Matt walked through the city, heading toward a specific building. He had located it again on his map and decided it was the perfect place to test his strength. The gym.
He had thought about running there, but this part of the city was fairly busy and there were a lot of people around. Also, it never hurt to take a stroll. He wasn’t too worried about time either.
He still had at least a couple hours before sunset and while he was a little worried about the events of last night repeating if he stayed out past dark, his new strength helped ease his mind a little. Also, in the worst-case scenario, he planned to just use his 20 agility to run away from any danger.
As he walked, he made sure to use [Inspect] on everything he passed by. The past couple of days, he had been a bit distracted and kept forgetting to use it. Considering the amount of time and use it had taken to level up [Map], he had assumed [Inspect] was very close to leveling up.
He was correct. After a couple of minutes of scanning things as he walked, he heard the sound he was hoping for.
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[Inspect] has leveled up!
[Lv.1] -> [Lv.2]
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‘Finally! That took quite some time!’
Excited to test out his upgraded [Inspect] skill, without hesitation he yelled the words in his mind, remembering not to yell them aloud while in public.
‘Inspect’
He had again, aimed at a random rock on the ground, hoping it would give a different, more detailed, description than before.
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(Concrete Fragment)
A small chunk of concrete that resembles a rock, broken off from a larger concrete tile.
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‘Well, that sure is a lot better. I guess that’s everything I’d want to know about a rock anyway right?’
He felt satisfied that his skill was finally a bit useful. He suddenly had an idea. A couple of days ago, he had tried to use [Inspect] on a stranger walking by, but it just errored.
He wondered if it would work now that it was level 2 and what kind of information it would display for a person. He tried to use it on someone walking by, but he carefully tried not to stare for too long so he wouldn’t seem like a weirdo.
From the outside, it just looked like a passing glance.
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(Error: Entity not in the database. Using general entity data.)
Species: Human
Age: Mid Life
Biological Sex: Male
General Info: A bipedal creature that is common on “Earth”. The creature seems to be wearing textiles to cover themselves.
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‘Uhh, what’s up with the description? It’s just phrased weirdly.’
He looked at the info that showed up and it caught him off guard how unspecific and unbiased it was. It was actually a bit creepy.
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‘What does it mean that the entity is not in a database?’
He thought about it, and because his intelligence was decent, he didn’t have a hard time coming to a conclusion even without [Help].
‘It’s because he doesn’t have a system, right?’
When he considered it, that really was the only explanation that fit, at least with the current info he had. But it wouldn’t hurt to bring it up with [Help] later. But for now, he continued walking to the gym.
The last time he went, he didn’t have enough for the gym. Honestly, it was a bit pricey, and he considered just not going, but he knew how OP it could be. All of the gym equipment was perfect for getting stats. They were literally designed to train strength.
Though the last thing he needed right now was strength, it still wouldn’t hurt to train it more. Also, it would be the perfect place for testing how strong he actually was.
And the price, he had an idea that could help him get more money, more quickly. He thought it was about time to try it, later tonight or tomorrow. If it worked, he wouldn’t have to worry about paying the rent, he would even have money to throw around.
Once he arrived, he entered the main doors and headed to the front desk. Once again, he saw the gym receptionist, and they looked up toward him as he approached.
“How can I help you? Are you here for a membership?”
Matt noticed that they didn’t recognize him. But he assumed it was because he literally only talked to them for 5 minutes and they get hundreds if not thousands of customers a day going through. But he’d like to imagine it was because he looked way different than before.
‘It was only 2 days ago, so I think maybe my second idea is right?’
He started to realize how strange it must have been for his boss since it basically looked like he grew muscles in 3 days.
He got a bit nervous thinking of that, and how he really needed to be more careful. Who knows, maybe some scientists would try to kidnap him and experiment on him or something.
With his new intelligence, his thinking was faster as well, so he had only been staring at the receptionist for around 4 seconds. But it still left an awkward silence in the air for a bit too long.
“Ehem. Yes, I’d like to buy a membership. Monthly please.”
He paid for the pass, and she handed him a gym card. She explained he could use it to come and go whenever he wanted unless his pass expired.
As he looked around, he saw a lot of people there. This gym was in the center of the city, so it was fairly popular. He started realizing if randomly lifted a stupidly heavy weight in front of all these people, it might draw too much attention.
So he went further in to find a quieter area where there were fewer people. He managed to find a corner that was pretty sparse and looked at the equipment there.
‘So, should I just lift this or?’
He had never been to a gym, but he had seen it on TV and the internet throughout his life. He recalled that people bench-pressed weights. As well as people lifting smaller weights in each hand. He also of course knew what a treadmill was, but everything else was a bit foreign to him.
He looked at the wall where there were dozens of single-hand weights of many different sizes and colors.
‘Ok, this one says 5lb.’
He picked it up.
‘Uh, weightless. Next?’
As he set it down, he looked around for a larger weight. This time he picked up a weight that said 20lb. He hoped that it would at least feel like a weight, instead of a feather.
‘I do feel this one, but it’s pretty light, to be honest.’
He was surprised. He realized that he must’ve been a lot stronger than he had originally thought. Matt only appreciated the system more now. It could make a complete weakling like he used to be into someone this strong in only 3 days. Though, he was a bit of a tryhard.
This time, he decided to go for one of the biggest ones he saw, which displayed 50lb. He picked it up and it felt like it actually had some heft to it.
‘Is this a good one?’
It wasn’t exactly heavy, it felt just right. He imagined it would do nicely to try to train his strength.
‘I guess I’ll just try this and see if I get any points.’
He wasn’t sure if his form was good, but he just lifted the weight over and over anyway. He repeated this for a few minutes, but no notification had sounded yet. Determined to wait it out, he kept going and about after 30 minutes, he heard a ding!
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[Training Successful]
+1 Strength
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‘It worked!’