Chapter 67: Super Treadmill
"I’ve been waiting for you," Vincent’s voice continued over the intercom. "Make your way to the first floor. I’m up here."
Scar let out a sharp breath, grudgingly complying. He crossed the lobby and stepped into the glass elevator, hitting the button for the first floor. The elevator began moving up.
Upon reaching his destination, the elevator stopped, and the doors and slid open, revealing the ’gym’ part of the facility.
In the center of the room, Vincent was on a futuristic exercise bike, dressed in a casual, form-fitting black workout shirt and shorts. He was pedaling at an absolutely insane, blinding speed. The rapid blur of his legs was generating a low, whistling wind throughout the room. A normal piece of gym equipment would have been crushed or melted down from the sheer kinetic force caused by his speed, but this machine didn’t even rattle. The equipments in the Speednasium were engineered with military-grade alloys and kinetic dampeners, built specifically to withstand the ridiculous forces a speedster could generate.
Vincent noticed Scar from his peripheral vision, and a warm, wide smile spread across his face. "Come on in!" He called out over the whir of the machine, beckoning him forward. His expression was incredibly lively, it was as though he was thrilled to see Scar.
This made Scar surprised. Vincent’s attitude was unexpected. This was the same person he’d taunted and ridiculed during his last visit with Felicity. He expected that Vincent would still be furious, or at least in the very least be mean to him. But the man seemed to have gotten over it.
Vincent slowly decelerated, bringing his legs down from a supersonic blur to a steady stop. He unclipped from the pedals, stepped off the machine, and grabbed a white towel to wipe the sweat from his face. He walked over to the illuminated glass refrigerator behind the bar, pulled out a blue drink, and popped the cap. He downed half the bottle in a single, massive gulp, letting out a satisfied sigh.
Then he turned back to Scar, his eyes bright with energy. "I’m really excited about our training together today, Henry. I have a lot of things planned for us."
Scar scoffed, leaning casually against a nearby pillar. "Can we just get this over with? I don’t plan on doing another session with you after today. Just show me how to use all the equipments in this place so I can train on my own later on. Without you."
Vincent chuckled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Henry, you can’t possibly learn to use every single piece of equipment in this gym in a single day. It would take weeks, if not months, to truly get the hang of it."
Scar crossed his arms, revealing a highly cocky, challenging smirk. "Try me."
Vincent snickered, tossing his towel onto a bench. "I like your confidence." He gestured toward a row of sleek, elongated platforms near the massive windows. "Alright. Let’s start with the basics." He walked over to the platforms. "These are the kinetic treadmills. They are designed to help push a speedster to their limit, allowing them to break past their mental and physical barriers without needing to run wildly around the city endangering civilians. They also calculate exactly how far you can go, how long you can sustain top speeds, and track your biometrics in real-time."
Scar walked closer, his eyes scanning the treadmills. He admired the flawless, seamless design and the heavy-duty mechanics hidden beneath the running belt. "If I run at my top speed on this, won’t it just break?"
"Nah," Vincent chuckled, patting the reinforced side of the machine. "Everything in here... every single piece of equipment you see, has been built specifically to withstand the massive pressure and raw kinetic force a speedster generates. They’re incredibly durable."
Scar hummed thoughtfully, unzipping his green tracksuit jacket. "Alright. Let me give this a try," he said, stepping onto the machine. The belt beneath his feet didn’t feel like rubber; it felt like a frictionless sheet of metal, designed to magnetically adapt to his footfalls. And built directly into the handrails was a touchscreen console where the runner could manually control the speed of the treadmill.
However, Vincent walked past the row of treadmills and took his place at the master console—a massive, curved holographic desk that fed him real-time biometric data and gave him full control over the machines.
"For normal athletes, treadmills start at one or two kilometers an hour," Vincent explained. "But for a speedster, our baseline warmup starts at 100 km/h. The belt will forcefully rotate at that speed. You have to match it, or it will throw you off. Ready?"
Scar settled into a sprinter’s stance, his eyes locking onto the digital display on his machine. "Hit it."
Vincent tapped a button on the master console. The belt instantly whirred to life, humming with magnetic energy. Scar’s legs started moving as he effortlessly matched the 100 km/h pace. It felt like a light jog.
"Increasing to two hundred kilometers per hour," Vincent announced.
The belt speed increased beneath him, forcing Scar to also increase his pace. He accelerated wildly, his legs becoming a blur. The kinetic dampeners within the machine absorbed the massive shockwaves of his steps, redirecting the force so the floor didn’t shatter.
Then, the belt began to move even faster, with Vincent rapidly increasing the speed.
300 km/h. 500 km/h. 700 km/h.
Scar’s breathing grew heavier, his arms pumping in perfect, aerodynamic rhythm. The friction was generating immense heat, but the metal belt absorbed it, radiating a faint blue glow.
"You’re doing great, Henry," Vincent called out, increasing the speed once more. "Let’s see if you can handle 800."
