Oscar's Talent

"Oscar, keep it up! You only have five laps left today."

The sun was sinking, and the sunlight had already taken on a dim, yellowish hue.

On the outskirts of the Academy, Le Bai and Oscar were running laps around the grounds while carrying heavy loads.

Le Bai carried a metal block larger than himself on his back, and on his feet, he wore a pair of Heavy-Soled Shoes also made of metal—to prevent his feet from sinking into the ground due to the excessive weight, Le Bai had specially crafted these shoes, which also served to supplement his insufficient load.

Le Bai's total weight now approached two tons, yet he still moved as nimbly as if he were flying, his breathing remaining remarkably steady.

Oscar carried no weight, yet he was panting like an ox. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out; instead, his breathing grew even heavier.

Le Bai caught up to Oscar. "Don't talk. You'll disrupt your breathing. Whatever you want to say, save it for after the workout."

With that, Le Bai suddenly accelerated, and within two breaths, Oscar could no longer see him.

I shouldn't have agreed to train with him in the first place!

Oscar thought with a touch of annoyance.

He had agreed to start training with Le Bai a year ago; both of them were eleven years old now.

Because of the existence of Soul Power, Soul Masters grew faster than ordinary people. At eleven, Oscar and Le Bai were already comparable in development to typical fourteen or fifteen-year-old teenagers.

Compared to five years ago when they first arrived at Shrek, their physiques had changed significantly. Their once slender bodies had become sturdy due to improved nutrition and exercise. Even through their clothes, they no longer appeared weak or frail.

Furthermore, as their bodies gradually matured, the gap in their appearances widened.

Oscar had inherited his father's good looks, especially those Peach Blossom Eyes, which resulted in him being aggressively watched by the girls from the nearby village's Appearance Association every time he trained.

Le Bai's looks were not particularly high, at most above average. He was the type who would be hard to find in a crowd, and when standing next to Oscar, he didn't even qualify as a decent foil.

Fortunately, Le Bai's mind was entirely focused on his Panel and grinding skill levels, so he didn't care about such things.

After a year of grueling training, Oscar had learned to maintain the circulation of his Soul Power while moving. Although he couldn't yet handle it as effortlessly as Le Bai, Oscar had begun to grasp the basics and had mastered the essentials of Single-Minded Dual-Use.

This greatly improved Oscar's "stamina"; otherwise, even with the help of Soul Power, he wouldn't have been able to run forty laps around the Academy in a single day.

But this kind of talent already made Le Bai very envious!

Le Bai had relied on his Golden Finger, the Panel, to master Parallel Thinking over several years.

But Oscar had no Golden Finger!

He had relied purely on his own talent, achieving in one year what had taken Le Bai three or four years to reach.

Although those three or four years were when Le Bai had not yet fully understood the effects of his Panel, it was enough to prove that Oscar's talent was terrifyingly high.

This once made Le Bai wonder if Oscar also had a Golden Finger. However, Le Bai had no way to verify this hypothesis and soon cast the thought to the back of his mind.

Le Bai was not the only one amazed by Oscar's high talent; the teachers at the Academy were as well.

They hadn't paid much attention to Le Bai's growth process, as he wasn't a student of the Academy at the start. By the time he entered, he was already a "Monster."

But Oscar could be said to have grown up right before their eyes.

This made many teachers sigh: with such talent, why did he have to be a Support System Soul Master?!

Ma Hongjun had similar feelings. However, the object of his lament was not Oscar, but Le Bai.

After resolving the issues caused by his Martial Soul, Ma Hongjun's interest in the opposite sex gradually returned to normal. Although he was still interested, it no longer affected his body, and he began to devote more time and energy to cultivating his Soul Power and exercising.

Especially the latter.

Because Ma Hongjun wanted to maximize the advantages of his mutated Martial Soul, he inevitably had to channel more kidney energy into his flames, which undoubtedly increased the burden on his kidneys.

Unfortunately, people in this world didn't really know how to train their internal organs.

Flender thought it over and finally came up with a clumsy method: using the all-purpose Soul Power to temper the body.

"As long as you can use your Soul Power to temper your entire body inside and out, your kidneys will naturally become stronger."

Flender said this and promptly threw Ma Hongjun to Le Bai, telling Le Bai to take him along for training with Oscar.

During the subsequent training, Ma Hongjun was able to witness up close the intensity of Le Bai's workouts, which were enough to break a person. While marveling at Le Bai's inhumanity, Ma Hongjun also felt a faint regret for his previous claims that he would challenge Le Bai once he could fly.

