Emm heaved, and pushed himself back to his feet. The relief was noticeable, though he was still hurting badly. He cried internally at forcing himself to puke out the coffee just moments after, miraculously, getting a chance to drink it.

Emm tried to get his bearings: the world almost felt like slow-motion to him. His brain was working double-time. The small sip of the cursed coffee was having a stronger effect on him than any amount of normal Earth coffee would. Not to mention he was literally melting from the inside from all the mana ravaging his system.

He was abuzz with nervous energy, he had to find a way to expel it. And quickly; the pain was too much to bear. Emm was positive his health was rapidly draining, as if someone were drilling a hole in his stomach.

So he did what he had done that night: try and get it out through physical exertion. It had worked the first time, more or less.

Emm bolted away, not bothering to think which direction to take. He sprinted across the grass clearing, pumping his arms and legs as fast as he could. With every exhalation that felt like he was breathing fire, his core cooled down a tiny fraction. But the warmth was slowly spreading through his entire body. The wet clothes he wore did little to help cool him down, he was way too hot. Emm could hardly feel his limbs at all, his skin was intensely tingling all over.

He ran and ran while people looked at him strangely whenever he passed them. There weren't many of them out and about though, the vast majority were still fast asleep. Emm didn't see Michael among them, who he needed to talk to more than anybody else.

Emm ended up completing three full circles around the camp before his legs were too exhausted to continue. Emm collapsed on the ground and struggled to catch his breath, lying down on his back. His chest rose and fell rapidly.

Deep breaths. Keep breathing. It'll pass.

Still full of energy, he turned around and started maniacally doing pushups, at least twice as fast as he would usually do them. Emm tried to count them, but he quickly lost track of the number. His thoughts were all jumbled, the sensation of pain was too much to bear. He was confident he had done way over thirty before turning back around and starting to dish out sit-ups. Those, he did easily over a hundred.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. He stared at himself in shock; it was freaky how easily Emm's body was moving. Even pushing himself to his very limit, there was no way he would be capable of doing that many reps back on Earth.

His muscles screamed in protest, but his tactic was working. It had to work, he didn't have any other ideas. The damage he was feeling was on a whole other level than the passive degradation from just the mana in the air.

As he exercised, the built-up pressure within him slowly decreased in intensity, instead spreading more and more across his entire body. It gave him the confidence to go on despite the searing pain. He squeezed his teeth shut and pushed through it, rotating through the exercises several times in cycles.

When he could hardly continue moving at all, he sat still and focused on his breathing. Each and every breath brought with it a slight dose of relief: but he had to keep a steady rhythm. Going too fast, or too slow for that matter, didn't have quite the same effect. He had to find the perfect balance of speed and intensity, not too deep but not too shallow. He could feel the difference it made.

The pain lessened, slowly but steadily, and he made a mental note to never trust another one of them again. The Guide's torturing could have been a one-off thing, an exception, but when the [Water Mage] did the same thing, the exception turned into a trend. Emm made sure to add the old geezer to his quickly-growing list of people he had to get revenge on.

Even Rasha, the "sweet" shopkeeper, had tried to offer him a "sweet" deal of his entire starting sum of skulls. It all left a sour taste in his mouth. And no, not the vomit.

Three shitty people were enough to establish a rule. It seemed they were all ill-intentioned. Even commander Boris left right away after showing off and holding a grand speech about how they were all going to do amazingly well. About how there was absolutely nothing to worry about. About how they'd all make it back to Earth safely.

They hate our guts. They would love nothing more but to munch on popcorn as they watch us squirm in pain. And then they'd saunter over and loot our corpses. That's what it looks like, at least.

Or was it just him that was getting the short end of the stick? Emm was positive Miss Simmons treated others at least a bit better. But for whatever reason, she'd saved his life in the forest. It was all too confusing.

Instead of worrying about it, Emm did another short burst of pushups.

He decided to go and grab his spear next, and practice using the weapon. He made his way back to his tent, where the sight of the cooked snake monster instantly changed his mind.

Sure, eating it meant ingesting even more mana-dense material, but he'd already proven that the meat gave him more than enough regeneration to outpace the damage that it did to his body. It was how he'd managed to heal in the first place. At least, it would work as long as he managed to "expel" the extra mana through physical training.

Or maybe my body is absorbing it, not expelling it. I can't be sure.

That would at least begin to explain the additional strength and endurance that Emm felt. Another theory was that it was just a specific effect of the coffee he'd tried. Like a temporary buff that literally increased stats. But that wasn't it, Emm thought, because he was reasonably certain he didn't have any stats to begin with. No [System], no [Status], no [Class], no [Skills]; so most likely, no [Stats] either.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

He sat down and took the snake in his numb hands, continuing from where he left off. Only a small chunk of it was missing, nibbled to the bone like a piece of corn, but most of the [Vinesnake] was intact. Emm bit into it. If he had to guess, his health was around 30%.

