Under Isa Lovelace’s piercing gaze, within the solemn silence of the library, Max felt the weight of his future hanging in the balance.
The offer was a golden ladder to power, but one of its rungs was poisoned.
“Isa, your proposal is…
significant,” Max said, his voice maintaining the calm of an experienced negotiator he was surprised to possess.
“And it deserves serious consideration.
Give me 48 hours to analyze all the angles.
We’ll meet here again, at the same time, in two days.”
Isa, though clearly impatient, seemed to respect his methodical approach.
She gave a short, precise nod.
“48 hours.
Not a minute more.
Come prepared with an answer and a clear plan on how you intend to provide the transparency I demand.” With that, she stood up and walked away, leaving Max alone with a monumental decision.
Back in his room, the confrontation with Leo surged back into his mind, bringing a darker echo with it—a memory from his past life.
He remembered the feeling of helplessness as he was shoved against a wall, the humiliation not just of the words, but of his physical weakness.
Victoria’s words resonated: “keep your nose from getting broken.” He looked at himself in the mirror.
His mind was a weapon forged in the future, but his body was still that of a young man who had spent too many hours in front of a screen and too few in the sun.
In his past life, physical frailty had been the prelude to his cowardice.
This time, he wouldn’t allow his “shell” to be the failure point of his empire.
He could have spent his precious System Points on an instant biological upgrade, but something in his builder’s instinct held him back.
A sudden physical transformation would attract unnecessary suspicion, and Max knew that the discipline gained through pain was the only kind that couldn’t be hacked.
He dressed in the most generic sportswear he could buy—a gray cotton t-shirt that betrayed his lack of shoulders and pants that emphasized his thinness—and headed to the university gym.
The place was an ecosystem of concrete, mirrors, and the metallic scent of iron.
It was a temple dedicated to aesthetics and performance, filled with bodies that looked as if they had been sculpted in marble by Greek gods.
Upon entering, Max was greeted by the rhythmic thud of weights hitting the floor and the hum of treadmills.
He immediately felt like an anomaly.
The eyes of elite athletes landed on him with a mixture of indifference and disdain; he was the “intruder” in their sanctuary of strength.
He tried to lift a barbell with a weight that would be a warm-up for anyone else there, but his arms shook violently under the minimal load.
Next, he got on the treadmill; five minutes in, his lungs burned as if he had swallowed fire, and sweat blurred his vision.
In any other circumstance, the old Max would have fled through the back door, burning with shame.
But [Player Mind] acted as an emotional anesthetic.
It silenced his ego, shut off the embarrassment, and left only one clear directive: Work.
As he struggled with a cable machine, focused on the searing burn in his muscles, an energetic voice with a note of natural authority broke through his bubble of isolation.
“Hey!
You’re putting all the strain on your lower back.
If you keep pulling like that, you’ll be injured before the semester’s over.”
Max released his grip and turned around, gasping for air. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Standing before him was a girl who radiated an almost electric vitality.
Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail that swayed with her every move, and her skin had the glow of someone who lived for physical exertion.
This was Laura Soler, the campus’s star sprinter—someone who occupied the very top of the athletic hierarchy.
Without waiting for an invitation, and without a trace of the condescension Max usually received from Victoria or Leo, Laura stepped closer and adjusted his shoulder position with firm, expert hands.
Her touch was purely professional, yet charged with a confidence Max hadn’t expected.
“I’m Laura,” she said, with a smile as warm as the midday sun.
“You need to isolate the muscle.
Keep your core tight and let your arms do the work, not your neck.
Like this.”
She corrected his posture, watching him with a curiosity that Max couldn’t help but analyze.
Laura was used to seeing two types of people in this gym: the athletes showing off and the rookies hiding away.
Max fit neither category.
“You know what’s weird?” she continued, leaning against the machine next to him as she watched him execute a perfect repetition.
“Most new guys either give up after ten minutes or try to lift three times what they can just so the girls will watch.
But you…
you’re gasping for air and your arms look like jelly, but your eyes say you’re in the middle of a war.
You look truly focused.”
Max looked at her, catching his breath.
In Laura’s eyes, there was no judgment for his weakness—only respect for his intensity.
“I didn’t come here to impress anyone,” Max replied with a voice that, despite the fatigue, maintained its new, magnetic stability.
“I came here to rebuild myself.”
Laura arched an eyebrow, intrigued.
There was something about this skinny guy’s calm that didn’t match his appearance.
It was like seeing a high-end engine installed in a rusted chassis.
“Rebuild yourself, huh?” Laura let out a short laugh and patted him on the shoulder.
“I like the sound of that.
If you’re going to take it that seriously, make sure you don’t break yourself in the process.
See you tomorrow.”
Max watched her walk away toward the sprint lanes, surprised by her selfless kindness.
He had just found a new type of asset: one that valued raw effort over lineage.
As she began her own brutal workout, a familiar ding sounded in his head.
[New Side Quest Unlocked!]
[Quest: Warrior’s Foundations]
Description: A brilliant mind deserves a body that can protect it.
You have recognized your physical weakness.
It is time to forge a new foundation.
Objective: Establish a training routine and follow it for one week.
Increase your Strength (STR) stat by 0.2 points through physical exertion.
Training Multiplier (Passive): Stat points earned through physical exercise will be permanently doubled.
+3 System Points (SP).
The reward was a blessing.
The Training Multiplier was a passive skill of incalculable long-term value.
His new routine wasn’t just a necessity; it was a mission.
But [Player Mind] acted as an emotional anesthetic.
It silenced his ego, shut off the embarrassment, and left only one clear directive: Work.
That night, sore but satisfied, he sat in front of his laptop to tackle his other problem: Isa.
With 12 SP in his possession, he opened the Skill Shop, searching for a solution to the transparency dilemma.
He discarded combat skills and stat upgrades, filtering by categories like “Information,” “Deception,” and “Mental.” Then, in the Level 2 section, he found it.
[Skill: Conceptual Black Box (Active)]
Cost: 10 SP
Description: Allows the user to designate a concept, method, or source of information as a “Black Box” in a target’s mind.
The target will accept the validity of results coming from the Black Box without feeling the need to understand its internal mechanisms, provided the results are consistently accurate.
The target will feel that trying to understand the Black Box is futile or beyond their current capacity.
Limit: Can only be applied to one target at a time.
Requires eye contact and a focused conversation to activate.
It was the perfect tool.
Expensive, risky, and subtle.
A manipulation of intellectual curiosity rather than a simple mind trick.
System, purchase [Conceptual Black Box], he commanded.
[Skill acquired.
Remaining SP: 2]
His plan for Isa solidified.
It was no longer a simple persuasion or a crude deception.
It was a hybrid strategy.
First, he would propose a three-month trial period, appealing to her pragmatism.
Then, during that crucial conversation, he would activate his new and costly skill, designating his “analysis method” as the Black Box.
If it worked, Isa’s genius mind would accept his results as valid, cataloging the “how” as an impenetrable but functional variable, and would focus on the only thing that truly mattered to her: the data.
Max stood up and looked in the mirror.
He felt the pleasant muscular ache of a job well done.
In his mind, a new and dangerous skill waited to be used.
He was tackling his problems on all fronts.
Tomorrow he would face Isa—not with a lie, but with a truth wrapped in an impenetrable enigma created by the System.
The stakes were at their highest, but for the first time since receiving the offer, he felt he had all the pieces in place.