An Awkward Reunion with an Old Friend

Penelope Pritcher was my first childhood crush. But looking back at it now, it wasn't so much a romantic, I-want-to-be-with-her kind of crush. I mean, I was eight at around that time, all I cared about were video games and chocolate cake. It was more of the respectful, she-is-so-strong-and-awesome kind of crush.

The kind you get with a famous person or someone you thought was out of your league — the type of crush where just being near them was enough.

She was a couple of years older than me, and since she was the daughter of one of Dad's colleagues, our families spent a lot of time together. Before the accident, anyway.

Penelope didn't get her father's platinum-blonde locks, she got her raven-coloured hair from her mother, which accentuated the piercing-bright-blue eyes she got from her father a lot more.

We were best friends when we were kids, and for a split second, I almost felt a physical ache in myself that yearned for those simpler days to come back.

"Penelope?" I said quietly.

She chuckled, half-relieved that she did notice the right person, and half-awkward as she explained, "I go by Penny now. Penelope seemed slightly too fancy for me."

"I bet your dad hates that," I laughed softly at the thought.

Her laugh grew, "Definitely! He always wanted the family to be so prim and proper, Mum told me that he almost fainted when he found out about 'Penny'!"

We both laughed. It was surprisingly so easy and nostalgic to chat with her again. The last time I saw her was during Dad's wake when I was about nine years old, and the way we were laughing right now, it didn't seem like we hadn't seen each other for over two decades.

The doors to the elevator started to shut, but Penelope — Penny, shot her arm out to get it to automatically open again and stepped out of the elevator.

"So," she started, "What are you doing here? B4's not a publicly available floor…"

"Oh," I smiled awkwardly and pointed a thumb behind me, "Alan wanted to show me the AR training room since I'm part of the guild now."

"Oh! You're part of Hero's Stand?" Penny exclaimed. I managed to notice a flicker of worry on her face when she talked.

"Yeah, I signed up a couple of days ago," I showed her my membership card, "I only got my card today."

She nodded silently, before laughing awkwardly to herself, "Sorry, I should have asked this first. How have you been? It's been a while!"

I rubbed the back of my head, "Yeah, it has been, it has…"

"It's been, what, since —!" Her face froze when she remembered the last time we saw each other.

"It's okay. I know," I tried reassuring her.

She cleared her throat, "Well, I almost didn't recognise you, you looked so different since…then."

I looked down at my stomach in embarrassment, "Yeah, I know—"

"You're so much taller now!" Penny said brightly.

I looked at her and saw that she was genuinely surprised by my height.

"I remember that back when we were younger, I was the tall one!" Penny laughed lightly.

"Oh yeah!" I joined her. Now that I looked at her a bit closer, I realised that she wasn't much shorter than me. I would have guessed she was around 5'8, but even then, she was still almost 10cm shorter than me.

She looked at her phone quickly and her eyes widened, "Well, I was actually on my way somewhere — it was so awesome to see you again after so long! We gotta catch up sometime soon. I'll see you around, okay?"

I nodded and gave her a thumbs up and she smiled one last time before briskly walking past me in the direction that I came from.

Before I could sigh and relax a little bit, I heard her voice calling out behind me.

"I mean it, okay? Let's not wait another ten years before chatting again!"

I turned around and tried to reply to her, but my throat suddenly went really dry. All I could do was give her two thumbs up and when she giggled and went around the corner, I wanted to kick myself because of how I handled the interaction.

At least I can sweat out my frustration in the gym.

***

I don't know if I can ever reiterate enough how helpful the Blood Circulation skill ended up being.

With the help of those around me, I managed to get myself to use the guild gym EVERY DAY for the next two weeks.

Mum helped by teaching me some simple dishes, as well as inviting me to dinner every night. With all that, I started to eat healthier.

(I snacked on some junk food every now and then, but I realised that even when I do, I wasn't eating as much crap as I used to.)

Alan kept an eye out for me at the gym and on those occasions that he discovered I had backtracked and eaten some junk food, he decided to turn on his stereotypical-personal-trainer act and punished me by pushing me to work harder at my workouts.

Surprisingly, as someone who was literally a giant and had muscles bigger than my head, Alan was pretty understanding about my physical limitations and proceeded to give me personalised workouts that seemed perfectly made for my current physical capabilities. And while I went to the gym every day, he made sure that I wasn't working myself ragged every day.

On the days when I was supposed to have an "off" day, I simply walked on the treadmill to continually improve my speed and improve my Fortitude Attribute.

And finally, after every workout or treadmill session, I would shower and drive back to my apartment to use Blood Circulation. I quickly improved my proficiency and by the end of the two weeks, I had dropped down from my initial 135kg (297 lbs) to just over 125kg (approximately 275.5 lbs), which was a massive deal, and I knew that I couldn't have done it without everybody's help and being kept accountable.

Also, my Blood Circulation skill had levelled up to level 4 and I was able to keep it activated for nearly half an hour at a time now.

By the end of the two weeks, I was also able to finally complete the Fortitude Tasks for the first time ever!

[CONGRATULATIONS!

The Player has managed to complete the daily Fortitude Tasks!

-Run (or walk) 10km — 10km/10km ✓

-Do 100 sit-ups — 100/100 ✓

-Do 100 pull-ups — 100/100✓

You have received 0.1PP!

Your Fortitude is improving!]

Another System notification dinged in my head, and I read its message:

[CONGRATULATIONS!

'Complete Fortitude Tasks for the first time' is completed! The Player has managed to unlock a 'new experience'! The Player has been gifted 5PP as a reward!]

I admit, I did a little victory dance when I was in the shower and had a little bit of privacy.

***

When I got home and was just about to use Blood Circulation, I decided to wait a bit and looked at my Status tab. Since I was gifted enough PPs to invest in an attribute, I wanted to get it out of the way sooner than later.

"I can't invest in Vitality anymore, can I?" I said out loud.

[Answer: Correct. Once the Player has reached their innate limitations for the current Prestige. The only way to surpass their current innate limitations is to activate the Prestige ability again.]

"I've heard that other Players could surpass their innate limitations but it was difficult and expensive to do, can I do the same thing if I had enough resources?" I asked again.

[Answer: Incorrect. The Prestige Ability has disabled that capability in the Player. The only way to surpassؙ—]

"Okay, okay, I was just double checking," I quickly said as the System was starting to repeat itself.

Now that I had all the information that I required, it was relatively easy to make my choice on which Attribute I was going to invest in. The System's confirmation message was quickly affirmed and a welcome message popped up in front of me with a satisfying chime.

[CONGRATULATIONS!

The Player has used their PPs to reach their innate limitation in the Aptitude Attribute!

Aptitude has reached a new grad—!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Due to a newly-discovered affinity to the Aptitude Attribute, the Player's Aptitude Attribute has received a boost in grading!

Aptitude has reached a new grade!

Aptitude: C

Due to the Player's attribute reaching a new letter grade, the amount of effort to improve will also be increased!

The Player has unlocked the 'Critical Eye' skill!

Critical Eye (MAX — Passive): The Player can look at things with a critical eye. The Player receives a permanent passive boost to whatever they are learning or doing.

Each time Critical Eye is activated, the Player gains a 1 to 5% increase that is randomly assigned.

The Player also has a chance to fully learn and understand a skill, technique or ability every time Critical Eye is activated.]

If I had been drinking something, I would have done a spit-take.

"Did I just get a massive power-up?" I mumbled in disbelief.