Sweat covered the surface of my thoroughly ripped body, evaporating into puffs of mist in the cold frigid air. It was dark inside the cave, but I could make out the cold stony ground on which my hands rested, straining under the combined weight of me and the rocks on my back.
I needed to get stronger, and I was severely lacking in the exercise department. However, now that I had twenty-two in the mental attribute, I was able to muster more strength from my muscles. As this added strength was all in the mind and not in the actual muscles, it meant that my actual muscles would break down faster; in combination with Uncanny Regeneration, I was effectually speed-running bodybuilding.
Pushing down and lifting up one last time, I had finally finished my workout of one-thousand stone-weighted push-ups, one-thousand stone-weighted sit-ups, and one-thousand stone-weighted squats. I also did a few other exercises without the stones, but they had little impact on my figure by comparison.
---
[User: Henry Miller]
[Race: Juggernaut]
[Class: Survivor]
[Lv: 0]
[Xp: 0/100]
[Body: 24]
[Mental: 23]
[Senses: 14]
[Magic: 0]
[Skills: Racial ability (Uncanny Regeneration), Racial ability (Stomach Pocket-Dimension), Class ability (Fearless Resolve), Class ability (Survivor's Senses), Class ability (System Appraisal)]
[Traits: Racial trait (Starting attributes are unaffected by this race), Class trait (Attributes don't increase by leveling up), Class trait (Starting attributes are unaffected by this class), Class trait (Incapable of receiving stat upgrades from quests)]
---
Now I had a body that I could've only dreamed of having in the past. My frame was broader, I must've been nearly a foot taller, and I had the ripped mass of someone who bench-pressed daily. It really was amazing how much the human figure could morph and change in under five hours with the aid of Uncanny Regeneration.
However, it was more than just Uncanny Regeneration that helped immensely in this endeavor; Fearless Resolve was also very significant as it helped me push past the initial pain when I started. If it weren't for that, I probably would've collapsed and gave up before it even truly began.
Without the abilities the System gave me, I would've still been a weak and worthless reck of person. It was almost like the System assigned me with this class and race as a way to negate the flaws in my character. The System didn't screw me over with a crappy class; it acted as my therapist and gave me the things I needed to survive in the scary world It conjured. The System didn't want me to die, it wanted me to live, and that was quite evident from the class and race it gave me.
Lifting up my palm and smacking myself in the face, I recognized that I was falling back into my messiah complex.
The boulders on my back tumbled to the side as I rolled over onto my back, observing the unremarkable features of the shade obscured cave-ceiling.
Who was I to think those narcissistic thoughts? I could hardly even understand how I had made it as far as I had. I couldn't make heads or tails of why the things in my life happened the way they did or why they had culminated up to this very moment. I wasn't someone who deserved to be the main character of this world, not when there were billions of other individuals who—while I laid sweating on the loose stone floor of some random cave—were quite possibly fighting tooth and nail just to stay alive. I wasn't brave; that was just an ability pity-gifted to me by the System so that I wouldn't die right out the gate. I was lucky to have gotten this lot in life.
I sat forward, contemplating my purpose. Was I special? Did it even matter? A huge part of me wanted to be the strongest, and with my overpowered race and potential SSS-Class upgrade, it felt like something that might be possible to attain. But was it healthy to think that way? Was it okay to consider me as the main character of the world I grew up in, or was it setting up a precedent that would lead me down the path of becoming a self-righteous, holier-than-thou tyrant?
Wiping the trickling sweat off my forehead, I stepped out of the cave in nothing but my underwear and looked up to the full moon in the sky. The freezing air assaulted my bare-body as I remained unbothered by it. In that moment, I had come to the epiphany that I didn't need to be the strongest; I just needed to be strong enough.
This revelation urged me to promise myself to never choose the hero's path. I didn't fit those boots, and I didn't want to fit them. I wasn't going to be a prophesized hero of legend; I was going to be Henry because being Henry was just as respectable and valid.
My life was worth no less than any other life, and no other life was worth less than mine own. That was okay; in fact, it was a great thing. I didn't need to be special because I already was, and I always had been. I just hadn't realized it yet.
I teared up with overwhelming contentment, quietly laughing, "To think all of these long-awaited realizations only happened after I gained these superhuman abilities."—"I guess the System really is a therapist."
Bending over, I grabbed a piece of wet cloth out of a pale of warm water and began wiping my body down with it.
Nobody can be a hero because nobody is perfect. We're all just people living in this shitty world together, fighting and quarreling for the survival of the fittest. I didn't want to be a hero for the sake of being a good person; I wanted it because it was a desirable quality to have, and that was the wrong reason. A hero isn't someone who has the pursuit of reverence, justice, or piety. Those things are merely self-satisfying vanity. Real heroes don't even think of themselves as heroes because they're too busy worrying about the well-being of others.