บท 12: Training for the Second Wave
Nui really did join Zhan in his private gym the next day. He also invited Shia, but she declined, saying that she 'had an actual job and responsibilities'. He felt like this was a jab at him, because it was.
Nui already felt embarrassed by the training attire that Shia prepared for her.
'Do girls really wear this sort of thing in public? Ah, I've never been to a gym before, so maybe they do…' Nui wasn't the athletic type, she made sure to walk everyday and ate a proper diet to stay healthy and slim, but that was about it.
She was wearing a pair of pink shorts that just about covered her butt, along with a white, loose fitting vest that didn't quite cover her stomach. She felt exposed…
Zhan secretly thanked Shia for providing these clothes in his mind, though he was certain that she didn't really think about this outfit, or else she wouldn't have left Zhan alone with Nui whilst she was dressed like this. He showed nothing on his face though, and began taking her through a series of athleticism tests.
First, a 100m sprint. There was a 100m track inside this private gym. Even most large public gyms wouldn't have such an indoor facility, but Zhan was filthy rich and didn't care for normal material possessions anyway.
Zhan stared at the timer in disbelief.
"Hah…hah…" Nui was panting heavily and sweating only slightly. She felt quite light headed and like her body was too hot. She stumbled slightly, breaking Zhan out from his daze and catching her. After recovering for a minute, she was more or less fine and stood up whilst blushing.
He stared at her deeply, hardly able to believe what he had just witnessed.
"W-what is it?" Nui asked uncertainly.
"Your time…was 22.3 seconds. That's…not too great." He was being generous, this time was really awful. Usually, only someone with a physical disability, a child, or someone severely overweight, would get such a time. She was also unusually exhausted afterwards, and he noticed that her body overheated. He guessed that this overheating was related to her mutation, perhaps her sweating response was impacted.
"Oh…" Nui just nodded. She didn't expect that she would be very good anyway.
They went on to do the 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m. All of her times were beyond awful. She couldn't even finish the 1500m and ended up walking the final third.
"Nui, do you have some sort of medical condition?" Zhan asked seriously.
"Huh?! No!" She felt like he was being a little bit too harsh.
"You, you can't judge me by your standards Zhan, you're obviously really strong!" She protested.
"No, your times on these distances are below the average for a 10 year old child."
"R-really?" She blinked. When Zhan nodded, she felt a bit pathetic.
"Hmm…let's try some other things."
In the end, Zhan had her try a variety of different feats of athleticism. Weight lifting, circuit training and so on.
She was terrible at everything. Both her endurance and strength were far below average, even for a girl her size. They 'only' went on for three hours with plenty long breaks between each task, but she was hardly able to move by the end of it.
"I'm sorry…" She collapsed to the floor and was unable to get back up. By this point, Zhan honestly felt bad. He thought that she should at least be good at something, but no…her athletic ability was pure trash. It was so terrible that he even thought she might be disabled, leaving Nui feeling somewhat humiliated.
"You did well Nui." Zhan squatted down besides her and patted her head. She was too tired to even flinch as she usually would, but opened her eyes and looked at him doubtfully. Zhan chuckled, then said:
"You pushed yourself until this point, not many people would do that. Even if your abilities aren't great now, you can improve if you train like this until the second wave."
Honestly, he thought she needed this. Her endurance and sprint speed were too miserable, to the extent that she could easily be subdued by a ten year old child. Her survivability chances were extremely low with her current abilities. Well, even after training, she still wouldn't be able to get through this on her own…
For a full hour, Nui was too exhausted to do anything but lie there. She watched Zhan continue with his training. He had completed every test alongside her, but he still had plenty of energy left in the tank.
She was able to stand up to leave after an hour, but she chose to stay and watch. After experiencing the difficulties of this training herself, she was in awe of Zhan, who could somehow continue endlessly. He would push himself to the point of total exhaustion, but then recover within a minute and do it all again.
Whether it was the physical or mental endurance Zhan possessed, Nui couldn't help but admire him. He continued training throughout the day, only stopping to eat and drink, until Shia returned. Shortly after Shia's return though, Zhan received a phone call.
He quickly answered the phone, as there were not many people who had this number. He was waiting on a phone call from the old man, and as expected, his criminal voice blared into Zhan's ears from the speaker.
