At the dawn of the next morning, as soon as Fang Raon logged back inside Black Online, he was immediately thrown into harsh training.
Surprisingly enough, he started with his "Defense" attribute, and the only way to increase it was through body conditioning.
Rock told him to start with running straight into a tree.
"..."
Fang Raon blankly at him, thought he was joking for a moment, but Rock was never joking around when it came to training.
Rock just stared straight back at him with a cold look.
He didn’t dare to question his training methods and thus headed to the snowy forest and stopped close to one of the strong-looking trees.
He took some distance, and then kicked off into a run, and ran straight into the tree. It felt like he ran straight into a brick wall.
The tree knocked him down, and Fang Raon’s air got knocked out of him. It felt like someone punched him in the gut.
"Ugh... Agh... Agh..."
With some struggle, he stood back up, gasping for air, and started running once more before crashing straight into the tree.
The tree didn’t move at all. It stood still like a sentinel guarding the forest.
Fang Raon, on the other hand, was gasping for air on the ground, clutching his stomach that felt like it was on fire.
He kept doing the same training for hours and hours.
In that moment, a notification window appeared in front of him. He’d been waiting for it to appear all day.
[+1 Defense]
[Defense: 16 + 5]
’It actually works!’
Fang Raon thought with a thrilled look.
Without further ado, he kept doing the same training, and after a while, Rock came over to him and gave him another training exercise.
This time around, it was for Speed, and it wasn’t a type of training he expected at all.
"Speed does not only imply physical speed. It also includes reaction speed. You’ll be training your reaction speed today."
Rock said.
He then brought Fang Raon to a little training course at another part of the forest.
As soon as Fang Raon entered the training course, he was immediately bombarded with fast-moving targets and obstacles.
Logs, dangling from ropes, swung towards him from all directions, and they smashed right into him, sending him flying.
"Afgh..."
Fang Raon gasped for air and noticed that his left arm didn’t look too good. It was completely twisted, broken beyond recognition.
The health also dropped to dangerous levels.
He gulped down a healing potion, stood back up, and noticed that Rock was walking away.
It was like he was saying, "I leave you to it," and Fang Raon activated the training course once again.
He started weaving through the obstacles, but he only made three meters until something hit him in the face and knocked him out.
He was unconscious for about thirty minutes until he woke back up, and he was completely freezing.
"Haah... Huff..."
Fang Raon gritted his teeth, stood back up, and continued doing the training course—failing, failing, and failing.
He never made it to the end.
For the next three days, he continued doing body conditioning, reaction speed training, and the usual endurance training, which was just running through the cold forest.
It was a slow process, but slowly, his attributes started showing signs of improvement.
[Stamina: 33 → 35]
[Defense: 16 → 20]
[Speed: 22 → 25]
[Next Level: 45%]
...
Splash!
Fang Raon dipped inside the bathtub, feeling the chill of the cold forest wash away with the warm water.
It had been some time since the last time he took a bath. He was always just too tired to take one after a day of training.
He also had barely communicated with Chaewon during that time.
In that moment, Chaewon stepped inside the bathroom, covering herself with a towel that only gave enough room for imagination to run wild about what was underneath.
"..."
Fang Raon averted his gaze. His heart skipped a beat. His cheeks were also turning warmer, or maybe it was because of the warm water.
"Let’s get you out of there~"
She said, lifted him to the plastic stool, and this time around, she started washing his hair first.
Her fingers were gentle as she moved them through his hair and then washed away the shampoo with the showerhead.
She then moved to his back, moving her soft hands in circular motions to massage his sore muscles.
"Haah..."
Fang Raon relaxed and let out a sigh of content.
"...Does it feel good?"
Chaewon asked with a smile on her face.
"...Yes."
Fang Raon replied with a satisfied look.
After almost an entire week of nothing but training, this honestly felt like a paradise, and it was a moment he never wanted to end.
"You’ve looked quite tired for the past week. Is it because of your sister?"
Chaewon asked.
"...No, not because of her."
Fang Raon said.
He realized that it must look like he was tired because of his sister, but in reality, he couldn’t really explain the real reason.
It was something that even he still had a hard time believing—that somehow the Virtual Reality Pod was responsible for this.
"Mmh~"
Chaewon didn’t know whether she should believe him, but she had a hunch that he kept some secrets from her.
In that moment, she moved to the front, and they happened to look each other in the eye.
There was no doubt that deep inside each other’s eyes, they both held emotions that were too powerful to ignore.
Heavy desires.
"I-I’ll start now, okay?"
She said, and Fang Raon just nodded.
With the sponge in hand, she started washing his chest, but the lower she went, the more intense her desires became.
In that moment, she noticed something odd.
"...How strange..."
"What is it?"
Fang Raon asked.
"It kind of looks like your body is about to have some abs. Your body is definitely more defined than it was only two weeks ago."
Chaewon said.
"...Really?"
Fang Raon frowned and then had a thought.
’What if it isn’t leveling up that improves my health? What if it is all about those attributes? I added quite a lot of stat points to Vitality when I leveled up, which helped me to regain my vision?’
He thought in shock.
’What if I add all 100 stat points to Vitality? Would I get immediately better?’