Beep, beep, beep, the alarm clock next to Ryu's bed was buzzing, slowly Ryu awoke from his sleep. Rubbing his eyes and brushing off the grogginess Ryu arose from the bed and continued to perform his morning routine.
"Today I'm going to check out the gym membership I got yesterday," Ryu thought to himself. He intended to go to the gym, not just to become more fit, but because it was an MMA gym, so he'd have the chance to learn martial arts if he needed to.
Even though he was excited to visit the gym, his anxiety made him also dread it. He was afraid that he would be judged for being too small or would be picked on just as he was in school.
Despite this, he knows that the gym is his only way to get stronger currently, especially considering his quests required him to visit it, so he fought through the anxiety and strengthened his resolve to visit the gym.
He was ready to leave his apartment building and hit the gym after eating a quick breakfast, he just ate instant oatmeal as his mother wasn't there to cook breakfast because she had to work an early shift that day.
"Before I leave, I should check my quests and see what today is going to entail," Ryu thought to himself as he was walking towards the door to leave.
"Quests"
[Quests]
[Visiting the Gym]
[Bench Press until Failure: 0/1]
[Exercise Back until Failure: 0/1]
[Squat until Failure: 0/1]
[Run: 0/5 Miles]
[Sign up for an MMA lesson: 0/1]
[Reward: Stat Points and a System Feature]
[Time Limit: 1 Day]
"Wow, if I complete this I'll unlock more features for my system, I have to do this quest today or else I'll never get stronger," Ryu thought.
After he finished up reading the display screen, he grabbed his sneakers and a water bottle and headed out to the gym. He knew where it was because he walked past it to get to school every day.
Walking up to the front door Ryu had arrived at the gym, as he entered, he saw a front desk, with a scanning system, and a large gym behind it.
"This place is huge, you would've never guessed from the façade," Ryu thought.
"Hello, you must be a new member, I've never seen you before," said the man standing at the front desk, he stood at 5'10 but had very defined muscles that could be noticed even though he was wearing a baggy shirt and sweatpants.
"Yeah, I'm a new member, I have a membership card though," Ryu responded timidly because of his anxiety.
"Alright, nice to meet you, what's your name, I go by Ken," said the front desk employee.
"Ryu," said Ryu and walked up holding out his gym card clearly not knowing what to do with it.
"Just scan the bar code on the back with this scanner and you can head on in," said Ken.
"Thank you so much," Ryu said as he followed the instructions and heard a beeping sound come from the scanner indicating he was able to enter the gym.
"Wow the system truly works, I got in, wait I should ask about the classes before I enter" Ryu thought to himself.
"Hey, do you have any MMA classes that are free with the gym membership?" Ryu asked Ken politely.
"Yeah, in fact there's a single open spot on Thursday's session in two days it's at 4:00 P.M., would you want to sign up, it's a beginner session," said Ken.
"Yeah, sign me up," Ryu replied as he walked past the gate and into the gym.
"Where do I even start, I've never done this before," Ryu thought to himself, as he looked around the gym surrounded by structures and machines he had never seen before.
Luckily, Ryu knew what a bench press was, he didn't live under a rock after all, so he decided to walk up to an open bench.
Ryu grabbed the bar on the bench press which weighed around 45 pounds and got into what he thought was form and tried doing one rep, it wasn't particularly easy, but the 45 pounds wasn't extremely heavy to him.
Seeing his form from far away, a gym patron named Ito walked over to help the clearly unexperienced lifter.
Ryu set the bar back down and noticed that an extremely muscular male was walking towards him, he immediately though that he was about to be bullied even in the gym. Because of this Ryu's heart rate started rising and he felt himself start to get sweaty.
By this point Ito was practically by the side of the bench Ryu was occupying. He reached out his hand to shake Ryu's.
Whilst doing this Ito said confidently, "Hey, name's Ito, I saw your form from far away and it's not great buddy, you mind if I show you how to fix it?"
"Uhh, o-okay," Ryu said timidly still feeling the onset of a panic attack.
