97.. 98.. 99.. 100

A hundred reps of 30kg weights in five minutes, another day of physical training completed.

My daily training wasn't consistent and changed daily depending on which part of my body i thought needed more training.

Following the information from a lot of human biology and exercises books, as well as scanning books from the "Linking Everything in the Universe" series on the relationship of the human body and exercise.

There were actually still thousands of books in the series on the other floor of the library and i had found those books there.

From the perspective of an amateur, it may look like i was just training my body at random, but professional would be able to tell after a while that my daily training had a complicated pattern to it that equally trained all parts of the body.

Today was no different i had done multiple different exercises in a differing span of time, some taking just a few minutes and some around half an hour, totaling to two hours of training a day.

And it was high-intensity training every day, how i was able to cope being a former NEET, who had a job? Spells and magic, as well as high energy supplements.

The endurance spell, for example, made it so that my body efficiently utilized the energy in my body, making my energy last around two to three times more than usual.

It kept the strain and pain of doing exercise and didn't improve your strength in any way only making you able to last longer.

Of course, I'm not like those cultivation novel protagonists that can withstand immense amounts of pain while training, nor was i like normal people who exercise and had to put up with some pain.

I had numbed the pain i felt instead with magic, and made sure that i didn't push too far past my limits in order not to hurt my body.

The scan spell was useful for this as over the month of nonstop scanning, i had sufficient knowledge on the human body to be able to effectively use scan on myself.

I could get the information of where all my energy is being put into as well as how much work each of my muscles was doing as well as their current state during my exercise.

And while you'll tell me that I'd still have to put a lot of effort into actually doing to exercises and put up with the fatigue. I had actually modified the Human Machine spell to make me partly conscious.

The Human Machine spell as previously mentioned allowed a person to do repetitive tasks by putting them in a largely unconscious state where little brain power was used and they would be like a machine that followed a set of commands and repeated it over and over.

I had modified the spell so that i was able to change the commands and actions that my body would follow while the spell was in effect, as usually, you'd have to prepare the actions clearly inside your mind before you cast it and left it to run.

My modification also allowed me to stop the spell at any time whereas normally you'd have to set an amount of time the spell would go for before stopping, or have someone break it for you.

That was one way i had avoided using any effort to exercise.

Fatigue was solved also by numbing it with a spell, though it wasn't really needed as the combination of the digestion spell, the endurance spell, and the high energy supplements.

I had used the digestion spell while eating my first burger in this world.

"Hey, Al! You finished for today? Good work!! Before you leave could you cast human machine on me for an hour? The treadmill is my least favorite exercise…"

A buff man with bright blonde hair and a goatee had called out me. His name was Clive and was regular at this gym, we had become friends a few days after i had joined the gym.

Back then i was still fat and sweaty and although i didn't mind the state of my body, it didn't mean i liked it.

No one at the gym had scorned me or made fun of me trying to get into shape.

They were actually all very encouraging and told me not to give up and that i would get my "dream body" very soon.

They must've seen a lot of people like that had wanted to get into shape but gave up halfway through.

Many of them even used their time to spot me or give me advice on what i should exercise.

Most of their advice i had already known or wasn't in line with what i wanted to do, but i had learned quite of few things that weren't from the books but from their personal experience and had gladly applied it to my training.

"You've been asking me this for the last four days, isn't that the reason you've left the treadmill for last?.."

"Haha!… It's not like i was keeping it a secret, and it's not a major problem is it?"

"No… but if you can't even do the spell yourself it'd be better if you didn't rely on someone who could, the only reason i rely on the spell is that I'm the one whos casting it"

"Don't worry about that! I'm disciplined enough to not rely on something, you should know that my motto is to do it yourself if no one else can!"

"And since that's the case, if someone else can do it you'd not bother to try?"

"Haha! You got it!"

I gave a bitter smile and shook my head towards his reply, before casting the spell onto him.

