BANG!

A body came crashing down into the ground while a group of nine other students rushed towards one of their teachers. The fallen student turned into scattering flames before appearing at the door to the track as they loaded up.

Standing in one of five fields, the PE teachers were testing out a new training on the students. The task was simply, ‘fight with intent to kill your teachers’. It should be said that among the teachers was Blue Phoenix and Chasm Might.

What they wanted to test was how efficient combat at the fullest would achieve in developing a student’s skills or strength.

Lola and Robin rushed together, she was merged with Yez, whom she could now merge with, and fighting Chasm Might, he casually dodged or defended her attacks charged with the much deadlier Devil Essence.

Robin on the other hand was forced, by Chasm Might, to use Triple flow with Titan force added on top.

BANG!

His fist was met with his teachers and the obvious result happened as Robin was sent flying and the backlash of the energy caused huge damage.

Another thing that was new to the gamer space and made it easier to gauge how much force to add was a gamer hub and damage calculator. Yep, the gamer space was getting more and more like a game. In Robin’s view, he saw his 100% hp instantly drop below the 40% in a single shot.

It wasn’t simply because of the backlash though, a month was a long time as well as a short time. For someone with such an infinite amount of energy, Chasm Might had revealed his research to the trio a while back.

He named two new energies his body had produced, True Qi stored in his heart had allowed life force to infuse into it creating Blood power and True Qi storied in his upper dantian created soul power.

The presence of Blood Power was actually causing his body to start growing immensely and if the process continued, it was possible he would undergo another trait evolution like he did when he first unlocked True Qi in his youth. As for Soul power, it wasn’t exactly usable like the two other forces but its function was immensely vital to him. By channeling it constantly, Chasm Might obtained an unimaginable level of control over his own body. Furthermore, once it stabilized, he tried doing a few psychic tricks and learned that he could release it as a very powerful sixth sense. Within a range around him, that was still constantly growing as these energies worked to catch up to his true qi levels, and his body adapted and strengthened through training the channels, his strength was undergoing a massive growth.

Robin shook his hand but took off the gauntlet to find it discolored from the intense energy burn.

“Shit.” Robin complained. He could barely move his arm and could only put the gauntlet on again and channel power into his other arm for one final punch.

He gathered his power and activated his pump attack and burst forward before punching and releasing the spinning arm.

Chasm Might grinned as he reacted easily and dodged before punching his arm into the ground causing a huge collapse, which put the other incoming students off balance before he kicked Robin, hard, in the face and sent him flying. His body burned up before he hit the ground and he gasped as he appeared at the save point outside of the gym.

Robin sighed and went to a specific group. Each grouping signaled how many lives he had left.

Interestingly enough, it was a great training period for the teachers who were also reacting to the growing changes and discoveries.

Milo wasn’t fighting though, he battled with undead and none of them could even remotely react to any of the teachers. He would just be going to be killed. Most summoners were the same, that said the teachers did say they would have to learn to use this system in case they do die so they do not go into a panic.

Soon all the people with one extra life were dealt with and the teachers called out different groups of students so that they would use each other’s powers in different manners. Teamwork was a very vital thing in heroics, this was especially true when the weakness of a villain was limited to one or two people and the others could only support them and make a vital moment for them to take them down.

The teachers didn’t stop, they continued smashing everyone in groups until all the extra lives were gone and everyone was already filled with the system induced worry.

“Good job kids, honestly this is a great method to test your strengths as well as where you need work. Not to mention that it is a great workout and stress reliever.” Chasm Might said, laughing.

Blue Phoenix joined in with the laughing but none of the students were laughing because it was stressful on them.

“Alright sir, you don’t need to rub it in. Now, system, please update everyone on all their stat changes caused by revivals.” Moonlight said.

Robin was sitting with his friends when the system updated him.

Stat scan complete. Revival stat update complete.

Constitution - 12

Strength - 22

Agility - 15

Dexterity - 5

Signs of possible new trait forming. Scans suggest that it is in relation to the continuous energy burn your body suffers.

“Damn… with just a day of being made to use Titan Force alongside the others, my body is actually adapting to counter the energy burn from the backlash.” Robin said.

“Wow.” The others said.

“It’s honestly amazing, I gained 62 constitution in one go.” Shoji said.

“I didn’t gain much constitution but my strength, agility and dexterity is going up fast.” Lola said.

“How long do you think we will train like this?” Lola asked.

