Chapter 9: Slave Priest
'Damn... I can't move...' Ramero hisses in pain while lying on the rough ground.
Currently, he's in a condition that is way worst than the first day he joins in with the other Gladiators. Out of the Gladiator, Laughing Butcher is the one having fun the most beating Ramero to let out his stress about the upcoming sparring tournament.
Ramero doesn't know what about the sparring tournament made them stressed like this.
But from the looks of it, this sparring tournament should influence their standing or reputation, and he was beaten unfairly due to them stressing out about that. Now his face is bloated, and his body is filled with bruises all over.
On top of that, he occasionally coughed up blood due to his riled insides.
It was so bad that he can't finish the Main Quest to gain the Rejuvenation he very much needed, he was absolutely defeated after he finished the push-ups and squats. Ramero needs to rest the night and try again tomorrow.
'Can't I really escape from this place? I mean, I can still get stronger somewhere else...'
[No, the user under no circumstances is allowed to leave the Gladiator School of Tyranny]
Upon reading the system's message Ramero can only sigh, his mind already instinctively catches the pattern and habits of the guards and he's confident that he can leave this place and start somewhere else where he is allowed to grow if he wanted to.
Somewhere like an actual school or becoming a thief would be a great idea.
But Ramero got absolutely blocked by the system telling him that the environment here is perfect for training him, and he's not allowed to leave this place until he finished all of the Main Quests and reaches the next rank.
'Well, I did want this kind of life. Stop being a pussy and deal with it, Ramero!'
Ramero tries to cheer himself up as he intends to sleep, he's already started worrying about tomorrow's sparring tournament due to his condition right now. But his thought got dispersed when he heard footsteps approaching.
They were light footsteps and heavy footsteps, one of them is definitely a guard.
Some of the guards in pairs always patrol the entire jail cells during the night fearing that the Gladiators tries to escape, Ramero has already counted that they patrol every hour or so.
Pretty laid back but he doesn't make the rules.
Not minding the footsteps since it's probably not meant for him, Ramero pays the footsteps no mind and closes his eyes intending to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day, after all, he needs to get as much rest as possible.
Although he tries to sleep, he heard the footsteps stop right in front of his jail cell.
Ramero frowned and quickly opens his eyes when he heard his cell locked is being opened, he glanced to the side and finds a guard holding a torch alongside a woman wearing a blue robe entering his jail cell.
In reflex, he sits up and looks at the two warily. 'What do they want now...'
While looking at the two of them, Ramero's attention was pulled to the woman that looks to be a priest. She's holding a staff with both hands, has long and thick wavy blue hair that looked like waves of the ocean, and wears an indifferent expression on her face.
'I bet she hasn't smiled that much in her life'
That is what he thought when he saw the woman's indifferent expression. But aside from her charms, Ramero saw that her hands are chained together similar to him when he was in the underground jail cell.
'She's a slave too...' he thought while looking at the chains.
"Get it done, but don't use a magic spell on him. We have others that needed that" the guard said.
Upon hearing this the woman kneeled in front of Ramero gracefully before she points at Ramero's hand with her slender index finger, "May I...?" she asked with a soothing voice, asking for Ramero's hand.
Despite being skeptical, Ramero lends her his hand hesitantly.
"Look into my eyes, I won't hurt you" grabbing Ramero's hand gently, the woman asked lightly.
Ramero doesn't feel like looking at the woman's eyes, he just knows that this world has magic so how can he be sure that the woman really doesn't want to hurt him? But under the glare of the guard, he decided to comply and look at the woman's glowing ocean-blue eyes.
It feels weird and calming to look into the woman's eyes.
But that didn't last long as the woman retracts back her hands and takes out a potion from her leather waist bag, it contains blue liquid inside it, "Drink this, it'll heal your internal wounds", the woman hands the potion over to Ramero before she stood up.
Giving Ramero a light smile, the woman turns around and left the cell.
Looking back at the blue potion in his hand, Ramero paused for a second, 'I don't sense any bad intention from her, what could go wrong from drinking this?' he thought, trying to convince himself.
Just then, a message from the system appeared.
[Does the host wants to scan the potion?]
'Wait, you could do that? Then scan it and tell me what it is!' Ramero thought in surprise.
If the system has this kind of feature then he would definitely use it, being too cautious is way better than not being cautious at all. Living in this new world, everything is new to him so he needs to always be on guard.
[Scanning...]
After waiting for a moment, the scan finished a couple of seconds later.
[Healing Potion - Rank 2]
A potion made from clear water, wine extract, and crushed blue parsley leaf. It's mainly used to treat light internal injuries that are caused by a basic spell, it can also help alleviate stomach pain or other light internal sicknesses.
Upon reading the description, Ramero shrugs his shoulders and chugs the potion.
Like a calming herbal tea that is made of the rarest leaves, the liquid brought a warming sensation wherever it touches. It started from the inside of his mouth, throat, and all the way to his stomach. It's refreshing, unlike the medicine back in his home world.