I had no worries that he didn't have the actions he wanted to do on his mind as i knew that it was always on his mind.

Clive had immediately shut up while his eyes clouded over, but still had a smile on his face as if he was having a nice dream.

He had started to run on the treadmill immediately starting with a high speed.

Al started heading for the exit in quick haste as he didn't want other people to "take advantage" of him and his spell.

Before heading out the door, he noticed another buff man with black hair and looked much older, curling a weight while doing some "paperwork" on a floating screen.

"Hey General, I'm heading out"

"hmm?" Looking up from the screen but continuing to curl the weight.

"On the dot every time eh? If you were to train for an additional two more hours everyday imagine how much more buff you could be" He shook his head as he looked Al.

"In the first place you already know that i don't want to get buff, well not to the extent that i would need to have my clothes be a couple sizes bigger like before."

"That's the cycle of training! Lose the useless fat and gain in muscle! Its the reason i recommend those who started to train while they were still flabby to keep their clothes as they would be able to wear'em later."

"If you hadn't taken those supplements or that unique training method of yours, you'd be popping out in all the right places"

The supplements General had mentioned referred to ones that were able to increase the efficiency of gaining muscles as well as compressing them to become denser instead of becoming large and bulky.

My training method also made it so that my muscles grew stronger and denser while not increasing much in size.

My previously fat body had become lean and you'd only really notice my muscles without much clothing as with clothes i just looked like i had an average build.

I wasn't like the hulk with bulging muscles nor did it look like i had much muscle at all. Looking in a mirror previously, i had thought that my build looked exactly like the majority of harem anime protagonists, just a plain body, even from afar with no clothing.

My face had lost its fat too, and i never had skin problems like pimples as i made sure even in my previous life that i had good hygiene.

Sad to say but a sweaty fat guy isn't really as popular compared to a sweaty hot guy.

I couldn't really help with the sweat back then as all fat guys sweated a lot.

I noticed that i looked a lot like how i was when i was younger, back then i was quite cute and handsome kid, pretty sure a lot of older girls in my school or the playground doted on me a lot.

General put down his weight as he leaned forwards on the counter. He eyed Al as his eyes narrowed, a slight grin coming onto his face.

"So, how confident are you in passing the... "Exam"?"

"Huh?" A look of confusion flashed on my face, before remembering the closest thing to an "Exam" at this point in time.

"The… Noraxia Academy "Entrance Examination"?"

"Yes boy! You think it was something else?"

"But why are you asking? And how'd you guess that i was participating?"

"Instincts, and with a Silver VII status, it'd be disappointed and would've dragged your ass to the starting location if had told me you weren't participating."

My Silver VII status was gained just a few days ago when i had a revaluation and had been bumped up in status.

My Vaes capacity had increased by two grades from E- to C- now having around 265% the Vaes capacity that an average person would have in their lifetime.

People would have their Vaes capacity increase naturally throughout their lives by just growing older, but the rate at which it grew would slow down at around 18 to 25 years old by around 8 to 15 times.

Any normal methods of increasing capacity such as meditation, draining your Vaes, or always using your Vaes when it is near the bottom became extremely nonprofitable.

The only reason my capacity grew so much was that i had assumed that it wanted to grow to the point that it had matched my age.

When i first came to this world, when i was still unconscious in an alleyway, i can confidently say that my Vaes capacity was non-existent, and just a day or two later, it had grown to the point it was the equivalent to an average 12-year-old.

Though an actual 12-year-old would take twelve years to have that much Vaes.

It was also because i was able to gain some methods to train my capacity as fast or even faster than before, and even be effective after i had reached the age range at which normal people could no longer increase their capacity.

My Vaes control grade had remained unchanged at A+ but the information had stated that i had improved in it by 15% since last time.

It seemed like S grade was as difficult to get as i had first assumed.

Vaes perception had improved from C to C+, though i knew it wouldn't be increasing anytime soon as my Vaes perception waa on the verge of reaching C+.

