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Chapter 12: Training Results

And so Yue Qiang lived three days as a livestock.

He now had two words that he was afraid to hear the most. One would be ‘eat’, and the other would be ‘sleep’. He had never imagined that eating and sleeping could turn into something this terrifying. Now he seriously sympathized with those pigs, cows and goats that were raised by humans. Think about it; every day the only thing you do other than eating was to sleep, um, and going to the toilet. Wouldn’t such a life be deathly boring?

The past three days of his life had been filled with arrangements to the brim, and yet his head was extremely empty. Every day, the thing that Yue Qiang thought about the most was still the effects of his workout. Could this method of only eating and sleeping really increase his const.i.tution; or should he say that even if he did increase his const.i.tution, would the results actually be reflected into the game?

He didn’t need to wait for long. Very soon, he would be able to see the results.

He returned to his tiny rented apartment, and turned on the computer hastily.

The booting speed remained just as quick, and within seconds he had entered ‘The Game’s’ character interface. Yue Qiang paid close attention to his own character stats.

Character Name: Yue Qiang

Cla.s.s: Student

Strength: 13 (You’re very strong and can now move even heavier bricks)

Const.i.tution: 13 (You’re so healthy it’s terrifying)

Mind 14: (You’re a perpetually calm person, and even the stark reality of your life cannot affect your mind. You can always find solace in video games)

Wealth: 2 (You’re a pauper)

Charisma: 15 (Everyone loves you, flowers bloom in your presence)

It really worked! Even though his strength had only increased by a point, his const.i.tution had more than doubled!

Const.i.tution, const.i.tution… who would’ve thought that my health would increase so much in just three short days. It really is an improbable matter. Looking back at that slightly weird training method, menu, and timetable, it seems that Luqiu Duanyi’s training is geared towards my health and not my strength since the beginning.

After Yue Qiang did a simple a.n.a.lysis, he then clicked the ‘Enter Game’ b.u.t.ton. The red, green and blue progress bar seemed slightly different in comparison to the first time he entered the game.

After a short fade in and fade out, he had appeared once again inside the house. Before he could do anything, the entire game interface suddenly underwent some changes. The interface changes were very similar to the time when he activated the ‘Dialogue System’.

System Message [Green]: You have learned the skill ‘Run’ LVL 1 , and activated the stamina gauge. Your maximum stamina is 130. Activating the running function will deplete your stamina points. Walking or staying still will recover stamina points. When stamina points reach zero, the skill ‘Run’ cannot be used.

Press and hold the tab key on the keyboard to toggle between walking and running mode.

When Yue Qiang saw the words ‘You have learned the skill’ he was even excited for a little. After all, he was a complete white board (T/N: same meaning as blank slate) in this game. Not only his stats were impossibly bad, he didn’t even have an exclusive skill. Now that he had finally seen a skill, he really was quite excited.

However, when he had finished reading the entire message, he was a bit speechless instead.

A ‘Run’ skill? How is this useful? It seemed that its only purpose would be to save time running about the map. And it would even deplete the stamina gauge?

Yue Qiang compared this to the games he had played before such as Blizzard’s ‘Diablo’ series and ‘World of Warcraft’. The in-game characters did have walking function, but it was probably that absolutely no one would use it. This was the same with domestic single player games. The moment a character had switched to walking mode, their movement speed would become terrifyingly slow.

In other games this function would only take the simple press of a key to toggle. But in this game it was actually heavily emphasized into a ‘Character Skill’.

Yue Qiang didn’t even know what he should say about this game anymore. Could it be that because he had been running every day for the past two days other than eating and sleeping, that the system had recognized that he had attained certainly level in the aspect of running? But this wasn’t a skill that could be useful inside a game.

Never mind. let’s give it a try first.

He walked out of the door. Held the ‘Tab’ key and switched into running mode!

I run, I run, I run run run!

In the blink of an eye, he had run from his own house to the blacksmith’s front door.

Hmm, this speed is faster than I thought.

Because his travelling speed had turned suddenly quick, Yue Qiang’s character ran into something and stopped continuing forwards.

System Message: You have run into the blacksmith’s furnace and received a burning effect. Lose 5 points of health per second for five seconds.

A Debuff icon appeared at the status bar beside his avatar. On his lifelike character model, the top of his head had added another red hot mark; contrasting with the three bruises from three days ago.

Okay, this speed is faster than what I imagined. This skill… is still fine, I guess.

With that ‘something is better than nothing’ mentality, Yue Qiang dragged his only skill ‘Run’ Level 1 to the first s.p.a.ce in the skill bar.

It is the only skill I’ve learned after all. Let’s just leave it like this.

At this moment, it appeared that the noise of his head knocking into the furnace was too loud, and the commotion had alarmed the blacksmith Tan Xiong.

The burly figure walked out while holding a huge sledge hammer; looking like a miniature hill. He looked once at Yue Qiang, and then three thin inward lines appeared on top of his head. Yue Qiang knew that this was an emoticon representing surprise.

“Hey, kid, I haven’t seen you in a few days and your body seemed to be much stronger than before.”

“This junior has devoted himself into thinking for a long time at home, and have finally came to a realization. Only by training one’s body, can a man protect his country. Therefore I have been training hard for the past two days.”

At first the blacksmith Tan Xiong nodded slightly to express that he was pleased, but then an even bigger surprise emoticon had appeared on the top of his head immediately after. A dialog box popped out at the bottom and the words were of much thicker font. It even had a jitter effect,

“Impossible, how did your body improve so much in such a short time? Can it be that you have met the people from Green Cow Village?”

While Tan Xiong was speaking, he could hardly conceal his astonishment at all. It was a huge contrast from his usual image of steadfastness when he was striking iron.

Yue Qiang instinctively felt that this Green Cow Village might be a very important place name inside the game. But before he could ask further, the blacksmith Tan Xiong continued, “Since your current physical strength is much improved than before, then you shall contribute your strength to our Yue State quickly.”

System Message: Tan Xiong has offered you a quest to a.s.sist in the defense of Yue Village. Do you accept?

Quest Background: Yue Village has at most three months before their survival will come to a decisive point. During such times, the more enemies are eliminated the better. Seeing that your strength has improved tremendously, the blacksmith Tan Xiong has offered you a quest with a cautious att.i.tude.

Quest Requirement: a.s.sist the villagers of Yue Village in resisting the foreign enemies. Protect the ‘Giant Crossbow’, so that it is not destroyed by the Zhao State soldiers.

Quest Reward: A weapon.

Warning: The difficulty of this quest is Dark Red. Difficulty: Extremely Hard!

Repeat! Warning: The difficulty of this quest is Dark Red. Difficulty: Extremely Hard!