"There are only five left, but I can't get anyone else to fight. These things are a pain to feed and keep, my men keep getting injured just trying to look after them. I can't arrange any more official bouts, but since you wanted to fight them one by one so badly…people will pay to watch if we stream it, so I'll send a limo now if you're ready."
Zhan's eyes lit up and he quickly excused himself, telling the girls that he would be away for the night. After he left the building with clear excitement in his eyes, Nui turned to Shia curiously.
"Where does Zhan go? Like before, he said he was training, but he was away from his apartment for two days…"
"I don't know." Shia sighed. "But it's definitely suspicious. If the world wasn't in such a state, I would never let a girl like you hang around a guy like him."
"Eh? Girl like me, what does that mean?" Nui blinked innocently. Shia smiled when she saw such a cute expression. She really hoped that this girl would make it through the second wave without too much trouble.
**********
CHI!
Zhan stabbed through the heart of his third opponent of the night as he panted for breath. A large cut was oozing blood from his chest, but it would soon stop bleeding with his vitality.
The first two opponents weren't much trouble, he could have even fought them together. They were similar creatures, pig sized rabbits with razor sharp fangs and a shocking movement speed. Perhaps they would have caused him some trouble a week ago, but the current Zhan was much stronger than before.
This third opponent was more tedious. It was another wolf, an ordinary wolf, aside from its huge size and shocking howl that carried a tangible force capable of throwing him backwards. He felt like his organs were dislodged, but this feeling faded over the next few minutes.
Zhan looked at his status panel and pondered.
-
Race: Human (Civilian)
Strength: 4.2
Defence: 2.2
Agility: 4.5
Stamina: 4.3
Vitality: 6.0
Perception: 2.8
Intelligence: 1.6
Will: 5.0
Life-points: 1.5
-
He still had some of the points he gathered from the previous battles a couple of days ago, whilst he earned a few more points from these three beasts also. Zhan wasn't exactly sure where to add the points. Previously, he only added points to help him survive each dangerous situation, but he had some time to play with now and wanted to pick the smartest option.
An obvious area that he was lacking, was his defence. Humanity's defence was already far below other animals of similar size and weight, but now, his body was like a paper bag against the mutated beasts.
He decided to add 0.8 points into defence. He added the points all in one go, because he wanted to experience this 'blurred consciousness' effect first hand.
This was the most points he had ever added into a single stat at once. It was a good job that he was sitting down as he waited to recover, because his mind became hazy, he was overwhelmed by dizziness and nearly fell onto his back. He put his hands up and managed to prevent himself from toppling over, but it was another three minutes before Zhan's mind returned to normal.
His skin, and really his entire body, felt like it was burning for another two minutes, then finally, the addition of the life-points came to an end.
'So it really is exponentially worse. Adding 0.5 points wasn't nearly that bad…it might also be because my defence was quite low to begin with.'
The audience seating was empty right now, aside from a few members of the syndicate who were watching out of interest. These battles were something Zhan requested of them, and since he didn't want any payment in return, they were happy to oblige.
They were going to slaughter these beasts anyway, since the arena was currently officially closed due to certain internal matters, and the beasts were a hassle to keep. With Zhan offering his services, they decided to live stream the fight to a few interested patrons and earned some money out of it.
Zhan's condition for this was that he could fight the beasts one by one, taking as long as he needed between each fight. He made sure to fully recover for each fight and even took 3 hours between the third and fourth fights. This was probably quite annoying for those people watching, but whatever, he wasn't getting payed for this so he owed them nothing.
The reason he wanted to fight the beasts rather than just killing them outright was so that he could gain more experience fighting mutated creatures. Battle experience was invaluable, perhaps even more so than physical prowess. For the second wave in three weeks time, he wanted to be absolutely prepared.
No, he shouldn't just be thinking about this as a 'second wave'. He should be prepared for the worst case scenario, where the earth was plunged into chaos and never again recovered. With mutated beasts covering the planet for a full month, he doubted that the issue would be resolved within a month after the end of the wave.
And as for the third wave…this wave was endless. It wasn't a wave, but an entire ocean. Mutations of animals and plants would continue without end, as would mutations of humans who were affected by the beasts and plants.
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