I knew because the first time i had seen a 97% beside my grade and now it was 0%, sadly though, i wasn't able to see this for my A+ grade Vaea control.

My Vaes regeneration had naturally increased, together with my training to 78 units of Vaes per minute, my Vaes bar contributing 200 units per minute to a total of 278.

That had gotten me a C+ which i was happy with as i didn't want my actual grade to be too different due to my "cheating"

For the spell evaluation, i had gone for broke and cast around a thousand spells, on purpose mind you and had gotten Lvl 9 for spell diversity, Lvl 7 for spell quantity and had not changed from my previous Lvl 6 spell quality.

I badly needed more powerful spells as the ones in the library didn't increase much, even on the higher floors.

I assumed that higher floors in the library meant better stuff but i was proven wrong…

My grade came out to be B, which can be heavily attributed to my spell diversity and quantity.

Most mages below Master status would only have around Lvl 4 spell diversity and Lvl 3 Spell quantity at most as they wanted to focus on a specific area of spells.

All of these grades added up, well i didn't really know how the grades added up, but they contributed to getting me to Silver VII status.

My new status didn't change too much but i was pretty sure i had more freedom to do things?

All i had noticed that had changed was that i could loan more money from the bank, up to 700,000 Rodes a year, still with interest and that people treated me like over 20 times more respectfully than before, well from my perspective.

My co-workers at GaiaBurgers and people at the gym still treated me the same as before, just congratulating me for my achievement happily and glad that they knew such a talented person.

"Even at Copper, I'd still participate in the Exam no matter what"

"You mean just the status right? Not the rank in strength, because if you were any less than Silver III and told me you were going to participate, I'd have dragged you back."

"Well yeah, i meant status wise, I'm not hotheaded unlike other people my age"

"Ha!" General slammed his palm against the table as his grin grew wider

"Ain't that load of shit, your eyes hold a determination and calmness unlike any other person your age I'd never seen if it wasn't for what you looked like a month ago i would've thought you'd had a terribly rough life."

I smiled bitterly at the thought of me having a hard life, while it didn't have many ups or down, didn't mean i had a neutral feeling for it.

I had actually hated living the way i lived and wanted to be just like those protagonists in the novels, manga, and anime I've watched and read.

Many say its a stupid dream and i was just escaping reality, and it was true, i actually agreed that i was escaping reality as i didn't want to live in it.

Not this reality at least, not being suicidal in the slightest and making the best of the world by indulging myself in entertainment.

I never played things like FPS shooters, Action games or Puzzle games.

I always played games that had a story to it, like MMORPGs that was like another world where millions of stories could be made, it was the reason i love anime, novels, and mangas.

All of them had a story and almost all of them were much more interesting than the life i had.

Every time i read a novel or watched an anime, whether my favorite character died or when something that would invoke a certain feeling in me would occur, i would never hold onto those feelings for long as i knew it wasn't real.

I think i had brought this way of looking at things into real life as nothing really fazed me anymore.

Not for very long at least.

Even now, though i had already confirmed that this was real life, to the extent i could confirm it, i knew that subconsciously in the back of my mind even before coming into this world, I had treated every time i saw as if it was a story playing and wasn't real.

"I'm calm.. because i feel safe? Most people usually feel calm when their life is going smoothly, i think... And my determination from wanting to enroll in Noraxia"

I tried making some bullshit as i didn't really know how to explain those.

General had raised a brow, not knowing why Al even bothered to give a half-assed reply.

"Well, in any case, make sure you don't die in the first trial, and make sure to watch your back!

A lot of nobles participating use some dirty tricks to further lessen the competition during the trial"

Nodding without taking too much note about it, whatever they had up their sleeves i was sure i could handle.

Heading out the gym's door as i headed towards my next location, my first lesson learning battle techniques.

On the way to becoming stronger once again.