Chapter 114: A Simple Exercise I
"Since this is your first day, I’ll take it easy on you." Simon clasped his hands behind his back and allowed his gaze to drift slowly across the class.
"One hundred push-ups. One hundred sit-ups. One hundred squats. Then a ten-kilometer run around the training ground."
"Repeat the entire routine three times."
A heavy silence descended upon the training ground.
Every student stared at him as though, in that very instant, they had collectively forgotten how to comprehend human speech.
[He must be an ardent admirer of that bald fellow.]
"What?" Zac asked inwardly.
[Nothing. I was merely reminded of someone from the world before the apocalypse.]
"Who?"
[You probably wouldn’t understand even if I explained. Let’s just say he was a character from an old television series. That was his daily training regimen, and somehow, it made him absurdly powerful.]
"You’re saying he became powerful by doing this?"
[Don’t look at me like that. I’m not the one who wrote it.]
"Right. Whatever."
[Still, allow me to offer one piece of advice. Pray to whichever deity you believe in that you don’t lose all your hair.]
"Why would I lose my hair?"
Before Zac could press further, Simon spoke again. "Listen carefully. The sooner you finish, the sooner you’re free to leave."
His expression remained perfectly composed. "Assuming you’re still capable of standing."
Without another word, he walked to the edge of the training ground, lowered himself into a cross-legged position, and closed his eyes, becoming as still as a carved statue.
The moment Simon finished speaking, the students broke formation and immediately erupted into hushed conversation.
Marty edged closer and nudged Zac’s shoulder. "Why is he making us do such basic exercises? Aren’t we here to become variants, or have we accidentally enrolled in some sort of bodybuilding competition?"
Zac gave a quiet snort. "Of course you’d say that. You’ve always hated physical training."
"I still do." Marty grimaced. "It makes me sweat."
Adrian promptly inserted himself into the conversation. "Precisely," he declared. "Why must we subject ourselves to such crude exercises? The kimono has clearly lost his senses."
He brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his uniform before adding, with complete sincerity, "Besides, as a noble, I cannot be seen sweating alongside commoners such as yourselves. For your information, even my perspiration is practically a sacred elixir. I once considered bottling and selling it."
Marty slowly turned towards Zac, his expression stiff with disbelief. "Did I genuinely just hear him say that?"
"Ignore him," Zac replied with a sigh. "It’s better for your health."
A hesitant voice joined the discussion as Kelly raised her hand. "I’m a summoner. That’s basically a mage-type class, isn’t it? Why do I need physical training as well?"
Zac opened his mouth to answer, but Sabrina spoke before he could.
"That’s the wrong way to look at it, Kelly. Even if you’re a mage, or a summoner in your case, you still need a strong body."
Kelly tilted her head in confusion. "But I don’t fight directly. I normally let my summons handle everything while I stay at the back, watch the battle, and give them commands. That’s all."
"You can only stand still if your enemies allow you to," Sabrina replied. "The places we’ll be fighting won’t be smooth city streets. They’ll be forests, mountains, caves, ruins, and territories we may not even understand."
Her cold gaze remained fixed on Kelly.
"You’ll need to run, climb, dodge, and keep moving while maintaining your concentration. If you lack the stamina for that, your summons won’t be enough to protect you. And even if you never engage in close combat, enemy mages aren’t going to politely ignore you simply because you’re standing at the rear. You’ll still need to evade their attacks."
Daniel nodded in agreement. "She’s right."
He then rolled his shoulders casually and glanced around. "Why does everyone look so miserable? It’s only physical training. It’s not as though he told us to lift a mountain."
"Exactly," Zac grinned. "It’s just push-ups and a few other basic exercises. How difficult could it possibly be?"
[I doubt that...]
Zac blinked. "What do you mean?"
[You’ll find out soon enough.]
Without offering another word, the system fell silent.
The students gradually dispersed across the enormous training ground, each searching for a suitable place to begin.
Zac headed towards a small tree near the edge of the field and stopped beneath its shade. After taking a deep breath, he lowered himself to the ground.
"Let’s get this over with."
He immediately began doing push-ups.
The first few came easily, but by the twentieth repetition, his arms had already begun to tremble.
Zac frowned but continued.
By the sixtieth, his breathing had grown labored, and a fierce burning sensation spread through his shoulders and chest.
"What’s going on?" Gritting his teeth, he forced himself through several more. At the seventy-third repetition, his arms finally gave way.
Zac dropped face-first onto the grass with a dull thud, his entire body refusing to move. "What the hell? Am I really this weak without my attribute points?"
His thoughts immediately began turning against him, but he cut them off almost at once.
"No. That’s impossible."
Before awakening, he had been capable of doing well over a hundred push-ups without much difficulty. If anything, his body should have become stronger since then.
"So why do I feel like I have somehow grown weaker?" Zac slowly pushed himself off the ground and looked around.
Only then did he realize he wasn’t the only one struggling. Students across the training ground were in the same miserable state. Many lay flat on their backs, staring blankly at the bright sky as though reconsidering every decision that had led them there.
Even Daniel, the class’s resident training fanatic, was sitting on the ground, breathing heavily as sweat poured down his body.
"System," Zac called inwardly. "What’s happening?"
[I was wondering how long it would take you to ask.]
"So this is what you meant earlier."
[Five Info Points.]
Zac sighed. "When it comes to Info Points, you’re greedier than a goblin. Just tell me."
[Payment first. Answer second.]
"Fine. Take them."
[-5 Info Points.]
"Now talk."
[It’s quite simple. Over the past two months, your body has completely adjusted to your awakened strength. Your muscles, nervous system, instincts, and even your subconscious now regard that enhanced strength as your natural baseline.]
[But now that the strength granted by your attributes has suddenly been stripped away, your mind and body cannot immediately adapt to the change. Although you are still healthier and stronger than an ordinary human, your brain interprets the loss as extreme weakness.]
[That perception spreads throughout your body, making you feel far weaker than you actually are.]
Zac frowned. "Though I don’t fully understand the science behind it, I’ll trust you. Tell me what I am supposed to do now."
[That’s simple. Overpower your mind through sheer will.]
"Brilliant advice. How exactly am I meant to do that?"
[Keep exercising. Even when your instincts scream at you to stop, force your body to continue until your mind accepts its new reality.]
"And what happens if I actually die?"
[Then you die.]
"Oh, fuck you."
Muttering curses under his breath, Zac planted his hands on the ground once more.
His arms were still trembling, but he ignored it and resumed the push-ups, forcing himself through them one at a time.
As he continued, his movements grew increasingly unsteady, and every repetition felt heavier than the last. His chest and shoulders burned, sweat soaked through his clothes, and his breathing became ragged.
Even so, he refused to stop.
His mind and body screamed at him to rest, but Zac crushed those instincts beneath sheer willpower and kept going.
Gradually, the crushing weight pressing down on his body began to ease. It did not disappear entirely, but it became manageable.
As the illusion of weakness slowly faded, a faint smile appeared on his face.
"So that’s what you meant."
[Exactly. Through sheer willpower, you proved to your mind and body that you were nowhere near as weak as they believed.]
From a distance, several students noticed that Zac was still moving.
"How is he still going?"
"I thought he was finished when I saw his arms trembling."
Daniel glanced towards Zac, and something suddenly clicked in his mind. Gritting his teeth, he resumed his own training with renewed determination.
Seeing the two of them continue, the other students began forcing themselves back into motion as well.
Before long, the training ground was filled with harsh breathing, exhausted groans, and the sound of bodies being pushed beyond what their minds insisted was possible.
In the end, Daniel was the first to complete the entire routine, and Zac finished his final lap only a few minutes later than him.
Still struggling to catch his breath, Daniel looked at him with a faint smile. "No one beats me when it comes to training. Not even you."
"Wasn’t trying to," Zac replied.
To everyone’s surprise, Sabrina completed the routine not long after, becoming the third student to finish.
They all knew she was an exceptional mage with an almost unprecedented affinity for mana. What they had not expected was for her to outperform most of the class in physical training as well.
One by one, the remaining students eventually dragged themselves across the finish line.
Only after the final student completed the routine did Simon slowly open his eyes.
He rose to his feet and walked towards the exhausted class, his expression as unreadable as ever. After looking over the students sprawled across the training ground, he uttered a single word.
"Pathetic."
The entire class stiffened.
"A few simple exercises, and it took every one of you more than three hours to finish."
His cold gaze swept across them. "Don’t ever go around calling yourselves the geniuses of this generation."
Several students instinctively clenched their fists in anger. However, remembering Adrian’s punishment, they wisely kept their mouths shut.
"Do you think today’s training was about building muscle?"
"It wasn’t. It was about overcoming your own mind. The moment your bodies told you they could no longer move, most of you believed them and stopped."
His gaze sharpened. "Only two people among you realized that what was holding them back was mental, not physical."
As he spoke, his eyes moved towards Zac and Sabrina. The other students immediately understood whom he meant.