Ch. 2

Three days had passed since then.

He had decided. All actions stem from what you can see, and how fast you can move, and so he would train his vision and speed.

Although, training his vision was him just simply looking out into the street trying to see basically anything, the effects were still good. After 3 days his vision had expanded from seeing the rough outlines of things half a meter away to around 4 meters away. A great improvement. He'll be able to react much faster to attacks now.

Training his speed was him trying to move as fluidly as possible with his crippled leg and weak body.

This had a much lesser effect, but still a good one. He could move his body at least twice the speed he could before. His balance also improved by quite a bit, something he wasn't outright aiming to improve, but which naturally had to improve to get faster.

This was also among his calculations when he decided how he should train. Although improving his speed wouldn't hold the greatest results due to his weak body, it would be killing two birds with one stone, and would be essential to future training.

He also needed to secure better food in order to train his strength, and that wasn't possible at the moment.

He had decided he would train his body for the next 8 days in this way, until the system was done analyzing him.

On the third day, however, he decided he needed a weapon to make up for his lack of strength.

He realized that, if by the end of this analysis a dangerous situation actually occurred, he would be worse than dead.

He needed something to improve his chance of survival. Even the most basic thing, like a rock, would be useful.

He criticized himself for not realizing this sooner, too excited by this welcomed change in his lifestyle.

He inwardly promised himself he would never be blinded like that again.

It wasn't like him to lose sight of his goals, and he realized he had lost his edge after so long.

He didn't let his disappointment in himself distract him, and immediately thought of solutions to the weapon problem.

Stealing it from someone else would be the best solution, be he was way to weak for that. It was to risky, even if he already had a weapon to use on the person.

He decided the best course of action was to make something from the trash in the alleyway.

Even though the materials would be of worse quality, it was currently impossible for him to locate materials, other than from the alleyway, without putting himself in potential danger.

Realistically, no one in the entire world would be desperate enough to mug someone like him. However there is always a chance of a passing druggie thinking he's some monster and attacking him, especially considering his appearance.

He got lucky last time, being confused with a positive character, but that wouldn't always be the case.

So he began to search.

There were many things in the mound of surrounding junk. He would have liked to use wood to make a spear, but ever peice he found was rotting and broken.

He found pebbles, and small rocks, but nothing big enough to be used as a weapon.

Eventually, he managed to find a PVC pipe that was in relatively good condition.

He took the PVC pipe and filled it with dirt and rocks, and then sealed the two ends with old fabric and plastic, and wrapped the entire thing with the same, before tying it off.

The result was a heavy bat that was somewhat sturdy and could be swung with his full strength without breaking.

It wasn't something that could hurt a big creature, but if the creature was on the smaller side it would be effective.

And it would certainly help hum run away if he did have to fight a large creature.

Having used the entire day to make this, he was absolutely exaughsted. As soon as he laid down he fell asleep.

The next day, he began doing his speed training with the weapon in hand.

He regretted that the past 3 days were essentially wasted, his previously gained balance lost with the weapon in his hands.

Though, he was much faster to relearn his balance with the weapon, only taking a day to get almost to the speed he had before.

His vision also expanded rapidly.

Now, he could roughly see the other side of the road he was on, and could almost clearly see his immediate surroundings.

The count down timer, by the afternoon of the 5th day, had an estimated time of 3 days exactly.

He realized that now was the time he need to improve his strength, but there was nothing he could do.

He didn't have the necessary resources or time to procure them.

In the end, the only thing he could do is rest and meditate.

Using a specific technique he had developed himself, he was able to raise his metabolism, reaction time, and flexibility.

He had been doing a less intensive breathing exercise to raise his flexibility along with stretches for the previous days, so he was quite flexible, but he still needed more agility.

How it worked was by directly triggering the nREM3 stage of sleep in the brain.

The exact mechanism for this to work was actually quite complex, but in simplistic form it was caused by classical conditioning.

He did this for many, many hours. By the time he woke up, there were about 5 hours left on the count down.

And he felt ready.

He looked at least 30 years younger, although he was still covered in dirt and grime.

He picked up the makeshift bat and began to practice with it.

Even with a limp, he was still quite fast. He was still below average, but the changes were enough that you would think he had been reborn.

He did that for about 30 minutes and then went and sat in the sun.

His vision had expanded greatly, and he could see for a very long way down the street.

Thus was due to the restorative properties of long term nrem3 sleep that was found by him and a few others who worked with him on the project a long time ago, when he was in his first year of college.

He did a lot back then, before he dropped out.

He liked the place, but he hated the people and didn't want anymore to do with them.

He hated how they had so much expectation for him, scrutinizing his every action, while at the same time none of them cared for their own actions.

Just biding their time, doing the bare minimum, even when given the chance to do more.

He could understand if that wasn't their passion, but more times than not it was their passion.

It made him want to throw up seeing so much of that, day in and day out. He spoke his head back and forth.

He needed to focus. No distractions. No thoughts. He needed to survive.

Steeling himself, he waited until it got down to 59 minutes.

Then 49 minutes.

39

29

19

9

5

59 seconds.

30 seconds.

15 seconds, he tightens his grip on the bat.

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

*Analysis complete.*

*Granting primary system.

*Primary system granted: goblin refining system.

*System user can see status by saying "system status."

*Primary system unactivated. Would you like to activate it? Granted systems may be activated upon user's input, but will have to be activated normally if user chooses not to activate system. *

*Note that most granted systems will be unactivatable otherwise.*

'Goblin refining system?'

'Hmm....'

'I guess, I'll activate it.'

After a moment to think, he pressed the [yes] button that had appeared with the other notifications.

His reasoning was that, even I'd something dangerous did happen, considering the threat would only be at the level of a goblin, there should be no worries even if it's him we're talking about.

The system seemed to process his choice, and then said

*congratulations!*

*goblin refining system has been activated. Beginning entrant test.*

'Test?'

Before he could think about it further, his vision suddenly started spinning, and the sunlight of midday suddenly turned into darkness.

His vision stopped spinning, and all around him was a dark room.

'Strange...'

He didn't think it was strange he was transported to this place, that was within his expectations.

What he found strange was that he could see much better here than normal.

Almost average vision, even though it was close to pitch black.

'Is it an illusion?'

That would make the most sense, considering the system window which he could see perfectly was also like an illusion.

But he thought there was more to this than what meets the eye.

Thinking all this, he did a quick scan of his surroundings, yet saw nothing.

The room seemed to be empty.

Even the ceiling seemed to have nothing on it.

Not knowing how long that would be the case, he went to one of the corners of the room and put his back to it, so that he would get the best view of the entire room, while simultaneously being able to best defend himself from any attacks.

He realizes that he should have tried to make a shield in the event of a situation like this, where his only option was to defend.

But, still he waited... and waited... and waited...

...why isn't anything happening?

He had expected something to happen, like a dangerous creature attacking him, but perhaps he was wrong?

After all, it only said 'test.'

It doesn't necessarily need to be dangerous, it could also be testing something else.

Thinking this, he tried to move his way through the room by sliding slowly on the walls.

After his fourth pass through the entire room, yet still finding nothing, he began to think maybe he was thinking about this wrong.

For the first time since entering, he let his guard drop, sighing in relief as there was no danger here.

He went to the center of the room, where he had appeared, and looked for something there, but found nothing.

Standing up and scratching his head, he felt stumped.

"Is there really nothing here?"

He put his hand to his chin in contemplation, completely unaware of the danger behind him.