Matt woke up before his alarm again. He rubbed his eyes and saw he once again had a lot of time before he needed to go to work. It seemed like he really only needed around 6 hours of sleep now with his healthier body.
He headed to the kitchen and quickly ate breakfast. He subconsciously tried to finish it up fast because there was something he wanted to test out. But then he remembered that time didn't move in the mind palace.
Ever since he found out he could learn skills and level them up from watching videos, an idea formed.
'Ok, might as well try it.'
He activated the mind palace and was transported back to the familiar world. He walked outside the small hut he had made and stood in the grass.
'Since time doesn't pass here, this could be super OP.'
He activated his karate skill and started going through the motions, punching and kicking the air. He kept going and it felt like hours had passed. Though, he wasn't concerned about time obviously.
In this space, he didn't get physically tired either, since all he was doing was thinking basically. But it had been a few hours and he was starting to get bored. Doing the same set of moves over and over was a bit repetitive.
He knew if this were to work, he at least needed to give it a few hours. But after that, he would claim that the experiment had failed.
He kept going and the minutes kept passing. He had started to think it wasn't going to work and he was just wasting all this time for nothing. But he was determined to find that out.
If he had given up after only a few hours, he would have learned nothing. He assumed that after around 10 hours if it hadn't gone off by then, it would never happen, because training in his mind must not have counted toward skills.
But, after a total of 6 mental hours of practicing karate, he finally heard a sound.
__________
[Karate] has leveled up!
[Lv.1] -> [Lv.2]
__________
'YES!'
He was sick and tired of doing the same thing for so long. For him, it felt the same as actually doing it for 6 hours straight in real life, just without the physical exhaustion. It was mind-numbing.
'I can't believe it actually worked! I was about to give up too. But, I'm definitely not doing that again for a bit. That was miserable.'
Though he had gotten tired of the moves, he did them once more to see how much his proficiency had increased. After performing a few kicks and punches, he noticed that he was much more accurate, and his attacks had more force as well.
Though, it wasn't by a ton. He seemed to now have the karate skills of someone who had practiced for roughly 3 months. It was a nice increase at least.
'Not bad.'
He felt a bit annoyed since he realized, now that he knew it worked, it meant he'd have to do this again. Many times. He wasn't the type to let advantages slip through his fingers. But he decided he really needed a break in between at least, or else he'd go insane from lack of entertainment.
'I didn't get a stat point for training that long, but it's because I was just doing it mentally. I'm glad because that would've almost been too cheaty.'
He deactivated his mind palace and his apartment appeared around him again. He saw that the clock hadn't changed. He had almost forgotten he had to go to work since it had already felt like half a day had passed. But it was still only 7 a.m.
'It's so weird being in there for so long and it's still morning.'
He started to get ready to leave and headed out of his apartment. The fresh air felt nice as he ran to work. One thing that he started to appreciate after getting the system was how nice it was to get fresh air.
On the weekends he used to stay home all day, and on weekdays he would go home right after work, and so he often spent most of his time inside his stuffy apartment. He started to remember how last weekend he had been excited to play that game where he was trying to get in the top 10.
'It seems like such a waste of time now. Why did I burn so much time doing pointless things in games?'
When Matt really thought about it, since the rest of his life was mediocre at best, he needed something that would make him feel like he was important. Being a top ranker in a game made him feel like a celebrity or special.
But he realized now that he had been just wasting his time. Being a top player in a game didn't really matter. Sure, there were people who had gotten paid to do that, like streamers or esports players. But he was just aiming for top rank by himself, with no way of turning it into income.
'I think I wanted to do great things, but I didn't know where to start. The only thing I ever really knew were games and how to be good at them.'
The system was really perfect for him. It was like he was finally able to use his skills for something that mattered. Like the world had changed to favor people like him, when before it was built for other people.
As he thought about this, he realized he had already arrived at the bookstore. Once again he was very early. He talked with his boss and again she gave him his tasks for the day. No quests showed up, but he expected that.
He quickly finished up everything he needed to do. With his new stats, it didn't take too long. He wanted to finish it quickly, so he could do what he actually wanted to do here.
'Time to download some books!'
This time he planned to find some books that could potentially teach him skills. He imagined the one he had already collected about surviving in the wilderness could possibly give him a skill. But he wasn't sure since it seemed fairly knowledge-based.
So far he had only gotten skills for things that mainly used muscle memory. He wondered if certain types of skills would apply in different ways,
So, he started his search for any books that might teach him a skill.