Having arrived at the conclusion, Zaon, Aki and Karlo discussed the terms of how they will do the Ingrain Method.
First, Zaon must only be gaming for ten hours. After ten hours, he must sleep.
This will refresh his mind, as well as work the brain in hyperdrive, and cool it down, so he can remember things more clearly.
Then, he will dive again, and game for another 8 hours.
After this, he has to do his necessities, such as exercise, bathing, eating and other stuffs.
Also, Sundays are off, and he must not touch his pod in those days. He has to socialize, and at least relax.
The pod is programmed to be cleaning in Sundays, so he has to comply.
Second, Karlo is the one who does the training.
Military, Martial Arts, Strategy and Exercise.
He has to know everything for now, and support what he can do well.
This will make him shape himself up in no time, and create a method which he can get all the requirements he is looking for.
And third, is that he needs to do this until his brain and body gets into an equilibrium; meaning, he has to do this until he can achieve that.
And so, the hellish training has begun.
He had to lock in before getting back to the game.
And so, starts his first training session.
He has no worries, because the quest won't go on unless he logs in, and his character won't die because he is logged out.
In short, he has time to give his body a boost before doing the ingrain method.
PAK!
A thin rope whip hit his sides as he tried to stand over a rope.
This was his first training.
Others always focus on strength and speed, without focusing on balance first.
As the whip landed, he also fell down to the floor. Landing down, he felt the weight of his body, and the lashes he has accepted for the past hour.
Yes, it has only been an hour since he started training.
Walking on a rope proved easy, until Karlo started to walk over, and shake the rope from time to time, while also whipping him.
In truth, his balance was off initially, but Karlo's whips rendered hin back to balancing. Each and every hit made his body go back to central alignment, giving him the most painful but a powerful way to balance himself.
This was a one-week training course, and his body must overcome everything.
As Zaon was huffing on the mattresses, Aki can be seen pouring a pail of cold water onto him.
"You monsters."
Zaon said as he saw Akihiro laughing.
Have you ever tried washing your wounds with freezing water?
First, it will shock your nerves around the wound, but with time, as your body fights back in homeostasis, it warms back, making the pain multiply.
So yes, don't try it.
Zaon continued this for hours, and the twist is, he has to be blindfolded this time.
This happened because he tried to dodge the whips from time to time, which is not good.
This made his balance a bit more chaptic, but this definitely helped him.
3 hours passed, and they started to treat him, because he is done for the balance training today.
This was his training, and the next will be strategy meetings, which is his forte.
Mind battles - this was the very thing that made him what he is today.
Plus the factor that he already lived one life, made his mind a bit more advanced than he was.
His surprised Trove, the strategist of the army, but was a bit concerned about how Zaon answered.
In one question, was a scenario.
"You are a captain of a squad of five, and you have a scout, a sniper, an intern, and a veteran.
The veteran keeps you in check, and the intern follows what the veteran does. The scout and the sniper listens to you.
In some strange twist of fate, you encountered an enemy patrol, and you realized there is a camp nearby, but the veteran says otherwise. What's your move?"
His answer?
Betray his comrades.
He was going to reason out, but Karlo just gave him a big punch to the gut, and pulled him to the next training.
It was a training of one-on-one against Karlo, and he was beaten up for more than an hour.
At the end of the day, his body was bruised all over.
He tried to go to the pod, but his body didn't let him, and he was asleep for six hours, until his hell started again.
And this went on for days.
Because of stress, food tasted bland for his tongue, and his sense of smell almost got lost.
But that was just the beginning.
For the next few weeks, what they trained was senses. How to sharpen it, and how to dull it.
It was the same practice.
He will stand on a rope, while Karlo hit him with a whip, but now, he is allowed to move, but he has weights on his hands and feet.
He has to also dodged incoming rubber bullets, which is fired by Trove from time to time.
This gave him a a life and death scenario, but being a regressor, he is more familiar to it than anyone else.
The betrayal, the weakness he felt, and the helplessness in case of emergency. He loathed himself for that, and this made him have more drive to finish his three month training.
Mind, body, and discipline.
Every day, every moment, he has to focus on his self, before he can go back to the game.
First two weeks were the preparatory time.
He needed the basics: balance, sensitivity, and awareness.
And in the next six weeks, he was trained with the things he needed: strength, speed, and majority of the exercises to do.
And for the last month, was his specializations.
"Hey, how's your taste buds?"
Karlo said as he ran over the treadmill Aki gave to Zaon.
Zaon, still on a plank position, is breathing heavily as he finished the one minute plank.
As he finished the plank, he wiped his face with a towel and looked at the mirror.
