Reward

'Again? really?' Michael felt like crying, why did everything from the system have to be painful?

'I guess nothing comes easily.' Michael sat down and started to meditate to get into the right mindset. After all, not many people can willingly start a process that would cause immense pain.

'I'm ready now.' After 20 minutes, Michael was now ready for anything that would come his way.

He looked over to his nightstand, and saw a flask. It was filled with a dark green liquid, that would occasionally bubble.

'The appearance really doesn't help.'

'Let's just get this over quick.'

Michael grabbed the flask, it was surprisingly hot and heavy, God knows what this liquid is.

Raising the flask to his mouth, Michael quickly gulped down the dark green, bubbly, and viscous liquid.

'It doesn't taste so bad, It's just like water.' Michael was surprised, he thought it would be as disgusting as medicine.

Quickly laying on his bed, he grabbed a pillow and put it in his mouth, he was prepared to start screaming like a little girl, and he didn't want his neighbours to call the cops thinking he was getting tortured by an evil serial killer.

'Here it comes.' Michael felt his whole body shiver, as if his body could institutionally feel what was going to happen next.

"AAAAHHHHHHH." Thankfully, it only came out as a muffled hum due to Michael biting down on the pillow as if he wanted to rip it apart.

-----------

For 10 minutes, Michael had been thrashing around, mimicking a seizure patient with bloodshot eyes while biting down on the pillow with everything he had. It was not a pleasant sight.

Now Michael lay on his bed, his body covered with sweat and the poor pillow looked like it had seen way better days..

Michael heard a few dings from the system, but he was too tired to care, he just wanted to sleep, and that he did. Michael directly went conscious after processing the pain.

-----

(Michael's Apartment, 6:01 AM)

Michael slowly opened his eyes, after remembering all that happened, he quickly woke up with immense energy.

He directly went to shower without checking his system prompts, he wanted to feel clean while seeing the good news.

After showering, Michael quickly slipped into his favourite pajamas and sat on his bed to look at the system prompts.

[DING]

['B-grade constitution enhancing elixir' CONSUMED]

[PLEASE OPEN 'USER STATS' TO SEE YOUR IMPROVEMENTS]

'Alright, let's see what we have here.' Michael rubbed his hands like a sleazy merchant about to make a huge deal with a loaded customer.

[SWIMMING SYSTEM

NAME: Michael Alexander

AGE: 22

SYSTEM LEVEL: 1 (10/100 sport points to level-up)

SPORT POINTS: 10

TALENT ASSESSMENT: D

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

-------

[USER MENU

*USER STATS*

*SKILLS*

*MISSIONS*

*SHOP* (locked)

*WHEEL* (locked)]

--------

[USER STATS

Strength: 1.3

Agility: 1.5

Stamina: 1.5

Constitution: 1.6]

'Wow!.' Looking at the huge difference, Michael felt as if he was in heaven, the system even called him 'up-and-coming swimmer'. Michael felt elated, but before he could continue celebrating.

[CONGRATULATIONS FOR ACQUIRING YOUR FIRST CONSTITUTION SKILL]

[THE SYSTEM HAS AUTOMATICALLY CHOSEN THE BEST SKILL SUITABLE FOR YOU]

[ACQUIRED '10.1% Homo aquatilis' GENES]

[DESCRIPTION OF ACQUIRED TRAITS: Increased upper body and core strength, liquids don't affect your lungs (you can't choke on liquids), your skin and hair are now hydrophobic (no friction in water), and slightly increased wingspan.]

[NOTE: your skin is made in a way where it is friction-less in water, but when pulling water, the part that is pulling/pushing water will cease to be hydrophobic.]

'....' Michael felt speechless at all of this.

'Wait a second, 'Homo aquatilis'? doesn't that mean aquatic humans?! are there humans that live deep in the ocean?!' After thinking about this for quite some time, Michael dropped the subject, the system wouldn't give him any information and he has none to make any assumptions.

Michael felt a constant ding noise as if to alert him to open the system menu.

[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.]

After seeing that nothing much changed other a new 'species' tab and an extra compliment in the evaluation text. Michael quickly ate a light breakfast and went to the swimming pool.

'Should I be concerned that I'm now a different species?'

'Can I still have kids?!' Michael panicked for a second, but quickly remembered that while he could turn into a different species, he's still the same genus, and if his biology teacher didn't lie to him, creatures can still produce offspring with species in the same genus.

After arriving and changing into his swimsuit, Michael quickly arrived on the edge of the pool, and did a cannonball into the water!

"Cannonball!"

Michael expected a huge splash and a tingly sensation over his body, but surprisingly nothing happened. He just smoothly entered the water with barely a splash, it was very anti-climactic.

'Is this my new skin? this is awesome!' Michael inside the water felt as if the water was fake, the water would slide past his skin so smoothly it felt like he was floating in air.

Michael did a quick warm-up and started to do backstroke, to see if leveling up made any significant changes, and it kind of did.

Michael felt as if now in backstroke he was a little more coordinated than before, and that it was less exhausting and more efficient. No drastic changes, but it would still make quite the difference in races.

Michael did his normal 5km swim, and after it he only felt tired, he didn't feel his whole body aching in pain or anything extreme.

'This is amazing!' Michael felt his eyes tear up, he had worked so hard his entire life, and now he could finally see his efforts come to fruition.

During the swim, he felt smoother in the water, and could pull more water per stroke to due his now longer and stronger arms.

Michael got out of the pool, and started to do sit-ups, he managed to do 400 before giving out, and then he started to do pull-ups, he did 12 before giving out as well.

'This is a huge improvement! More than 100% increase in strength since I started the mission.'

After getting out of the pool, showering, and getting into a new set of clothes. Michael was now headed to do something he had wanted for a long time.

Drop out!