Sleep Comparable to Gold

"Highly overlapping physical movements?"

Looking at the new prompt popping up on the panel, Chen Jue was slightly stunned.

He hadn't expected this panel to be so up-to-date, actually featuring a novel function like [Skill Merging].

Moreover, after seeing the prompt, Chen Jue pondered the difference between [Stone Skipping] and [Darts] carefully.

He discovered that both were completed through movements that utilized body force to drive the coordination of the fingers, wrists, and arms.

They were both essentially throwing an object held in the hand, just with different projectiles.

"If these two skills are merged, wouldn't the proficiency and level be merged as well?"

"In that case, couldn't my left-handed dart throwing and right-handed stone skipping be integrated into one?"

"Would I then be able to use both hands flexibly?"

The moment this thought crossed his mind, Chen Jue felt eager to give it a try.

Unfortunately, he hadn't saved up 0.10 free attribute points yet.

The attributes he had farmed previously were all used to add to [Constitution], much like the meager salary most people earn—barely enough for oneself, let alone for saving.

"Damn it!"

"Isn't this clearly tempting me to keep exercising?"

Chen Jue closed the panel notification and secretly set a short-term goal for himself.

He planned to fill up his [Constitution] and [Strength] until they reached whole numbers, observe the effects, and then try to use the remaining free attribute points on this newly appeared [Skill Merging].

After the initial failure with his right hand, Chen Jue tried a few more times.

He found that perhaps because he was accustomed to throwing darts with his left hand, switching to his right hand—which actually had more strength—made his dart throwing quite unstable.

Not only was the success rate of hitting the bullseye pitifully low.

What was even more ridiculous was that he threw the darts outside the target several times, leaving pinpricks directly on the white-painted wall.

"Forget it, I'll just stick with my left hand."

Seeing that his proficiency was increasing very slowly, Chen Jue extinguished the idea of throwing darts with his right hand.

Recalling what Lin Ling had said about being an "acquired left-hander," Chen Jue also wanted to see through training if his left hand could become as flexible and powerful as his right hand through acquired practice.

In his view, he had nothing better to do anyway.

His boss had run off, and as a wage earner who hadn't even signed his resignation papers yet, he couldn't find a suitable new job for the time being. Why not set a goal for himself and exercise with a purpose?

"Thud~"

A dart hit the bullseye, triggering a [Perfect] prompt, and proficiency increased by +5.

"Thud~"

Another dart was thrown, hitting the bullseye again, proficiency +5.

After switching back to his left hand, Chen Jue found that the marvelous feel had returned.

He tried a few more times; the worst result was +3, and the rest were either +4 or +5. The efficiency was practically skyrocketing.

"Is this muscle memory forming?"

"Or does my left hand truly have a talent for repetitive, mechanical movements?" Chen Jue recalled the story of the "Oil Seller" he had seen in his Chinese textbook back in school.

The allusion to "practice makes perfect" in that text likely shared the same principle as the muscle memory formed by his left hand's frequent dart throwing.

However, he was still at an amateur level with needle darts and couldn't yet achieve the absurd level of professional players who could hit whatever they aimed at.

There was still plenty of room for improvement!

He spent two hours throwing darts at Yilian Fitness, taking a half-hour break in between to drink water and relax his left arm.

Nearly an hour and a half of high-intensity training allowed Chen Jue to farm over 1200 points of proficiency.

At this moment, although the [Darts] skill level was still stuck at Lv3, seeing the progress bar reach (1523/2000) made Chen Jue feel that his efforts throughout the afternoon hadn't been in vain.

"If I keep at it tomorrow, I'll be able to reach level 4!" Chen Jue began to look forward to it.

Of course, the skill proficiency bar was just an intuitive numerical value.

Chen Jue noticed that the more times he threw darts, the frequency of hitting the bullseye also began to rise gradually.

Yesterday, when he had just reached the amateur level of Lv3, Chen Jue hit the bullseye about 3 or 4 times out of 10 throws.

After this afternoon's training, his bullseye hit rate had stabilized at 5 out of 10.

