Chương 124: A Body Reforged

[Strength +1] [Agility +1] [Endurance +1] The greenish system messages that flashed before my eyes gave me far more satisfaction than the familiar heaviness in my leaden muscles. Finally. The long-awaited increase in my stats. To earn that boost, I had practically moved into the gym. I clocked in when the city sank into the evening twilight and the last clients headed home, and I left only with the first rays of sunlight, when the first early birds began showing up in the parking lot.

That schedule, combined with my questionable obsession with pushing maximum weights, had started rumors among the staff. The people at the front desk apparently decided they had a vampire working out right under their noses, one with an inexhaustible supply of stamina. I could not have cared less about their theories, thanks to my upgraded brain chemistry, which instantly dumped that kind of informational noise into the trash.

Their "random" inspections during my sessions, however, were starting to get on my nerves. One minute the cleaning manager would suddenly remember a mop forgotten in the corner, and the next the duty administrator would stroll in with a concerned look and a complimentary bottle of water. They were all trying to catch me off guard and personally make sure I was not replenishing myself with the fresh blood of virgins in the dark.

I was a rational man, and I considered making a public scene an inefficient use of resources. So I simply went online and left a dry, factual review with a low rating. It worked. The intrusive attention disappeared as if by magic, but in exchange, the staff started looking at me as though I had personally set fire to their family heirlooms. My desire to change locations grew with every passing day.

The only thing keeping me here was that, in this part of the city, it was the only elite facility with proper soundproofing and round-the-clock access. I peeled off my sweat-soaked shirt and walked over to the full-length mirror right there in the gym to assess the changes. Nothing. Absolutely no visible change. It was strange. Previously, every increase in my physical attributes had come with a clear anatomical response: my muscle fibers grew in volume, my definition changed, and my veins became more prominent.

All within the boundaries of basic biology. I was not a mage or some fairy-tale character capable of generating physical strength out of thin air or pumping my body full of ethereal mana. My basic framework was protein, bone, and biochemistry. I dismissed the possibility of an interface error immediately. The system had not shown any obvious glitches so far. Besides, I could feel the increase in power throughout my entire body.

To make sure, I walked over to the rack and, without any warm-up, pressed the fully loaded barbell overhead in one short, controlled motion. A week ago, that weight would have made my hands shake and my ligaments groan under the strain. Now, the bar itself was clearly too light to give my muscles the necessary stimulus. I stepped onto the medical scale in the corner. Another advantage of expensive establishments was that their measuring equipment was perfectly calibrated.

The digital display showed the increase: six pounds since the beginning of my week-long marathon. Not dramatic, but certainly noticeable. Which raised the obvious question: where had those six pounds of density gone? If my exterior remained unchanged, then the structural modifications had to be happening deeper inside. I mentally descended into my memory palace, pulling up the consultation protocol with Selina from the archives. We had gone over the anatomical transformation following my last evolution.

She had pointed out that after several biological vestiges, such as the coccyx and appendix, were eliminated, hidden volume had been freed inside my abdominal cavity and along my axial skeleton. My external silhouette remained unchanged, but my body's internal spaces had been optimized for denser, more efficient muscle structures and reinforced tendons. All right. The anatomical mystery was solved. Now I had to deal with the equipment problem. Continuing my training here was no longer an option.

And it was not even because of the staff, who seemed genuinely convinced I was some creature from a nightmare. I could live with the suspicious looks. The real problem was the equipment. The machines in this gym had been designed to meet the demands of elite Olympic athletes, but my current rank had already surpassed that threshold. I simply could not get enough resistance to trigger hypertrophy.

And the equipment I had been abusing over the past few days was already showing signs of critical wear: the chrome-plated bar had developed a noticeable bend, while the rubber belt on the heavy-duty treadmill had cracked and partially melted. If I did not want to turn someone else's property into scrap one day and get buried under lawsuits for damages, I needed to leave now. I could scour the private clubs in other parts of the city.

Los Angeles was enormous, and if you had the money, you could probably find strength-training equipment designed for primates. But there was another option: order a welding machine, learn some basic metalworking, and design custom equipment around my specific metrics. In the long run, that looked far more practical and safer. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. There was nothing left for me to do here.

I picked up the empty five-gallon bucket that had contained the concentrated protein mix I had been downing between sets to keep my body supplied with building materials without having to stop for meals. Everything was strictly according to protocol.

"All clear," I said, placing the black magnetic chip on the front desk.

"Have a good one."

"Yeah," the guy on duty muttered. From the look on his face, you would have thought my mere presence had ruined his entire day. I clearly had no intention of coming back here. A little simmering resentment from the service staff was an unpleasant thing. With people like that, you were always waiting for some petty act of sabotage. They might cut off the hot water in the shower or reset the climate-control settings. I stepped through the heavy glass doors and onto the street, then took a deep breath.