The machine roared, spiking up to 850 km/h. Scar’s body was instantly pushed to its limit. He matched the exact speed of the belt. The wind resistance within the room whipped violently against his face. His heart hammered wildly against his ribs, his lungs burning as they desperately pulled in oxygen to fuel his cells.
Vincent immediately noticed the strain on Scar’s body, humming to himself. This must be his limit, he thought, dropping his hand from the console to focus fully on watching Scar now.
Scar gritted his teeth as he ran. He didn’t just want to maintain this speed; he wanted to conquer. He forced his legs to move faster, manually overriding the machine’s pacing. Then, he focused purely on his mechanics, optimizing his posture to reduce drag. And for the next ten minutes, he ran without stopping, forcing his muscles to adapt to the relentless output.
Eventually, he surpassed his limit.
[Speed Rate: 860 km/h]
Pain flared in Scar’s calves as he accelerated. It wasn’t the sharp pain of an injury, but the deep, searing agony of muscle fibers tearing and violently rebuilding themselves under extreme stress. His stamina bar also began to drop rapidly, even faster than before.
[Speed Rate: 870 km/h]
Scar kept running. Sweat beaded on his forehead, instantly vaporizing into steam from the sheer heat radiating off his body. His vision tunneled. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to stop, to step off, to breathe. But Scar’s willpower was forged in survival. He refused to quit. He leaned forward, slicing through the air resistance, his legs churning into an unrecognizable blur.
[Speed Rate: 880 km/h]
Just as he saw the speed rate increase once again, Scar decided to call it quits for now. He had other things to test out.
"Okay. I’m done," Scar gasped out. "You can turn it off."
Vincent quickly tapped the console, and the belt rapidly decelerated, bringing Scar down to a walking pace before finally halting. Scar stumbled off the machine with sweat trickling down his face, his chest heaving violently as he gasped for air.
Vincent walked over, his eyes wide, staring at a holographic tablet in his hand. "You just bumped your top speed by thirty kilometers an hour. And just from a single, fifteen minute run?"
"Thirteen," Scar corrected, grabbing a towel.
Vincent shook his head in pure disbelief. "Henry, that’s insane. Back in my early days, I would have to run for hours just to gain a fraction of that speed, and sometimes it wouldn’t increase at all unless I managed to expand my mana cell count first," he muttered, looking at Scar with stars in his eyes. "You are incredibly talented. It’s no surprise you’ve managed to reach such high speeds in only a short period."
"First of all, my name’s Roy," Scar corrected sharply, tossing the towel aside. "Second, it’s not talent. It’s efficiency. Stop being so dramatic."
Vincent simply chuckled. "Alright. Why don’t we try out the other equipments. I want to see more of what you can do, Roy."
Scar revealed a smug smirk. "Let me show you."
And over the next hour, Scar tested the rest of the first-floor equipment. He mounted the gym bike Vincent had been using earlier, pedaling at blinding speeds against artificial, magnetic resistance that simulated biking up a vertical cliff. Then, he moved to the Leg Press, a massive machine where he didn’t just push weights, but had to violently kick a hydraulic press upward hundreds of times a minute to build fast-twitch muscle fibers. By the time he finished, his legs felt like they were made of lead.
Vincent walked over to the glass refrigerator, pulled out a chilled bottle of that blue liquid, and tossed it to him. "Drink up. It’ll help speed up your energy recovery."
Scar popped the cap and downed the cool liquid. He felt his muscles relax slightly, the deep ache dulling. "Is this some kind of stamina regeneration drink?" he asked in genuine curiosity.
"No," Vincent corrected, leaning against the bar. "It just speeds up the natural regeneration of your energy cells. Its effect is minimal. True stamina serums that instantly grant you endurance without requiring physical rest—do not exist. The body’s mana cell regeneration is entirely tethered to physical and mental strain. You can’t just artificially bypass exhaustion in this world. It’s why we have health regeneration serums, but no stamina regeneration serums."
Scar hummed, staring at the empty bottle in his hand. It was confirmed now; There was no such thing as stamina serum in this world. His mind instantly raced back to the System. He had seen stamina regeneration and boosting serums in the system shop. If he could gather a large quantity of them, he could basically monopolize the entire market. This was an astronomical business strategy. It wasn’t just speedsters who needed endurance; heavy combat fighters, defensive mages, and basically everyone needed stamina to outlast their opponents or perform rigorous tasks. If he controlled the only true stamina serums in existence, he would have unparalleled leverage and wealth.
Scar chuckled darkly, pushing the ambitious thought aside for later. "Alright," he said, rolling his shoulders. "What’s next?"
"A race," Vincent replied with a smirk.
Scar raised a brow. "A race?"
"Yeah," Vincent said, leading him toward the elevator. "Follow me."
They both entered the elevator and it carried them up to the third floor. And when the doors slid open, Scar stepped out into a massive white room. It was the simulation chamber.