With nothing better to do, I continued to work out whenever I could move again after the previous session. Which in return led to me falling on the ground full of exhaustion and starting the cycle anew.
If there was an option to just fast forward all of this until I am buff and ripped as hell I would surely do just that. However, this was not a fantasy novel and a time skip to the more interesting parts of the story did not work here.
Everyone just wanted to see the epic climax, the finale that brings everything to a satisfying closure. But it's only that exciting because of all the boring shit that led up to it.
Take for example any hyped game loved by people. You best believe that behind all of that success burned out developers and playtesters had lost their minds on a daily basis. These people begged for the sweet release of death daily and yet the deadlines were merciless.
While others were happy with the outcome, only a few knew the mountain of suffering it was built upon. Ignorance remained a bliss to the people in front of their screen.
Some people would say it is all about the journey, yet only weirdos would want to read about their favourite character's daily adventure in the bathroom.
It was always about the hero of a story─Gary from accounting was not that highly sought after.
And I was just a random 'Joe'.
Maybe a fancy training montage would make this seem more appealing than it actually was. Sprinkle in some motivational music and you got yourself a smashing success. Whether they find inspiration in my suffering or prefer to stare at my large meat rod was not my concern.
The only thing that mattered to me was when and how my other self would kick the bucket. I have said it once and I would say it again, once I get my hands on him he was donezo.
I know I kept on saying the same stuff over and over again; that's because the same shit happened over and over again. My other self took a piss then laid back down and fell asleep again. I had seen more action in my bedroom...
That joke would have been the hit at any party because the virginity was strong in this one.
Equally strong was my desire to avoid these social gatherings due to a bad case of horrible puns. Hopefully, that motherlover enjoyed his stay in jail. I was very much certain that "Deez Nuts" would not hold up in court.
Just imagine you studied for multiple years, passed one hard exam after the other, dreaming to help and bring justice to those who needed it most... and then you gotta defend someone like the Deez Nuts guy. If that was not a dream come true, I don't know either.
At the end of the day, bills needed to be paid, and food had to be on the table. You couldn't live off of love, lust and air alone. Sometimes in life, an empty stomach was a lot more convincing than morality or principles.
In the wise words of every young man with regret─as well as money issues─ 50 bucks were 50 bucks.
Speaking of which, I reckon I needed to turn over a new leaf or start eating myself if I ever began to feel hungry in this strange space. Kinda fucked up, but not outside of the things I had expected from this place.
I did highly doubt that food would just materialize in front of me, whenever my body would demand it. Unless it was a lifetime supply of one particular edible item, to which I was highly allergic.
If that were the case, I'd be probably drowning in them. "Have all the nuts in the world," because sharing was caring. Entering the after-after-after-afterlife was apparently not enough for them.
It was my duty to entertain these omnipotent overlords of mine. Being almighty did not come with a manual on how to fight boredom. Nor did it enhance the creativity of those lacking eyes.
I could do push-ups for all of eternity and they would most likely just throw any random bullshit my way that entered their mind. It was like dealing with an infestation of toddlers with the powers of a Gods. As one might have guessed I was the unbreakable toy to distract them.
Though how entertaining my current training arc was, is something that needed to be debated. There was only so much appeal in me dry-humping the floor.
The sight of a black-haired, 1.81m tall, naked man trying his best to do a variety of exercises would only result in a charge for public exposure and indecency. Nobody would call that sort of thing sexy.
Calling myself a supermodel would have been quite the stretch, nor was I some kind of prodigy or some big brain. What interesting qualities could a random bloke from Earth really offer?
Was it really worthwhile to spectate the average 'Joe'?
The answer was obviously YES, otherwise they would have just snapped this sorry ass of mine out of existence. However, they even created another ME. Did the old blind man not suffer enough with one version?
Even if he did not suffer from my antics, had it not considered what would happen if two Joes would meet in the same room? The more the merrier did not apply here.
There were not enough clothes for the two of us in this realm.