“I assume until our bodies become adapted to this level of stress. How long that lasts, who knows.” Robin said and sighed before updating his databook of himself and mentioning the new trait that was forming.

“I wonder why I don't show those signs?” Ruth asked after he was finished.

“Because you have True Qi and it’s not as energetic as Titan force.” Robin said.

Shoji looked at Robin curiously and then at his shadow.

“Why Mr Might is really intense recently. Does he expect me to grow fast enough with this new form of training that I will be able to compress the stone three more times this year?” he thought to himself.

When Shoji heard that, he understood why Robin was extremely tired.

“Robin, doesn’t your body explode with new potential after upgrading the level of the stone?” Shoji asked.

“Only after training, it doesn’t immediately happen.” He said.

“So that explains why your stats jumped with an average of 15.” He said.

Robin looked back for a moment and sighed. “We still have regular training after this to test out the options of the new trainer system.” He groaned.

They all laughed but they were indeed curious about this new power.

They eventually saw people of different age groups walking out and some touched the track, others brought training equipment and some touched them making them momentarily glow and such.

When the track was basically transformed into a large training field, the teachers finally talked.

“Alright, this is a test period for what we are calling the Dojo system. Confirming this with people who play games too much, they explained that the dojo, in games that have it, possess different equipment that help produce stat growth. We have confirmed that the effects act upon only each person instead of the entire field. Those that affect equipment will cause changes to the equipment itself so be aware.” He said.

Robin turned to a new page and wrote down what they explained despite being tired to make sure he understood before it was time to train.

He was obviously going to run. He casually brought the atlas stone to the track and let it float there.

“Oh, these changes are interesting. Although it is subtle, there is a strange feeling in the air.” Mr Atlas said in the stone.

“Oh you feel it. Must be a strong effect if it can make you feel it.” he said as he activated the menu.

Welcome to field training. Please allow me to explain the effects that track and field can achieve for you.

First, the basic mode of the track enhances stamina recovery, allowing you to run for longer and require less rest. This extends training time allowing for more to be done.

Second, the options for the track affect only the user. Currently the settings were predetermined and set between basic, which is default mode, easy, which raises gravity pressure by 2x, medium, which gives 5x gravity pressure, hard, which increases 10x gravity pressure and hardcore which increases gravity pressure by 20x.

It is suggested that beginners start at basic or easy mode.

Please select the difficulty you want

Basic

No changes

Easy

2x gravity

Medium

5x gravity

Hard

10x gravity

Hardcore

20x gravity

“Wow, this is a lot simpler than I expected but for the gamer space to be able to do what the gravity bracelets did is impressive. It also seems 20 times gravity is the current limit of the system.” Robin said

“Seriously? Wouldn’t that mean that in the future, Kevin would be able to control world rules imposed over people? This is basically reality bending.” Mr Atlas said.

“Well… adding a gamer system to the world rules is technically already bending a lot of rules of physics. I mean… it literally functions by using untapped potential to insert new genetic traits.” Robin said before pressing hardmode.

He instantly felt it on his body but after a moment his body sustained the pressure.

“How much did you add?” Ruth asked, behind him.

“I’m doing hardmode, I will change it back to medium if it is too much.” He said and lowered the rock and began to test the weight.

The actual gamer system began to help him calibrate the weight but it required a second calibration because the weight of 10x gravity was actually more than Robin expected.

The stone actually had to be quite light but it was also affected when dropped on him and it was like holding a mountain.

Eventually robin started to run.

This continued until he passed a lap and was surprised when the system sent an update.

Congratulations for doing 1 lap. Stress level is 67% over common parameters due to secondary equipment, do you wish to alter the effect to compensate?

“No.” Robin grunted and continued.

After half an hour, he did 5 laps before he finally put the stone down.

Congratulations for completing 5 laps under pressure over the common setting. Training system is calculating the gained stats

Results

Strength

801 - 834

Agility

639 - 669

Dexterity

667 - 701

Constitution

912 - 935

Robin froze when he saw this, “What the hell?! How did it grow by over 30 points each?” he exclaimed

Notice, training efficiency of the field has stacked with your class buff. Furthermore the field has recalculated stat reward to compensate for the extra, self induced, pressure.

The common setting at hard mode would have rewarded you with only 10 points which would have increased to roughly 17 to 19 points with class buff. Adding the training buff goes to 22 or 23 and adding the extra pressure pushes it to over 30 points.

