Strength Upgrade

By the time he arrived at Dolores Boutique, it was already nine in the morning.

The mysterious Mrs. Dolores was not in the store. Under the guidance of another female sales associate, Li Wei changed into that expensive Dior suit, sprayed on some unfamiliar perfume that was so costly he did not even want to look at the price, and began his part-time shift for the morning.

Mrs. Dolores seemed to be a very mysterious person. This boutique, situated in a prime location on Madison Avenue, did not appear to make its money by selling clothes—at least, that was what Li Wei thought.

This was already his second day working there part-time, yet by the time his shift was about to end at noon, he had only seen his second customer since starting work.

But after seeing that customer buy a four-thousand-dollar handbag as casually as a bottle of Coca-Cola, Li Wei decided not to be so curious. He would just keep coasting along at this store and do his job as a salary thief.

Twenty dollars an hour, a two-percent commission, plus tips. He only had to work three hours a day, and serving one customer earned him a hundred and two dollars after tax. Where else could he find a job this good?

If he brought it up to Mrs. Dolores and she did the math and realized, Oh, right, this job doesn't make any money at all, then kicked him out, he would have nowhere to complain.

After changing out of his clothes, Li Wei very consciously kept himself from stepping into any of the restaurants that looked expensive—he had seen the signs outside. A sandwich or salad bowl cost more than seventy dollars.

He first took the subway to transfer at Times Square. Then, at a hot dog cart by the street, Li Wei spent thirteen dollars on an oversized hot dog covered in Thousand Island dressing and barbecue sauce, calling it lunch.

At around two in the afternoon, Li Wei returned to the basement. Seeing no sign that Don Quixote had returned, he thought it over and decided to make a trip to the gym to see if he could trigger any new quests.

The gym was far less crowded in the afternoon than it had been last time. Only two or three people were scattered around, training on their own.

Li Wei once again refused the hulking white man at the front desk who tried to sell him personal training sessions. After changing, he got on a treadmill, intending to test how much his constitution had improved.

When the basement had flooded a couple of days ago, he had added 0.1 attribute points to his constitution. He had yet to test what athletic ability a constitution of 1.0 represented.

"Eight hundred meters... nine hundred meters... one thousand meters!"

After running one thousand meters at a five-and-a-half-minute pace, Li Wei was delighted to find that his current stamina reserves were still abundant. Both his heart rate and the soreness in his body were noticeably better than when his constitution had only been 0.9.

A constitution of 1.0 was the standard constitution of a twenty-year-old adult. With it, Li Wei only stepped off the treadmill, breathing heavily, after running a full three kilometers at the same pace.

"Hey, man," a voice called out. "Are you going to Franklin K. Lane High School?"

Li Wei, who was taking advantage of the gym's free bottled water, warily turned around and found that the speaker was a Black boy around his age.

"My name's Michael." The Black boy politely extended a hand, looking rather excited. "I saw you at school that day. I'm a twelfth grader at Franklin High School."

Li Wei looked Michael over, then reached out and lightly shook his hand.

"Did you come with your father?" Michael asked. "Why do you want to attend Franklin High School? I haven't seen many Asians go there."

"Don Quixote is my cousin-uncle." Li Wei shrugged. "I came to America to stay with him."

"Oh! I see." Michael seemed excited to have an Asian schoolmate. "What are you training today? Let's work out together."

Li Wei watched Michael, who had been a stranger just five minutes ago, acting so familiar with him. He could not help becoming wary.

He had heard plenty of stories from Don Quixote about teenage drug dealers.

Simply put, American public high schools more or less all had students connected to gangs. They were unofficial gang members who sold drugs to other students at school.

The person before him looked highly suspicious, both because of his skin color and his behavior.

Just as he was about to refuse, he heard the system notification:

[Quest triggered: Knight's Spirit]

[Adventurer Li Wei, you have encountered an Apprentice Knight of equally noble character at the training ground. Complete a workout with him to receive the quest reward.]

[Quest reward: Strength +0.1]

Not bad, Li Wei thought to himself. The system actually considers him as noble in character as I am.

Could he be an Oreo? (Black skin, a bright heart.)

With the system vouching for him, Li Wei nodded.

"Then let's train together," he said. "I think I'm doing chest and shoulders today."

Logically speaking, Li Wei's 0.9 strength should have made him a little stronger than an underage teenager like Michael.

But during the actual workout, he discovered that with around a year of training experience, Michael displayed a level of strength that was actually on par with his own.

A sixty-kilogram bench press was already an excellent number for a normal high school student still growing. If Li Wei had not added 0.1 attribute points to his strength when he arrived in New York, he might not even have been able to keep up with Michael's pace.

During their rest between sets, Li Wei chatted with Michael and discovered that he really was one of those well-behaved Black American kids.

He did not touch drugs, did not join gangs, and was even a top student in Franklin High School's AP Class. That meant he and Li Wei would be classmates in the future.

Although he had a younger brother who ran with gangs and used drugs, he had always hoped to save enough money to send his brother to rehab and help him break away from the gang.

According to Michael himself, he came from the Bronx neighborhood in Brooklyn, the most chaotic and violent neighborhood in Brooklyn.

Growing up, at least half of the classmates and friends around him had either gone to prison or died in shootings.

"I don't want my brother to go down that road too." After helping Li Wei re-rack the barbell, he spoke solemnly. "I want to become a doctor. Starting with my generation, I want to change our class. I want to buy a big house for my parents and my brother."

As they finished their third set of barbell bench presses, a voice popped up in Li Wei's mind:

[Quest: Knight's Spirit completed]

[You and Michael have excellently completed a standard workout.]

[Quest reward: Strength +0.1]

[Strength 0.9]—[Strength 1.0]

His strength attribute had caught up.

A familiar warm current erupted up his spine once again. This time, it was fiercer and more explosive than when his constitution had improved.

If the improvement to his constitution had been like a gentle stream nourishing a parched riverbed, reshaping his body and granting him sustained recovery, then the increase in strength was like molten iron being poured into his muscle fibers.

Li Wei felt the soreness in his pectorals and front deltoids wash away in an instant, replaced by denser, more refined strength.

"Hey, Li Wei, you okay?" Michael saw Li Wei spacing out on the bench and assumed he was exhausted. "I was almost done for during those last few reps too. Should we call it here today?"

Li Wei raised his head, touched his body, which had grown subtly more muscular again, and looked at Michael eagerly. "Michael, do me a favor."

He stood up and walked over to the barbell rack. "Add another twenty kilos for me."

"Eighty kilos?" Michael rejected Li Wei's suggestion. "Brother, working out is a gradual process. You can't rush it."