Chen Jue estimated that he should now be considered quite capable among amateur players.

In addition, the high-intensity dart throwing also gave Chen Jue a prompt about a small increase in his left arm muscle group.

This resulted in farming 0.01 Strength and 0.01 free attribute points.

The harvest was great, but continuous dart throwing was extremely energy-consuming.

Because his focus was so intense while throwing Darts, Chen Jue could clearly feel his temples throbbing and swelling after a long session.

It was as exhausting as playing sixteen consecutive games of ranked matches at an internet cafe.

Upon returning to his rental in Changhe Residential District, Chen Jue intended to lie down and rest for a while.

To his surprise, as soon as he lay down, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

When he woke up, Chen Jue stretched comfortably.

He realized he hadn't slept this well in a long time; not only had the fatigue from practicing Darts in the afternoon vanished, but he felt incredibly refreshed upon waking!

He picked up his phone and saw that it was already past 10:00 PM.

His nap at dusk had lasted nearly four hours.

However, to Chen Jue's surprise, the attribute panel popped up with a delayed notification:

[Ding~]

[Completed a session of high-quality deep sleep. Your brain has undergone standard physiological metabolism, your muscle fatigue has been relieved, and the hormones secreted by your pituitary gland have slightly improved your physical fitness.]

[Spirit +0.01]

[Physique +0.01]

[Available Free Attribute Points +0.01]

"What the hell! What's going on?"

"I gained three small attribute points just from taking a nap?"

"Deep sleep? What kind of magical thing is this?"

Chen Jue stared at the unfamiliar term in the notification, his curiosity piqued.

If he could achieve this "deep sleep" every day, wouldn't he be able to gain attributes just by lying down?

Thinking of this, Chen Jue's fingers flew across his phone screen.

He initially wanted to ask Li Chaoqun, his fitness coach, since the man was professional and answered almost every question.

But considering he had already bothered him several times recently and didn't plan on paying for a membership, it felt inappropriate to keep being a freeloader.

He opened his browser and searched for it himself.

The internet was well-developed these days; as long as one was willing to look, even the most rigorous doctoral theses could be found online.

"So this is actually a real thing?"

"Let me see... sleep is divided into light sleep and deep sleep."

"Deep sleep is also known as [Golden Sleep] and accounts for only a very small portion of total sleep time... The benefits of deep sleep include: energy restoration, cell regeneration, increased blood supply to muscles, promotion of tissue and bone growth and repair, as well as strengthening the immune system and maintaining hormonal balance..."

"My goodness! Is getting a good night's sleep really that important? No wonder it added so many attributes at once!" Chen Jue was shocked by the information he found.

He hadn't paid much attention to his health in the past, staying up late scrolling on his phone and rarely sleeping before 1:00 or 2:00 AM.

Over time, he would spend his workdays feeling groggy and yawning constantly.

But this nap at dusk had allowed him to experience the true comfort of sleep.

It was far more stress-relieving than sleeping until noon on weekends.

This was the benefit of maintaining regular exercise.

As for the free attribute point he had just gained, Chen Jue immediately allocated it to Physique.

Character: Chen Jue

Strength: 0.82

Physique: 0.99

Spirit: 1.07

Skills: [Stone Skipping Lv3][Darts Lv3][Twelve Taiji Forms Lv1]

Available Free Attribute Points: 0.00

(Character Evaluation: A somewhat awakened office worker. Your sub-healthy body still harbors some hidden risks; it is recommended to go to the hospital for a comprehensive physical examination.)

A warm current spread throughout his entire body, making him feel incredibly comfortable.

Chen Jue took another look at his panel attributes.

He realized that after consistently adding points to his Physique over the past few days, he was just a tiny bit away from reaching the integer of "1."

Furthermore, the updated character evaluation served as a reminder to Chen Jue.

"A comprehensive physical examination?"

"I'll skip work tomorrow and go!"

First update~

I was resting during the day, so the update is a bit late.

I'll adjust over the weekend, and from Monday to Friday, I'll resume updates during the day.