Robin was shocked by the immense growth.

He checked his status because there were a lot of stat changes.

Status (Current)

Name:

Robin Harrison

Class:

Hero’s Disciple

Title:

Stat Points:

40

Level:

107

HP:

19,471

Stamina:

12,926

Strength

834

Dexterity

701

Agility

669

Intelligence

221

Constitution

935

Wisdom

239

“8 levels in one day?!” Robin muttered.

Notice, the body of the user is still catching up to power source capacity. Pressure from falling world power source is more intense than the users body can contain causing it to attempt to adapt at a faster rate

“Even so, it’s never been this intense?” Robin said.

“Maybe you’ve never had sufficient pressure on a daily basis. It’s not everyday that you obtain a method to die. You’ve been doing it for almost half a month already and you gained 30 levels in just a few weeks. A training focused ability might be triggering your body's capacity to adapt better.” Mr Atlas said.

Robin frowned but the next moment, a very loud rumbling came from his stomach and he knew that all of this growth wasn’t without a source. “Damn it, don’t tell me I'm going to go through another hunger period.” Robin said and let his body collapse back onto the ground.

Unlike him, the others were still running, Ruth looked at him as she passed and heard the grumbling and he felt her connect twitch and momentarily felt a slight peng of irritation.

He slightly smiled and looked at her as she passed and gave her a taunting grin, which pissed her off.

It actually made her raise the medium difficulty she was doing to hard and despite the pressure, she continued to run.

“You shouldn’t provoke her like that.” Mr Atlas said.

“I wouldn’t be me if I at least didn’t do this much.” He said to the stone.

He heard a chuckle before moving to the side to rest. He wasn’t trying to die training, he didn’t have any extra lives left anyways and he didn’t plan to die anymore, at least until the next day.

He rested there and saw the effects of the stamina recovery boost in action. It took half the time to regain his energy but his stomach was still rumbling hard so he decided to go find his teachers to see about it.

***

Milo sat in the gym, another area affected by a different gamer but he didn’t really do any training. The most he ever did was to maintain a sufficient standard of growth.

Currently however, he had a dull faced zombie out and was frowning as he used undead biology but no matter what he tried, the system would not react. Finally he lost his patience.

“System, is it possible to interface my Undead Biology ability with the gamer interface?” he asked

Notice, the system does not comprehend the request. Please explain in a more detailed and complete manner.

“I want to be able to personally add stats instead of letting my undead do it themselves. The feedback I gain is based on the effort and energy I spend modifying them but whenever I had one or two of them use the system, the increase in strength was never transmitted to me. Is there anything that can be done to allow me to access this system through my natural trait’s power?” He asked

Request understood, system analyzing request and looking for possibility of integration.

After that it went silent. Milo waited about five minutes in silence and frowned, “Hello?” He asked.

Notice, the system is occupied attempting to analyze your previous request.

He nodded and realized it might take a while so he simply decided to do things the old fashion way and just wait it out. He did small modifications to the zombie he was preparing but he didn’t give any pills or anything to it.

As for what the system did about this, it analyzed every scanned trait trying to find this and failed completely. There was not a single trait pertaining to gamer powers. It was then that the system noticed one thing. It had never analyzed the genetic construction of any gamer, beyond building their status. The main factor for this is because their gamer power manifested in their ability and connected to the system meaning the gamer space itself just received information already produced through the inborn gamer power.

When it came to this realization, it turned to all the gamers and suddenly, all of them felt a strange invasiveness, even Kevin himself felt it like an energy running through his body.

Those who were sensitive noticed but most did not.

The scan went through tens of thousands of gamers that had been gathered in Richmond and hundreds of thousands of traits were scanned and all the intricate pieces that built each power was added into a massive archive of data purely about the biological genetics of gamers.

When it finished the last one, it returned to Milo’s request and brought up a massive selection of completed powers known as gamer classes. Very similar to chef, craftsman and other such classes, each specific power unique to the class system appeared after it located people who had singular class focused powers.

They were all the classic classes, warriors, archers, marksmen and more. It identified hundreds of singular people who had the entire class spectrum but interestingly enough, the system lacked magic based classes.

Even though psychics can become wizards or magicians by merging mental energy and chi, it was lacking in the overarching spectrum and this was a major hole that it could not fix.

It began to analyze the entire structure of the genetic codes as well as the effect each class gave to their hosts before it called upon Milo’s natural power.