"Alright, stand up real quick for me and watch how I do it," said Ito.
Ryu followed the man's commands and lifted himself off the bench allowing Ito to show him how to perform a proper bench press.
Ito performed the exercise near perfectly, while Ryu watched and took some mental notes. After completing a couple reps slowly so Ryu could watch the process in detail, he dismounted the bench and motioned for Ryu to try.
Understanding what Ito meant, Ryu sat down on the bench and grabbed the bar performing the exercise again, but this time with much better form.
With that, Ito congratulated him saying, "Quick learner, huh, wanna lift with me today and I'll show you around?"
Recognizing that Ito meant no harm, and was trying to help him, Ryu responded with a calm, "Sure."
With that Ryu continued to perform the lifts with Ito and ended up exchanging phone numbers with him by the end, Ito didn't even make a comment about Ryu's shabby, near-broken flip phone.
With that session, Ryu had completed his quest and then some, he retreated to the gym bathroom and sat in a stall to check what he would get from the quest.
[Quests]
[Visiting the Gym]
[Bench Press until Failure: 1/1]
[Exercise Back until Failure: 1/1]
[Squat until Failure: 1/1]
[Run: 5/5 Miles]
[Sign up for an MMA lesson: 1/1]
[Reward: Stat Points and a System Feature]
[Claim Rewards]
Seeing that everything had been completed, Ryu thought the phrase, "Claim Rewards". With that the interface changed and a notification popped up.
[Notification: You have received 2 stat points.]
[Notification: You have received the level system; would you like to have this explained to you?]
[Yes] [No]
Thinking in his head, Ryu said, "Yes".
With that the system popped up a message that read as follows.
[The Level System: This system works on two parameters, one is your level, two is your obtained experience. Starting now, experience can be obtained through quests and completing feats that the system recognizes as impressive. Quest rewards are relative to the difficulty of the quest, and feats are assessed based on how difficult it would be for you in your current state to complete the feat, feats are unknown to you until you complete them out of your own volition. As you level up you will receive stat points, and sometimes extra rewards. Each level up you will achieve 1 stat point. With that check your status display to see how it has changed with this feature.]
Following the systems instructions, Ryu thought to himself "Status".
[Host: Ryu]
[Level 1: 0/100 XP]
[Strength: 4]
[Intelligence: 8]
[Appearance: 2]
[Agility: 1]
[Unspent Status Points: 2]
[Health Status: Poor, you have the strength of the average 12-year-old boy, and the weight of one too.]
[A normal human's attributes range from 10-15 in each category.]
[Skills: N/A]
[Arts: N/A]
"Wow this is a really great feature, I can get status points as a bonus from experience, and can even get extra rewards," thought Ryu.
"Alright, now it's time to spend my status points, I honestly think I should just focus on my strength for now, until I get it to at least 10, that way I won't find myself in the hospital again," Ryu thought, "Invest 2 stat points into strength."
With that the system display changed.
[Host: Ryu]
[Level 1: 0/100 XP]
[Strength: 4 -> 6]
[Intelligence: 8]
[Appearance: 2 -> 4]
[Agility: 1]
[Unspent Status Points: 2]
[Health Status: Below-average, you are considered very weak to a normal person of your age and size.]
[A normal human's attributes range from 10-15 in each category.]
[Skills: N/A]
[Arts: N/A]
Ryu noticed that his appearance had also gone up even though he did not invest into it. Just as he was about to question it a system prompt was displayed in front of him.
[Notification: Host has found a hidden feature, if stat point investments improve something that has held back another stat, the other stat will increase accordingly. Because of your malnourishment, you had a lower appearance than your body would naturally reflect, by increasing your strength and muscle mass with stat points you have become less skinny looking, therefor your appearance increased.]
"Wow, that's great, 4 stat points for the price of 2," Ryu thought to himself.
With that, he had finished what he set out to complete for the day, he exited the gym and realized he still had a good amount of time left for the day, thinking of what he could do with this time, Ryu had a brilliant idea…