a day.

I look longingly at my Xbox. Maybe have some downtime to relax while my health and mana regenerate? Yeah, I'll do that. Once I get my attributes to a decently high number, I'll be set to explore magical pursuits.

That fractured soul is an ephemeral threat in the back of my mind. I don't know what it is or what it'll do to me in the future, but I should be fine for a few weeks. Right?

I pick up an Xbox controller, and turning it on. I lean back in my chair and take a deep breath in. Hopefully this counts as a rest!

———

"FUCK! THAT GUY SHOULD BE FUCKING DEAD! WHAT THE FUCK?!" I yell in outrage.

My grip on my controller gets tighter, but I calm down after a few moments. I adjust the headset I'm wearing, brushing my hair a bit.

"Haha! Yeah, sure he was FTK, you're doing really bad recently man, usually you'd get a few more hits in but you're potatoing really bad!" Comes a response through my headset.

"Yeah yeah, whatever. I'm rusty." I reply with a clipped tone. "I've been having a rough few days, cut me some slack. I'll pick it back up later. But I gotta get off for now, I'll hit you up when I get back on." I say, making my way through the menus to quit the game.

"Awe man, come on, stop raging so much, it's just a game!" He laughs. "But alright bro, talk to you later!"

"For sure man, I'll be up for it later, just gotta chillax for a bit. Talk to you later bro."

"Yup! Good luck!"

A moment of silence passes before the banner shows up at the bottom of my screen, letting me know that I'm alone in the party. I also leave it once I traverse the menus.

Once I've left, I turn off my Xbox and TV, leaning back in my chair while continuing to simply stare at the now black screen.

—

SPD: .3+.1=.4

—

The little pop-up letting me know that I've gained some speed surprised me, but at the same time, handling a controller to make small movements makes sense. I can't imagine it will be a great way to increase my speed attribute, but at least it'll be some kind of gain while I... "enjoy" my time gaming.

'General stats.'

—

Name: Nathaniel L, Morris.

Age: 18 years, 10 months.

Corruption: ??

Body: 1.6

Magic: <1%

Soul: 1.3

Talent: 1.0

Level: 1

HP: 140/140 Regen: .55%/min

MP: 100/100 Regen: .45%/min

—

Well, I've recovered, so I guess it's back to the grind!

———

Collapsing on my bed, I gasp for breath, staring up at the ceiling and my head full of fog. My vision was spotty and I couldn't focus on anything. Yet, somehow, the boxes in my line of sight were as clear as ever.

—

PWR: .5+.3=.8

VIT: .8+.4=1.2

SPD: .4+.3=.7

SPT: .5+.4=.9

MND: .4+.5=.9

Body Reinforcement: LVL; 1–>3

Physical Resistance: LVL; 1–>2

Vitality has reached 1.0! Pick a perk?

Y/N

—

I groan, rapidly blinking my eyes to get rid of the spots and wiping away the sweat from my face, wiping it off on my shirt.

When the spots in my eyes abated a bit, I focused on the pop up.

'Pick a perk? Uh yes I guess?'

—

Perk Selection (Vitality 1.0)

Boosted Vitality

Effects: Max HP is doubled. HP Regen is Doubled

Tough Cookie

Effects: All Damage from Physical sources is reduced by 35%.

Bloodied Bastard

Effects: When your HP falls below 20%, you will immediately regain 30% of HP, and HP regeneration is quadrupled for 5 minutes. Prevents being instantly killed by one hit.

—

Holy- those are all pretty good! Being able to take twice as much damage sounds awesome, plus any gamer, literal or otherwise, enjoys seeing a number go up.

Reducing damage from physical sources by another 35% would be cool, only 10% at max is really bad, but with both of those combined it would still be less than 50% in total, making it less worthwhile than simply doubling my health.

The last one is pretty neat though. Being able to survive being one-hit KO'd would be pretty amazing, however, in the future when I have a ton of HP, this perk won't matter... so that makes my choice pretty easy.

'Boosted Vitality'

—

HP: 240–>480

HP Regen: .80%–>1.60%

—

Oh shit, regen doubling is pretty awesome as well. Completely glossed over that part! That being said, this event has also revealed to me the opportunity to get more perks for my other attributes. It seems that 1.0 is the lucky number, so those should be coming up soon considering most of my stats are over .7. I should be able to get them to a full 1.0 as I continue my daily workouts. Also, I'll need to find out if I can get more perks like that.

But first. A shower!

I had been fucking myself up these past few days. Cutting myself up. Working out with magic of all things! I'm due for a wash.

Getting up, I stumble off to the bathroom, tossing my clothes away as I hop in the shower. Not bothering to close the door behind me. The cats won't care.

I turn on the shower, letting out a very manly yelp when the frigid water runs down my back, my teeth immediately begin to chatter from the cold, but I stay there and close the curtain. I stood there awhile, getting used to the cold water and shivering. Even with the uncomfortable coldness, it felt nice to get clean of all the sweat and blood, metaphorical it may be.

—

Skill gained!

Cold Resistance

Level: 1/10 (1.2%)

Rank: Basic

Rarity: Common

Effects: Reduces Damage from lower temperatures by 1% per level

—

Wait- am I taking damage?!

'Health!'

—

HP: 186/480

—

Oh. That's not bad. I'll be fine. It only went down by four points anyway! I'll just keep an eye on it while I clean.

——

It was around 2:30PM when I finally left the shower. Shower thoughts fucked up my mental state for awhile but I got through it. When I did get done, I took a towel on the stout dresser in the kitchen to dry off, and tossed a different one on the floor to soak up the water. Also, I got my cold resistance skill to a pretty damn high five with some EXP to get me over half way to six.

But, my health was pretty damn low so I couldn't get back to working out with my magic.

Which brings us to now: me doing push-ups.

Without magic.

Not me trying. I'm actually doing it.

I grunt with exertion as I rise for one last pushup. "Aaaaand that's 30!" I collapse on my chest. Huffing and puffing like a fifty year old man with asthma.

I move my tired arms around, making sure they get the blood they need as I lay there on my chest.

Speaking of chest. These gains are actually showing! I was (and still am) overweight. Easily over 220 pounds. Now? I'm more like 200 with actual muscle definition! It feels fucking good to know that my work outs are doing something. If a single day of working out properly has these kind of gains, I'm gonna be shredded by the time the magical fuckers find me.

Hopefully. I hope I'll be impressive enough that they don't just kill me. I don't know what magical people would do about an animal being killed (if they found out), but usually you get sent to a hospital or something. I think. I never really looked into that... ya know, cause I never needed to.

But hey! They might not even care. Magical people in fiction are usually pretty... grey in terms of morality. Plus, they're not likely to find any kind of proof that I did anything, right? Guess I'll find out when the time comes!

I get off the ground with an aching body, and flop onto my bed face first, taking in deep breathes.

Magical shit is future me's problem. As for right now?

I need some damn sleep!