Maybe I shouldn't think of it in percentages anymore. No [Stats] could also mean no real health or mana, either. I'm just a random rock. Rocks don't have health points, but they can still break.

As Emm ate, a curly bush of black hair poked out of the tent next to his. Peeking from inside it was a pair of tired eyes.

"Morning, Michael," Emm said with his mouth full of food. He waved, then kept eating more. But his stomach was slowly getting full. The vomiting hadn't done wonders to his appetite, and he'd just had breakfast recently as well.

Michael stared at him in shock. "Are you okay?"

Emm nodded absentmindedly and kept on chewing. He proceeded to poke the few remaining embers with his stick. He was trying to bunch them all together to rebuild the fire with fresh fuel. Sure, he felt hot from the volcano raging around in his stomach, but his clothes weren't going to dry out by themselves. The pain he felt was slowly passing. The food was helping.

"I'm pretty sure these folks want us dead," Emm said.

Michael's face didn't betray a reaction.

"Don't say that out loud," he whispered, "but I'm with you, I'm getting a real bad vibe from this whole place. They do not like us."

In the worst case, we'll need to prepare an escape plan.

Emm stopped eating, and threw some wood onto the weak fire. He then got down on the ground a small distance away and restarted his situps routine. It was his only method to fight the mana contamination. And potentially, even get stronger, if his muscles could heal back and recover faster with the magical health regeneration's help. But why didn't that trick work for the others?

Michael looked at him strangely, then laughed. "Didn't peg you for a working-out kind of guy."

"Just ignore me. I wanna hear about what happened while I was out."

"No way. Let me show you how it's done."

Michael got down on the ground and joined Emm. He wasn't just following Emm's rhythm but set a faster pace instead.

And somehow, he still found a way to speak at the same time without losing his breath.

"The Guide carried you back, she told us all about the rules of the camp, we talked and hung out," Michael said. Then he started counting with his fingers and continued. "Ate, shat, rested, the works. Got our sheep in order. Met the locals. And then we went out to kill more of those awful-tasting snakes. That more or less sums it up."

They did another twenty situps in silence. Emm was falling behind but Michael wasn't slowing down for him.

"Did you level?" Emm asked, strained. He was short on air.

"Yup. Not many of us did, though. And about half stayed in the camp to recover. Did you know mana takes a super long time to charge back up? I mean, chewing on the snakes helps, but it's still so slow. I'm jealous of Mavery."

"Mavery?"

"The [Mage] girl. She's got 20 will already, can you believe that shit? She can use her [Skills] like a freaking machine gun," Michael explained. He definitely did sound jealous.

Emm got up and transitioned into jumping jacks. He was shaky on his feet. Michael followed.

"I want to know what your [Status] looks like," Emm said. He wanted a good benchmark for his own current physical ability, and the easiest way to get that was by comparing himself to Michael, whose stats he could find out.

"Sure," said Michael. He then read out his whole [Status] to Emm, who struggled to keep it all inside his head.

Status

Name: Michael

Level: 3

Exp: 21%

Race: Human

Classes: [Pyromancer], [Rogue]

Health: 100%

Mana: 100%

Stats: (Free Points: 0)

Strength: 13

Agility: 18

Intelligence: 11

Charisma: 13

Toughness: 10

Endurance: 13

Will: 9

Poise: 9

Skills: (Skill Points: 0)

[Flame Breath (Rare)]

[Flurry of Blows (Common)]

Perks:

[Hero (Legendary)], [Lustful (Epic)], [Resistant (Common)]

So, he'd taken [Rogue]. That sounded like their Guide had forced him to. His other stats were also relatively high. And a new [Skill], too, though it sounded self-explanatory.

But one thing in Michael's status was not like the others, and he had only mentioned it quietly, under his breath. Emm wasn't sure if he had misheard it.

"Did you just say… [Lustful], (Epic) rarity? What does that do?" Emm asked. They were now doing squats. Emm's stomach mostly wasn't burning anymore.

"Well… It kind of forces me to flirt with every girl I like. And also, to be way more easily attracted. It makes me horny at women."

Emm gave Michael a disapproving look. It sounded like a horrible choice that would intervene with his daily life. Imagine being compelled to flirt with someone by a higher force. To be forced to feel attraction: how could he ever be sure if his attraction to anyone was real, after this? It was mindboggling to Emm.

Michael continued, explaining himself, "I got plus 10 Perk Points from it, I couldn't resist! I've never had a girlfriend on Earth, you know."

That had the potential to be very bad.