He now had a mysterious, unshakable trust in Le Bai; he believed that even if he could fly, Le Bai would find a way to knock him out of the sky and pin him to the ground to beat him up.

Today, Ma Hongjun was also running with Le Bai and Oscar, and he was slightly stronger than Oscar, carrying a load of over ten kilograms, and could run two more laps per day than Oscar.

Because of the heavy daily exercise, Ma Hongjun was much thinner than he had been a year ago. Although his face still carried a hint of baby fat, his overall physique was now at the level of a normal person; he could no longer be called "Fatty."

"Yo, Hongjun, which lap are you on?"

Le Bai took light, quick steps to accelerate and pull up alongside Ma Hongjun.

"S-still three laps to go..."

Ma Hongjun was breathing heavily, unable to speak clearly.

"Alright, you don't need to talk."

Le Bai quickly told Ma Hongjun to stop talking, and only after his breathing gradually returned to a rhythm did he say, "I have quite a few laps left, so I'll be heading off first!"

With that, he accelerated again, his entire figure like a heavy truck speeding down Mount Akina, leaving everyone in the dust.

Because his load was so heavy, every step Le Bai took left a shallow footprint in the ground. This was only because Le Bai wore Road Roller-like heavy-soled shoes on this path every day, packing the ground down.

Le Bai remembered that at the very beginning, he would sink half a foot deep with every step he took.

Le Bai's current load is much heavier than when he first started, yet there is no obvious vibration when he steps down.

This is because Le Bai, in order to strengthen his Strength Control, practices it while running—every time his foot lands, he retracts his force the moment before his sole hits the ground, simultaneously applying force in the opposite direction to continuously reduce the speed of his footfall in a split second, ensuring it comes to a complete stop exactly upon contact.

In this way, there is no significant noise when he lands; at most, the soil on the ground is simply pressed more firmly due to his heavy weight.

When he first started doing this, Le Bai found it exceptionally grueling.

Whether it was the weight of the shoes themselves, judging the distance between his soles and the ground, or the operation of instantly applying reverse force to reduce the speed of his falling feet, none of these were things that could be mastered in a short time.

Back then, Le Bai couldn't even finish one lap a day.

But soon, as the level of the [Strength Control] skill on his Panel gradually increased, within a week, Le Bai was able to finish one lap.

A month later, Le Bai could already easily complete fifteen laps.

After three months, controlling his strength had become as natural as breathing for Le Bai.

Even so, Le Bai still did not stop grinding the skill, and the progress bar on his Panel maintained steady growth every day.

The sun slanted to the west, the dim sunset announcing that the day's remaining balance was running low.

For today's daily training, Le Bai finished earlier than Oscar and Ma Hongjun again, despite his training volume being several times greater than the two of them combined.

"Phew, another refreshing day!"

Le Bai returned to his room, washed off the sweat, changed into dry clothes, threw his dirty laundry into soapy water to soak, and walked toward the Cafeteria while thinking about what to eat for dinner.

Halfway there, he ran into Ma Hongjun, who had just finished his daily exercise, soaked in sweat but looking in good spirits: "Yo, Hongjun, your training..."

"I'm all sticky and uncomfortable right now, I'm heading back to the Dormitory to shower! We'll talk about whatever later!"

Ma Hongjun cut Le Bai off directly and sprinted toward his Dormitory as if fleeing.

"Still have the energy to run that fast?"

Le Bai watched Ma Hongjun's retreating back, pondering: "Looks like I can increase his training intensity a bit more tomorrow."

At Flender's request, Le Bai had started teaching Ma Hongjun the technique of maintaining Soul Power circulation while moving as early as a year ago when he began his own training.

Unfortunately, Ma Hongjun didn't seem very good at controlling his Soul Power, and his current level was not as good as Oscar's. However, he was a Battle Soul Master, and his Martial Soul provided an additional bonus to his physical fitness, making him overall stronger than Oscar, which was why he could run a few more laps than Oscar every day.

Le Bai remembered that six months ago, the maximum gap between the number of laps Oscar and Ma Hongjun ran each day reached seven laps.

But as Oscar's Distraction Dual-Use became more proficient and his Soul Power Level gradually increased, the gap between him and Ma Hongjun had shrunk to two laps.

"In another two months, Oscar should be able to surpass Ma Hongjun in the number of laps run. When that time comes, I'll suggest to the Dean that they try sparring with each other."

Le Bai thought...