Astral woke up, putting the fire in the fireplace out while packing up their limited things. Looking at Anders he would smile. "The trip is long, and treacherous. You can rest in the pocket dimension if you want." She would nod as she walked down into the crafted living room of the pocket dimension.
While he ran to the Canadian Rockies. Astral would find an isolated spot in the mountains. "This will do." He would mutter to himself as he would slowly start to visualize what he wanted to do. Building a log cabin for the two of them to rest and eat in.
Focused on the functionality he made it with enough room for just the two of them, a small kitchen and a dining room. With endless amount of wood he would set up to fuel their cabin and cook their food. He dug and found a well for the two of them to access clean water and a fully functioning bathroom. After the construction was completed, he dropped Anders back onto the bed for them to talk.
"So, how long did it take to construct the cabin, I marked around twenty days on the watch." She would show him the timer that had been running.
"Correct. So when I am out of the pocket dimension time flows naturally." He would sit down on a chair next to the bed. "But when I am inside of the pocket dimension, time ceases to flow on the outside of it. It's linked to me in some sort of special way." He would create the portal between the dimensions. Just to stare through it.
"So, it is your special ability. Every one of your predecessors had something unique. The first one had an immense digestive system, the one following a walking firebomb, the tietmanese one went feral and could move quickly. As for the middle east one, I think the tendril attack was his." Anders just ran down the list of examples as Astral would toss a tennis ball back and forth through the pocket dimension.
"Yeah, and yet. I am the only one alive. Something must be different." He would think back to the accident. "Wait, my car was crushed before I got taken into the facility. It was a pile of metal and yet, I came out of there with a couple of scratches."
"I saw that crash from a picture. No human would be alive. But I don't quite have an explanation for it yet." Anders would lay down on the bed as she was happy to be back to the real world.
Astral would get up and lie down next to her. "Well, we can work on piecing that together tomorrow. Tonight I want to relax next to you and have a good night's rest before beginning back on my quest for knowledge and pushing the human body's limits." He would grow drowsy as he would slowly drift to sleep. She would just stay up and marvel at his body and physique. Seeing how his muscle density was greater than anything ever seen.
After waking up he would work on planning the workout he would want to do for the rest of eternity. Racking his brain for each and every metric that can be trackable. Speed and strength are the two obvious ones. In reality he could care less if it wasn't for the fact they were testing the human limits.
He would write down his schedule, nine hours of sleep, plenty of time to get good rest. He wouldn't worry about the details until he got to them. He would need one major piece in order for the workouts to begin fully. Anders would follow him outside and ask what he was doing.
"Well, I am recreating my bulky armor. I want to weigh myself down on my workouts in order to develop more muscle and increase any rate of growth." He would say as he was compressing layer after layer of titanium together.
Anders would take notes. "Be surprised already Astral, your muscle density is almost fifty times the average human. No wonder why a car being crushed didn't harm you, you turned into steel." Showing him the measurements she had taken last night.
He would look up and stare into the measurements. "Interesting." He would read it all. "Now tell me what that means, can I become infinitely stronger if I train myself that way?" He would put on the titanium armor. It served its purpose. It weighed an extreme amount. Perfect.
"I mean, technically you should not even be at this point in development. You trained in the pocket dimension for fifteen years. Even then your muscle mass still doesn't add up." Anders would be left to scratch her head.
"I got it." He would set his titanium armor outside the door and look bat at her. "What if gained other people's strength?" He would hop and outstretched his arms.
"That's not possible, it wouldn't make sense." She responded confused.
"But it does so well, these powers are unexplainable to human comprehension, so why can't it?" He would walk to the door frame. "Besides, I'd like for you to come up with a better idea." She would be taken aback as he went inside to make a meal before the plans were set into motion.
As for Astral, his daily routine was simple, spending his first two hours meditating, from there he would read a book for an hour, after a quick meal. It would lead to his workout, a six hour intensity program with weighted armor, weighing around three tons, over thirty times his normal weight.
In this program, he would start by running five hundred miles. Then working on any martial art to perfection. Including but not limited to the real world and fiction; Karate, Kung Fu, Taekwondo, boxing, kickboxing, Judo, Muay Thai, Aikido, ju-jitsu. Sometimes it would take one day, others would take multiple sessions. He would learn every martial art style, eclipsing over one hundred and fifty and slowly work on perfecting them. After his workout, he would eat another meal and read a new book for another hour.
Finished with his reading for the day he would do his strength training. Body weight workouts consisting of five hundred pushups, five hundred burpees, five hundred squats, and five hundred crunches taking up two hours. He would eat his last meal for forty five minutes giving him a hour and thirty minutes with Anders, to play chess, other games, or a therapy session. Then he would meditate for one last hour before resting. He would repeat this for what seemed like centuries.
Once a week after his workouts they would measure growth in speed and strength inside of the pocket dimension. The growth of his ability physically seemed to be a steady growth upwards. "Interesting. It is kinda a static line that is slowly growing upwards." He commented on the graph and ran his finger along it. "How bizarre is that, we have been working on my physical abilities for years and yet it hasn't slowed down growth wise?"
Anders would be writing the growth path numbers. "When you look at it. Even though it is less than a hundredth of a percent each time. It's still massive for the standards you are at compared to the baseline test." The notebook that would track all of his speeds and strengths were impressive. Hit strength, reaction time, running speed, lifting power, combat speed. All of it were on a digitalized graph for his improvement. Each one with its own line and date growing steadily weekly.
"Yeah, that's the points of a workout. Is to maximize your productivity and become stronger." He smiled flexing as his body still hadn't aged a day from what he was, still the same five foot ten inch tall man with a body toned with muscle. "Besides, I am enjoying this, but it feels kinda pointless, I never get much of a use for my strength and speed."
"Quit being a giant baby, you have plenty of life left in order to use it and have fun." She would joke with him about it.
"How, if I try to do anything it doesn't work. I'm too strong for sports and I don't age so I can't do the Olympics'. Even with an alias I still am far too powerful for it." He then looked to the stars. "Wait, what about space travel?"
"Is your suit compatible for it?" Anders question what he wanted to do.
"Well, not for long periods of time, but yes. I can modify it to make it better. I just need to adjust something I have made." He would smile as two arms outstretched themselves from his back. "Don't worry, I will always be around." He would walk out of the pocket dimension with her and get to tinkering.
Once a month he would go on a three day trip. Focusing on the pursuit of knowledge. Each trip would be to a different place, a different language, different books and other active histories to learn. These trips would be more about the preservation of past knowledge and the learning from it.
He would always seek to learn more. This quest for knowledge would never cease to end. Once space travel was widely used and acceptable. He would go to other planets during these vacation days and learn a whole new sleuth of knowledge. He learned all about these races, their histories and functions.