It eventually identified the unique sequence pertaining to undead biology and from that set of codes, it began to build a totally new code out of many smaller pieces of different class traits.

Before PE ended, it finished a stable and compatible code but it had a number of restrictions because it was a single addition of a small segment of his natural ability. Milo wasn’t a gamer after all and expanding the gamer aspect would require a more complete genetic structure in the gamer aspect.

Notice, a viable solution was discovered however the solution contains many restrictions.

Milo was surprised when it suddenly popped up making him flinch suddenly.

“Something wrong?” Robin asked.

“No. Just something I asked the system earlier.” Milo replied and looked at the following message.

The following trait was created for the requested conditions.

Trait

Description

Price

Undead Biology (Gamer)

A small segment of the Necromancer power combined with gamer DNA. This trait allows the undead biology to access the status and trait shop of affected undead under the control of the master.

Effect: Allows access to undead being’s status and shop as a proxy.

Side Effect: Only usable inside Gamer Space.

280 levels

“That’s a lot of levels.” He muttered quietly.

The user lacks any gamer based DNA so a good portion of the trait builds gamer DNA inside your body to be able to bridge this single ability from your original power into the system. It will unlock the possibility to add a full gamer type power into your body.

“That isn’t important, as long as I can buy traits for the undead and control their status, that is all I need.” He said and accepted the price.

The price was withdrawn from his inventory and he momentarily glowed as the trait was added before he updated his stats enough to incorporate.

He felt a strangeness fill his body however. It was a very weird feeling he got as it spread but it slowly faded. He summoned the undead and tried the undead biology.

Besides bringing up the normal information, he slightly smiled as he saw the status, traits and even the shop appear in the form of a menu window for the undead. It even had an inventory meaning he could use his undead as hidden storage units for sensitive things.

“Hmm? Did something change about your ability? The glow effect is a little different.” Shoji said, “Also, you’re extremely happy.”

“Stop reading my emotions. Also, I asked if the system had a trait or skill that lets me control the status of the undead I summon because usually any feedback I would otherwise get from them isn’t transmitted if they use the system on their own.” He said.

“How did that work?” Robin asked, curious.

“Based on the trait’s details, it took the part of my DNA that makes up undead biology and made a similar code but with gamer DNA attached or something.” Milo said.

“Huh? Can it do that?” Robin said.

“Is it strange? I mean, it’s scanned all of our DNA, why is it strange that gamer DNA isn’t included?” Milo said.

“I’ve never seen any gamer based abilities or traits in the trait shop.” Lola said and began to check her own shop.

“You should look for a civilian course student for that.” Milo said.

He turned to the zombie and pulled up the trait shop and then filtered only defensive type abilities.

“Wow, there are so many armor or defensive traits.” He muttered. Eventually he came upon Robin’s hardening and paused there before asking Robin about it.

He told him what little he could guess and it was clearly just stiffening. Although it would go well with other things, he wanted something that formed actual biological armor.

Eventually he found an area for its transformation traits. Particularly, this was an insect type transformation. There were a large number of carapace traits.

He asked the system to pull the type of carapace with the best defense.

“Beetle carapace, as expected.” he thought but looking at the price, he didn’t mind as the price was just 40 levels.

He didn’t mind as he wanted to see the reaction.

Everyone was watching as the effect took place but it didn’t show immediately.

Instead he pulled out three pills and made him swallow them one by one.

The first was the bone supplement and it naturally caused the sound of crunching to come as the rotting bones of the skeleton started to heal and grow until it stopped. He then fed it a Bone Enhancement pill to properly strengthen it and make it stronger as well as prepare the strong endurance. The last pill was a Flesh Vitality Pill. The others had only seen it work on Scar but not zombies.

When it swallowed it, they started to see a faint glow spread and Milo opened the status.

“Wow, the brain really is dead with 0 wisdom.” He said.

“What level is it?” Robin asked.

“Level 9.” He said and raised wisdom to 10, intelligence, which was also 0 was raised to 10 and then the other required points for each stat before evenly spreading what was left.

When he accepted, the body began to glow but not covering it.

They heard it change before they saw the body start to twitch as if electrical pulses ran through it but only momentarily as the brain was slowly brought to life. The energy from the pill slowly healed the wounds and the sickly green skin turned just pale like a bloodless corpse.

When it finally finished glowing, the body began to tremble, the skin began to turn black and transform slowly into a plated exoskeleton until it covered most of the body but it wasn’t completely covered.