His body looks different.
It is not buff, or too ripped, but just the right bulk to make most of the things he wanted to do be done.
As he stretched to check on his body, he also realized that he has grown a bit taller, and a bit of his face grew in maturity.
He went to the sink to wash his face, and opened the fridge to take something.
Hibisco Pudding.
"You still eat that horseshit?"
"Taste buds seems fine to me." Zaon said as he scooped the pudding one after the other.
"So, what's your plan after your three month hiatus?"
Entering the room, Akihiro said while looking at the two.
"A comeback maybe? Or a revenge one?"
"I like the one that the protagonist comes back in time."
"I like the one that repeats his days. It's awesome."
"God, if I'm like that, I'll be unstoppable."
"Unstoppable what? Gambler?"
"You son of a b--"
"Hello, father."
"...."
And that was when they formed their bond stronger.
______________________________________
[Welcome back, Zypher Miracle!]
"Thank you. Can you show me the list of the things that I missed?"
[Presenting...]
{Patch Notes 16.2}
{Update News}
{New Class Line and Tips}
...
Zypher browsed the contents of the updates.
First, there were some new class lines.
Class lines are lines that are consisted of the four choices one player can do when they level up.
There are four hurdles be an Epic Class player, and they are ten levels apart for each this season's patch.
And, these four hurdles are node points on how to make an epic class.
Say for example, Laura's class in her past life: Jester.
The point starts in a warrior, and in Level 20, she chooses a mage.
In the game, this is the best result, but there are also compatibility issues with the player.
If the player has low Energy points, they can't unlock the Support and Mage lines. So sometimes, they just choose another line, and the game has many of it.
Laura's class line consists of four epic nodes from the three main lines, and the fourth node was the line of the Legendary Class.
It is not another line, nor under the umbrella from the three main lines, but a special class line.
Class lines became important, as players began to know the power of each classes, and the new Stats and Energies.
The first energy known to players were Mana. In the fantasy setting, mana is the most used term.
Until, they discovered two more fundamentally different from Mana: the Aether, and Hex.
This made the players become hooked as they found alternative sources for attacks, as well as fundamentals.
And that is for the Attack Classes only.
Support Classes has different ones. Defense ones uses the same as the Attack classes, and there are other special energies such as Qi and Chakra.
All of these created a complex yet fun way for the players to discover more of the classes in the game.
And that's not all.
Players also found out the significance of Stats.
There are three kinds of stats: Normal, Hidden, and Special.
Normal Stats are the first eight stats given: Attack Power, Speed, Dexterity, Defense, Luck, Charm, Energy and Intelligence.
These stats are the ones that players can directly impact, and is the least impactful in a battle.
Unless they are too high, and the opponent has too low.
Next, are Hidden Stats.
As it was said, it is hidden.
It can't be directly interfered with, but it can always be a turning point for a battle.
Best example is the stat Sensitivity.
Energy Stat is a stat on how much energy one can release or store, thus, the output.
Sensitivity Stat on the other hand is on how much you can control the said energy.
A more fitting example is how Zypher does it.
His Mana Stat is 10, so his output is 10.
But, Sensitivity Stat can make his output 1 through 10, depends on use, and can even fine tune it.
This Sensitivity Stat, once unlocked, can have 1 point, but is equal to 5 points each to Dexterity, Energy and Intelligence each.
One point is equal to 15.
That's how overpowered hidden stats are.
But, the best ones are the Special Stats.
These stats can't be unlocked unless you hit some favorable conditions.
The example of these are the Command and Tame Stats. They are stats for a certain class, but they behave like normal stats.
But not all Special ones are like that.
In his past life, Zypher got three Special Stats that made him unstoppable, that even the best players bow down.
But right now, his focus is not on that, but on one particular word in the Stats page.
The Hidden Stat - Malevolence.
Malevolence is a stat that raises the player's Attack Power, Speed, Dexterity, Intelligence and Energy, but it cuts Defense, Luck and Charm in half.
And yet, that's just a small part of it.
Although it seems powerful, it has a big drawback.
Malevolence alighs the player in the Dark side: the Dark League's side.
In short, they are the goons, pawns and cannon fodders of the Dark League.
Malevolence, also increases the drop rate of their items when they die, and will strip down too much EXP points.
Even if they revive, sometimes, their EXP bars fall twice or thrice.
And, the worst part is, NPCs don't interact with them.
The good ones at least.
But the gut wrenching fact are not the effects of the said Stat.
The souce of it is more surprising than the effect.
Malevolence, is gotten by killing, not monsters, but Natives of the Land.
Yes, the NPCs.