Every single exercise, every single punch was done with that very thought in mind. To be honest, it was not even about wearing them to be anymore. I needed a goal; I needed literally anything to look forward to.
Otherwise, I could never tolerate the grind consisting of this many zeroes. Just thinking about it caused any motivation I did have to plummet. Let's say you would do 1 push-up each second and not take any rest, you would still not get more than 86400 done per day.
12 straight days of exercising just to pass a million, 115 days to pass 10 million, 1157 days for 100 million and the numbers just continue to increase from here on out.
To put that into perspective 27,375 days, I googled that once, was the average lifespan of humans. Even an entire lifetime would not be enough to make any significant gain in strength... let that sink in.
I threw a punch in the air just so I could know how fucked I was.
[Strengh raised by 0.000000001]
One billion punches to get one slobby point. One slobby Point. I was not doing the math on this one, but getting ripped like this would take a while.
Not that I could complain in any shape or form since I was not exactly "alive" to begin with. Just saying it would take a lot of me, to get that number to increase. The number varied a bit depending on the exercise in question, but, in the end, that made no fucking difference.
As long as it kept me busy, it was doing its job just fine.
Though I gotta admit, it felt fantastic to train with push-ups. Simply because I did not have to stare at my sorry other self while doing them. To spice things up I could do them on one hand or clap my hands in the air together to appease my inner sea lion.
I also could do them extremely slowly, giving me a lot more time to reflect on what I was doing to myself. Counting every repetition was also a good way to foster regret for being such a lazy ass in your first life.
Usually now came the part where somebody would spout a heroic speech about why one should never falter, even in the darkest of nights.
For some reason, people would be inspired by that kind of stuff and do their utmost to do the impossible. With the power of friendship, everything was possible. A few people might call it lazy-writing or plot armour, but these people are just jealous because they have no Nakama on their side.
My non-weeb self had been so sweet and innocent...not knowing all the weird terminology that had been brought to the West by anime. Nakama, aka a comrade, was definitely more on the tame side.
Humans' ingenuity never ceased to amaze, although that was due to all the wrong reasons. Take a look at the wonderful invention known as the Internet─full of art, literature and knowledge. However, over 87% of US men use it to search for porn on a weakly basis.
Yes, I did google that too.
You tend to do some strange things at home if you need to kill some time. Being bored as hell lead to a lot of stupid decisions. Besides, one could only be part of those cursed 87% a few times per day.
I might sound like a sexual deviant with all those innuendos in relation to masturbation...yeah, I really did not have any good arguments to defend my honour. Dropping kinky references was just another method for me to forget about my eternal virginity.
Therefore, I would be able to have a lot of forearm training in the foreseeable future.
Well, as per usual it could have been a lot worse. Imagine, dying all alone for the fourth time. How utterly embarrassing must it be to perish fully nude for the third time? Surely tempting fate, would not kill me for a second time, right? Well, it would be a first if it didn't.
Causing my fourth death might seem like a foolish idea, but by this point in time that perfectly described every "plan" of mine. I was a psychopathic wreck and proud of it.
In reality, not even a day had most likely passed─who cared about the facts? Fiction was so more fun.
Back to the absurd thought that crossed my mind as my neck turned my worldview upside down. After succumbing to my injuries and waking up I came to realize that everything went back to normal. Which raised the question, could death reset the entire state of my body?
If all my biological needs could be met by that one simple step... life would surely become great. No more sleep, no more hunger or thirst all for the low cost of not living. What a steal.
Pain and harm were temporary; wacky science was eternal.
Oh, and as for my self on the gigantic picture in the sky, he had successfully woken up again. Yet, instead of walking forward, his feet carried him in the exact opposite direction. I had no idea what the hell he was thinking, but he still had his clothes, so he had been doing better than me.
Unless he would do something amazingly stupid, he would continue on his merry way. Although as I heard the melody of "Stayin' Alive" coming out of his mouth; I just knew that something was going to end terribly.
I would have grabbed me some popcorn, but all I could do was sit back, work-out and enjoy the show.