Pain

Will walked towards his refrigerator, taking out an E grade Nutrition Packet, and quickly sucked its contents empty. It was a gentle tasting paste that was easily digestible and had very high nutritious content. Immediately after having it, Will felt a gentle energy flow through him, making his tired body feel better.

Almost all of the money Will would manage to scrounge up would end up in the hands of the nutrition pack seller. Earning money was hard, but Will worked overtime at the local black market as a hacker and a tinkerer who unlocked or adjusted the communicator consoles of others for a decent sum of money. It was not legal, but he had few legal avenues for a job considering how he did not even pass high school.

With a smile on his face, Will went to sleep. When he got up, it was early in the morning. He had decided to practice the Clean Body Exercises, but then he remembered an important thing. He wasn't on Earth, but a planet called Oa.

Oa had a sun, but it was a distant red giant, whose light was considerably redder and duller. It provided less heat than what he had observed in the memory of Gilgamesh.

"Will it still work?" Will wondered for a while. He shrugged and made his way to a tiny children's park, and began practicing the exercises as he had seen Gilgamesh doing them.

He swung his arms around and stretched his legs like a gymnast and pushed his hand forward lile a rubber band twisting. At the same time he emulated the breathing. Five minutes later, he was rolling on the ground in pain.

There were a total of nine exercises, and Will almost died from the pain of just completing the first one. He felt a warm glow envelop his body for a split second that slightly alleviated the pain. Will closed his eyes, gritting to hold back a scream from the pain. He then saw something that shocked him. An extremely small fragment of his Life Wheel had split up and melted into a golden liquid that began to flow within his blood stream , gently assimilating into his cells.

Wherever, this liquid flowed, Will felt an incredible burning sensation coarse through him. He desperately bit his tongue to bear the pain and clenched his fists so tightly that they bled. After what seemed like an eternity of fifteen minutes, Will was finally able to stand up.

Will slowly breathed out. He didn't feel any improvement in strength. In fact there was nothing written about the life wheel in the Clean Body Tablet. He didn't know if it was just common knowledge, or that the sumerians just didn't have a life wheel. However, Will had a clear feeling that his health had marginally improved.

"The life wheel... just what exactly is it? Are the sumerians special? Why don't they have any mention of a life wheel?" Will's mind was exploding in confusion.

Eventually, he began practicing again, going through the same repetitive cycle of pain and a small fragment of the life wheel turning into a golden liquid, assimilating into his body. After practicing hard for two hours, Will finally returned home, drenched in sweat.

Despite his best efforts, he had only been able to complete the first exercise each time. Just that took all his effort, before the pain became unbearable and he had to stop. However, which each practice, he could feel an improvement in his ability to perform the exercise. Luckily, the muscle memory from observing Gilgamesh expertly perform the exercise helped considerably.

After a bath, Will quickly chewed up another E grade nutrition packet. He was frowning as he realized that one packet wasn't enough and had to have another. He didn't have a lot of packets with him.

"Performing these exercises seems very resource intensive. I need to earn more money." Will thought with a frown.

At the black market, Will was quietly sitting in a small cubicle, working on hacking a console.

"Brother, I want the money registered with this console discretely transferred to me. Is it possible?" The customer whispered warily.

"This..." Will's first thought was to reject this request as he usually did. Doing such a thing was risky and could put him under the radar if the console belonged to someone sensitive. However, he now needed money to purchase nutrition packs.

"I can do it, but I want 20% the amount." Will replied calmly. The shifty man was calculating for a moment, before he agreed.

Will set to work, hacking the terminal. He then determined the identity. It actually belonged to a person of the Newmann family, a technical officer at the company.

Will set up anonymous transfer accounts and funneled 80% to the customer and 20% of the money to an anonymous account under his control. He took a cursory look through the console and found an encrypted folder labelled top secret.

Will looked at the customer. "I have transferred your money. What do you want me to do with the console?" He asked blankly, hiding the matter of the encrypted folder.

"Just wipe it. I can resell it in another city." The customer replied.

"Very Well." Will answered as he surreptitiously transferred the encrypted folder to a disposed console of his own, before doing as the customer suggested.

Will sighed. Just this work had given him a considerable sum that he didn't need to worry about nutrition packs for a couple of weeks, if he persisted only on E grade. But he thought of purchasing a D grade packet to check out the difference.

The D grade nutrition pack was of a much high quality and cost as much as 10 E grade packets. Will had never tried it before, but since he was practicing those hellish exercises now, he might as well consider if a higher quality nutrition pack was more conducive.

Will turned his attention to the encrypted file on the discarded console and quickly decrypted it. This difficulty wasn't worth mentioning for him. He quietly browsed through the files and found a series of schematics. Will had a very peculiar expression on as he was reading the data.

"How did the Newmann family come in hold of such a thing?" He wondered in shock.