Saksham hesitated when he heard this and didn't rush to strengthen his bones after that. He thought a little and decided to strengthen the bones of his hands and legs first and then proceed to strengthen his other body parts later.
"Strength the bones of both my hands."
"Are you sure you want to use 2 EP?"
As the words left Saksham's mouth, he immediately bit his hand towel in his mouth. Soon, he felt searing pain coming from both his arms and hands. It was as if both his arms were ripped off his body. He couldn't even feel the rest of his body due to the pain. Saksham's gums bit hard into the hand towel, trying his best not to make a single sound. Unconsciously, 2 tears slid past his face. The pain he felt right now was even worse than what he felt when he strengthened his body the last time.
After about 10 minutes, the pain subsided. After the pain came deep exhaustion. Saksham didn't even have time to take the hand towel out of his mouth and he fell asleep. After about 2 hours of sleep, Saksham woke up and tried to stand back up. But this time, he was smart and didn't use his hands to pick himself up or do something. Last time, he broke his entire door because he couldn't control his powers. Although he could fool his parents last time, he didn't have confidence that he could do that again. So, Saksham stood up and made a fist. As he did that, he could feel that his arms strength had increased quantitatively. He felt that if he tried to use that Hyper Occulus again, he wouldn't have much problem in clearing it without much of a scratch on him.
Although he couldn't accurately gauge just how strong his arm strength was right now, he could roughly guess that it should be around 4000 Kg of punching power. After he strengthened his legs, he overall punching power increased to around 2500 Kg of punching power. Now, after he had strengthened the bones of both arms, it had an increase of almost 1500 Kg of punching power. And this was just after strengthening around 50 bones. He could feel that If he strengthened all the bones in his body, his pure physical powers would reach [Physical General] level.
But besides just his pure physical strength, Saksham was also incredibly tanky or you can say that his defense was incredibly solid. When he was fighting in the Hyper occulus, he was hit several times by swords, punches, and even sticks and halberds. But none of them were able to penetrate his body and leave even a scratch. At the last stages of the Hyper Occulus, the enemies had strength comparable to [Physical General] and the weapons they had were Tier II at that point.
The system of Hyper Occulus was self-learning. Waves after waves of bots were not able to hurt Saksham and that's why it learned that Saksham couldn't be damaged by an ordinary weapon. So, in the late stage, the bots had Tier 1 weapons. And Saksham was still not strong enough to withstand the sharpness of those weapons. But Saksham believed that if he could complete strengthening his skin and muscles, his defense would go up by several notches.
After strengthening the bones of both arms, Saksham hesitated about whether he should strengthen his legs right now or not. The system told him that he should only strengthen only about 60 bones at a time. But it didn't restrict Saksham from Strengthening again after that. But Saksham really didn't dare to strengthen again. The pain he went through was horrifying. He was not a masochist or something. He didn't want to experience that kind of pain again.
But he knew that he had no other option but to strengthen himself if he wants to get stronger. So, he had to experience that pain one day or another. Thinking this much, he gritted his teeth and once again sat down on his bed and put a hand towel in his mouth, and said, "Strengthen the bones of both my feet."
Saying that Saksham started sweating bullets and clenched the hand towel with all his strength. Saksham secretly decided in his mind that he would not strengthen anything now for a week. The pain he was going through was too much for him to bear. He had never felt the urge to cry more bitterly than now.
After a few hours, Saksham woke up and felt that his overall strength once again had increased. Feeling the surging power in his body, Saksham smiled and then went back to his study table to study. Final exams were pretty close and he had to be completely prepared for it. Not to mention that he had to prepare for JEE Mains after the Boards Examinations.
Over a week passed, and the psychological shadow left by the pain from strengthening had faded a little. Saksham once again gritted his teeth and strengthened the rest of the bones of his body. After spending 3 EP in total, Saksham completely strengthened every single bone in his body. The power surging in his body made Saksham realize that maybe he had crossed another level.
He felt as if he was reborn. His strength was much stronger than the time he fought in Hyper Occulus. Even his speed and defensive powers seemed to have increased by a lot. Although he could feel all this, he didn't know the exact accurate value. He thought about it a little and said, "Comprehensive Data."
"Are you sure you want to use 1 EP?"
"Yes"
"Name: Saksham Nayak
Age: 18
Race: Human-??
Items: Assassin's Suit, [Dragon God's Daggers], SmartPhone
Physical Power: 11,000 Kg
...
….
…
..
.
Saksham found the thing he wanted to see and seeing that his physical strength had broken through to the realm of [Physical General] with 11,000 Kg, Saksham was pretty happy. But what made him feel a bit unsettled was the question marks after the word "human" in the Race. What does the system mean by the "??"? He was human, I mean, he IS human and there is no doubt about it. At least Saksham felt like a human. Why would there be the question marks there then? This was the first time Saksham had come across this. He tried to ask the system about it and the reply he got was "No comment".
Saksham was starting to doubt himself now and even his system. Seeing that he was not going to get any answers, Saksham shook his head and threw this to the back of his head for now. He will get answers when the time is right. For now, his strength has reached a new level. With this, he got a little more confident in fighting against the people that would threaten his or his loved one's safety.
_______________
Present Time
Saksham sat lightly on the sofa and carefully watched Rhytham and his 3 nephews sitting in front of him. After coming back from the IOEA, Saksham realized that he needed more people that could fight with him. For now, the best candidates in his mind were these 4 and so he decided to start his plan of giving them some powers. He looked at Rhytham and said in a hoarse voice, "Do you…seek strength?"