Ascension: Online

I still can't believe I just secured myself 75,000 gold that easily. In all honesty, I thought 10,000, Ling Ye's initial offer, was already too much. However, he ended up taking my expression the wrong way and raised the reward money to 50,000. Then my instincts, known as human greed, kicked in and took control over my entire body. Still... a little greed couldn't hurt every now and then, as long as I didn't give in to temptation.

[It seems luck is on your side today, human. And it has nothing to do with your LUC stat.]

"Hm... yeah, I guess so," I replied calmly as I continued walking. By this point, I had gotten used to A.R.X.A. randomly start talking to me... especially after that shower incident. Not much could frighten me after that.

[How do you plan on dealing with Qin Yao?]

"Deal with him? I'm too lazy for that. If he wants to take all the credit, that's fine by me. I just want my due rewards. Participating in this hunting party will be a good chance for me to farm some more XP and stat levels passively, without using any SP. The Magic Beasts could also drop some good items for me - and I get 75,000 gold on top of all of that? I'm not about to complain."

[... You are indeed different from most humans. Perhaps that is why I developed an interest in you.]

"You know, you say things that can be taken the wrong way," I remarked smugly. "If you weren't an artificial reality xenobiotic apparatus, and instead were a normal girl, I would've thought you were confessing just now."

[...] A.R.X.A. was left speechless, for better or worse. Probably for worse.

We soon reached the western gates. Qin Yao wasn't there yet - as expected. He was probably eating breakfast. Because I was bored, I decided to test if I could raise my stats without battling enemies. In other words... could normal workouts improve my STR stat?

The gate had been completely broken down by the Magic Beasts, so plenty of stone rubble was lying around. I picked up a small piece and gauged its weight.

"Hm... too light."

Picking up a slab that appeared to be larger and thus heavier, I tried weighing this one. It was almost three times the weight of the one before.

"Okay, this should be fine for now," I murmured before getting into a plank position and balancing the rock on my back. Taking a deep breath, I did a push-up. And another.

"One... two... three..."

Ngh... this was harder than I expected.

"Ten... eleven... twelve..."

I can... still go...

"Twenty... twenty-one..."

"Uh... what are you doing?"

"Huh?" I stopped before turning my head and looking up.

A girl around my age was standing there with one eyebrow raised, looking at me like I was some sort of weirdo. She had curly velvet hair and similarly colored eyes. She couldn't exactly be called beautiful, but she wasn't ugly, either.

I then discretely used 'Inspect' on her, just because I wanted to try the skill out.

[Name: Chiaki Furuwa]

[Gender: Female]

[Race: Human]

[Level: 10]

[STR: 20]

[AGI: 20]

[INT: 20]

[DEX: 20]

[MAG: 0]

[LUC: 10]

It seemed that she was the same level as me, with an overall balanced stat distribution. That said, her MAG stat was exceptionally low and stood out from the rest of her relatively balanced stats. I didn't know why, but perhaps this Chiaki Furuwa person just disliked magic. I didn't know if she learned about hidden arts yet, but I wanted to learn more about them as soon as possible. I also noticed one more thing - her name was Japanese. I couldn't really ask her about that though, since then she would know I got her name somehow.

"What do you mean 'huh'?" she said in disgust. "Why the heck are you doing push-ups with a rock on your back, in broad daylight?"

I slowly got up from the ground and dusted my clothes off. Not that it helped all that much.

"I was working out," I replied calmly. "Besides, why do you even care?"

"W-Working out? Here?" she attempted to hold back her laughter. "Please, this is a video game! What is doing push-ups going to do? Only spending SP will increase your strength, dumbo. I thought that was common sense, but I guess not, after seeing you."

"Look... do you have business with me?" I asked, changing the topic and slowly getting irritated with this girl.

"With you? No. I'm here to join the hunting party or whatever. They offered me 75,000 gold. Why the heck would I not join? Besides, I can gain lots of levels from this, I can feel it!"

"What a coincidence. I am as well," I replied in a dead tone.

"Hm? You're participating too? Well, looking forward to cooperating with you, I guess." Furuwa shrugged, eyeing me from head to toe with skepticism practically written on her face.

"Yeah? I'm afraid I can't say the same to you," I chuckled.

"W-Wha-" she looked me in the eyes, furious. "Are you saying you don't want to work with me, Mr. Doing-Workout-In-A-Video-Game?"

"You said it, not me."

I began to walk away while bringing the rock with me, hoping to find somewhere I could do push-ups in peace.

"Tch... I swear, why has every other player I've met in this game so far been such dickheads? First that annoying Qin Yao, and now this guy... ugh," she muttered in frustration as I disappeared from sight.

*****

Around half an hour later, I reached my limit. I had walked out of the Tianyin City western gates earlier to do push-ups. Luckily, there weren't any Magic Beasts or people by the name of 'Chiaki Furuwa' too close by, so I was able to do my training in peace. That said, my stamina had a limit, so I was forced to stop after a while.

I got up and walked around slowly for around a minute or so. According to Hina-nee, sitting or lying down immediately after vigorous exercise was bad for my cardiovascular system, so every time I finished working out, she would force me to walk around in circles for a little while before I could finally rest. That eventually grew into a habit of my own, and has stuck with me ever since - even if I was in a whole different world.

As I walked, I opened up my System, and saw that my STR stat had went up from 40 to 41. Not much of an improvement for a whole half hour of doing push-ups, sit-ups, all kinds of exercise, but still, it was something. At least, through this experience, I discovered that this type of training can really help level up my stats and help me grow stronger. Now I had something to do in my free time. The more powerful I grew, the closer I was to gaining the 'Awakening' described by A.R.X.A., after all. After that, I could search for the eight tablets scattered across Ascentia, and eventually return home.

But the question was... did I really want to return?

I then noticed the sound of chatter coming from Tianyin City, and headed back in through the destroyed gates, putting this internal dilemma away to the back of my head - possibly forever.