Not long after that, the pain inside his body started to disappear little by little.
About five minutes later Ramero was surprised when he can actually sit up, the potion did his body wonders as the only pain he has left was the wounds and bruises all over his body. But the injuries inside his body are completely healed, leaving not even a trace of it.
Ramero smiled while looking at his body, "Nice! I can get back to training again!"
Looking at where the woman just left, he thanked the woman as he now can get back to training again. Despite it's not her pure intention to help him, this is still a good outcome and he can't recover quickly without her help.
'The school probably healed us since tomorrow is the sparring tournament...' Ramero thought.
Since he has been hurt a couple of times which would definitely require treatment from the woman, Ramero finds that either that is the case or the school only deemed him in need of recovery after the fierce beating he received.
With that out of the way, Ramero instantly started running inside his jail cell.
Although he doesn't give a solitary damn about tomorrow's sparring tournament, he doesn't want to be beaten half to death all the time. Ramero decided that he would finish the second Strong Mind Strong Body main quest this night, he didn't care if he doesn't get to sleep.
No matter what, this night he would keep going until he complete it.
With the 12 attributable stats that he received from leveling up, Ramero puts 10 points into his strength stats while the rest into his constitution stats. There's no need for him to add his dexterity, his main focus right now is completing the quest.
Despite that addition, he still can't complete the main quest, just a little bit more to complete it.
Yesterday night he managed to complete the main quest five times which is quite a lot before going to sleep. Usually, he only managed to do three or four, it depends on whether he got beaten by the Gladiators that day.
If he got beaten then he would have a tough time doing the first set of exercises.
Rejuvenation helped him with the next few sets that he was going to do that night, but the first set always takes a huge chunk of his time, sometimes it would take three hours to finish the first set which already nearing midnight.
But the last couple of days he has received fewer and fewer beatings, but today it was the worst.
Now that he has fully recovered, he dedicated his time and energy to completing the main quest. Ramero is currently level 6 right now, and he intends to clear the main quest and raise his level in preparation for tomorrow.
With that, only the sound of Ramero grunting and panting can be heard in his jail cell.
Ramero is fully immersed in the exercises as he already had enough of getting beaten around, tomorrow he would defeat the opposing Gladiator that is matched against him. 'If not then I would need to endure more bullies from the other Gladiators, this is my chance to earn their respect by winning against my foe Gladiator'
About four hours passed, and the sound of snoring can be heard all around the jail cells.
In the last couple of hours, Ramero managed to complete five sets of the main quest and now is almost finishing his sixth. Sweats already drenched his entire body, but his body can keep on going with the help of Rejuvenation.
Doing one last push-up, a dinging sound rings inside his head.
[Congratulation on completing the Strong Body Strong Mind Main Quest! The host has the normal rewards for having to rest in between and received 50 Points, 50 Exp, and Rejuvenation]
[50 Points will be instantly deducted to pay the host's debt]
[Remaining debt: 46,390 Points]
Panting heavily before leaning on the wall, Ramero looks at the ceiling to catch his breath.
'Okay, if I push myself I could complete the second main quest. No doubt about it' Ramero thought as his body started steaming due to the Rejuvenation, he was now confident that he was going to complete the second main quest in his next set.
But before that, he spends a brief moment opening his status window.
[Status Window]
Name: Ramero Nil Elsher
Race: Human
Level: 6 (1110/1600 Exp)
Rank: Infant
Bloodline: Warrior's Descent
Active Skill(s): -
Passive Skill(s): -
Strength: 20 ->38
Dexterity: 7 -> 9
Constitution: 13 -> 20
Willpower: 10
Attributable Stat Points: 0
Loan Debt: 46,390 Points
Points: 0
Looking at his status window, he's clearly gotten way stronger compared to before.
Most of his increase came from the attributable stats and also leveling up. Aside from that, his body also gains stronger naturally as it gives him 2 points in strength, 1 point in dexterity, and 3 points in constitution.
With this kind of stats, he should be able to at least beat the weakest Gladiator in the school.
But even though he's able to beat the weakest Gladiator, there's a high probability that he wouldn't get matched with the weakest Gladiator. Ramero doesn't know how the sparring tournament works, if it's a random pairing then he would be in danger.
Due to that, he needs to get as much stronger as possible.
Inhaling deeply the stuffy air of the Gladiator School that doesn't feel refreshing at all, Ramero stands up wanting to start the 5 km run first. Swapping the exercises is the only thing he can do to not get tired of them.
Just as straightened his back, he noticed something, 'Hmm...?'
'Why is my breath still heavy?' Ramero thought finding that he was still panting albeit not as hard as before, and this made him frown, the Rejuvenation should recover his body fully but he still feels a little bit tired which is the first time it happened to him.
Swiftly after he noticed that a message from the system appeared in his vision.
Reading the message in confusion, the frown on Ramero's face becomes even more evident as he got to the end of the message. "No way, this can't be happening..."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone