I opened my eyes to the early dawn light streaming through my window. The ache of fading bruises stung a bit, but it was less painful tha time. If anything I was more mentally tired than anything, as I had been practig my Chakra training for well over a dozen hours straight in the Boundary. Unfortunately I had still not mao make a breakthrough in terms of my Chakra nodes, however I felt that I could possibly see how a breakthrough could be made.

  After doing a few stretches to loosen up my stiff muscles, I went to my puter. I didn’t feel fully rested, due to my long and a-packed trials in the Boundary ht, but I could always grab a quiap ter. For now I o get things set in motion.

  While I could feel myself being a lot stronger and faster, it was obvious to me that this urely down to the power I had gained from levelling up. It wasn’t actual muscle strength or training. If I was to do something about that, then I thought my performance would likely improve. Running a few i searches on spear martial arts such as Sōjutsu, I turned up some iing articles on using the spear in ese Bajiquan, as well as some schools of Sōjutsu such as Fuden Ryu and Saburi Ryu. There were also some westereiques, although most of those were more skewed to fighting in an infantry unit.

  I tio search, finding out information on which muscle groups were used in higher level spear bat, and then further searches were done on how to best train them. Several hours ter I was on Amazon.jp looking at a shopping cart filled with weights and other muscle training equipment. The price was making me sad, though.

  Am I sure I really want to do this? All this stuff is expensive, and while I afford it due to all the extra work I’ve doly, and the promise of more work to e through my old colleague, it will wipe out my extra earnings. Besides, I’ve never been a fan of sport and physical activities… it wasn’t that I hated sport, not really, I was just far more tale artistid intellectual endeavours. The fact that at our yearly town baseball matches, when I had been forced to participate I had sucked badly and been mocked for days afterwards each time, didn’t help my liking any… My sister got all the energy and sp talent in the family. Now if my sis had been the one chosen, she would have kicked that zombie's ass without any problems. Give her a bow and she’d have put an arrow through its head in a heartbeat…

  “Oh to hell with it. I always give the gear to her if I end up not using it.” With that I clicked on accept, and the order ced for -day delivery. It had been a very extraordinary week, equal parts exg and terrifying. Still, I had the soul of an otaku, so I couldn’t deny that being one of the chosen ones and battling for power to save the world appealed to me. If I was to dee, I would likely only end up regretting it ter, especially if some of the other choseurned out to be terrible people, greedy for power. If one of them ended up hurting my family, or Eri-, and I had the ce to stop them but didn’t take it… I shook my head, clearing those gloomy thoughts.

  No, the safest course of a is to gather ower I myself, and make all efforts to avoid getting myself hurt, od forbid, killed! To that end, it is time to bulk up and turn into a pro athlete! Won’t everyone be surprised when I see my family?

  up was my emails, and there was one from Hayato-san, with a schedule of expected delivery of the uping work he was outs. It looked like a ton of debugging was going to be avaible in the couple of days, so I could certainly start making headway on that, while Hina- and the others cracked on with the 3D modelling and background touch-ups. There were a few other emails of some importance, but nothing else I o deal with today.

  Since I was free and my gym equipment hadn’t arrived I moved on to the stage of my levelling up pn. Visualisation seemed to be the key to using both aether and the Chakra work, so I would searline for the best methods. I had quite a visual mind, being artistid into design, so I was fident that with the right method I could make headway on my difficulties opening the Chakra nodes.

  It didn’t take too long to find a few usable ideas for increasing visualisation prowess online, and I quickly began to practice them. The ohat I found the easiest was looking at an object, and then trying to remember and manipute the image in my mind. This robably due to my 3D work, which required good spatial awareness. As I tinued with this for several hours I felt a slight prig heat f in the base of my body, faint but noticeable.

  Ohis feeling was fully ingrained in me I returo my methods to stimute the Chakras. It was definitely easier to imagine ahe flow, prig heat building, but it was still like trying to push syrup through a straw. I could definitely feel the heat building a little, a tiny few prickles even flowing higher up my body. Wiping sweat from my brow I opened my eyes ao the fridge to get a drink.

  “This is pretty hard. I guess those who had their nodes forcibly opened would not have to gh this, but if they have no room to grow theually I’d surpass them if I train enough…”

  Having done enough mental exercises that I felt drained, it was time to move to physical ditioning. I would go for a jog, the first time since… well damn, surely since school. ging my clothes to something more suitable I left the apartment, ready to work up a sweat…

  ********

  My jog took me around the surrounding areas. This quiet suburb didn’t have very many sights, just a load of two or three story apartment blocks, a few small shops and a shrine high on the hill. I jogged up the hill to the shrine, feeling slightly out of breath. My muscles were feeling pleasantly strained, and I was starting to feel the appeal of exercise.

  Of course, if I didn’t have this power from the Boundary I would have colpsed long ago. It really is the shortcut to self-improvement.

  I admired the tates at the shrirance. Behind them was a rge set of carvings resembling shere was also the usual array of shrine buildings, a further ba the trees ing the hill was a couple e outbuildings that served as quarters for the shrine priest. It was quite picturesque, although not everyone was keen on snakes. I like them way better than dogs though… Taking in the view for a few moments I steeled myself and then jogged down the hill, running beside the wide stream that came from the foothills and flowed down towards the Tokyo outskirts proper.

  Reag the bottom I crossed the somewhat ornate red metal bridge that spahe river, pausing halfway to look back up the hill. My breath was ing fast, yet I still felt I had more energy remaining. With a final burst of energy I ra kilometre bay dwelling at a sprint, only staggering to a halt when I reached my apartment building.

  Sweat was dripping from me now, and even in the cooli of the evening I felt warm. My muscles were definitely feeling the pain now, hot and tight. I retty impressed by my performance, despite all that. Sure, it wasn’t going to set any records, but it was certainly well above what an average person could do. With speed and endurance like that, I could probably join a local track team or something…

  As I mouhe stairs to my room I saw that someone else was out on her baly, face flushed in the fading light of the evening. A rather impressive sele of empty beer s was scattered about her feet, along with a full ashtray. When she saw me looking, she raised one eyebrow and spoke.

  “Oshiro-kun… wasn’t it? I didn’t take you for one who worked out.” She took another swig of beer from a freshly opened , and smiled at me somewhat mogly, I felt.

  “I’ve just got into it retly…” I said politely, wrag my brains for her name. I had only spoken with her a couple of times in the past, and while we saw each other in passing as we came ahat was the only tact we had with each other. “… Watanabe-…” I ventured, remembering her name. “A bit early in the evening for hitting the beer so hard isn’t it?”

  Watanabe- let out a dry ugh, sn with amusement. “, huh? You do have good manners, that’s for sure. Do you want a drink with me? I wouldn’t say it is too early, not with the day I’ve had.”

  Watanabe- raised a of beer to offer me, droplets of densation sliding down the sides. A cold beer after a hot workout did seem tempting. She was watg me, so I examined her a bit more closely. She ossibly ihirties, though telling a woman’s age was difficult for me. She was wearing a business suit, dark charcoal bzer over a white blouse, and pencil skirt to match. The heat of the evening sun had caused her to sweat, smearing the makeup around her eyes, giving her a sad look. Her hair ulled into a tight bck bun, held ih a pair of silver hairpins. I suddenly flushed a little, as I could see the outline of her bra through her shirt which was going transparent with sweat. Looking away, I coughed to ease the tension.

  “Sure, I’ll have a cold one.” I agreed, feeling embarrassed.

  “Aren’t you the shy one. How ued.” she giggled, amused by my behaviour. I moved over to her and leaned against the wall, taking a sip of the beer. It was refreshing and cold, just what I had needed.

  “So, what’s the cause of this impromptu party?” I asked, taking anulp of beer.

  “Oh, work troubles. Man troubles. Just trouble.” She said with a sigh, lighting up anarette. “My boss at work… he’s really been chewing us all out retly, and it’s starting to stress me out. It’s hardly our fault he’s going bald aing divorced.” she said with some venom, clearly angry. “Does he think I really want to be w at his dead-end pany at my time of life? It’s hardly going to help me nd a man is it?” She chased her cigarrete with more beer a out a rather undylike belch. “Excuse me. Anyway, my boss said…”

  I listeo her for a while, nodding sympathetically when required. Before I k I had polished off a couple of beers and she was still going.

  “Let me tell you, having a good job is the foundation of happiness. If you have a terrible boss and crummy co-workers, then every day is miserable.”

  “Well, I’m a freencer myself for now.” I answered her. “But I’m building up a t base, so hopefully soon I get steady employment.”

  “Make sure you do. Nothing is sadder than being stu a dead-end job. Well, other than being single. Where have all the good men gone?”

  This was a dangerous subject, so I thought I’d ge it. “Hashimoto-san from a couple of rooms over was having trouble as well. Daughter troubles, I think he said. I guess we all have problems.”

  “Hashimoto-san huh?” Watanabe- snorted. “He’s a deadbeat as far as I tell, no wonder his daughter is ashamed of him. Still, even he must have had a wife at one point… why is it so hard…?”

  I listeo Watanabe for another hour or so as she unloaded. In the end I bade her farewell with the promise of repaying her for the drinks at some point iure. Hopefully that won’t involve too much trouble. If I have to take her out to a pub she’d eat me alive. She was looking pretty hungry at the end there…

  Spoiler

  [colpse]I shuddered involuntarily at the thought. There was nothing really wrong with Watanabe-, even if she was quite a bit older than me. She wasn’t unpleasant to look at or anything like that, and her boobs were detly sized, from what I could tell, but she seemed pretty needy. Although that could just be the booze talking, I guess. It seemed that everyone in this building had their own problems. Mine were still defihe strahough!

  Si wasn’t yet time for bed I grabbed a bite to eat and started w through my mental exercises. Tomorrow when my new equipment arrived I would be ready to really start w out!