"How... is this possible..." His eyes shot wide open, and with his jaws slacked, Ron just stood there for a whole minute like an idiot, so shocking was the image he saw in the mirror.
His body, which just a few hours ago was the epitome of unhealthy with little to no muscle and a whole lot of fat in the middle, now looked like...
Well, it now looked exactly like he had expected it to look like if he continued on with his workout routine for the whole summer, that is... he got the body one should get after two months of hard work in just a single workout of one hour.
The arms that were previously long and thin like pipes, had actual muscles on them now... they weren't much but still, they were now prominent enough that if flexed he could actually see his biceps.
His shoulders had also widened a little bit, and his chest had gotten a slight definition too, but the most drastic change was seen in his stomach...
His bulging protruding ugly belly had now been reduced by a complete 50%... FIFTY PERCENT!!!
Where before he couldn't even suck in his stomach even if he wanted to, now... well, now he was sure that if he just wore a loose t-shirt, then his gut wouldn't even be visible.
He felt like someone had taken all of the fat in his stomach and converted it into muscle before distributing it all across his body.
He went from looking like someone who's never touched grass in his life to looking like a healthy teenager who plays soccer every other day... It was such a drastic change, especially considering that it occurred in a matter of hours.
'And it came completely out of nowhere...' Ron mused while admiring his new body in the mirror, "No, wait, not out of nowhere!" he exclaimed as he suddenly remembered that he knew about one such cheat that was designed to do things just like this, "Status!"
[Status]
Name: Ronald Weasley (Sam)
Level: 16 (05/340)
MP: 258/258
Physique [Max.]: 6.5 + 0.5 (Pending) [11]
Dexterity [Max.]: 5 [10]
Spirit [Max.]: 8.6 + 0.3(Pending) [16]
Perception [Max.]: 4 [10]
Stat Points: 1
Skill Points: 1
[Skills]
Transfiguration Lv5, Charms Lv5, Herbology Lv5, Potions Lv5, DADA Lv5, Astronomy Lv4, Flying Lv6, Dueling Lv6, Observe Lv1...
"Ohh... so all this was because of these 0.4 points increase in physique..." Ron said with an enlightened look on his face, "It looks as if my body was just waiting for me to make an effort to digest those points, but still, all this for less than half a point..."
'It makes one wonder how I would look when I reach the physique of 7 or even 8 points...' Ron mused while putting his T-shirt back on, 'And it looks like I would need to buy some new clothes too when that happens..." he murmured while looking at the T-shirt that felt just a little more fit.
'Meh! But that's all for future Ron to worry about, because for now...' Ron's eyes gleamed with an excited look, 'It's time to check, if the hardware update was purely cosmetical or if it also translated into improved strength and endurance...'
While people were usually advised not to exercise twice a day, especially if they were beginners, it didn't matter much to Ron as he didn't feel any soreness anywhere in his body, in fact, he felt completely rejuvenated, as if his body didn't even remember breaking down this morning...
So he decided it was the perfect time for another training session and for him to compare his numbers to see how much he had improved from his morning workout.
More than a little excited now, Ron impatiently ran into the washroom to wash up his face and change out of his shorts.
When he came out, he happened to catch a glimpse of the clock and saw that it was 3:15 pm...
It was a little early for an evening workout, but it didn't really matter since he was on holiday and his personal gym was situated beside the river.
"Oh, Shit! I completely forgot about you,"
Just as Ron was getting ready to leave his room, his eyes fell upon the charms book carelessly spread on his bed, the same one that he had been so keen to complete before his nap.
For a few seconds, Ron just stood there scratching his head, hesitating on whether to complete the book before leaving but in the end, his curiosity about his current abilities won out, "I'll just finish you before sleeping..." he murmured before picking it up and placing it on his bedside table.
Finally, after wearing his sneakers, Ron set off from his room...
But not even two minutes later, he rushed back in, going straight towards his drawer before opening it to take out the item most precious to him, "Can't believe I forgot about you..." he apologized sheepishly while picking up his wand.
"I should break out of this bad habit..."
He had previously decided that he would do his magic practice in the evening for which a wand was essential, but even without that it, was dangerous for a wizard to go anywhere without his wand, and he didn't want to get it into a problematic situation in the future, only to find out that he forgot his wand at home like an idiot.
"It's decided, I'll always carry it with me from now on," he promised himself before placing the wand in his front pocket and then, once more ran out of the room.
Ginny was lazing around in her room and his mother was probably taking her afternoon nap so Ron was able to leave the house without anyone asking him any questions.
After stretching for a few minutes in the backyard, Ron took off running straight into the woods.
Moving between the trees, he was shocked at how different it felt compared to his run in the morning.
He was not only having no trouble breathing, but his legs were also not jarring with every single step making his movement smoother... and, he even felt that his reaction speed had improved just a little bit.
But the most astonishing thing was that he reached the river barely seven minutes later without getting winded in the slightest.
In fact, Ron sensed that he could go on for a whole lot longer, compared to this morning when he was kneeling on the ground heaving like an 80-year-old man, his stamina now was a world apart.
"Oh! This is going to be good..." he muttered with an enthusiastic grin on his face and then without waiting for anything he jumped into his workout.
And it indeed was quite good...
Just like in the morning, he did specific exercises targeting all his muscle groups, focusing on destroying them as much as he could, but the difference from his workout in the morning was the sheer volume... as he managed to do almost thrice as many reps as he could do in the morning.
For example, the push-ups... of which he could only do twelve in the morning, and now actually managed to do three sets of twelve, for a total of 36 reps before reaching failure... a very respectable amount for a beginner.
And for the pull-ups, he could now do a total of twelve reps divided into three sets... and while it may not seem like much in numbers, it was a massive improvement from his pathetic two-half pull-ups in the morning.
In fact, he was feeling so good, that he decided to add two more exercises to his regime, mostly focusing on complex movements involving his legs and his core muscles.
In the end, he worked out for almost an hour and a half... overdoing a little bit in his haste.
But even when he was lying there on the ground with his chest heaving up and down, and even though every single part of his body was screaming in protest, a smile hadn't left his face for even a second.
Unlike in the morning, this time he was feeling a good kind of pain, and instead of feeling miserable like he did after his first workout, he was feeling quite the rush at the moment.
And it seemed his recovery had gone up too as barely five minutes later, he was good to move... so after a short clean-up at the river, Ron slowly made his way back towards his house.
The calm walk through the woods surrounded by the sounds of birds chirping was quite soothing and worked like a healing balm to his sore muscles.
He didn't even realise the time as he suddenly came out of the woods, with the backside of his home right in front of him.
But instead of going in, Ron went around the burrow towards its front side, and then with the front door as his starting point he began walking towards the surrounding fence while counting his steps.
"One, Two, Three... Twenty, Twenty-one... Fifty-two, and that's it. So a total of fifty-two steps, huh? Hmm, let's round it down to fifty just to be on the safe side."
Nodding his head, Ron went around the burrow toward the back and this time he took the back door as his starting point and once again began counting his steps.
"One, Two...Fifteen, Sixteen... Twenty-six and Twenty-seven," he stopped as on the twenty-eighth step he entered the boundary where the wooded area behind his house began.
"This is quite good," he murmured with a pleased expression before he took ten more steps, where he reached a small open area between the trees.
While this place was not completely hidden from his house, it was still shaded enough by the tree branches that unless someone was purposefully looking at him with just the right angle, they wouldn't be able to see what he was doing.
He then looked around before picking a sharp rock from the forest floor, using which he began marking the trees in the area as a boundary to be used as a reference later on.
"Phew! And now for the real test." Ron said before taking his wand out from his pocket.
///