All the joint areas were exposed. Not a single joint had armor plated.

Milo looked at the book and nodded because for an armored zombie, this was actually honestly exactly how their bio armor developed.

“Is that a book on undead?” Robin asked.

“Yeah, it was a textbook I got to learn the difference. I'm trying to make a basic one.” he said and showed them the Armored.

“Master.” he said as he waited for orders.

“It’s fine, return for the time being.” Milo said and returned the zombie back to the netherworld.

Robin was looking and Milo looked extremely content with himself. He sat there for a while just thinking about the interaction before his eyes slowly widened and he frowned. “Wait… if you have access to the gamer space shops and traits, doesn’t that mean you can make heroes out of your own undead with any number of combinations of abilities?” Robin asked.

The others from their group weren’t really thinking much about it but once Robin said that, they took a moment to realize what he meant by it.

“Wait! If Milo has the ability to give any zombie or undead unique traits like most humans have, it means you’ve made your natural ability super broken?!” Lola exclaimed.

“Well… if I want to reach a high standard, I need to improve myself, honestly it depends on my capacity to access the system. Since it worked out, I can finally use the gamer space safely without the undead under my service thinking that it is an alternate source of growth beyond my own power. All I have to do is make the system prohibit my summoned undead from being capable of accessing the system’s services outside of what I permit like Save and Load and rely on me as if ‘there is a restriction on their presence’ in this world.” Milo said and smiled proudly at himself.

Those nearby were shocked. It was a single trait that evolved the entire capacity of the ability much like Robin getting the mental trait to evolve his mind’s ability to follow his absurd speed.

“One trait to change it all.” Robin said.

“I mean, it just expands my modifying capacity, I'm still very far from being able to do like sir Vincent but I think the necromancers are really stuck in the ways they have learned. Still, it's not like they can change it that much, this ability is unique to me after all so it is difficult for anyone else to copy me without them accepting the full ability.” Milo said.

Everyone was surprised by the strange confidence he gave off. Maybe it was due to gaining death mana or his idea working out but the introvert did show a lot more confidence.

A short distance away, Chasm Might was looking when he saw that. Blue Phoenix was also there.

“Well this is going to be interesting to see.”

“The necro boy? Did he do something strange?” Blue Phoenix said, not having been paying attention.

“He just got a new trait and instantly controlled the status of a zombie and gave it some kind of trait.” Chasm Might said.

“Huh? Instantly? I thought necromancy was something done over month's or years?” He said.

“That is why I said it is going to be interesting to see.” He said. “How is Rudy doing?” he asked.

“Pretty good, he has finally started to form actual feathers instead of being a down covered chick. It’s actually having a good effect on his strength, his size is growing with his natural progression of strength.” he said.

“Any luck with other phoenixes?” Chasm Might asked.

“Well… the system did analyze both our DNA but anything that might have similar DNA is horribly inactive. The kid had chicken down feathers when he met your disciple for crying out loud. Beyond that, my ability stems from my core flames evolving while the kid formed feathers as the center of his ability. This means we need to find some kind of similarity or else we will have to base it on luck of the draw.” Blue Phoenix said.

“Makes sense. I also need to speed up Robin’s training so that his body can rapidly store more titan force. I want to get this nuisance with the stone done with so we can know if he is keeping it or not.” Chasm Might said.

“Do you think it is that simple? After all, he still has to adapt to the pressure of the energy each time it goes up.” Phoenix said.

“Yeah but a stronger body means he naturally holds more power. I think the training fields will also speed that up. He told me he is already entering another hunger period after getting 8 full levels in just one training trip today, over 30 stats for most of his physical stats.” Chasm Might said.

“Well damn, even with everything, the feather boy barely crossed 20 points with his jogging and another 10 or so from the beatdown he received.” He said.

“Right, if he is growing so much then it means the gamer space is helping adapt faster and we might be able to deal with it faster. Hopefully we can get this done before the end of the year or even before new years.” He said.

“You really want to push the boy.” Phoenix said.

“I don’t, I want to get rid of a possible roadblock that might limit him. His sister has true qi, if she can achieve it then he can if titan force isn’t something that remains with him.”

Blue Phoenix grinned and smacked his back, “Always worrying about your disciples. Every last one of them.” He said and headed off.

Chasm Might frowned at the joke but headed over the class to relieve them and send them off to the locker rooms and then lunch.