I woke up at five, startled by the beeping alarm. My hand reached automatically for the snooze button, mind still foggy, body preparing for the usual battle to drag myself back to consciousness.
But sothing was different.
I blinked at the ceiling, waiting for the customary weight of morning fatigue to settle over like a lead blanket. It never ca.
"The fuck?" I mumbled, sitting up.
My body felt... good. Not just normal, but actually energized. The kind of refreshed you feel after eight perfect hours of sleep and a good al, not the desperate clawing for consciousness I’d experienced every day since transmigrating into this tubby body.
I checked the system interface floating in my peripheral vision.
LIFESPAN: 6D 19H 17M
So I’d slept for about nine hours. Made sense. But this feeling of alertness didn’t make any sense at all.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. No stiffness. No joint aches. Just smooth, easy movent, like soone had oiled all my hinges overnight.
"Naomi’s milk," I whispered. "Has to be."
The Silver-tier essence wasn’t just extending my lifespan. It was actually improving my physical condition too.
I grinned like an idiot in the darkness of my bedroom. Supernatural breast milk as performance enhancer was exactly the kind of batshit logic that made this universe so perfect for a degenerate system like mine.
I pulled on gym shorts and a T-shirt, then moved quietly through the apartnt toward the door. Hikaru’s room remained dark and silent behind her closed door. Good. Last thing I needed was another awkward encounter with my secretly-female roommate.
The campus was hushed at five in the morning, dew still clinging to the grass as I jogged toward the recreation center. My legs felt springy under . Not light exactly—still carrying way too much weight for that—but responsive. Ready.
The weight room was nearly empty when I arrived, just a handful of early risers scattered across the equipnt. I scanned automatically for Hikaru, relieved to find she wasn’t there yet. Being here before her looked much less conspicuous.
I started with dumbbell rows, loading fifteen pounds on each side—sa as yesterday. The weight that had been challenging twenty-four hours ago now felt manageable. Not easy, but doable.
"The fuck is happening?" I muttered, completing twelve reps instead of the eight I’d struggled through yesterday.
When I moved to bench press with the sa modest twenty-five pounds on each side, I pushed out fifteen clean reps before stopping. Not because I couldn’t do more, but because I didn’t want to push too far too fast and injure myself.
The system chid softly in my ear.
PHYSICAL TRAINING DETECTED
STRENGTH INCREASED: [E] ▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ (3/10)
Holy shit.
A full segnt increase after a single training session. Yesterday I’d barely nudged the bar a fraction of a segnt after forty minutes of work. Today I’d jumped a full position in fifteen minutes.
I sat up on the bench, breathing hard and staring at the notification. Naomi’s essence wasn’t just keeping alive. It was supercharging my training.
"Breast milk is a fucking steroid," I whispered, laughing under my breath.
I pushed through the rest of my workout with a manic energy I hadn’t felt since waking up in this world. Squats, lunges, more pull-up attempts, ab work. By the end of an hour, sweat plastered my shirt to my back, and my muscles burned with that perfect training ache.
The system chid again.
TRAINING SESSION COMPLETE
STRENGTH: [E] ▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ (3/10)
ENDURANCE: [E] ▰▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱ (4/10)
AGILITY: [E] ▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ (2/10)
Agility had doubled overnight. Doubled. From one segnt to two. That shouldn’t be possible. Normal training didn’t work that fast, not even with the system’s Limit Breaker ability.
I showered quickly, mind racing with implications. If Silver tier essence from Naomi boosted my training this much, what would Gold tier do? Or Platinum? The difference was potentially exponential.
Suddenly Hikaru’s Gold tier essence seed even more valuable. Not just the ability theft potential but the raw stat gains.
Of course, that still left with the minor problem of how to extract from a woman who actively hated n and could slice into ribbons with invisible cutting force.
"Baby steps," I reminded myself as I buttoned my uniform shirt. "Baby steps."
First, survive the month. Second, gain powers. Third, get strong enough to hold my own in combat. Then worry about high-risk extraction targets.
I returned to the apartnt to find Hikaru gone, her door open and room immaculate. No surprise there. She maintained military precision in everything, right down to the perfectly made bed visible through her doorway.
I grabbed my backpack and headed for breakfast, feeling the strange thrum of energy still coursing through my system. No caffeine craving. No brain fog. Just clarity and purpose.
The dining hall was starting to fill when I arrived. I spotted Belle sitting with Marc and Jordan at our usual table, all three hunched over coffee cups like survivors of so natural disaster. None of them looked up as I loaded my tray with a mountain of eggs, bacon, toast, and fruit.
"Morning," I said, sliding into the seat beside Jordan.
Three grunts answered .
"Soone’s chipper," Belle muttered, eyebrows raised over her coffee mug. Her blue hair was pulled into a ssy ponytail, strands escaping around her face.
I shrugged. "Slept well."
"Hate you," Marc said without heat, taking another sip of coffee. "I couldn’t move this morning."
Jordan didn’t even lift his head from where it rested on his forearms. "Still dying."
I dug into my eggs, appetite raging after the workout. The protein hit my system like rocket fuel, and I realized I was genuinely starving for the first ti since arriving in this body. Not the mindless craving for comfort food that had built this gut, but actual functional hunger.
"Where’s Naomi?" I asked, trying for casual.
Belle’s eyes flickered toward . "Late, I guess."
I kept eating, avoiding Belle’s gaze. She had the unnerving ability to read people too clearly, and the last thing I needed was her figuring out what had happened between Naomi and last night.
Not because I cared about reputation, but because I needed to keep extraction private to avoid unwanted questions.
"There she is," Marc said, nodding toward the entrance.
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