Chapter 39: Impossible Quest

[New Quest: Completing The Obstacle Course (1)

Task: Completing this obstacle course requires a lot from the user's body, but will give back even more once finished. The faster you finish the obstacle course, the earlier you get to reap the rewards. Why should you take the whole month to do this when you could finish it in only half the time? For the first part of this quest, the task is to complete the obstacle course within only half a month.

Time Limit: Two weeks

Completion Reward: Progression of the Quest and Auxiliary Body Cultivation Method: Weight Training

Failure Penalty: None]

Seeing this, Eric was once again surprised. He wasn't even sure if he could complete the obstacle course within a month; doing so in half the time wasn't an accomplishment he considered possible.

This initial feeling of his, however, didn't stay for long. Eric recalled that he felt the same way before he got the physical training quest, which he was able to complete with half an hour remaining. It was quite likely that he was underestimating his own abilities as he had already done that once previously.

'Why am I skeptical of my ability? Whether I can accomplish this or not doesn't even matter. There is no failure penalty, so there is also no reason for me to be hesitant about this. If I fail, I fail.' Eric started to realize that his anxiety and doubt had no reason to exist.

It was just a natural reaction from Eric after seeing something he deemed unachievable as a quest. There weren't any actual consequences, except for the ones he put on himself. Since it was implied to him that any task that the Scam System assigned him was definitely possible, Eric had made it a personal goal for himself to complete every single quest without fail. To Eric, being unable to complete a quest would be a show of lack in his ability.

This realization calmed him a little bit; since his own subconscious thoughts were what caused him doubt rather than his lack of ability, getting rid of those doubts would be easier than expected.

With no more fear or hesitation in this mind, Eric closed the quest window and switched to his inventory. He then took out the Qi Gathering Herb and quickly ingested it; the quest took him by shock a little bit but it wasn't enough to make him forget his plan.

Once he absorbed the herb, Eric quickly walked out of the training room, locked it and made haste towards his father's location.

Within less than a minute, Eric arrived at the main gate of the Roaring Dragon Mercenary Group's Headquarters, where Blake stood patiently waiting.

"Come, let's head back home." Blake spoke, looking at Eric.

'He doesn't mind me being a little bit late? Well, I shouldn't be complaining as this works even better for me.' Eric thought to himself as he got in the carriage that had already arrived and was waiting for him right outside the gate.

Inside the carriage, Blake asked Eric a couple basic questions about his experience in the training room in general, to which his son gave short yet adequately detailed replies. Fortunately, this conversation didn't last more than a minute and Eric had the entire ride back home to cultivate his body in peace.

Once he reached home, Eric took a quick nap and then continued with his regular schedule till night. He didn't face any major hurdles in the other two paths of cultivation as well; and there wasn't anything out of the ordinary that he did that day.

***

The following day, Eric woke up rather early in the morning and after getting ready, the first thing he did was check the daily quest.

[New Quest: Physical Training (2)

Task: In order to make the most out of training one's body, one should constantly up their ante and challenge themselves to their very limits in order to break through them. The task for this part of the quest is to-

1) Curl the 15 kilogram dumbbells 300 times in each hand.

2) Bench press with the 60 kilogram barbell 300 times.

3) Punch the sandbag 300 times with each hand and kick it 300 times with each leg.

Time Limit: 4 hours (Currently frozen as the quest hasn't yet started)

Completion Reward: Progress of the Quest

Failure Penalty: None]

'As expected, it hasn't started yet,' he thought to himself as he closed the system window.

'What will the next part of the quest be? Will I push my limits and increase the amount of exercise every day? That doesn't really seem possible for me at my current level of physical strength. Curling the dumbbells 300 times instead of 250 won't be a big issue, but if that number were to increase further into 500, I will most probably not be able to finish it in the given time limit.

But, this doesn't mean that I shouldn't improve. Raising the bar and increasing my standards repeatedly is a given for physical training but it's not as obvious how much and how often I should do this improvement.'

Eric was looking forward to training his body daily for the next month, but he wasn't exactly sure if he would be able to keep up with the continuous increase in standards of the quest.

'I shouldn't bother about this right now. This won't be a problem for at least the first week so till then it wouldn't be wise for me to create another unnecessary problem to think about and waste my time and effort on. This depends on what numbers the quest gives me; and since I have no say in that, there is no point in worrying about it.'

Once he had taken this out of his mind, Eric decided to cultivate his soul for the time being. Since he was mainly focusing on his body for this following month, he had comparatively less time to devote to cultivating his mind and his soul.

After a while of cultivating his soul, it was time for Eric to go about his routine. Even though it wasn't much, he was still able to make use of his extra time for improving himself.

Eric was already pretty close to reaching the mid second layer of the Spirit Apprentice Realm. His aptitude for the soul was undoubtedly exceptional. He was also at the second layer, albeit being at the early stage for his mind.

Eric's body cultivation was the only one of the three that was lagging behind at the mid first layer, but this didn't bother him that much. For the body, the level of cultivation wasn't the only thing that mattered. The skills and battle experience of the body were equally as important as, if not more important than the amount of qi absorbed.

Through the training room, Eric was increasing the movement ability and physical strength of his body. These practical skills didn't increase his cultivation level, but they definitely increased his body's overall battle prowess.

Eric checked his profile once before proceeding with his usual scheduled activities when he noticed something different.

[Profile

Personal Information

Name: Eric Tyler

Age: 11

Date of Birth: 27 October

Cultivation

Soul: Spirit Apprentice Realm 2nd Layer (early)

Body: Flesh Refining Realm 1st Layer (mid)

Mind: Trainee Mentalist Realm 2nd Layer (mid)

Aptitude

Soul: Radiant Gold

Body: Crimson

Mind: Light Azure]

[Communication Skills

Persuasion: 10

Intimidation: 10

Charm: 10]

Now his cultivation level was described with even more detail as it showed if he was at the early, mid, late or peak of the respective layer.