The cool morning air after the stale atmosphere of the gym felt almost perfect. The parking lot was empty. This time, everything had gone exactly according to schedule. Maggie and I had driven to the gym together, but her session had ended earlier, so she had taken the car and gone back to the apartment. I would have to cover the distance on foot. A leisurely stroll was not an option. Neither were the last few drops of my stamina and a full-speed run, as my muscles flatly refused to cooperate.

I could call a cab, but why pay for a ride when my body was perfectly capable of handling the trip without my direct involvement? [Special Command: Reach the apartment as quickly as possible.] Hyperfocus kicked in, and my peripheral vision instantly collapsed into a narrow tunnel. The world shrank down to a razor-thin field of focus. My legs launched into a full-speed sprint on their own, my biomechanics operating at such speeds that everything around me blurred into continuous streaks of color.

On the main road, I easily passed a sedan traveling at around forty miles per hour. Judging by the driver's reaction, he nearly drove straight into the nearest streetlight. The route cut through a local park, where a large unleashed Doberman suddenly charged across my path. In the first second, it tried to spring an ambush. In the second, it got a faceful of dust from my sneakers. By the third, it had simply stopped dead, watching its target disappear into the distance.

A solid concrete barrier blocked my path, a typical fourteen-foot park barricade. Going around it would have taken me thirty seconds even at my current pace. Inefficient. My legs worked like steel springs. A powerful upward thrust launched me into the air, and I cleared the barrier without touching it with my hands or using a pole. I landed in a soft shoulder roll to bleed off the kinetic energy.

A random couple on a bench nearly dropped their coffee cups, but I was already out of sight before their brains had even processed what they had seen. I had made far too much noise. Next time, I needed to add a strict priority to the movement protocol: Stealth. It would also give me a chance to test my abilities in an urban environment. I might have to download a few courses on concealment first. A couple of minutes later, I was already standing outside my building.

The elevator doors in the lobby offered their usual convenience, but the autonomous recommendation system rejected the option. The algorithm was optimized for maximum speed, and the elevator, with its relays, door delays, and moving cables, was nothing but wasted time. My legs mechanically took the stairs at the rapid-fire pace of a sewing machine, skipping two steps at a time. Each flight took less than a second. Up. Back in school, I had never made it down to the cafeteria that fast.

I stopped in front of my apartment door, and the haze of hyperfocus cracked apart, returning full control of my senses. The shadowy tunnel of vision dissolved, restoring color and depth. At the same moment, a dull, dry pulse of migraine struck the back of my skull, as though someone had shoved my brain into a microwave for a couple of seconds. Nothing serious. It was not as though I had been calculating complex trajectories or performing the kind of computations that made my brain feel like it was melting.

Still, the backlash from letting the processor work autonomously had made itself known. I immediately wanted to press something cold against the back of my head. I turned the key in the lock and walked straight into the kitchen. A little surprise was waiting for me inside. Stephanie was sitting at the table with a cup of tea. I had not seen her in a week, ever since the incident with Leon, and honestly, I had been perfectly fine without her company.

Somehow, Maggie had managed to get the point across that people like Leon were best avoided altogether.

"Tom?" She froze with the cup at her lips, staring at me as though a ghost had just appeared in front of her.

"You... you're still in town?"

"I actually live here," I said dryly, pulling a bag of frozen vegetables from the freezer. I pressed the cold against the back of my head. It helped.

"Yeah, of course. I know that." She lowered her eyes to the table, visibly embarrassed.

"I just haven't seen you all week... I thought you'd moved out or flown somewhere for work." I silently sat down on the edge of a chair, understanding how she had reached that conclusion. I had spent the last few nights at the gym and most of the days holed up in my room with the door closed. Whenever she came over to see Maggie, we simply managed to miss each other.

"And also... Tom." Stephanie gave me a hesitant look.

"Thank you."

"For what?" I asked without much emotion.

"Well... Maggie explained what was really going on with Leon. That he just wanted to take advantage of me when I wasn't in my right mind... God, I was such an idiot," she murmured, her shoulders slumping.

"And Maggie told me you stepped in and protected me." The situation had the faintest whiff of a misunderstanding. Pretending to be some noble savior would have been foolish, while reducing everything to a simple coincidence would have been counterproductive. I glanced toward the window. Maggie was standing by the windowsill like an examiner watching a test, following the scene with quiet satisfaction. She looked like a mentor whose student had finally mastered the basics.

Apparently, she was waiting for some kind of response from me.

"You made a mistake, misjudged someone, and learned from it." I got up from the chair and put the cold pack back in the freezer.

"The important thing is not to make the same mistake again." Stephanie gave a barely perceptible nod, while Maggie favored me with an almost imperceptible smile. The courtesy protocol had been fulfilled, and I retreated to my room with a clear conscience. It was time to get down to serious business. An email notification had just arrived: I was eligible to choose a specialized division within the Awakened Corps.