◆ ENDURANCE UPDATED ◆
[E] ▰▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱ (4/10)
Another half segnt. Post-completion calculation, apparently. Running the mile counted during and then settled afterward.
The strength assessnt ca next.
Garrett moved us to a section of the field where equipnt had been set up: pull-up bars, weighted plates, a standing push-up platform with sensors that asured output force. Standard baseline stuff. The academy version was nicer than anything a public school would have but the concept was identical.
You showed up, you did the exercises, the machine told you how weak you were, you wrote it down.
"Pull-ups," Garrett said. "Max reps. Dead hang start. Full extension at the top. If your chin doesn’t clear the bar, the rep doesn’t count."
He demonstrated once with one arm, just to establish expectations, then stepped back.
The line moved fast. Most of the guild kids were doing twelve to twenty reps. So of the physically gifted ones were at twenty-five, thirty. Blair did seventeen with perfect form and a face like she found the whole exercise mildly offensive.
Belle did nine, which was more than I expected, and she looked satisfied about it.
Hikaru stepped up and did twenty-three consecutive pull-ups with the sa chanical economy she’d brought to everything else, stepped down, and walked away without looking at the bar.
I stepped up.
My hands on the bar felt wrong at first. Too wide, not enough callus, the weight distribution unfamiliar.
I did one.
The second was ugly. Partial extension, chin barely at bar level, every muscle in my back informing that they had done their part and were now clocking out.
"One," Garrett said. He wrote it down.
From my right, not close enough to be directed at but close enough that I was clearly the intended audience, Rennick said sothing to Park in a voice calibrated for maximum carrying distance without appearing to address anyone directly.
"One pull-up. Jesus. What do you do with a hunter who can’t lift his own bodyweight?"
Park said sothing back.
Rennick laughed. "Can’t teach a lottery ticket to earn its slot."
The thing about targeted low-volu mockery is that it requires a response to function. Without a response it’s just noise. Noise made by two dickheads who were competing for house points by standing near a pull-up bar and talking instead of actually doing anything that would improve their rankings.
I picked up my water bottle and drank from it.
Garrett looked up from his tablet in the direction of Rennick and Park.
He didn’t say anything.
He just looked.
Rennick found sowhere else to be very quickly.
The system updated again while I was walking to the push-up platform.
◆ STRENGTH PROGRESS ◆
Sustained upper body effort recorded.
Strength [E] progress: 0.3 segnts
Current: [E] ▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ (1.3/10)
The push-up sensor platform asured force output directly through pressure pads, which ant it caught the actual chanical load rather than just counting reps. I did twenty-two push-ups before my shoulders staged the sa revolt my arms had earlier.
Force output: 41st percentile for age group.
41st percentile ant I was slightly below the midpoint for an eighteen-year-old male.
Naomi was at the station beside . She had done fifteen pull-ups, which she’d clearly not expected, given the way she looked at her own hands afterward like they’d made a decision without consulting her.
"You okay?" she asked, looking at my platform readout.
"Operational," I said.
She frowned at that but accepted it.
The agility course was a tid obstacle run through a series of stations: lateral shuffles, cone cuts, balance beams, low crawls, short sprint finishes. It was designed to test quick direction changes and body control rather than raw speed.
This was, objectively, worse for than the endurance run.
I completed it in forty-one seconds.
The dian was around twenty-eight.
Javier, who had apparently spent the last two years watching hunter combat videos and practicing footwork drills in his living room, ran it in twenty-four seconds and then stood at the finish looking like he was trying not to celebrate in public.
I did not begrudge him this. Javier was going to need every win he could collect in this environnt, and footwork drills were a legitimate skill.
The system added a Agility note while I walked off the course.
◆ AGILITY PROGRESS ◆
Sustained multi-directional movent recorded.
Agility: [E] progress: 0.2 segnts
Current: [E] ▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ (1.2/10)
The last station was mana output.
A crystalline sphere on a pedestal, roughly the size of a basketball, that asured mana concentration and output intensity when a student placed both hands on the surface and pushed.
Most students got readouts in the D to C-range. A few of the guild kids with strong bloodlines lit the thing up in the B-range. One Sapphire girl with silver hair who I was pretty sure was Yuki Hoshizawa barely touched the sphere and it glowed so intensely that Garrett actually looked up from his tablet.
I put my hands on it.
The sphere registered my output and displayed the readout.
D-rank. 3.2 intensity.
Which was fine. The system had my Magic stat at D-rank already, carried over from whatever baseline Jace Monroe’s awakening had established. This was consistent with that.
Garrett noted it and moved on.
What he did do, very briefly, was pause after writing down my number and look at with an expression that wasn’t readable as anything specific. Not dismissive. Not impressed. Just present, the way soone looked when they were updating a prior assumption with new data.
Then he moved to the next student.
I stood at the edge of the field with my water bottle and pulled up the system status.
◆ DIVINE MILKING SYSTEM ◆
PHYSICAL STATS
Strength [E] ▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ (1.3/10)
Endurance [E] ▰▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱ (4/10)
Agility [E] ▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ (1.2/10)
Perception [D] ▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱
Magic [D] ▰▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱
LIFESPAN: 49h 47m
The endurance movent was real. Four segnts from two this morning. The gym plus the run plus the sustained effort of the agility course had moved it two full segnts in one morning.
If the pattern held, and if I kept training daily, Endurance would hit D-rank in roughly three days of sustained effort. Without the sexual training multiplier.
With it, potentially one day.
Across the field, Garrett called the class back together for the cooldown and assessnt debrief.
The numbers were shrinking.
But so was the gap between where I started this morning and where I needed to be.
I capped my water bottle and walked toward the group.
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