Chapter 40: Confidence

Eric was once again standing in front of the gates of the Training Room; his body tingling with excitement and a hint of anxiety. He unlocked the door with his key and quickly went in without wasting any time on thinking.

He started with the dumbbells and was able to reach the required 600 curls without much more effort than what he put yesterday. Surprisingly, once he got used to the pain after 200 curls in each hand, he was able to reach 300 without a noticeable increase in pain.

Still brimming with energy, Eric started bench pressing after ingesting one Minor Physical Restoration Pill. Since he had a hundred of them, he could consume one after each set of exercises in order to save time while still having some spare left for emergencies.

Eric was able to do press 150 times without feeling any sort of pain, but the second half was considerably harder. This time, the extra 50 that he added from the previous day made a lot of difference.

He added half the reps of bench pressing than dumbbell curls to his routine, but the 50 bench presses felt way more strenuous on his body than the 100 dumbbell curls.

Somehow, he was able to finish both the dumbbells and the bench press, after which he took another pill and was left with the easy task of hitting the sandbag.

Surprisingly, this was the easiest task of the three even though it had the highest increment.

'Well, it does make some sense. Punching and kicking a sack is way easier than doing a bench press.' Eric thought to himself as he took his last Physical Restoration Pill of the day.

Since he had completed all of these tasks while having a couple minutes to spare, Eric decided to check the quest menu to see what the next part of his daily quest was.

[Quest: "Physical Training (2)" successfully completed.

Quest Reward: Progress of the Quest]

[New Quest: Physical Training (3)

Task: Repeating the same task until reaching mastery in said task is one of the most common methods to achieve success. The task for this part of the quest is to-

1) Curl the 15 kilogram dumbbells 300 times in each hand.

2) Bench press with the 60 kilogram barbell 300 times.

3) Punch the sandbag 300 times with each hand and kick it 300 times with each leg.

Time Limit: 4 hours (Currently frozen as the quest hasn't yet started)

Completion Reward: Progress of the Quest

Failure Penalty: None]

For a moment, Eric was a bit confused after reading the task and thought it was some sort of error the creator of the system made. This train of thought, however, was shattered after a couple seconds as Eric realized what this meant.

'The quest will not change its terms until I am able to get used to these current conditions. If the amount of reps were to be increased now, I would most probably fail. Instead of constantly pushing myself to the point where I can't catch up with my goals; it's better to practice and get adjusted to the current difficulty first.'

Finally, it was time for Eric to challenge the Swinging Sack Array.

After using the method that he came up with the day before, Eric was able to make some progress in the Sandbag Array, but it was still much from enough. He decided to continue with his previous strategy for clearing the Sandbag Sack Array for a couple days without changing much.

If he changed his method of escaping from the swinging sacks every day, he wouldn't be able to get good at any of them.

Another day in the Training Room had passed and Eric went back home with his father, cultivating his body on the way back with the help of a Qi Gathering Herb, just like how he did in the morning before arriving here.

Back home, Eric rested for a while and cultivated the other two paths during most of the time he had left.

***

Another day had passed and Eric found himself standing inside the training room this morning as well.

His life was pretty much the exact same as the last day. The daily quest didn't update and slowly but surely, Eric got better at his exercises in the training room. He had also made substantial progress with the sandbag array: it was one of those things that gets easier the more you practice in it and understand it.

Eric was dedicated to his cause and didn't care much if his routine was bland and the same as always. He quickly started training his body and completed all his tasks with about half an hour to spare, along with feeling way less pain than his initial day in the training room.

This time, however, he was greeted with a notification from the System.

Hearing this, one thought came to Eric's mind.

'The daily quest updated!' he thought as he opened the Scam System and checked his quest menu.

[Quest: "Physical Training (3)" successfully completed.

Quest Reward: Progress of the Quest]

[New Quest: Physical Training (4)

Task: In order to increase one's strength more efficiently, one should upgrade their tools and resources periodically. The task for this part of the quest is to-

1) Curl the 20 kilogram dumbbells 100 times in each hand.

2) Bench press with the 70 kilogram barbell 100 times.

3) Punch the puppet 100 times with each hand and kick it 100 times with each leg.

Time Limit: 4 hours (Currently frozen as the quest hasn't yet started)

Completion Reward: Progress of the Quest

Failure Penalty: None]

Eric's inkling was right. The day he felt he was getting used to the current training routine, the system increased the requirements of the task. This time, however, the increase was not in quantity, but in quality instead.

After getting used to a certain weight, the number of times you lift it won't help as much as increasing the weight itself. In order to increase a human's strength, the strength of his resources and practice targets is also supposed to increase.

With this, Eric now had something new to look forward to for the next day's training.