The first thing Victor did was to go out again, then, he started jogging around the area. He wanted to prepare himself before he could actually do anything since he knew his body could break if he pushed it beyond a certain limit.
Luckily for him, Victor had pretended to be a gym coach before to get a target so he learned almost everything required to be a coach. That naturally helped him assess his own body and know exactly what he needed to do.
'Though, I don't have any weights I can use to train. I guess bodyweight training is the way to go.' He thought to himself.
As he jogged, he made sure to breathe deeply. He knew the importance of a good breathing technique in the results. He knew that if he wanted to maximize the results in as short of a period of time as he could, he had to be mindful of every single thing he was doing.
After almost 5 minutes of jogging, Victor found himself already struggling to move. His face was covered in sweat, and he found difficulty breathing.
'This is… bad…' He thought to himself as he rested against a tree. 'Even 5 minutes of jogging is too much for this body. There is a lot of work to do.'
Exhaling a small breath, Victor slowly stood up, and wiped the sweat off his face. "I can't stop now."
Even though he already felt exhausted, Victor wasn't intending to stop any time soon. So, with that in mind, he went down on his arms and legs and started doing push-ups. The moment he reached ten, he found himself unable to continue even further.
His arms started shaking and his body stopped moving. Clenching his teeth, Victor forced himself to add another one before he dropped to the ground. Staring at the sky, he inhaled and exhaled air.
In a matter of minutes, it had dawned on him even more that he was indeed extremely weak.
'So this is how it feels to be completely powerless… It's oddly eye-opening.' He thought to himself as he blinked.
After living his entire life being looked at as the strongest, he didn't know how to feel about going to the complete opposite side of the spectrum. He was now extremely weak.
"..." Yet, for some reason, Victor didn't hate that. Perhaps he was happy to have such a fresh starts, right from the very beginning where he had nothing.
'Maybe regaining my powers would be a good goal to have… Or not. I can't tell yet.' Shaking his head, he slowly rose up.
"Ok, time to continue."
***
For the next hour or so, Victor pushed his body to the extreme. He did multiple exercises and several sets of each exercise. Even though his muscles were aching like hell, he didn't stop at all. He kept pushing himself till he couldn't move anymore.
When he was done with the exercises he wanted to do, he lay there, trying to recover. As he was like that, he had an epiphany.
'Hmm, would that actually work?' He asked himself. The idea sounded plausible.
So, instead of trying to speculate, he decided to try and see what would happen. Closing his eyes for a moment, he sluggishly channeled the Runic Energy within him. The mysterious energy immediately started coursing through his body, reaching every single spot.
A second later, Victor felt that energy seeping through his muscles, reinvigorating them. The aching also decreased considerably and Victor was able to move a little even though he should've be immobilized.
The more he channeled the Runic Energy, the more he felt better.
"So, it does help in increasing the recovery rate of the body too." The young boy smiled as he looked at his hand. His reason for suspecting it was the case was the nature of this energy. Circulating the energy through his body not only helped his core get stronger but also boosted his physical power.
So, naturally, that also meant it could help the muscles and bones recover from injuries, or perhaps exhaustion like in his case.
'Though, this seems to consume my Runic Energy at a faster rate. I can feel my core slowly emptying.' Victor thought to himself as he touched his chest. 'Still, this changes everything. No, this is going to be a crucial point in his entire fitness plan.'
Smiling to himself, Victor adjusted his position and rested against the tree as he let the energy course through his body, very slowly restoring his energy. A while later, Victor felt good enough to start moving again. Even though the aching was still strong, he wasn't completely immobilized like before.
'If a colorless dark core can do this, then I wonder what higher cores can do. This is ridiculous.'
The God was really on point when he called this power magical. It was indeed working like magic, and doing things that defied logic. Victor already liked how this worked.
"Ok, time to restart training. I still have time before the sunset." Stretching his soar limbs, he went back to training, as motivated as ever.
***
With that, for the next two hours or so, Victor trained harder than he did before. His body was tired, but with the help of the Runic Energy, he helped his body recover to some extent. Granted, the returns were diminishing with each time he tried to rejuvenate his muscles, but he didn't need to fully recover to actually be able to continue exercising.
By the two-hour mark, Victor's core was almost emptied. That was when he felt something different.
"Huh?" As he was about to try and channel the energy again, he suddenly was hit with a very strong and sharp headache that almost knocked him down. Holding himself against the tree, he looked down.
"Ugh…" He groaned slightly as he tried to understand what just happened. "Did I get a headache because my core is almost empty? I guess… There is a penalty for emptying your core." He muttered. "That makes sense…"
Since the Runic Energy was a part of his body, he understood that using it all was like robbing his entire body of fuel, so naturally, it would struggle to keep up.
Shaking his head, Victor sat down. Then, he closed his eyes and expanded his senses. Immediately, his body started absorbing the Runic Energy in the air around him.
'This should be the way to fill it up again, I suppose.'
As he expected, the absorption made his sharp headache stop increasing. His body hungrily absorbed the small doses of energy he was giving it as it tried to fill the core again. The process was tediously slow, but Victor didn't care as he simply let the flowing energy do its thing.
For the rest of the evening, Victor continued absorbing energy endlessly. Even though he wasn't actively training his body, this was another form of getting stronger. He could feel his core very slowly getting more efficient at channeling the Runic Energy and even containing it.
He didn't know how long it was going to take him to actually reach the next phase of the colorless stage, but he didn't bother ti think about it. He simply was enjoying the progress he was making.
By the time the sun set and the darkness shrouded the entire world, Victor finally opened his eyes. Looking around him, he exhaled a long breath.
Then, he shifted his gaze to his body. He was still very soar from all the training, and his core barely filled up to one-fourth of its entire capacity. Still, he felt quite good.
'For a first day… I think I did not bad. I can do even better tomorrow.'
It was indeed a very good first day. He could feel that he had taken a big first step in his journey. However, the key was to keep that consistent improvement. He can't let it fall off.
With that in mind, he stood up, that was when he was hit with the sweaty smell coming off his body. Frowning slightly, he looked at the sea.
"... Maybe I should go wash up."
A//N: Support the book with PS, boys!