I Awakened The Most Powerful System

Chapter 8

Eight

Attempting to run five miles turned out to be far more brutal than Rhys had imagined.

As a teenager, he was not completely sedentary. He played sports occasionally and worked out from time to time, and when he looked in the mirror, he liked what he saw. His frame was lean, his muscles visible, and by most standards, he considered himself to be in decent shape.

What he had not considered was his lungs.

After just a few minutes of steady running, his breathing became uneven. By the time he crossed the one mile mark, his chest began to ache and a lightheaded dizziness crept in, forcing him to slow down. Soon after, he had no choice but to stop entirely, bending over with his hands on his knees just to catch his breath.

From that point on, the pattern repeated itself. One mile of running followed by five minutes of rest. Over and over again.

It took him a full hour to complete the five miles.

By the time he staggered back to his apartment, his clothes were soaked through with sweat and clung uncomfortably to his skin. His body felt hollowed out, as though every ounce of sugar and electrolytes had been drained from him. The craving for something cold and refreshing hit him immediately, lemonade being the first thing that came to mind.

Compared to the run, the strength exercises initially felt manageable.

His muscles responded well at first, and the movements themselves were familiar. The real problem was volume. The sheer number of repetitions demanded by the system quickly revealed how unprepared he truly was.

The first two sets of regular push ups went smoothly enough. By the third set, his arms began to shake. By the fourth, his muscles started to burn in protest.

When he reached the hundredth push up, his body was already screaming at him to stop. The pain was deep and persistent, and from that point forward, everything deteriorated rapidly. He broke the sets into smaller chunks, forcing himself to complete five push ups at a time, resting for twenty seconds, then pushing through five more.

At one hundred and fifty, frustration overwhelmed him. Tears slipped down his face as his arms trembled beneath him, the thought of finishing the remaining sets feeling utterly impossible.

What kept him going was not discipline or motivation.

It was pride.

The thought of failing, of being humiliated by the system’s penalties, was unbearable. His ego refused to let him quit. Twenty five agonizing minutes later, he finally completed all two hundred and fifty push ups.

The rest of the workout offered no mercy.

Archer push ups demanded balance and control his shaking arms struggled to provide, every repetition turning into a test of sheer will. Decline push ups followed, forcing his shoulders to bear even more strain as gravity pressed down on him from an unforgiving angle.

Squats punished his already exhausted legs, which wobbled dangerously with each descent. His thighs burned as though they were on fire, threatening to give out at any moment.

Pull ups were pure misery. Every lift felt like dragging a mountain upward. His fingers clenched the bar with desperate strength, driven by the fear of failure more than anything else.

Lunges followed, grinding away at what little endurance his legs had left. Strangely, despite the physical pain, they were easier on him mentally compared to the rest.

Inverted rows and calf raises blurred together in a haze of sweat and exhaustion. Planks and Russian twists carved deep into his core, each set a small victory paid for with shaking muscles and clenched teeth.

There was never time to celebrate.

The dread of the next set loomed constantly, swallowing any sense of accomplishment. Hours crawled by as the sun dipped lower in the sky, long shadows stretching across the room, mirroring the fatigue weighing down his mind.

Still, he continued.

Not because he wanted to succeed, but because the consequences of failure were far worse.

By the time he completed the final exercise, the sky outside had turned a deep blend of orange and purple as night settled in. Almost on cue, the courier arrived with the books the system required him to read, ordered earlier that day.

His body felt broken as he sat down on his bed, book in hand.

After just a few lines, his eyelids drooped. Staying awake required an absurd amount of effort. Reading fifty pages from each book felt harder than the physical training itself, but he forced his way through it, page by page.

When he finally finished, the clock read 9:30 in the evening.

That left him two and a half hours for the final task.

Editing and uploading his vlog.

His editing skills were almost nonexistent. The finished video was a chaotic mess of awkward cuts, jarring transitions, and poorly timed fast forwards. Under normal circumstances, he would have been mortified.

Tonight, he did not care.

He created a creator account, uploaded the video, and hit publish without a second thought.

By the time he finished everything, it was 11:30 at night.

Rhys collapsed onto his bed, having barely survived the first day of his ninety day ordeal.